In a May 5 post published on the U.S. Forest Service’s “Leadership Corner”, the person who oversees Fire and Aviation Management in the agency, Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry Jaeligh Hall-Rivera, laid out a list of improvements she wants to see for Forest Service firefighters. Here is a summary:
- “Ensure our firefighters are paid equally for the difficult job they do”
- “Increase our firefighting capacity, this year and beyond”
- “We must do something about the critical affordable housing shortages”
- “We must also build sustainable career paths for wildland firefighters”
- “A permanent pay increase, a job series that recognizes the unique and hazardous work firefighters do, upward career mobility, a safe, harassment-free work environment and a resilient work-life balance”
- “Bringing more women into the wildland fire workforce and removing obstacles to help them thrive there”
- “A sustainable, long-term solution for increased pay”
- “I am personally committed to making these changes”
- “I will be hosting a ‘FAM to boots’ session where I can share our most recent information and progress on these efforts”
Near the end of the essay Ms. Hall-Rivera wrote, “Please be assured, we are fully backing all these changes to continue improving our wildland fire system.”
She linked to an update that was posted February 2 about the efforts toward addressing firefighter pay and classification, initiatives that are required by an act of Congress passed in 2021. The Office of Personnel Management ordered that the work on a new Wildland Firefighter occupational series be completed “by May.” The February update stated that concerning pay, the “Goal is to have increased payments into paychecks by this summer, either by implementing this provision or using the awards payments model employed last year if we can’t fully implement this provision in FY 22.”
Before a Congressional committee on April 5, Ms. Hall-Rivera testified that a firefighter hiring event “went very well” and that they were “on pace” to meet the hiring targets. It turns out that the event had not started yet.
Before a different Committee on May 5 her boss, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, testified that their goal is to hire 11,300 firefighters nationwide and the current level is at 10,200, or 90 percent. He said in some areas the agency has only reached 50 percent of their staffing goal.
In her May 5 post, Ms. Hall-Rivera addressed, to a degree, the conflicting testimonies:
The information on the status of our fire hiring events I used at that time left some wondering if we are up to speed here in Washington, DC. Let me update the record on the emerging picture from those hiring events. As of mid-April, we are at 90% of our planned 11,300 wildland firefighters (including those currently onboarding and offers pending).
Our Take
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry from his book "The Little Prince"
Few details were offered about how, when, and by whom this long list of initiatives would be accomplished, other than the efforts toward a new Occupational Series and firefighter pay. Using phrases like, “We must do something about…” can lead the reader to presume that very little thought has gone toward that particular goal. Although “goal” may be too lofty a description. “Wish” might be more appropriate.
Having been involved in many meetings and planning sessions where objectives were clearly articulated, I know that little gets done unless:
- A person is appointed to lead the effort, and they are given the resources needed to get it done.
- A completion date is specified, to which they are held.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Brian.
Well, George Bush tried to say that but ended up with something like, You know folks up in Tennessee have a saying, “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice . . . shame on a . . . oh, you know what I mean.”
I’m wondering about this lady’s background in fire. Anyone know? As for her list:
The key part I like is Gabbert’s comment: “Few details were offered about how, when, and by whom this long list of initiatives would be accomplished, other than the efforts toward a new Occupational Series and firefighter pay. Using phrases like, “We must do something about…” can lead the reader to presume that very little thought has gone toward that particular goal. Although “goal” may be too lofty a description. “Wish” might be more appropriate.”
So true. Without set dates and more specifics as to process, this kind of thing is just the FS in Wash. with more generic, meaningless hot air. As an aside, I’ve noticed that very little has been said in Region Five or anywhere else in the FS about the work the Rogue River – Siskiyou N.F. has done on their IA in the last two seasons–120 fires and around 60 acres burned. I wrote about it here a couple months ago. Also appeared in Smokejumper magazine, April issue. Makes me wonder if anyone really cares or not.
Pffft. 90%??? I haven’t talked to a single district or IHC this year that hit 90%. Give it a month when we’re PL5 national and there is a serious lack of middle management quals to help mitigate span of control, not enough crews and engines to staff divisions and we’ll see how staffed up we really are. I have a feeling a lot of folks are hanging on by a Thread to see if change will really happen this time, if they fail all these young guys and girls we are going to be totally screwed. You can’t hire what’s not there as the old saying goes. Be careful this year everyone…
A fire organization run by the parks and rec department, with a leader who has no leadership skills – besides to mention fire experience – (Hall- Rivera) and a chief (Randy Moore) who tells us not to talk to the media outside the WO approval. Who also has no fire experience. Maybe that doesn’t matter anymore. They just cover for each other so they can keep there SES jobs. Thick as thieves. And they wonder why our morale is bad? Lord help us.
Caveman,
From the management side, where we are all numbers: when it comes to diversity numbers there are several problems. The FS was up until recently (I am too lazy to google and see if it is the same right now) trying to meet parity with the CLF. Which is an acronym for “Civilian Labor Force”. So, taking all the demographic numbers of XYZ women, minorities etc. that work in civilian labor and then trying to reach equity in those numbers.
They (the FS) has a series of competing problems with this. Still talking from the management side, not the labor side like Ben was. Since he already did pretty well. The FS has had consent decrees over the years, being told they need “x” number of women, “x” number of hispanics and so on. Then there is a mandate to hire veterans and then there is LGBTQ and good luck quanitfying that as well. Eventually, unless the have a mixed race, female, hispanic veteran applying then they aren’t going to meet parity. The biggest transient workforce they have is fire, so that is the inly place they are going to be able to change numbers. This was on CRAT spreadsheets that used to be on the network drive, back when they had a T drive. I know because I found them there poking around. There were catagories by gender, race etc. on a spreadsheet with black numbers and red numbers where there was a deficit. I saw it, I might have even kept it, I can’t recall honestly. It was around 2013 I think.
Another “feature” of the system they were using, that I can confirm was also real, because I saw it and even did some BSing with a regional HR person about it, is that the self-reporting function they used did not have an “other” category.
