Remains found late last year in the San Bernardino Mountains in California have been positively identified as Carlos Baltazar, a US Forest Service firefighter who went missing during the El Dorado Fire in 2020, county officials have confirmed.
An investigation began in October last year when a hunter discovered a human remains in a remote part of the mountains near Highway 18.
As reported by Wildfire Today at the time, Baltazar was a member of the Big Bear Interagency Hotshot Crew in September 2020 that fought the El Dorado Fire, sparked after a gender reveal party gone wrong. Charles Morton, serving as the squad boss for the crew, died in the fire, and Baltazar’s family told local media that Baltazar had seemed depressed in the days after Morton’s death and went missing the week after.
The deadly El Dorado Fire scorched nearly 23,000 acres after erupting in September 2020.
A California couple pleaded guilty after accepting a plea deal to take responsibility for the blaze that was sparked by the gender reveal. The male pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure, while the female pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors. He was sentenced to one year in a county jail, two years felony probation and 200 hours of community service. In addition, the family was ordered to pay victims’ restitution of $1,789,972.
The act increases wildland firefighters’ special hourly base rates depending on an employee’s GS, or General Schedule, level. The increases include:
GS–1, 42 percent
GS–2, 39 percent
GS–3, 36 percent
GS–4, 33 percent
GS–5, 30 percent
GS–6, 27 percent
GS–7, 24 percent
GS–8, 21 percent
GS–9, 18 percent
GS–10, 15 percent
GS–11, 12 percent
GS–12, 9 percent
GS–13, 6 percent
GS–14, 3 percent
GS–15, 1.5 percent
It also requires firefighters to receive premium pay for instances when they’re deployed to wildfires. The daily pay is equal to 450% of one hour’s wages when they’re responding to an incident outside of their official duties or assigned to a separate fire camp.
The pay boost has been a source of anxiety for the nation’s wildland firefighting force not long after the Biden Administration approved a $20,000 retention bonus in 2021. The bonus was only supplemental and legislators intended to enact a permanent pay increase.
“I feel comforted by the fact that House Republicans included the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act in the House Interior Appropriations bill and that the Senate is there to match right alongside,” Jonathon Golden, a member of Grassroots, previously told WildfireToday. “My thought is that when we see a final Fiscal Year 2025 budget, we will also see some version of WFPPA that will make into law a higher pay for wildland firefighters.”
The United States Department of Agriculture on Tuesday announced each of the 6,000 probationary employees it had terminated since Feb. 13 now has their job back, the department said in a press release.
“By Wednesday, March 12, the Department will place all terminated probationary employees in pay status and provide each with back pay, from the date of termination,” USDA’s statement said. “The Department will work quickly to develop a phased plan for return-to-duty, and while those plans materialize, all probationary employees will be paid.”
The Merit Systems Protection Board, an independent federal court that focuses on government employee complaints, issued a stay order against the USDA on March 5. The Board ordered the reinstatement of every position terminated within the department since Feb. 13 to be reinstated for at least 45 days, on the grounds that USDA’s mass and indiscriminate termination was likely unlawful.
Wednesday, March 12, was the deadline for the USDA to submit proof it had complied with the Board’s order.
USDA’s mass firing on Feb. 13 included thousands of federal land employees, around 75% of which had secondary wildland fire duties, according to Grassroots Wildland Firefighters Vice President Riva Duncan, who obtained the numbers from the National Federation of Federal Employees’ Wildland Fire division.
“While ‘primary firefighters’ were exempt, the positions that were cut made some pretty huge contributions to operational wildland fire,” Duncan said. “For example, eastern national forests rely much more heavily on these collateral duty folks to do a lot of prescribed burning and initial attack of wildfires…There were people working the LA fires who, because it was the offseason, weren’t primary fire but were filling in on engines and crews.”
Lanny Flaherty was over 2,000 miles from home setting prescribed burns in Louisiana when he was fired from his Forest Service job.
The termination was immediate and did not include a severance package, Flaherty told WildfireToday. Despite being miles away from his Oregon home on official duty, Flaherty was told he’d have to find his own way home. It took his union fighting on his behalf for the USFS to temporarily rescind his termination so he could get home.
Flaherty was a range ecologist in Oregon’s Wallowa-Whitman National Forest whose primary duties were studying vegetation and fungi. But, like countless other USFS employees, he had wildfire-fighting secondary duties that made up around half of his job.
