The federal agencies that employ firefighters to suppress wildfires have struggled to hire enough personnel in recent years, but especially in 2020 and 2021 in California. Today the San Francisco Chronicle (subscription) reported that after having 5,000 firefighters for multiple years in California the number working for the U.S. Forest Service dropped from 5,000 in 2019 to 3,956 in 2021, more than a 20 percent decline.
The five federal agencies that have significant wildland fire programs have a total of about 15,000 positions related to fire. In the last few years the number of vacancies has been growing due to difficulty in hiring and experienced firefighters leaving the organization for better pay and working conditions.
Legislation pending before Congress, the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act (H.R. 5631), could make a difference. It would address many of the heartbreaking issues wildland firefighters and their partners face, including raising firefighter pay, creating a wildland firefighter job series, providing health care and mental health services to temporary and permanent wildland firefighters, housing stipends, and other improvements. (More details are in the Wildfire Today article from October 19, 2021.)
Congress…but they didn’t do anything to help me or the other 1000’s of NPS/FS employees.
The Blue Sheep of CA
I’d still be in California but was retaliated against Klamath NF Management. Can’t wait to get into details soon
Yeah brother! All this bull about people leaving because of vaccine mandates but we know there real story…Try telling the agency they were failing to protect their firefighters and communities from covid…that’s what actually gets you fired. I hope you raked ’em over the coals bro!
National Wildland Fire Service. These numbers are not a result of the vaccine mandate as anyone with any time in service and access to hiring carts has seen a dramatic decline for the last decade. Despite raising these concerns for the last decade in R3, our management just don’t seem capable to affect change. I fondly remember Cal blaming us fire supervisors for the lack of applicants in one of the first fire hires. Enough with these land management agencies, their career ladder climbers and failed processes. I bled green the first years of my 26 year career, but now I can’t wait to escape.
Hiring and retention have been an on going issues for as long as I can remember, better pay and benefits will certainly help, but will not fix it, way to many other issues at play, I started in 1980 so I guess I can speak from experience, we do well when we do our outreach, vet programs, rural high schools 4-H kids, schools with active athletic programs, inner city schools, job fairs etc…..need the pay raise/benefits…….
The comment that a FF1 knows more now that a FMO from the 70’s is ridiculous period……..let me burst your bubble a little, when someone joins the USFS/DOI fire service they are not skilled workers not even close, it takes years to become skilled, and really the skill is with leadership.
Our FF receive very basic 40 hr training and then they are qualified to go fight fire, 40 hours does not make someone skilled, really swing a tool and pull hose does not require skill, just a strong back….skill comes much later if ever, having skills and being in a skilled position are 2 different things, a municipal City FF has to go thru a great deal of training before they can ride on the truck, and then they have rooky status for a year.
Our leadership are definitely skilled, Leads, Squady, engineers, capts, supts and the like, it’s a skill to bring everyone home . And yes of course there are a great many related skills that come over time. Just saying it take a few/four years to begin to develop real skills…
I know I am just an old retired FF and my ideas are antiquated….just an old boomer…..I do hope for the very best for all of you, I have a lot of pride in the USFS/DOI and I want to see much success for these agencies, they are still great, you youngsters can fix things, you have a voice, speak up……..And hang in there…..it’s going to be OK……
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/skilled-labor
You know what also requires low skilled workers with little training? Pouring concrete, moving boxes in a warehouse, factory manufacturing, delivery services. Now can you guess what jobs I keep losing my seasonals to? Want to know why? Better pay, benefits, time at home ( which they now have because the financial ability to purchase said home)
Every year they return the call back saying they loved the job, station, and co-workers…but can’t come back because they’ve got to support a fam, need year round employment, burned out etc…
Even recruiting(yes Vets, rural HS, job fairs) and during interviews when they ask about the pay…you can see the look of disinterest fall over their face or hear it over the phone that they won’t be applying or accepting an offer.
Call it whatever you want a new generation, inflation, or laziness whatever…facts are facts…less and less people are signing up for this job and pay is the biggest factor. Flag waving and talking about the glory of the job isn’t getting quality candidates in the door around here anymore.
