These boots are the safest for US wildland firefighters. Fewer and fewer can afford them

Per The Guardian, handcrafted leather boots have been central to US wildland firefighting for a century. These boots are essential for hotshots—elite firefighting crews who hike roughly a thousand miles per fire season, standing in them for sixteen hours a day in terrain no truck can reach. But the cost is becoming prohibitive: at eight hundred dollars per pair, more firefighters are struggling to afford them. Luke Mayfield spent eighteen years as a hotshot, knowing those boots as one of his most important professional relationships.

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