Toe Options for Lace-up boots

Lace-to-toe	Regular Toe / Steel Toe

The Highliner lineman's boots, Jobmaster logger boots and Ultimate Firestormer boots are available with two kinds of toes, regular and lace-to-toe.

The difference between the two styles of toes is that the lace-to-toe system has two additional eyelets. This extends the laces about two inches (5 Cm) further towards the toe. The advantage is that lace-to-toe boots are more adjustable so it is easier to ensure a correct fit and to accommodate different weight socks. The disadvantage to the lace-to-toe boot is that it cannot be made with a steel toe.

Oil Tanned Leather

This is the standard leather used to build Wesco boots and the one we highly recommend. It's available in black, brown and redwood colors. It is a Full Grain, Oil-Tanned, Heavy (6.5 - 7 Oz / 2.8mm) leather with a natural surface grain free from the plating (paint job) used on cheaper leathers. This leather is strong and supple. It has a flat or matte finish. It doesn't shine when buffed. It is highly water resistant when kept oiled and breathes well in a manner similar to Goretex... air and internal moisture breathes out through the leather but the oil keeps water out.

This leather has very good water resistance and can be kept that way by oiling with products such as Wesco Bee Oil or Obenauf's leather preservative. This leather is designed to be oiled to achieve the best combination of breathability and water resistance and to maintain its supple feel.

Oil tanned leather is not intended to be shined with boot polish though a shine can be achieved with a lot of effort if you don't oil the leather for a while. If shined, the leather will not breath as well. The oil tanned leather is available in the standard Black and the optional Redwood and Brown colors. This is the standard leather used to build Wesco boots and is the leather traditionally used to build the logger boots worn in the Pacific NorthWest rain forests.

Black Silicon Tanned Leather

• BKF - Black Silicon Tanned Fire Resistant Leather with a very dull / matte, natural surface finish-- no artificial surface plating (paint job). This is a fire and water resistant leather which is offered as an option on all Wesco boots and is standard on the Firestormer wildland fire boots. It is the same Full Grained heavy weight (6.5 - 7 Oz / 2.8mm) as the oil tanned leather.

  We like this leather. It's strong, thick, supple, water resistant and breathes very well in a manner similar to Goretex... air and internal moisture breathes out through the leather but the silicon tanning keeps water out.

  Its appearance is similar to the standard oil-tanned leather but it's not greasy and has a drier more dull surface. Since it breathes well, it keeps your feet more comfortable. It should be oiled with silicon leather dressing or any good boot oil such as Wesco bee oil or Obenauf's oil. This will ensure that it stays water resistant while keeping it's ability to breathe.

  The BKF leather is not intended to be polished. However, if you have patience, you can polish this leather and it takes a great shine. Since this high quality leather has a natural, unpainted surface, it will soak up the first few coats of shoe polish like a sponge. If you keep at it, while letting each application of polish sit for a while to dry, the boots will take on an excellent shine. Of course, once you polish this leather, the outside layer of the leather is sealed with a layer of wax and the leather's breathability is diminished.

---

Leather Colors for Wesco Boots

Black	Brown	Redwood

Wesco boots are normally made with oil tanned leathers. Above are boots made in black, brown and redwood oil tanned leather. The boots in the picture were buffed to make them slightly shinier, but the leather usually has a slightly more matte or dull finish because of the oil in the leather.

The brown oil tanned leather will look darker when oiled and get a bit lighter as the leather becomes drier.

The redwood oil tanned leather will vary slightly in color from one hide to another. Sometimes it is slightly more red and at other times it tends to a color which is a bit more tan. The amount of oil on the leather makes a considerable difference in color. More oil makes the leather darker and more red while the leather gets lighter and more tan as it becomes dry.

Note that the colors presented here are affected by your browser software, computer monitor, display card, room lighting and the web author's heavy hand with the photo editor. YCMV! (Your color may vary)

That said, this should give you an idea of the various leather's appearance and color.

False Tongue / Kilty

The false tongue or kilty is an 8" (20 Cm) strip of leather with a serrated edge at the bottom which is held in place by the bootlace as it passes through the bottom eyelets.

The false tongue comes standard on all lace-up Wesco boots. Whether you use it is up to you. Either you lace it in when you install the laces or you leave it out.

Some people swear by them and think they are the epitome of the logger / lineman boot. Others think they make the boots look like golf shoes. That said, you won't see many loggers in the North West forests of the US wearing their boots without them

They were originally intended to provide padding between the bootlaces and the instep of the foot in logger boots. This was necessary in boots which used thin leather for the tongue and also protected the tongue from wear by the laces. Wesco uses thick, supple leather in the fully gusseted tongue, so the false tongue is not as necessary. It is a traditional complement to the boot.