What that meant, was that when people self-certify, which is the way they collect that data (they don’t see what box you check on your application), anyone who clicked “other” or “don’t wish to certify” or whatever the option is were catagorized in the white male group. So if you were a female hispanic for example, and you didn’t feel like sharing it, in your application or in your EPP after being hired, the system put you in the “white male” bin. To be fair, CR was not pumped about it either, they previously had a spreadsheet that put all the non-certifications in their own column. I am not sure if that is still the thing but it was for quite a while.
That is not to say that the job is particularly attractive to women and minorities in many cases but they were using a system that had a massive and known margin of error. They were also using a model of tracking based on national numbers. So, the problem there is we a lot of stations in BFE in areas where they only people applying are white guys, maybe a few white girls. The modeling doesn’t go off community make up. Or it didn’t at least. You would need to ask CR to see what they are doing right now. I would surprised though if it has been sorted out a lot.
When you combine that with the general apathy towards doing fire and then trying to even figure out how to apply and doing a bunch of pro-bono hoop jumping with HR before you even start getting paid…. The mechanism to attract and retain gender or ethnic diversity in many places besides large sea-board locales is abysmal.
I don’t think that the faults of the system and the end-state of how it plays out on the ground are mutually exclusive. Proactive measures to hire underrepresented groups aren’t bad, but they need to be ran with some amount of precision.
I remember a moment, I won’t say where, but I remember supervising a group of people for a training thing with a number of women in the group. I’m a standard issue surplus white male, so I don’t presume to talk about women’s problems with women I work with unless they bring it up. I find it tacky and presumptuous otherwise…. Like aglearn! Anyhow, a GS-fantastic who was way over me, also a very white male decided to have a women’s group night that he wanted them to show up to, so they could discuss being a “woman in fire” with a female supervisor there who may or may not have been super on board with it either. It was after work, on their own time. It wasn’t anything overtly harrassing. He wasn’t trying to hit on them or anything, it was earnest, but a lot of them just were not stoked. I sure wouldn’t be either. It was taking up their free time to talk with someone they didn’t want to. It was awkward and ill-conceived and cringy. Good intentions (I hope at least, I believe so) or not. For the record, I told them it wasn’t paid and it was up to them but I can see how it would seem sort of obligatory and yeah, just not a great idea for a manager to have. I was on decent enough terms to hear a lot of pretty candid bad feedback from them on it. Surprise….
The Pacific Islander Program, as an example for a time, was using a very non Pacific Islander to recruit. Instead of finding a person who came from that program and was successful in fire, (because we had some for sure) to go find good applicants word of mouth, it was some random GS fantastic getting a good-deal job. I dunno know how it works now, but I know that is how it was working. The Pacific Islanders showing up on my crew had no idea what the job was about. The FS just wanted numbers.
It isn’t just ground side of things, the FS has terrible welcome mats and bad metrics. So, there’s obstacles, just not sure if Deputy Chief is aware of what a lot of them are or wants to point a finger anywhere but down.
Current Supervisor w/ 20 years FS, the decent decre expired in 2018.
Supervisor w/20- good response and appreciated. You definitely know your stuff and are good at conveying what you are trying to say. ( I am not a word Smith so my writing comes across the wrong way.)
Maybe I have been extremely lucky to work with people that just don’t care about race/gender but I don’t think that is the case. I do know that if I was present for or presented with the information I have heard from SR, or something like the person that had that after hours meeting I would lose my mind. (The first thing I thought of was Michael Scott taking the women of the office to the Steamtown mall!)
All that being said there are no actual policies or laws that prevent women from getting a job in the land management agencies. What you’re saying is there are policies/law that say there should be a certain quota in the agency that will never be met in many locations. There simply aren’t enough applicants which might have to do with the fact that women generally do jobs that require more brains and pay equally or better than land management.
The way it is presented from the WO to the media would lead one to believe that there are laws and policies against women gaining employment. Which simply isn’t true.
The real “obstacle”are a minority of ignorant individuals that create problems that can be dealt with through HR, Unions, and law. Is that fair? No! The individuals who create those problems will always be there, it’s part of humanity. The only real way to help with that is to make the high fear of retaliation from supervisors/ management be lessened( which is human in itself). Could lead to more coworkers unafraid to stand up for the people that are being mistreated. What will actually happen? Teams meetings and aglearns. Checking a box. And no I don’t have a real solution to accomplish that besides talking to the people I supervise about it living up to that value.
Caveman,
Oh yeah, I think the point I was making in my wall of text is that the barriers that the Deputy Chief is referencing are being created by a lot of things that really don’t have f***all to do with me. The reason I even went and tried to figure out how CR was coming up with their data was because I was really over the whole idea that it is a “we” problem when I only have 3 female applicants on a perm cert. but it is a “me” problem when I ask about upgrades for my crew, or something is on fire on some big hill somewhere, or even ask for an o/t auth to drive the crew from BFE to wherever some madatory training is located. Seriously, by the time it rolls down hill to the intended audiences for these big-catharsis sessions I gotta go to every year, I have had zero input in anything at all. I remember taking an aglearn that showed some bad dudes in an office trying to force some guy to eat cake on Ramadan. So when Jaelith made the comment about barriers, I just kinda wondered who she meant by “we”.
Might catch some flack for this one…but anyways I don’t really care. What obstacles exist for women exactly? If you have a female sounding name you are automatically considered higher than other applicants that have around the same quals and experience (don’t try to argue because I have been through many hiring cycles in two regions and 3 different forests). So there isn’t an obstacle in getting the job. Just because there are people who have ignorant ideas about who should and shouldn’t be in fire doesn’t necessarily mean there is an obstacle. It just means they are ignorant and should be dealt with through the proper channels. Is there actual policy that is an obstacle for women? I know there is already a segregated training program for women. Does that exclude the other groups we support in the LGBTQ+ spectrum? What about our other minority groups just because they are men? If so, that seems like we are creating an obstacle for minorities in that aspect. This entire topic leaves me confused regularly but I am just a hairy knuckled caveman. I am truly not trying to be a troll here. Would like some honest answers.