I had an interview this week with the FS. It was the 2nd worst interview I’ve ever been on. The 1st being the NPS a couple of weeks ago. The interview with the FS was a GS-4 in CA. I use to be a GS-12. I had to stop the interview, because the hiring manager was so rude and inappropriate. He asked me if I was a woman. If I was trans. He asked how old I was. I reminded him that you can record TEAMS meetings and that he could not ask me those questions, because those types of questions violate Title VII. The questions got worse. I stopped him again and told him that I could not work for someone who apparently didn’t know Title VII and that if he was going to be this bad in an interview than I couldn’t image how bad it would get if I worked for him. I also explained to him that there is no way that I would put up with his behavior as a GS-4.
So, I totally understand why people are leaving the FS in CA.
1) Poor Management
2) Rising Cost
3) Poor Pay
4) Better Pay at CalFIRE (Dominoes, Walmart, anywhere else!!!)
5) Poor Hours
6) Lack of Health Insurance
7) Civil Rights Violations
8) Criminal Acts
I mean, I could keep on going, but y’all get the point.
Peace Out!
It seems like you’ve been through quite a lot. Have you ever shared your story anywhere?
Congress…but they didn’t do anything to help me or the other 1000’s of NPS/FS employees.
It is 100% about the lack of pay and poor benefits that federal forestry techs are getting. On base pay I will be lucky to break even with my bills (rent, utilities, gas, and groceries). Meanwhile, my city is hiring a freaking bus washer with a higher starting salary and the local FD pays $10 more an hour. So how do I justify to my family doing this work for the little money I do bring home? And I only bring home money when I’m away for 2 or 3 weeks. I feel confident they will dangle this $20,000 pay raise in front of us to give us some hope so we’ll stick around and see if it happens. Also I’ve had enough of the battles of getting days off after assignments. Give me my 3 days off and stop making me burn through my annual leave to get 3 days of R&R. I feel burnt out, but here comes another season that will probably break some sort of record.
I miss the job but I moved over to the state and make a significant amount more and have guaranteed days off. Plus the work schedule is so much better out of county 1 day on 1 day off. We still get burnt out and miss our family because we don’t have any maximum days out of county but there’s the trade off. The feds need to figure it out. Pay your fighters. Also call them what they are. Say it with me. They are fire fighters.
My zone can’t staff an entire type 3 as well as each “staffed” engine being down 20%……
Wow! Vaccines are the main topic of discussion here? You are all very lost. No one cares and there is a federal injunction so anyone who put in a RA is still employed with no disruption. Just sayin….
I don’t work on the west coast but I do work with firefighters that have not been vaccinated. While I disagree with the view point I respect the choice. To the the best of my first hand knowledge no firefighter has been fired that I know of.
Will the leadership in DC recognize the cause of the problem or just put up some cosmetic changes and happy talk?
There are still a core of senior managers in the FS that see firefighters as nothing more than low education summer-hire pulaski motors, disposable people of no real importance. That type of firefighter disappeared in the 1980s. But the image still lingers (US Congressmen ‘It ain’t rocket science’).
They cannot accept that today’s FFT1 is more trained and requires more skill level than the average district FMO did in the 1970s.
Whatever could be the reason? If I wasn’t so vested I’d be gone like Homer Simpson with doughnuts in the break room……poof.
After the “CEO” of the Feds told me my freedom doesn’t matter, get the jab or loose the job, after spending two summers responding to fire incidents nationally without a mandate…yeah I’ll be like Homer as soon as I’m eligible.
Dave54, I have never seen it expressed better!
Come’on people….every blue State or Federal land management agency lost 20-30% of their workforce in the last 6 months b/c of the CV19 Vax Mandate that never materialized. Valuable, experienced and safe resources, many with a decade or more in service were either fired or quit on their own over the mandate. I’m guessing none of the agencies are sharing those facts with the media outlets, but all of us should. Thousands of unlawful termination lawsuits should be filed by those who were fired or forced out…..
Get the damn vaccine! If people left because of the mandate good. Most of those are for other reasons. The mandate hasn’t been in place for two years
You missed the forest through the trees DK…if you peel back the data, the large majority of the drop occurred in the last 6 months of 2021…happened in WA, OR as well, less so in ID….weird how that happened….sadly, with the talent that was lost, the average safety level of the response on the ground will be down as well in the years to come…
No, I have not
You missed the forest through the trees DK…if you peel back the data, the large majority of the drop occurred in the last 6 months of 2021…happened in WA, OR as well, less so in ID….weird how that happened….sadly, with the talent that was lost, the average safety level of the response on the ground will be down as well in the years to come…what about the effect the vax can have on the hearts of healthy, young people like Wildland firefighters, especially males? Not worth considering?
