How to Plan Crew Housing for This Work
Planning housing for wildfire Fire Camps and Incident Base Camps comes down to four questions: the headcount sleeping on site, the expected length of the assignment, the electrical capacity available at the pad, and delivery access for a truck and trailer. The sections below work through each question in order.
How we deliver and set up sleeper trailers at a fire camp
Most orders for fire camp housing come on short notice, because speed matters once the fire grows past initial attack, an incident management team takes over, and the Logistics Section starts filling the camp in the first day or two. We answer (888) 828-7765 around the clock, because that is when these calls come. Give us the camp address and the number of beds, and we start routing right away.
We place trailers where the Facilities Unit Leader wants them, and we bring our own advice from past camps. Level ground comes first. Distance from generators comes next, since exhaust and engine noise drift straight into sleeping areas on a still night. Where we can, we also turn the doors away from bright lights and the busiest lanes of foot traffic. A crew bedded down beside the kitchen loading zone hears pallet jacks at 4 in the morning, so clear communication about placement prevents most complaints before they happen.
The usual problems involve access, and most of them appear in the last 500 feet. A gate is too narrow for a 34 ft trailer, or a soft infield turns to mud after 3 or 4 passes by a water truck. Camps also relocate when the fire moves. When that happens, we disconnect the trailers, haul them to the new location and set them up again before the next night, because relocation always takes real coordination and careful preparation.
When the incident closes, the camp comes down fast, and most crews are gone within a day or two of release. We schedule pickup around the camp's own teardown, so trailers leave after the last crew does. The same portable trailers then move on to other work, from oil and gas field crews to film and TV production crews.
- Level, cleared ground with room for a 34 ft trailer and its doors
- A truck route in with no low limbs or tight gates
- Generator or shore power, confirmed with us before delivery
- One named contact at the gate or with the Facilities Unit
- A spot away from generator exhaust and kitchen traffic
- A pickup window that lines up with camp teardown
How many crew sleeper trailers your fire camp needs
| Scenario | Crew size | Trailers |
|---|---|---|
| Engine crew or small fire module | up to 10 people | 1 trailer |
| One hand crew or hotshot crew | 20 people | 2 trailers, with 4 spare bunks |
| Two engine crews plus overhead | 24 people | 2 trailers |
| Two hand crews of 18 | 36 people | 3 trailers |
| Task force of three hand crews | 60 people | 5 trailers |
| Hot-bunked crew on day and night shifts | 24 people across two shifts | 1 trailer (12 shared bunks) |
| Large camp section | 100 people | 9 trailers (round up, never down) |
The arithmetic is simple. Each trailer sleeps 12, and a standard hand crew includes 18 to 20 people under the NWCG Crews standard, PMS 200. An interagency hotshot crew is usually 20, so 1 crew fits in 2 trailers with up to 6 spare bunks. Those extra bunks disappear quickly, because a medic or a late arrival will usually claim them by the second night, so always round the count up rather than down.
Hot-bunking means 2 shifts share the same bunks, with the day crew sleeping at night and the night crew sleeping during the day. It doubles the capacity of 1 trailer, so 12 bunks can serve 24 people. It works on short assignments. On a full 14-day assignment, most crew supervisors prefer 1 bunk per person for the entire stretch. Each firefighter keeps their own storage compartment and charger, and nobody wakes a sleeping teammate to reach their equipment, and that kind of organization keeps a long, difficult assignment genuinely livable.
Our honest default is 1 bunk per person, rounded up to the next full trailer. Then add 1 more trailer if you expect another crew to be ordered within the week, because fire orders grow far more often than they shrink. Returning a trailer early is easy. Finding one on day 5 of a large incident is much more difficult, while early notification and advance planning solve that problem almost completely.
Crew rest standards and housing rules that shape fire camp sleeping areas
Fire camps run under the Incident Command System, and the standards body behind it is the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, known as NWCG. Its Work/Rest Guidelines set a 2 to 1 work to rest ratio for every person on the incident. For every 2 hours of work or travel, crews get 1 hour of sleep or rest. Work shifts, including the first operational period, should not go past 24 hours, and documentation of actual rest periods matters enormously during any later review.
That ratio sets how much rest a crew receives. The location of that rest is up to each camp, and at most incidents it happens in a tent a few yards from the generators. We believe the location matters as much as the hours. A quiet, dark bunk with a steady temperature turns 8 hours in camp into genuine recovery instead of a restless night.