Imagine being pregnant and then what? Exposure to smoke and particulate matter on fire assignments are not only increasing your risk of cancer, but now they are endangering your unborn child.
And what if you have a child? You think the Hotshots are going to let you bring the newborn on the line? Get lactation breaks?
Oh right, fire isn’t for families and if you don’t like it you can leave? So then go to dispatch and get put on night shift, or have a 16-hour shift to work… not great options there either.
And if you say hey, I need to just work my base-8s because my kid is in daycare, well the paycheck doesn’t even come close to paying for childcare these days, so how can you do childcare, rent, groceries, gas, etc… your only option is to quit.
And if you don’t want a child, well guess what, sometimes things change and you decide you do want a child or it’s unplanned… then what? Time to quit. Women don’t want to get into these jobs because it limits their options if they are even considering having a kid down the road, so why start?
And I’m not even going to get into all the harassment and perceptions that I’ve come across that women aren’t strong enough or tough enough. Happens all the time and it’s just BS. I’ve jumped with women that are total badasses and could cut or dig circles around plenty of the guys that are out there.
Then there is competition. Any municipal department will hire these women in a heartbeat. So now we can’t compete on schedule, work environment, or pay. No chance to retain women.
Last I saw we had 6% females in Fire. 6%… It’s a shame. Fix the schedule, Fix the base pay, allow more time off for families, offer childcare subsidy, offer tuition assistance so experienced people can stay in the workforce.
Or I guess we can just keep talking about how we’ll fix it? but I just listed a few actionable items
Being pregnant would be no different than a male being on light duty as far as affecting income. You now get 3 months of parental leave after you have the baby. Unless you just have a terrible supervisor you can get dispatch quals to get the OT if you want it. How is that any different from having to adjust your work life in any other blue collar job if you’re pregnant?
I know a lot of divorced, single dads that turn down a lot of overtime because they have to be there for their kids. How exactly is that different? This job requires travel and overtime. Most blue collar jobs that pay decent require that too. I have never told my employees they have to stay at work just because we need staffing if they have a family thing to attend to. It’s not their fault the hiring/retention is terrible right now. I get shit from DO’s sometimes but I don’t care.
If you want a family, any job that requires travel and lots of overtime makes that hard. If you want to make decent money in a blue collar job you have to work overtime…kind of the trade off for not having/using a degree. Believe me, I want the raises just as much as everyone else, that is not the argument I’m making here.
Tuition assistance-
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the agency will pay for a certain amount of credits as related to the professional series .
Yes, misconceptions by some people are ignorant and they usually get proved wrong by the women we employ (Not that their opinion is worthy of validation in the first place). That’s not an obstacle anymore than a new guy that shows up overweight and can’t keep up and has people shit talking him/her. Then proceeds to get in shape and outwork the incumbent turds.
If we are getting into harassment type issues, that is a different story and shouldn’t be tolerated. There are avenues in place to deal with that (whether that is effective is a whole different story).
So, I don’t think there are any policies, laws, etc that are an actual barrier to women getting jobs. There are negatives for pregnancy, family/home life, and dealing with ignorant assholes, having to go through HR processes to deal with said assholes and potential fallout from that. Pretty similar to other blue collar work that parallels the fire program that would require about the same amount of OJT. Thinking lineman, gas and oil, welders, pipefitters, etc.
OK Caveman, you ask, I give you some answers and then you make an excuse for every one? Lol. Good luck with your life. I’m starting to doubt you even do this job if you actually believe some of the stuff you’re saying.
Ben-Where are the excuses? I asked if there are actual policies, labor laws, laws in place that create a barrier. Not “Are there parts of this job that make it hard on family life?”. Not “Are there individuals that have ignorant opinions and go against policy/law in decision making?”. I responded to your comment only because you didn’t answer my actual question. Do you actually know women who are going to fires while they are pregnant? If so that is no different than a non pregnant person with lung problems doing the same thing. If that person on light duty wants overtime there are other things to do like dispatch, driver, Rado, etc.
Do you expect the usfs to pay for 24/7 childcare while a single parent is on a fire assignment for 3 weeks? All I’m hearing is complaining and then upset because I made rational statements responding to all of your comments.
Everything you brought up is what being a grown adult person is . You have to deal with incompetent, ignorant people. You have to deal with balancing the desire to make money and chase a career with raising your family. You have to balance health vs money. If you think that is different in comparable blue collar fields you are wrong. And yes I have been doing this job for fifteen years.
Caveman, I know a lot of women who have been fired for being pregnant. Look around your office, how many woman are in you office and how many are pregnant?
Sr-What forest(s) were these women fired from? Sounds like we need to make contact with representatives from Congress, forest supervisors, regional employees, and even the chief’s office. Did they get union representation or a lawyer? It might be worth getting in contact with the district attorney in that area to see if there is a legal route to take.
You’re question as to how many women are pregnant in my office makes no sense. You are trying to insinuate that women automatically get fired for getting pregnant which is ignorant. But since you asked…1 of 7 currently and 4 are mothers that have been in the FS for 10 years or longer.
Caveman, you apparently have all the answers, so good luck!!!
Caveman, yes there are obstacles for women. 1) Men who believe we can’t do the job, because we squat to pee. 2) Women who set up barriers, because they are jealous. Seriously, Caveman, I wasn’t going to comment on this, but after the last week, I can’t let this slide.
I have a man’s name, (but I am a woman). So, I usually get an interview, but as soon as I’m on TEAMs. I get, “Oh, #@%! it’s a girl!” I get question about how I pee. My period. I get asked about diversity. I get asked how old I am, if I’m gay or trans. (These questions are all violations of Title VII.) The only agencies that have asked me these stupid questions are NPS, FS, and BLM.
