Two firefighters who were part of a crew trying to help put out a wildfire in the US state of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula were taken into custody by United States Border Patrol agents, federal authorities said.

The US Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol said in a statement on Thursday that border patrol agents found that two of the workers, who were hired by private firefighting contractors, were in the US illegally and detained them during the operation to put out the blaze.

It was reported that federal agents held crews from private fire contractors for several hours on Wednesday as they were preparing to help tackle the 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) Bear Gulch Fire in Washington state.

The immigration raid was unusual in that such operations have customarily not bee

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