What do we owe wildland firefighters?

By Jonathon Golden

“It’s like having gasoline out there,” said Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona, in a recent AP story about the increasingly fire-prone West.

Now something else is happening — and at the worst possible time.

Federal firefighters are leaving the workforce and taking their training and experience with them. The inability of federal agencies to offer competitive pay and benefits is creating hundreds of wildland firefighting vacancies.

Vacancies, of course, limit how much federal firefighters can do. If Western communities want to be protected, they need to ensure that their firefighters receive better pay and benefits.

Jonathon Golden
Jonathon Golden

In my 11 years of work as a wildland firefighter, I’ve managed aircraft, trained people and run fires myself, but I also did outreach and recruitment for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. I know how hard it is for hiring managers to make 2,000 hours of grueling work, crammed into six exhausting months, sound appealing when the pay is $13.45/hour. The pay doesn’t come close to matching the true demands or everyday dangers of the job.

Federal wildland firefighters, by necessity, are transient workers. During the fire season — now nearly year-round — they must be available to travel anywhere in the United States at any time. And to advance in their career, they have to move to other federal duty stations to gain more qualifications.

Finding affordable housing has always been a problem for career firefighters on a federal salary. To make matters worse, federal agencies revoked the “Transfer of Station” stipend for career employees, which helped offset the cost of moving. Just recently, a national forest supervisor also revoked a “boot stipend.” It might sound minor, but it isn’t: When you’re in the firefighting business, boots tough enough to save your life can easily cost you $500.

Some states aren’t relying on the government to act quickly. “We aren’t just waiting for the next crisis to hit,”said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, in establishing an $80.74 million Emergency Fund that delivers an additional 1,256 seasonal firefighters to boost CALFIRE’s ranks. This Emergency Fund is in addition to the governor’s $1 billion budget request for California’s Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan.

In Washington, state legislators unanimously passed a $125 million package that will enable the state’s Natural Resources Department to hire 100 more firefighters. The legislation furthers the state’s efforts to restore forest health and creates a $25 million fund to ensure community preparedness around the state.

Utah’s House Bill 65, recently signed into law, appropriates money to help Utah’s communities offset the cost of wildfire suppression. Most importantly, it commissions a study to evaluate the current pay plan for firefighters within Utah’s Natural Resources Department.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Casey Snider, was amazed to learn that frontline wildland firefighters make more money at McDonald’s: “These positions are critical,” he said. “They are the first ones on fires.” This year, Utah has already had five times the number of wildfires it normally experiences in a year.

And firefighters are organizing and speaking up. The Grassroots Wildland Firefighters is working to halt the exodus of firefighters from federal agencies by advocating for pay parity with state and local fire protection agencies. The group also supports initiatives to assist the physical and mental health of firefighters and their families. The statistics they highlight are shocking: Wildland firefighters have a suicide rate 30 times higher than the average. They also experience high incidences of cardiovascular disease and lung cancer.

There is talk on the federal level of creating a permanent, year-round firefighting workforce. I think this is a necessary step, but it won’t fix the workforce capacity issue unless increased pay and benefits are used to encourage the recruitment and retention of federal firefighters.

We all know that today’s wildfires are longer, more damaging and more frequent than ever before. We also know that men and women are putting their lives on the line for less than they’d earn at a McDonald’s.

Our firefighters do all this to protect our lives, our forests and our communities. We owe them at least a living wage and a chance for a healthy life. I hope more states and legislators will start paying attention. This is a debt that needs to be paid.

Jonathon Golden is a writer for Writers on the Range, a nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He lives in Park City and has 12 seasons as a wildland firefighter. He resigned in 2019 to prioritize his family and find a sustainable career. In 2020 Jonathon started Golden Group, LLC, a consulting company that focuses on domestic and international conservation initiatives as well as national security.

Fight fire aggressively, having provided for mental health first

American Elk prescribed fire Wind Cave National Park
A firefighter ignites the American Elk prescribed fire in Wind Cave National Park, October 20, 2010. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

By Anonymous

Note: For the purposes of this article and ease of language I will be referring to “forestry technicians” (our official job title) as “wildland firefighters.” I and many of my cohort strongly identify with the latter classification.

I am a federal wildland firefighter experiencing mental health issues. It doesn’t matter who I am, where I work, or what my demographics are because there are many like me. In the middle of my career, neither fresh nor wise, I am facing some tough questions. By explaining my perspective I hope to shed light on this worsening epidemic. Maybe my experience will encourage people to check in on their employees, peers, family or friends in fire. Perhaps with the countless other stories coming out these days policy-makers will listen and start to adjust their tactics.