When I worked for the NPS and FS, I was paid half, HALF of what my male counterparts made. I have a BS and a MS and 27 years of experience and I made HALF of what a younger man (less experience) and a GED. HALF!!! When I asked my boss, why do I make less? He said, because women have babies! This logic has never made sense to me. Women can have babies…this means we produce life…something a man cannot do…then why not pay us more..we produce something…plus, we usually are responsible for taking care of the child, so it would actually make more sense that we get paid more. All that aside, when my boss said that we have babies…it made me so mad…because 3 FS men beat me up when I was pregnant. I miscarried. So, no I don’t have children…but I was still paid less. I was eventually fired because I was a woman.
So, Caveman, what obstacles do women have?…men and women who treat us differently. They make it hard for us to do our job. I was in a Family meeting with Cal Joyner (Regional Forester R3 and then Deputy Chief) and we were told that woman were not needed…that we should not be in FIRE. We were not needed, not wanted…image hearing that…YOU ARE NOT NEEDED! YOU ARE NOT WANTED!
I know women who are amazing. They are so strong. I know woman who removed their breast to do this job. Has any man removed his balls to do this job? I know so many women who have been harassed, attacked, raped…fired for being raped, fired for being pregnant, fired for having cancer.
There’s so much more I want to say…
The biggest obstacle women have is Jesssie Sandridge. He works in HR in ASC and he hates women and African-Americans and he will not hire us. Look at his Facebook page…he makes comments about killing us.
As for your other comments about pregnancies…that’s going to be a very hard topic that the NPS/FS is going to have to deal with. With all the states with their trigger laws, more women are going to be force to be pregnant. I don’t know the answer to that one. But, if the FS continues to do what it has done in the past, they will just fire the women.
I know so many women who have had an abortion to keep their job at the NPS/FS.
Did you know that the Grand Canyon still makes single women sign a chastity agreement? It says that single women can’t have sex with married or single men. Says nothing about a married woman, married men or single men. Says nothing about being gay.
With all that said…Happy Mother’s Day!
SR,
What TEAMS meetings? I have never heard anything ever asked like that. I could just be in a bubble. I think you can record those on your end. The last group of IMT TEAMS meetings I was in were recorded. None of the discussion even touched on gender, it was about overhead deficits, mental health stuff and general seasonal outlook new SOPs etc. I don’t get invited to management meetings much though.
Just trying to get a frame of reference. I really haven’t seen a lot of the things you are describing but it is a huge agency. I’ve definitely seen people with bad attitudes about women in fire, just nothing nearly as egregious as what you are describing and not coming from very high up the ladder.
Can you find a copy of the agreement you are talking about for Grand Canyon? I actually am friends with a woman who worked there, so I will hit her up too.
Only worked in one region and the FS though for my entire career. Not R5 or R3… So it is likely I don’t know about a lot of things that happen.
Current Supervisor w/ 20 years FS, record it? Huh? That’s a good idea! 😉 I understand that I have a different perspective, because I’ve seen more extreme cases, but the sheer number. That’s what makes me sick. That’s what makes me mad! As for the agreement, I’m sorry, I don’t have a copy. I wish I had taken a picture of it. If I had a copy, I would totally post it, so everyone could see the difference between how men and woman are treated. I worked at a park, an SO, and then a RO. I loved my job. I loved hiking and helping people, but the NPS/FS has many problems, and it needs leadership to fix it.
SR,
I think whatever the agreement was, it wasn’t happening to everyone. I was just talking to a close friend/coworker who worked for Grand Canyon doing fire not long ago, then went private sector to get a job on perfectly good terms with the agency. She is very pro-feminism and not the sort to even sign something like that to begin with. Anyway, she said they never had anything even resembling such an agreement and felt that her supervisors in the program would not have handed something like that out.
I wouldn’t touch something like that either with a 10-foot pole on ethical or professional grounds and I’d immediately hand it up the chain in the union and start some serious noise about it if management tried to make me. Let alone even considering having my female employees sign it.
Just saying. It seems like the worst idea in the world to even put it on paper. So it is too bad there isn’t a copy.
Thank you for answering my question “Are there any laws or policies that create barriers for women to work for the federal agencies?”. That was a really long response but a simple “No” would’ve sufficed.
If you have been presented with all of these issues that you have listed then you should get legal representation. If you have enough witnesses and documentation you should have great success going down that route. I guarantee if you want to go that route you could get some GoFundMe support for legal fees if you can present your case to the public well enough. I hate all of the things you’re saying have happened to you. In no way have I presented support for any of these actions you have stated. All I did was ask a simple question. If it is too traumatic to want to go through all of that then that is understandable too. If you are a current fed employee there is the EAP as a starting point. I think they can even help direct you to more sustainable, longer term, form of support.
I think it makes perfect sense that someone who may not have had their lives (as well as the lives of their families) upended, to not have had talk and promises of higher pay and better conditions materializing, to have experienced enormous delays in being hired (to the point at which you can’t afford to wait any longer), to have not had your medical bills covered when injured during a work related (fire) injury, to be essentially forced to work outside of your PD, to not have your voice heard and responded to by those higher up in the organization to think that being “mean” (and that is just an opinion), is uncalled for.
When productive methods for voicing concerns are non-existent, employees will voice their anger, fear and frustrations in a variety of ways – and yes, they might seem mean or uncalled for by someone who has never dealt with any of these serious situations.
This reminds me of when a supervisor with whom I was a close friend confided to me that he had received an anonymous letter of complaint through his district ranger. He was quick to call the anonymous person a chicken and I pointed out that he was focusing his energies at the wrong area. He was focusing on the result of the problem, but not the problem. He made a mistake similar to the one someone complaining about “mean” responses might be making. Instead of focusing on the style of complaints, better if you ask yourself WHY so many people are complaining in the first place. Perhaps focusing on the problem instead of the result. If the agency was as quick to focus on the issue as you are on the response style, more might be accomplished.
We all have the option to be proactive vs. reactive. So does this agency.
