Depends on if your municipal engine or primarily wildland. For engine go with comfort and function. Haix will get you several seasons. Danners maybe two. But if you’re primarily wild and or a crew my Wescos lasted a long time. I have Whites now. Meh.
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JK Boots is best in the game, imo, and they have a shop in Redding and if you don’t like them, Whites is across the street
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Jk is good until you get them rebuilt. Then they simply fall apart. Once they fall apart you go through a process with their customer service. They will tell you it is your fault and you have to pay for the repairs again that they just did a month previously. Once you convince them that it is a warranty issue, they will tell you to ship them back up and that it will be a quick fix. Here I am 7 weeks later in the middle of fire season wearing a loaner pair from a friend.
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Tried and true, Whites Smokejumpers
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Whites, Smokejumpers.
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my onion; they our the base line boot, although, heave, they our the best; fly crew to all boots on the ground. they are it best of the best for all wildland fighters. just an old sumpeys opinion.
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Bought my first pair of White’s Smokejumpers in 1972 for $75 at a shop in San Bernardino and never looked back. Still have a pair on the shelf, had two when I retired back in 11’, just could’nt justify keeping both, they’d seen they’re day.
Those new boots coming out now look compfy
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Remember, whatever boot you get make sure that they are approved by your agency. If you are planning on working on a Cal Fire Incident as a private contractor, make sure you comply with the lates mandates. They must have a tag on the boots that says the boots are NFPA 1977-2016 compliant. Don’t buy anything without this tag.
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Agree Chief. I gave my boots to Bear Divide shots and my Nicks to a prospective Shot. Both are the best of the best…well worth the price…wish the FS would pay for them…another topic.
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I’m looking for recommendations for a cold weather boot. We have wildland/bush firefighters in Australia who work in alpine areas. Mostly with motor vehicle crashes or just in freezing/cold and wet conditions. In rural areas we do defensive structural work as well as the usual bush stuff. Also road rescue too.
Basically standing around in the cold and wet conditions for hours on end our usual boots just aren’t good enough. The NSW Rural Fire Service is a volunteer organisation and issues us our gear but a few of us buy our own boots. There’s very few brigades that work in alpine areas as we don’t have much alpine at all. I figured you Canadians and North Americans have way more cold than us so I thought I’d ask here.
Min temps we’d be working in would be -10deg C/ 50 deg F. Wet too with the possibility of actual firefighting and live fire. Ships to Australia too.
Thoughts?
Thanks from Australia
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the FS provides a $500 boot stipend