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
Correction, made an error in my Fahrenheit conversion. Looking for boots suitable to 14F not 50. Thanks Clayton
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JK boots has an Arctic version. Don’t know anything about them though.
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I’ll contact them thanks. Checked out their website and the reviews look ok. The arctic looks like the business but doesn’t have a fire rated sole, maybe they have a custom version.
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HAIX Airpower XR2 Winter EMS Boot, NFPA rated chemical and puncture resistant. Just another to check out.
Those are only great if you’re forever connected by a 200 foot umbilical cord made of fire hose to a fire engine. I’ve yet to talk to a single person that’s carried a hose pack through more than a grass field that said those are a good boot in the Wildland.
I just got a brand new pair of JK’s. So far so good but only a few hikes in them so far. Seems like a short break in period.
I own Danners(the logger style version, not the newer NFPA ones), Nicks, Whites, and JK’s now. The Nicks have lasted the longest and are the lightest. I had a pair of Franks as well and they felt great but fell short on ankle stability and the uppers felt thinner than any other brand. They didnt quite fit as well as the Nicks (same size and style) so I sold them after about 5 uses and 1 fire.
While the newer NFPA style boot is lighter, the build quality doesn’t last as long and they require replacement more often than people are actually replacing them because the foam is never given a chance to recover from daily abuse/wear. The logger style is much heavier on the user and harder on the body physically, but traction and stability is hand over fist better in the wildland environment. I also take them off and swap to a municipal style uniform boot as soon as I’m no longer on the line or have a high probability of an IA response to hopefully save the body somewhat to enjoy retirement.
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I figured there would be a response like this coming. I don’t recall it being stated wildland or structure unless you are talking about an all in one boot in which I am not aware of.
If one is working in extreme cold weather, he/she is going to need a station ems boot/ Structure boot/woodland boot.
I was only addressing on section in the area I understood he/she was infering.
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