Um.. “someone who has never dealt with any of these serious situations.” I may not have been in fire but I have experienced “to be essentially forced to work outside of your PD, to not have your voice heard and responded to by those higher up in the organization.” Many, many times. Temporaries not in Fire have also experienced “talk and promises of higher pay and better conditions materializing, to have experienced enormous delays in being hired (to the point at which you can’t afford to wait any longer), to have not had your medical bills covered when injured during a work related (fire) injury.” I’ve also had to work with leaders in every position I had, who didn’t understand my area of knowledge and experience.
There’s a difference between criticizing leadership, and one particular leader in a vast chain of different leaders with different duties in addressing a host of conditions that have developed over time- from long before they held those positions.
And what I meant by “mean” was this comment specifically.. indeed, as you say, that’s “just my opinion” but it is my opinion.
“I’ve had it with her inept, fumbling leadership and lying. Aside from a handful of degrees from obscure schools she has no experience whatsoever in fire/aviation. She’s basically the Imelda Marcos of the FS. Buh bye!!!!!”
I’d just like to know what exactly is the OK level of fire experience folks believe Directors, Deputy Chiefs and Chiefs should have to successfully carry out their duties?
I applied 4 months ago and I still haven’t heard anything and all I want is to be out there.
Perhaps if they stopped starting forest fires vis a vis mismanagement of contained fire or controled burns that might be a good place to start. We also need the ability to bring claims for negligence and monetary damages against the service and the individuals responsible.
Hey folks, you can disagree or question, but some of these comments border on the downright mean to a person who is probably doing her job as best she can within the constraints available. I get “this is what I would do” ..then we would figure out whether she actually could do it. Or .. “here’s a goal that would be achievable.”
You all know that the FS is a highly, perhaps even dysfunctionally, decentralized organization and I bet you all can think of things that might work to deal with problems you’ve seen. Put them out there.
I don’t get the need for/utility of meanness.
Someone at that grade level should have an idea of what the issues are within the agency. How many seasons did she spend in the field before being promoted?
Sharon Friedman,
I agree with you in the sense that she just happens to be standing in the crossfire of a very disgruntled organization. I would be surprised if she came to these forums and read the comments though.
As far as the statement though that the FS is decentralized. I don’t know if I would agree that it is entirely decentralized. HR clearly isn’t, CIO isn’t and both of them are clearly struggling from it. The chain of command isn’t decentralized either, so everything is just pushed down the pipes whether it fits or not. With that, there are a lot of line officers driving around a function (fire) within the agency that they are often completely devoid of experience with. That’s been a complaint for awhile.
I didn’t come up with the comparison, but I’ve heard FS fire compared to a city fire department being run by parks and rec. There are certainly decentralized aspects of the work, due to the mission of the agency, and the FS is just a large employer, but the bulk of fire workforce sits well below the average GS level of most government employees. This throws a very different functional area of the FS directly on the bottom of a bunch of managers and line officers with no fire experience. That is a problem itself.
Firefighting is a trade in many ways, the dept. of education definitely felt so when they started looking at the WFAP, to the point it was almost a disaster a few years back for all the SCEP hires. You don’t hire tradesmen to do construction work and then have the architects and engineers presuming to lead them. It is a waste of time and money. They would be laughed off the jobsite. I suppose the average plumber or welder would be equally laughed out of an architect’s office trying to draft a building?
I don’t personally feel we are decentralized to the point of dysfunction, we are decentralized dysfunctionally and under a centralized chain of command that often has no experience in an increasingly complex job. I’ve heard the average type 1 IC spends close to 30 years to get there and I would believe it.
So, as long as we have this dynamic in place, whoever ends up in the revolving GS fantastic door – really above GS fantastic; SES or whatever is above it – is going to continue to be the butt of a lot of angst I think. If the Chief or Deputy Chief were willing to tell Congress that they simply have a problem and don’t have the expertise to solve it or to lead fire and ask about something more akin to separate department, instead of just moving forward as the presumptive “leaders” than the dialogue might be a bit more friendly.
It doesn’t seem like they are on board for that though, we’re still here to meet targets and save houses and whatever else but stay under the same disjointed org chart and I think that rankles people. If there was any meaningful flow of communication upwards, we wouldn’t be here at all. Fire and the union wouldn’t be off working over the top of the organization to pressure the chief to say what they’ve already been saying to lawmakers. Not a single topic she mentions has not been brought up repeatedly for years.
So, to a point, I am not sure that the agency is willing to make the concessions and give up the power to actually be doing the best job they can. Some of the commentary is mean but I also think it is mean to ignore everyone to where we’re at now and engage in petty battles to retain control of a program you don’t have the expertise to lead. It is mean in action, not words. I see people in charge that didn’t care much before it made the news, using polite language to say they didn’t have a plan and repeating whatever they think lawmakers want to hear because fire is getting exposure. There is no question they are behind the horse here.
If we aren’t holding fs leadership accountable to us, the public and lawmakers, we could easily get some other mandatory training sessions coming from all this, some bad corporate sounding powerpoints for how to live in your car, make cheap casserole from scratch and have a positive attitude. We’ve had enough of them already.
Current supervisor w/20 years: HA! Best I have ever heard it described “Parks and Rec leading the Fire Department”! Love it!
That is exactly what it is.
Thanks for this! Just the change of tone and focus on your concerns helps a lot. But the Deputy Chief is just one person in a very complicated situation … why not go after Chief Randy (I think a proposal to take fire from the BLM Park Service and FS and make a new agency is probably above even his pay grade) or Jerry Perez?
I also don’t think that the FS leadership is responsible for the high cost of housing. Certainly they need to listen and act.
I suppose you could stovepipe within the FS like Law Enforcement, but would really help? I get that many are frustrated but after all these years, frankly, I don’t think singling out Jaelith right now makes sense for a problem that has developed over all these years. Even if she doesn’t read it. I can’t help but wonder what makes her a target instead of the Randy-Jaelith-Jerry joint set of leaders. What experiences do you think they should have had that they didn’t have?