Just so we’re clear. There was and continues to be a federal injunction against the vaccine mandate. The agencies have published data on compliance and its very high, upwards of 85% for the USDA last time I checked, and higher yet for DOI. So it is a myth that anyone was forced out for the vaccine mandate.
A few people did “rage resign” which clogged up some of our email inboxes in December. A few more retired early and some decided to not apply or show up for the 2022 season.
That being said, it is a complete myth and fabrication that the vaccine mandate caused any person to be removed from the land management agencies by the government at this point. At some point in the future if the injunction is overruled it is possible that the mandate may be reinstated.
That being said with the rate of compliance, the extremely low risk of the vaccines, and the high risk of covid (including the fact that numerous firefighters have died from exposure in the last three years), good riddance to those that don’t want to take the shot.
Firefighters are protectors of the public good. Those unwilling to take measure to protect their peers and their communities have no place in those agencies.
The reason for attrition is and continues to be: A dysfunctional bureaucracy, opaque hiring practices, absence of retention incentives, lack of TOS, failures to provide for mental and physical protections, toxic leadership, better job opportunities in the private sector, low pay, broken equipment, lack of professional mobility and career ladder, time away from home and family, and the overall physical and mental stress of the job.
But sure, vaccine mandates…that’s the problem.
Well said!
Perfectly well said! Thanks, Bartleby.
“A dysfunctional bureaucracy, opaque hiring practices, absence of retention incentives, lack of TOS, failures to provide for mental and physical protections, toxic leadership, better job opportunities in the private sector, low pay, broken equipment, lack of professional mobility and career ladder, time away from home and family, and the overall physical and mental stress of the job.”
The above comments hit the nail on the head. I do not understand why “we the people” stand for this.
Year after year (at least in California) USFS & Cal Fire continue to use old out of date fire fighting methods that prove year after year to fail. There are about 9000 Cal fire employees and about 4000 USFS employees. These people are expected to protect 31000000 acres and that’s just in in CA. Thats 2385 acres per person just for CA. Why is this acceptable? In comparison, the largest fire starting company PGE has nearly 23000 employees and very wealthy CEO’s with share holders who use “our” energy rates and tax dollars to continue to grow their wealth and clean up their destruction.
Never will we forget all the blood on their hands. In my memory that San Bruno to present. My heart goes out to all the family’s who lost loved ones at the hands of PGE’s equipment neglect which is the practice that continues to this day.
Why does cal fire continue to spend millions and millions of aircraft that cant fly when there is to much smoke? (who would think you’d half to deal with smoke in a massive fire?) Why can “we the people” put a missile through a window from the other side of the world but cant get water/retardant on a fire. Our military persons can put a laser dot on targets while in and on a battle field which is followed with a drone hit. Why can Cal Fire do that? Why can our planes fly at night and in thick fog (fog is always close to the ground) with no problems? Why can space craft take the heat of re-entry but fire fighting planes cant handle fire heat? who would think fires get hot?
Its time to tear down and rethink/rebuild our fire fighting machine. We need to address all the issues pointed out by Bartleby Schrivener.
Thank you to all of our hard working fire fighters. Hopefully someday “we the people” (which includes you as well) will put down the latte, get the phone out of their face and demand fire fighters get the help, tools, support, pay, benefits and most of all, a healthy, competent leadership.
To all who have had to watch their home burn from failed fire fighting methods. My heart is with you as I watch the mosquito fire creep towards my home.
I don’t think anyone on either of the two ranger districts I’ve worked on in the last four years left for vaccine-related reasons.
Of course, the world is a big place and I don’t see all of it, and this is not meant to support or oppose any particular policy, but this “20-30%” stuff doesn’t pass a smell test.
This claim is simply false. 4 out of 80 of my units WFFs applied for an RA. That’s 5% of a fairly large permanent organization. No way your claim of 20-30% is accurate, unless you’d like to offer some proof?
Before you file one of those lawsuits understand that it takes years and 100s of thousands of dollars, just to have a judge who is hired by the Agency to throw out your case(s). The system rigged.
Took me a little over a year. Yeah OSC threw it out,
But it also goes to the state afterwards.
I won my case in March. Many details of it will come to light soon.
Stop letting assholes in Management win by walking away. Fight them.
Titto Rios, what do you mean it goes to the state? I’ve been fighting for 5 years. I’ve never been given the option to go to the state?