There have been bad fire seasons before; I’ve worked too many hours with unpleasant people, had tyrant bosses, and experienced a smattering of sexual harassment. There was Yarnell. I’ve weathered it all not with grace but with sheer tenacity. Of course I’ve made my share of mistakes, talked back when I should have kept my mouth shut, kept my mouth shut when I should have spoken up, but I consider myself an average federal employee in this regard. I’m good at my job and maintain a high level of passion for it.

In all honesty I’ve struggled with mental health in some form most of my life. I do not believe this invalidates my experience or the responsibility of the agency to recognize its problems. Certainly the all-or-nothing seasonal nature and high levels of true stress don’t help and even augment mental health issues. Lack of commensurate pay and benefits take their toll on morale as well. A global pandemic, amplified racial tensions, and drastic climate change contribute to the daily anxiety of most people whether they are in fire or not. Our issues are not unique but they are perhaps amplified, and with more potential for danger. In any case here I am now, taking leave from a job I mostly love and mostly need to get by.

I’m convinced my first season on a hotshot crew saved my life. This occupation has provided me structure, financial stability, and camaraderie. In return it has asked of me integrity and accountability. I spent the whole winter before that first season with dark ideas permeating my thoughts. Somehow, two weeks before critical I snapped out of it enough to show up and not quit. It was a tough start but I caught up and halfway through the summer I was walking around laughing with a saw on my back.

Currently it’s as if the dark portion of my mind that usually takes up 5%-20% has almost completely taken over. This part of my brain wants to break me down, call myself an imposter, and ultimately kill me. I am in sink or swim mode; I am trying to save my own life this time. It became clear as the season drew closer that I was not mentally prepared to be the high-functioning firefighter I usually am. I chose to draw back and focus on my personal life rather than risk becoming a liability on the job.

So often we think of our “work life” and “personal life” as being distinct and separate entities. I would like to express that this mentality is highly detrimental to the lives of employees. We cannot adequately perform our duties when there is such a rift between what we ask of firefighters and what we provide to them. Keeping your personal life separate is an old-guard means of avoidance. It also denies the possibility that our two lives can actually intertwine and complement each other. If we talk about the “fire family” and supporting our people, we cannot ignore the high numbers of individuals currently struggling.

In my fight against mental illness I am extremely and perhaps rarely privileged to have a supervisor who convinced me not to resign. I am further lucky that this person’s bosses trust them to make this call. Maintaining my health insurance is proving critical to my efforts at achieving wellness. This time off is not without consequence for me. First and most obviously, I am experiencing a drastic reduction in my usual income without roughly 1000 hours of overtime to bank on. I will miss out on months of on-the-job training and the professional development and networking that happens so fluidly in the field. Thus far my fancy federal health benefits have fallen short as my insurance company keeps rejecting my doctor’s efforts to get me the treatments I need. More personally still, I carry guilt and shame from not showing up this season, including a sense of failure from not exercising my skills and attributes alongside my coworkers. 

One of my greatest fears when I consider my anticipated return to work is that people will find out. They will know I cracked. They may lose trust in my abilities; they may invalidate my strengths in light of my weaknesses. What will future potential supervisors say when they see I took an extended absence during what is sure to be a busy year in fire? I feel the weight of every destructive incident on my back, and I feel comfortable asserting that this is a common feeling. I do not however possess the mental capacity right now to worry about all that. I have made the selfish but necessary call to choose myself in this battle. 

Droughts are deepening, climates are changing, and we always seem to work short-handed. If I am not alone in my mental health crisis, which I am not, how will we continue to effectively manage increasingly larger and more disastrous fires? I would argue that we should not go another shift without providing the support our people need. We must allow our wildland firefighters to show vulnerability in the face of so much global chaos, and seek to do the actual work it takes to remedy this. Furthermore, we need to collectively fight the deep-rooted professional and cultural stigma around mental health. Just as if it were a catastrophic fire we must fight aggressively and with great urgency.

Note from Bill:

Help is available for those feeling really depressed.

  • National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255. Online Chat.
  • Anonymous assistance from the Wildland Firefighter Foundation: 208-336-2996.
  • National Wildland Fire and Aviation Critical Incident Stress Management Website.
  • Code Green Campaign, a first responder oriented mental health advocacy organization.
  • A new organization, Fire Mind, will be dedicated to helping wildland firefighters and expects to be fully operational by June 30, 2021.
  • Would you rather communicate with a counselor by text? If you are feeling really depressed or suicidal, a crisis counselor will TEXT with you. The Crisis Text Line runs a free service. Just text: 741-741

Suggestions for a medical program on a hand crew

wildfire in Alaska
File photo of wildfire in Alaska. BLM Alaska Fire Service.