I don’t think anyone has claimed that the current leaders are responsible for the high cost of housing, however if you read the comments carefully and perhaps with an objective mind, you will see that people are asking for a change and assistance with the issue. That is, people on here are focusing on the current leaders and asking them to implement change. A BIG difference from saying that current leaders are responsible for these issues. It’s important to retain some accuracy on this topic and not stray off.
Sharon,
Yeah, not saying that the chief is in a position to create a new agency. I was sort of speaking more to the idea that he could start suggesting it might not be a terrible idea to those who can. Randy is the one sending out the letter saying he wants a bunch more prescribed fire and….. New Mexico right now. Maybe pushing it as a flat target isn’t a great idea? It is already creating a lot of downward pressure to burn and we don’t the conditions for it where I am at least.
For specifics, yeah, stovepipe or however you want to phrase it sounds like a good start to me. I think it would really help. A while back FWFSA was lobbying for the same thing. I dunno if they are still active or not but it has been a topic for quite some time.
I think it would also remove a lot of the tension with other departments too that end up being affected by fire and fire funding.
A separate and parallel chain of command up to the national level.
What experience should the leaders have: pick some numbers? Create some PDs. Some high level IFPM qualifications? You can’t get those without time on the ground, then add whatever sort of management experience you need to apply as a forester and pay them a lot of money. I don’t know, I don’t know how they hire for the jobs above and beyond GS. That would need to be some collaboration between fs/fire/OPM? It wouldn’t hurt to look at city and state and see how they are running a fire department?
Re-do the pay system to reflect collateral qualifications beyond the incumbant’s day job? My job requires CRWB and ICT5…. I am asked to perform as a type 4IC, TFLD and I’m a DIVS trainee and an EMT, I am being asked if I want to be an IC3. If everyone stopped doing the red card quals they have that are above their day job? That would a bigger trainwreck than anything we’re dealing with now. So pay for it. How? I guess start with AD rates doing that job? Something like that.
Hmm. my understanding is that folks that get SES jobs have to have SES training, or perhaps prove that they have the equivalent. I wonder how many high level fire people have applied and gone through training? Most importantly, perhaps, I wonder how many would move their families to DC for a Director or Deputy Chief job? What does the pipeline for that job look like? I couldn’t even generate enthusiasm for filling out the application to go to SES training.. plus you might get assigned to anything anywhere, or so they warn you.
Also it seems like this commission https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/departments-interior-agriculture-and-homeland-security-jointly-establish-new-wildland might address pay and other firefighter issues (or perhaps not) – the point being it makes sense for all federal firefighters to be treated the same way. At the same time, getting agreement across Departments tends to slow things down.
There should be a clear path for complaints and concerns to be handled, either some kind of interagency forum or the Commission so folks know who exactly is working on solving the problems. S
Hmm. my understanding is that folks that get SES jobs have to have SES training, or perhaps prove that they have the equivalent. I wonder how many high level fire people have applied and gone through training? Most importantly, perhaps, I wonder how many would move their families to DC for a Director or Deputy Chief job? What does the pipeline for that job look like? I couldn’t even generate enthusiasm for filling out the application to go to SES training.. plus you might get assigned to anything anywhere, or so they warn you.
Also it seems like this commission https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/departments-interior-agriculture-and-homeland-security-jointly-establish-new-wildland might address pay and other firefighter issues (or perhaps not) – the point being it makes sense for all federal firefighters to be treated the same way. At the same time, getting agreement across Departments tends to slow things down.
There should be a clear path for complaints and concerns to be handled, either some kind of interagency forum or the Commission so folks know who exactly is working on solving the problems and where their complaints can go and what is being done to help, and why suggestions won’t work or what roadblocks there are. Maybe this isn’t actually a good job for the FS itself, as external pressures may need to be brought to bear. I could see a “suggestion and response” website, and other folks could take the info therein and apply appropriate external pressure. Which I’m suspicioning it will take.
As to the “being led by people who don’t know your business” I can completely sympathize. We have State Foresters who aren’t foresters.. would we have State Engineers who aren’t engineers? But if we go high enough in the feds, everyone is a lawyer. So there’s that.
PS I don’t think I started the “women” thing on this thread. Maybe Jerry and Randy are like Imelda Marcos also? Perhaps we need to check their closets… 😉
Yeah, I think it was somewhat just related to the dubious hiring statements she was making. I dunno. There are a smattering of discussions going on that are related to women in fire and some that aren’t. She mentioned the obstacles thing which I guess was the catalyst for that rabbit hole. I think the chief is pretty fair game here too, but the article was about her and what she was saying?
To be fair, I get a little tired of hearing about harrassment at a training each year because someone else is an idiot. It literally is not something I have been accused of or participate in, and I tend to have some pretty progressive viewpoints personally, so when I have to go to yet another training each year that wastes time I could be using to develop the crew, to talk about how the big “we” need to get our act together and step onto the same page that a lot of us are on anyway in my sphere… It comes across as patronizing at a very personal level.
I don’t know if you have ever watched “The Office”, but our mandatory LGBTQ training was so comically close to an episode they had, that it was almost surreal.
I don’t know that SES really is the right thing? It is so far above me that it isn’t something I know a lot about, besides it being above GS.
A new scale might work too, that was some of where I think the Tim Hart act was going. As opposed to a new series. So, that might be a lot more appropriate, then top it out for the National fire czar position or whatever they call it.
How does a city department work? They are still somewhat beholden to the mayor or city council but have their own org and pay and union? How could that be adapted to feds?
At some point yeah, lawyers, policitians but that starts getting into the stuff we aren’t going to affect within this movement or discussion or whatever.
Sharon Friedman,
What about moving fire to wage grade? It actually reads at least like it was purpose built for blue-collar trade jobs and GS was designed around white collar? Here is the OPM link: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-systems/federal-wage-system/facts-about-the-federal-wage-system/
I totally get it about what I call “training sessions for the wrong people”.. I seem to remember (or have I embroidered this?) us 60 year old women at a safety stand down where we learned not to get drunk and run across highways, or some such thing. Sigh.
