As wildfires burned through the hills around Spokane, Washington, a local bootmaker turned its own headquarters into a rest stop for the crews fighting them, offering hot food, coffee, a place to wash up and cool off, and something firefighters badly needed: new boots, free of charge.
JK Boots, based in Spokane Valley, launched the effort, which it calls "Home Front," after owner Tim Khadzhi said he kept seeing crews show up at the company's command-post visits wearing boots held together with duct tape.
Wildland firefighters, they need support. They show up for us, so we show up for them.
Tim Khadzhi, owner, JK Boots
The company set an initial goal of donating 50 pairs of its handmade boots, a $25,000 value at roughly $600 a pair, and has already exceeded it. Crews that can't make it to the Spokane Valley headquarters get boots hand-delivered directly to their base camp instead. JK Boots has also pledged 100% of a full day's profits to the Innovia Foundation's Complex Wildfire Response Fund, which supports Spokane-area residents displaced by the fires.
What it means to the crews
For some firefighters, a new pair of boots is a serious expense on wildland pay. "To buy a set of boots like that today is like 600 bucks, and for some of these kids, that's half a month's wages," said Brad Smith, a training specialist with California Team 7, who is in his 51st fire season and said the boots he received at JK Boots' HQ may be his last pair before retiring.
"We're overwhelmed by the fact that in everybody's loss, they've lost everything," Smith added, of the wider community's response to the fires. "They're still rallying around our firefighters here."
Khadzhi said he doesn't have an end date in mind for the giveaway. "We're just going to keep going," he said. "I don't know when it's going to stop."