Crew Medical Program — Structure and Guidelines

By Liam DiZio, Pioneer Peak Interagency Hotshot Crew

Lacking from documents outlining wildland fire crew structure are guidelines for a crew medical program. With 20+ crewmembers, crews are often their own best resource for coordinating patient care and extraction. Crew medical programs, then, must be based on this principle of self-sufficiency. This document aims to outline a sample crew medical program structure defining personnel structure, training, equipment, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to support a strong crew medical program. The goal of this document is to serve as a resource for crew medics and further the goal of standardizing robust crew medical programs in wildland fire. This document applies to any regularly organized wildland fire crew.

Medical Program Personnel Structure

Structuring a crew’s medical personnel ensures a consistent product of patient care and equipment accountability year to year. The suggested structure looks as follows:

Lead Medic
Assistant Medic
Line Medic                    Line Medic

Duties of above personnel are described below.

Lead Medic

The lead medic is the top of the accountability hierarchy for crew medical equipment and care. The lead medic begins the season by coordinating early season medical training and supply logistics. They then then maintain and inventory crew medical equipment and ensure the correct complement of crew medical gear makes it to the fireline daily. The lead is also responsible for patient care and associated medical paperwork. Lastly, the lead medic maintains a relationship with support personnel, taking advantage of training opportunities and organizing seasonal medical supply orders. Success in this position requires daily effort and expertise in a side of fire unknown to most. This role is most appropriate for senior firefighter or below.

Assistant Medic

The assistant medic is responsible for assisting the lead in all duties. The assistant serves as an additional point of contact for crewmembers and assumes lead’s function in their absence or in split squad configuration. Assistant medics should be familiar with all crew medical equipment, medical paperwork, medical supply logistics, and training needs. This role is most appropriate for senior firefighter or below.

Line Medic

Line medics are additional designated medical personnel on the crew. Having two additional line medics ensures that medical knowledge is spread throughout squads and tool/saw teams. Line medics are accountable for crew medical gear on the fireline and patient care in a trauma scenario. Line medics are familiar with contents and function of crew medical equipment. This role is most appropriate for senior firefighter or below.

All four designated medics should hold current EMT-B qualifications or above, ideally supplemented with real world experience. Successful crew medics come from various backgrounds such as civilian EMS, military medicine, and ski patrol. Further qualifications and endorsements allow the crew to carry additional equipment such as IV/IO fluids, various drugs, and advanced airway products.

Training

At the beginning of each season, all crewmembers require some form of medical refresher. This training can occur over one or more days of critical training. Training evolutions should include lecture, hands on skills practice, CPR certification, and medical scenarios.

Lecture

Taught by the lead and assistant, a medical lecture should include information on the crew’s medical equipment, medical mentality, medical incident SOPs, basic trauma care, common fireline medical emergencies, and minor fireline medical issues. Crewmembers should also be briefed on who their lead/assistant/line medics are and the crew SOP for calling out a medical incident on the radio.

Skills Practice

Following the lecture, crewmembers cycle through skills stations learning hemorrhage control and crew extraction platform procedures. These are the skills non medically trained crewmembers are most likely to perform in the field. The hemorrhage control station should include hands on tourniquet and wound packing training. The extraction platform station should include simulated carries and lessons on proper platform set-up and storage.

CPR

Professional CPR training can fit anywhere in the crew’s critical training and can be taught by outside resources or qualified crewmembers.

Scenario

Continue reading

An introduction to the BLM’s 19 hand crews

Long Draw Fire
Long Draw Fire in Oregon. Photo by Kevin Abel, BLM.

By Steve Shaw, BLM Fire Operations

The perfect harmony of 20 souls. Each one with just a bit more sweat and grit as the one before. The simple gratification of achievement, thanks only to the will and power of heart, mind and muscle.

The Bureau of Land Management Fire hand crew program consists of 19 crews spread across BLM’s diverse landscape, from Fairbanks, Alaska to Bakersfield, California, to Worland, Wyoming, and to Jackson, Mississippi. Each location offers hand crew members endless opportunities for professional and personal growth along with direct access to some of the best recreation on the planet. The hand crew program consists of Interagency Hotshot Crews, or IHC, and the only federal hand crews specifically established to provide opportunities for our nation’s military veterans.

The 2021 fire year starts in Jackson, Mississippi with the Jackson Interagency Hotshots. Established in 1997, the crew is the BLM’s first and only wildland fire resource east of the Mississippi River, with a mission that includes providing employment opportunities for students at historic black colleges and universities. The Jackson IHC typically spends the first half of the fire year in the eastern states assisting interagency partners with prescribed fire and wildland fire suppression. The latter half of the year, Jackson makes the annual trek west to join western firefighting forces for the normal peak of the fire year.