I suppose if you tried to get the demographic right, it would be discriminatory. And so it goes.
As to Wage Grade, I would bet there are folks out there who have looked at some of the options. I’m running some traplines now to see if we can find such reports.. anyone else know of these? FS, BLM, WFLC, interest groups, Congress???
My own experience with WG folks was from sharing a lunchroom at a tree nursery. Seems like those folks felt underpaid, unappreciated and looked down on by the organization. Meanwhile the lower GS folks were envious of the WG salaries. So there could be difficulties with that idea. Unless they just form a separate organization, but would that include prescribed fire? I do think a separate fire service has been thought about for some years.. 20 or so?
Sharon Friedman,
There has been talk for at least 20 years about having a federal fire service. FWFSA was working on some similar stuff. I don’t know where they are in the current shuffle. Seems like more NFFE and Grassroots that I’ve heard mentioned here. I’ve been member of NFFE for awhile and been involved in some fire related stuff. I helped lobby for the LMWFA but it got pared down some from what we were asking for. That was the bill that created long term seasonal designation, allowing them to apply merit and we tried to create a mechanism to allow people over the age cut-off to apply for perms. The latter of the two seems to be not working so much. I think direct hiring authority has a lot to do with it. NFFE has been helping in general with a lot of fire stuff, but we are spread thin and we don’t just represent fire, or for that matter even close to it. So, more targeted efforts tend to come from more targeted advocacy groups and the union will help out.
Here is the link to FWSA, again, I don’t know where they are in the current efforts. You will see though a lot of familiar goals: https://www.fwfsa.org
I dunno if Wage Grade is the answer. It is a possible answer.
If I recall correctly, there was some study done by the CATO institute years ago, whom I am not endorsing by any means, I think the Koch Bros bought them out or something. But anyhow, they compared FF salaries to private sector and found we were overpaid. The rub being that our wages were compared to similar private sector jobs that were unskilled. This attitude was reflected as well by some (in my opinion) vapid politicians last year.
I’ve gotten a similar vibe from *some* by no means all, or even most professional white collar management types. Some managers seem to have a meritocratic view of the fs and it is rooted in academic values.
So that is a little hard to reconcile with a pay system that is designed around the ranking of white collar jobs.
The first year in fire, there is definitely a lot of labor, but even then we are putting new employees through a lot of skill training and a lot more on the job training. We use a training program that specifically classifies new career firefighters as “apprentices”.
Then, starting from the low end of the white collar scale, we have a very small amd incremental ladder. To where someone could easily be performing at the level where they are leading hundreds of people on a very complex fire but are still a GS7 in their day job. They could be doing this for hundreds of hours a year. That is some significant collateral expectations. That isn’t me deciding to run the district safety committee or CRAT or whatever.
We have some serious mission creep too. R5 engine crews are packing SCBAs and responding to vehicle fires and medicals. We have more and more helicopter crews creeping from staffing some EMTs to doing actual short-haul and sometimes body retrieval on plane crashes or functioning as a BLS air ambulance.
We are moving more and more towards these very specialized, very high risk, low margin of error roles and we are still climbing a limited GS ladder.
Much of the rest of the country has moved past that. City departments and state departments are paying more because I guess that is the expected social contract or whatever? You are paying more for specialized job specific skills to be practiced in dangerous environments with high liability.
It is something like a trade? Are cops and city firefighters or medics tradesmen and women? I think something like that is a good starting point.
We are working schedules that most psychologists would describe as perfectly insane. 1000 hours of overtime in a year responding to emergencies and making high risk decisions. There isn’t even a comparison out there for it. No one else is even doing that. Not 16 hours per day for 14-21 days. It is a fantastic cocktail for mental health issues. City guys might be lucky enough to work 2 days on and 5 off. You would have to research their schedules, I’m not an expert. I do know, they get higher salaries for working many less hours because it is simply healthy and a good practice to decompress responders. They still have enough issues with mental health.
We need to start sorting that out.
How? Start with money. That’s the deal. No outside the box innovative options there. You have to hire enough people in a program to have more time off. You have to pay enough base salary that they aren’t driving themselves nuts for overtime. That is a start at the module level, higher staffing per module, less hours, higher wages.
For wildfires, since it doesn’t make perfect sense to pull someone off every couple days (although Calfire does it anyway), I guess you start doing 14 on and 1 week off or something? But paid. Yep. Paid. Ask a big city FD what program do they offer women who get pregnant? Gotta be some places with good programs to ask. If you staff modules enough, you can accomodate all sorts of stuff. You need more staffing too, because sometimes the job breaks you for a year or two and you should be able to come back when the job did it and you can do it again. That’s pretty fair.
For fuels? Are they part of it? Sure. RX fires are wildfires. Someone didn’t get the memo. You light a whole bunch of wildlands on fire and it does the same thing a wildfire would do under the same conditions. It burns, it gets big, it produces really carcinogenic smoke, it goes up really steep hills, it makes really big trees fall over, it can kill people just as dead, burn houses down just as easy and make people just as liable. So yeah, toss them right on the bus too and fund and treat every RX just like any other fire. Staff them just as well, pay hazard, don’t mince around hours or lodging or anything else. Pay their jobs just as well, they are all doing the same collateral jobs. No difference. More money. Have IMTs run burns if the FS decides we need to treat more acres. Something like that. Step it up.
If wage grade doesn’t work? If it doesn’t scale enough, then how did they make it happen? What is the process to create a scale vs a series. It can’t be an impossible task. All administrative things like that are possible. So how do you do it? OPM is a start, budget people, someone out there can do that.
I guess it depends in how bad we start needing fires to be put out and acres to be treated. Unless you truly have your head in the sand, then the UN reports on climate change indicate that job security is the least of the problem.
We can do committees and some lump payments that are going to run out of gas in about 4 years or we can do more. It won’t make any difference to what wildfires are going to do and what the public is going to want done.