Wildland Fire Protective Footwear - Wesco Firestormer Boots

These Wesco wildland fire boots are stocked in 10" heights in the lace to toe
configuration in sizes 6 through 12 + 13 in D & E widths.

These Firestormer boots may also be custom ordered with regular toes and
steel toes and in a wider range of sizes and heights.

Why have Wesco boots been a favorite for wildland fire fighting for over 88 years? All models of Wesco boots are constructed of high quality, heavy duty materials. These boots take the traditional Wesco Jobmaster logger design and update it with features suited to wildland firefighting. This includes the use of the new heavy duty BKF silicon tanned black leather which has been selected for excellent fire and water resistance. The boots are sewn with black Kevlar^® thread. The boots have an OrthoLite insole with Drilex lining for superior breathability and comfort.

The special heavy duty fire-resistant #100F Vibram lug soles and heels are not just glued on, they are also sewn with heavy black fire resistant Kevlar thread. Wesco has one of the few boot soling machines which can sew through this many layers of thick leather and Vibram lug sole to make sure the soles stay on. The midsoles and inner soles of these boots are made of high quality leather instead of the synthetic materials typically used in cheaper boots. If synthetic materials were used they could melt when exposed to heat. This often occurs with cheap imitation logger boots. The lacing eyelets are made of heavy duty solid brass and the lacing hooks are built from machined solid brass studs. Finally, the boots come with black leather laces which resist fire damage, are easy on the hands when you lace the boots and easy to find when you need replacements.

These Firestormer / Jobmaster boots were born sturdy!
Wesco boots have been worn by Wildland Fire Fighters since 1918.

Fire Departments and Forestry organizations should contact us for quantity pricing.

Although some organizations purchase boots for their crews, supplying boots is usually an individual responsibility... so you may want to be prepared in advance of signing up for fire duty. The National Interagency Fire Center says that boots are considered "personal gear".

We're often asked if the Highliner lineman, Jobmaster logger or Boss engineer boots are suitable for wildland fire fighting.. The answer is that these boots are built in the same way as the Firestormer boots. However they lack the specialized features which the Firestormer has: the more fire-resistant BKF leather, fire-resistant #100F Vibram soles and Kevlar thread. You can design your own custom Wesco fire boots by specifying the BKF leather, #100F Vibram soles and Kevlar thread as options.

The U.S. Forest Service Health and Safety Code Handbook (FSH 6709.11) Section 25.12 specifies the requirements for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to be worn by personnel engaged in wildland firefighting. Here's the requirement it sets for the boots firefighters must provide:

"Boots. Wear heavy-duty, leather, laced boots with nonskid soles and tops at least 8 inches (204 mm) high. Steel-toed (metal cup) footwear is not recommended for fire suppression."

So any lace-up Wesco boot with Vibram lug soles will meet these requirements but the Firestormer has been specifically designed and optimized for wildland fire fighting.

Wesco Heels

All Wesco boots except for the Motor Patrol boots and combat boots are made with a stacked logger heel which is undercut in the back.

This picture shows the standard stacked logger heel on the left and the lower regular heel on the right. Both boots shown have the Vibram #100 heavy lug soles. The boot on the left is a Wesco Jobmaster logger boot... the boot on the right is a Wesco Combat Boot.

However, boots with lower regular heels are not available in the same, full range of sizes as standard Wesco boots with the logger heels. This is because a different last must be used to build the lower heel boots. The last is the special wooden form on which the boots are built and from which they take their shape.

Since the regular heel boot has a smaller angle between the foot and the boot shaft when the heel is lower, the design of the last has to reflect this or the boot shaft would tilt too far backwards.

Wesco sells fewer boots with lower heels so they don't have as extensive a collection of lasts in this design. The extra large and small sizes and extra wide widths are not available. Here is a table which shows the approximate range of sizes for Wesco boots with the lower heel.

Experience with the lasts used for the lower heel boots shows us that these lasts tend to be a bit larger than the standard lasts used for the stacked logger heel boots, so you should order boots made with the low heel about a half size smaller than you would order for the standard boots. So, if your foot measured 10½ D you would order size 10½ D Wesco boots with the standard logger heel, but you would order size 10 D if you had the boots made with this optional lower heel.

Size's Possible with Low Heels

Size's Possible with Standard Logger Heels

BIG BLACK BOOTS Home Page

Email questions or comments to