Silver State Interagency Hotshot Crew
Silver State Interagency Hotshot Crew igniting the 2016 Airport Road South Prescribed Fire in Nevada. BLM photo.

Interagency Hotshot Crews are some of the nation’s most highly trained, experienced, and physically conditioned wildland firefighting resources. The first IHCs were established in southern California in the 1940s by the USDA Forest Service and have since multiplied to near 110 total crews between all federal agencies and three IHCs hosted by Utah and Alaska. All IHCs meet the requirements found in the Standards for Interagency Hotshot Crew Operations. BLM’s IHC program began in the late 70s with the Silver State IHC in Nevada. Silver State’s home base and fire station is tucked on the east slope of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, just south of Carson City. The Silver State fire station was built in 2012, purposely designed and constructed to house the diverse gear, equipment, and employees assigned to IHCs. Additional IHC hand crews with purpose-built IHC fire stations are the Diamond Mountain IHC in Susanville, California, Ruby Mountain IHC in Elko, Nevada, Craig IHC in Colorado, and Snake River IHC in Pocatello, Idaho.

In southern Arizona, BLM’s newest hand crew, the Aravaipa Veteran IHC, also begins the annual fire year in March. Joined by Lakeview Veterans IHC in Klamath Falls, Oregon, they comprise the only two hotshot crews that blend traditional IHC traditions with an environment and atmosphere for military veterans. The two hand crews meet all IHC standards but add a mission that strives to be comprised completely of veterans. Aravaipa’s home base is uniquely situated on the Fort Huachuca U.S. Army Installation in Sierra Vista, a location that benefits both the Army and the BLM.

Devils Canyon Veteran Hand Crew
Devils Canyon Veteran Hand Crew in 2017. Photo by Bryan Nealy, BLM.

The BLM Veteran hand crew program began in 2012 with the establishment of the Vegas Valley Hand Crew in Las Vegas, stationed in the picturesque Red Rocks National Conservation Area. Like all BLM hand crews, Vegas Valley spends the summer months crisscrossing the western states in a fleet of specially designed wildland fire vehicles. The fleet includes two pickup trucks and two custom built crew carriers, designed by the National Fire Equipment Program at NIFC. The crew carriers become the adhoc home for each crew member, each with a specific seat and window to thousands of miles of the country. The BLM Veteran hand crew program also includes the Folsom Lake Veteran Hand Crew in Placerville, California, Medford and Spokane Hand Crews in Oregon/Washington, Montana’s Billings Hand Crew, and Devils Canyon Hand Crew in Worland, Wyoming. While all hand crews meets the same National Wildfire Coordinating Group, or NWCG, standards, each one brings their own diverse skillsets, specialties, and traditions.

As the fire year trends towards the hottest months, the remaining BLM IHCs begin their fire year in early May. Joining the above mentioned IHCs are the Kern Valley IHC in Bakersfield, California, Vale IHC in Oregon, and Bonneville IHC in Salt Lake City, Utah. The two remaining BLM IHCs are jointly stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska. The Midnight Sun and Chena IHCs were established in 1985, both hosted by the BLM Alaska Fire Service. Both IHCs spend the first half of the fire year suppressing wildfires across the Last Frontier. These IHCs commonly travel via airplane and helicopter through the Alaskan tundra and spend up to 21 days in remote fire camps. Summer rains in Alaska see both IHCs fly to the “Lower 48” and retrieve crew vehicles at NIFC before joining summer firefighting efforts.

BLM Jackson Interagency Hotshot Crew
The BLM Jackson Interagency Hotshot Crew at the 2018 Spring Creek Fire near Blanca, Colorado. Photo by Jamie Schnick, BLM.

BLM hand crews find closure in October with seasonal employees embarking on well deserved time off and permanent employees starting the annual refurbishing of gear and equipment and starting planning and hiring for the next fire year. The application period for crew member positions begins in early fall, with most selections made in February. Permanent hand crew positions are rare and are advertised on usajobs.gov.

Whether a single fire year or an entire career, BLM’s hand crews provide much more than a modest paycheck. The real value lives in the lifelong memories, friendships, and sweat soaked footsteps across some of the most remote and stunning corners of our beautiful planet.

For more information visit nifc.gov/careers to learn more about #FireJob opportunities. It’s #NotYourOrdinaryJob.

BLM Folsom Lake Veteran Hand Crew
Photo by the BLM Folsom Lake Veteran Hand Crew in 2016.

Note from Bill: The title of the article was edited to correctly indicate that not all of the BLM crews are Interagency Hotshot Crews.