So what can we do and what can’t we do and what is that going to look like in 10 years when we start getting 2 or 3 Dixie fires per season? What sort of imaginary procedural or financial barriers will exist then?
The Pentagon lost 1 trillion dollars several years back. They just lost it. Remember that? Congress wanted to know where it went and it was so much money that no one could even figure out how to audit it in the first place. Right now we are talking billions to get things right, but we might not be in 2030 and I’ll be retired and making a point to live somewhere with a lot of natural fire barriers.
So what is possible? You seem like you have a higher altitude view of it than I do. What constraints are we saying we have? Cheers.
Current Supe:
I’ve been looking around for information on organizational alternatives but my usual searching processes haven’t yielded anything. Today Bill posted about a new wildfire series push from Congress so that should work- although I don’t know how quickly. Would you mind if I mentioned some of your ideas and attributed them to you on The Smokey Wire (another blog)? That tends to be a good way to round up information from a variety of sources.
Sharon Friedman,
I checked out Smokey Wire, it looks interesting. Feel free to use anything you might find helpful. I am not an expert in a lot of things related to policy, mostly just self-education over the years and some union involvement. So, take it for what it is worth. Not speaking on anyone’s behalf besides what my own opinions and ideas are.
Great, thank you! Your ideas are interesting and I’d like to find out what other ideas are out there, and what groups are working on them.
Cool story.
Here is something I can think of that might work to deal with a problem that I’ve seen!!!!!!
https://chng.it/pVjWczJb
The fire work force is large yet small. We talk. We all know which leadership supports us and those who don’t. Nothing new. She needs to be held accountable. She lied. But I doubt anything will happen.
I understand that, Frank, but many people that have been Deputies for S&PF also don’t have 30 years of fire experience. But that’s not my main point.. it’s that it’s ok to think “they could have picked someone more qualified”, but the tenor of some of the comments was bordering on personally nasty. Now I realize that standing up for non-nasty dialogue on the internet is standing against the prevailing winds of the Zeitgeist, but it happens to be where I am.
What a cute little list. Somebody should tell her.
Meanwhile African Americans the very few of them constantly deal with “obstacles” from both Women and Men they work along. How about just moving obstacles in general and make it so everyone has a far shot at advancement.
Im black and have been denied everytime I apply to get on with the USFS or BLM it sucks cause I really want a career with the USFS
And why with all these promises are people still leaving the fed agencies in droves? Because they been making these promises for years and never followed through. Just more of the same BS.
Honestly, all departments in the FS need more money to fill positions that have been vacant for YEARS. They need to also get paid livable wages! We (fire) are just 1 part of the FS and we need all the other departments to help make our MX/RX projects a reality.
You’re right fire mama. The land management agencies have been picked apart, whittled away and centralized for decades. All of a sudden we’re in a “crisis” and the answer is just to dump a big pile of money on the problems. The whole GS pay scale needs to be revisited and a wholistic approach to righting land management agencies needs to happen – in addition to the fire and fuels workforce. There are specialist that play just as an important role in post fire stabilization as well. I’ve seen post fire effects that were arguably more destructive than the fire itself.
Blah, blah, blah. She sounds like a Jr High School kid running for class president “I’ll put a coke machine in the cafeteria, get rid of homework and everyone will get straight A’s”
I’ve had it with her inept, fumbling leadership and lying. Aside from a handful of degrees from obscure schools she has no experience whatsoever in fire/aviation. She’s basically the Imelda Marcos of the FS. Buh bye!!!!!
https://chng.it/pVjWczJb
I was thinking the same thing. It reads like a jr. high class president’s campaign speech. “I’ll make all your wildest dreams come true.”
I think the issue is OPM AND THE onboarding hiring should be at the districts discretion for hiring for example Ivs been a contract firefighter for 7 years with the goal of becoming a federal firefighter and last year got a tentative that was immediately rescinded cause some stock broker turned HR decided I my skin color was unfit for the fed fire world.
She lost the burn out and is trying to figure out how to save the line. Aka her job. Nice try for someone who has no experience in saving the line. Go figure. Ya can’t fool us.
The Deputy Chief is in way over her head. The very first principle of leadership is “Don’t misrepresent the facts”. Doing so will eventually bite one in the posterior at best and most likely erode agency credibility at worst. She needs to spend a couple seasons on an engine or brush crew. I doubt she can empty a boot with the instructions written on the heel.
It is time for some accountability & there are ample opportunities to demonstrate unacceptable performance.
So committed they’ve only recently been addressing it after years of scoffing, ignoring us, telling us to go to a different agency and just last week telling fed firefighters not to talk about it publicly hahaha
USFS Management have a twisted way of showing commitment to their employees in fire.
Ms. Hall-Rivera, said “Bringing more women into the wildland fire workforce and removing obstacles to help them thrive there.”
1) You wouldn’t have to bring more women into wildland fire if you hadn’t fired them.
2) Remove obstacles – Defund HRT.
3) Low bar – Instead of firing women when they are raped fire the men.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that!!!
What does she mean about “paying equally”? Does it mean equitable to other fire services? Hopefully it means “more”. Engineering needs a lot more money to do anything with housing besides keeping it the important parts running, unless they are going to start subsidizing private rentals or something. Which would work too I guess depending on the local market.
The deputy chief kinda sounds like a meme waiting to happen.
Agree with “Our Take”… There is a lot of garnish and not much meat. Maybe they could consider hiring a third party professional to attend meetings about it and get some actionable items kicked out? It was done for at least one workforce development meeting and it was worth the cost of bringing the mediator in.
I heard some rumors the BLM was coming up with actual dates to move on some of it, but FS so far at the ground level just sounds like a noisy pet store.
How does the Chinese Proverb go again? “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Again… I think just highlights the reason more people should sign the following petition:
https://chng.it/pVjWczJb
I think that was George Bush
I believe he said, “fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, well, you ain’t going to fool me again.”
Yes… It was, he was trying to remember a “Chinese Proverb.”
https://youtu.be/KjmjqlOPd6A