Outside of fire camps, the federal standard for employer-provided temporary housing is OSHA 29 CFR 1910.142, Temporary Labor Camps. Fire camps usually run under National Wildfire Coordinating Group and agency standards instead. Still, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard makes a useful checklist for any crew sleeping area. It calls for beds raised off the floor and a storage space for each person, and consistent application of that standard protects everyone involved in the operation.
Drivers are the other half of the rest picture. Under 49 CFR 390.23, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration can lift hours-of-service limits for up to 30 days for drivers giving direct help in a declared emergency. The NWCG guidelines say stricter state or federal driver rules come first. A driver who sleeps in camp starts the next day with far less road behind them. Fatigue accumulates quickly.
- NWCG Interagency Work/Rest Guidelines: A 2 to 1 work to rest ratio, with work shifts capped at 24 hours.
- NWCG Standards for Interagency Incident Business Management, PMS 902: Sets how incidents hire equipment and services, including rental agreements.
- Emergency Equipment Rental Agreement (EERA), form OF-294: A rental agreement written at the incident that lasts for that incident only.
- OSHA 29 CFR 1910.142, Temporary Labor Camps: Sets sleeping quarters basics for employer-provided camps, such as raised beds and a storage space for each person.
- FMCSA emergency relief, 49 CFR 390.23: Lifts hours-of-service limits for up to 30 days for drivers giving direct emergency help.
- NWCG infectious disease guidance for wildland fire operations (2024): Guides camps on preventing illness such as norovirus in shared living areas.
What fire camp crew housing looks like without a sleeper trailer
Today most wildland firefighters sleep in tents or on the ground, and some use bivy sacks under open sky during the first nights of a new incident. It has been the standard approach for decades because it is fast to set up, though research keeps finding the same three recurring problems with it.
A University of Idaho study found fire crews reaching fatigue levels that can slow reaction time by up to 55 percent. Researchers compared that to a blood alcohol level near 0.08. A 2025 review in the journal Wilderness and Environmental Medicine found that crews keep breathing smoke after their shift ends, because camps sit close to the fire. Generator exhaust inside camp adds to it. A trailer with the door shut is a separate room from the camp air, and while it is no medical fix, it beats a canvas wall, and that distinction matters more than most people initially assume when they compare the two options.
The other option is hotels. On a large incident, evacuees fill the local rooms first, often for weeks, as news reporting from Spokane and Los Angeles showed in recent seasons. Federal per diem caps lodging at a fixed nightly rate under General Services Administration rules, and in a disaster market that rate often falls short, so crew bosses end up booking rooms an hour or more away, and that drive comes straight out of the rest window. The availability of nearby rooms keeps shrinking with every difficult season.
- 27% of about 180 responders sickened in one documented fire camp norovirus outbreak
- 37% higher rate of sleep disorders among firefighters, per a USFA report
- 2x the vehicle crash risk for firefighters with sleep disorders, per the same report
- 16 hrs a common fire line shift, which leaves 8 hours for everything else
Here is how three sites and how a setup usually runs works
Typical setup: fairground fire camp, two hand crews plus overhead, late July
A typical job like this starts with a call from a logistics chief 2 days into a fast-growing fire, with 38 firefighters and nothing but tents. Four trailers give 48 bunks, so the 10 spares can cover a medic plus the overhead staff and late arrivals still on the way. When the camp sits on a county fairground with a soft dirt infield that turns to mud after the first water truck passes, the trailers go on the gravel side near the barns, where generator exhaust blows away from the doors. Crew supervisors can keep them through the end of the incident.
Typical setup: spike camp for a 20-person crew, 14-day assignment
On an assignment like this, a 20-person hotshot crew works a section of the fire too far from main camp to drive back each night. The spike camp might sit on a gravel lot off a paved Forest Service highway, with 1 generator for everything from the radios to the coffee maker. The power hookup gets confirmed by phone before load-out, and then 2 trailers go side by side on the flattest corner of the lot. The 4 spare bunks can go to a medic and a safety officer who rotate through. Nights can drop into the 30s, and the heat runs all night on the same generator.
Typical setup: power line tree crew, 24 workers, spring prevention work
On prevention work like this, a contract tree crew of 24 clears brush and trees along a power line in the Sierra foothills in April. The nearest available motel is often more than an hour away on a winding 2-lane road. Two trailers sit at a substation yard and can be relocated twice in 6 weeks as the project moves down the line. The crew goes from 2 hours of daily driving to a 15-minute ride out to the work, and late starts drop off for the rest of the project. A spring start planned this way gives the foreman a steady first week.