Credit: Lanny Flaherty
I pulled end-of-the-year earning and leave statements for the last few years and saw that I was spending around 40% to 50% of my hours on fire incidents,” Flaherty said. “That alone is thousands of man hours that aren’t going to be available the next time a fire pops up.”
Duncan said Flaherty’s experience was incredibly common across the Forest Service. Around 75% of the USFS probationary employees that the Trump Administration fired had secondary wildland fire duties, according to numbers Duncan obtained from the National Federation of Federal Employees’ Wildland Fire division.
“While ‘primary firefighters’ were exempt, the positions that were cut made some pretty huge contributions to operational wildland fire,” Duncan said. “For example, eastern national forests rely much more heavily on these collateral duty folks to do a lot of prescribed burning and initial attack of wildfires…There were people working the LA fires who, because it was the offseason, weren’t primary fire but were filling in on engines and crews.”
Both Duncan and Flaherty said the recent cuts would only strain firefighters further. Not only will the layoffs deprive firefighters of much-needed help, but firefighters have also since been asked to help pick up the duties of fired personnel, increasing an already heavy burden within the fire workforce.
“The remaining workforce becomes people charged with picking up trash at campgrounds or marking timber while we aren’t having fires,” Duncan said. “A lot of firefighters are concerned that they’re just going to be told to do even more with even less, have more of a burden, and maybe even held back from fire assignments to work on some of those other things, because some areas still do that.”
Despite the turmoil Flaherty’s firing caused, he said he’d still be willing to return to his job if an offer came his way. He still believes in the work he was doing and the importance of land stewardship, even if the current administration doesn’t believe in him or people like him. In the meantime, he hopes a tragedy doesn’t occur with understaffed fire crews.
“This is ultimately going to cost lives and endanger everybody that’s out there on the fire line,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty’s chance may come sooner than he expected. The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), an independent federal court that focuses on government employee complaints, issued a stay order against the USDA on Wednesday. The Board ordered the reinstatement of every position terminated within the department since Feb. 13 to be reinstated for at least 45 days, on the grounds that USDA’s mass and indiscriminate termination was likely unlawful.
It’s unclear how the reinstatement will actually play out, and how many employees will return, according to Duncan.
“No one seems to know what the next steps are or how to re-hire people,” Duncan said. “In other words, nothing seems to have trickled down to the (Forest Service) or (Department of the Interior) regarding this and the process.”
If Flaherty’s job, and the thousands of other public land positions, are reinstated, the process may be as chaotic as the original firing, which doesn’t inspire confidence in the department’s employees and an already strained wildland firefighting force.
USDA was ordered to submit proof it complied with MSPB’s stay by March 10.
It’s been over a month since President Donald Trump began his nationwide federal hiring freeze and job-cut effort. Since then, the impact on the nation’s wildland firefighting force remains unclear.
A USDA spokesperson told Wildfire Today that the agency had laid off 2,000 probationary employees from the Forest Service, but claimed the layoffs were non-firefighters.
“To be clear, none of these individuals were operational firefighters,” the USDA statement said. “Released employees were probationary in status, many of whom were compensated by temporary IRA funding.”
Reporting from various news outlets, however, gives first-hand accounts of employees with wildland firefighter roles having their jobs cut, many of which had jobs at the USFS.
Wildfire Today has a dedicated reader base of wildland firefighters, hotshots, and fire managers. We want to hear how these cuts have affected you, your colleagues, and your area’s firefighting force. In addition, many of the reports have been of cuts to related workers and programs, such as in land and forest management, public information activities, and new equipment purchases. These impact upon firefighting too.
Share your own experience with Wildfire Today in a comment below. Keep it short and succinct. Tell us what you are seeing so we can all get a better, wider view of what is going on.
Update – thanks for all the comments coming in. Your insights and honesty is much needed and welcomed. But just note that I am deleting any personal abuse, long articles cut-and-pasted into the comment, and comments just too obscure for anyone to understand. Keep it nice, keep it factual. We will follow up on some of the comments as best we can. David Bruce, editor, Wildfire Today.
El Capitan displays a massive American flag upside down in a public show of protest against cuts impacting Yosemite. Photo credit: Tracy Barbutes.
We have all come to wildfire with a different story. Here is an unprompted contribution from a reader, with a rich history in fire and life. As part of an occasional Wildfire Today series, and when we could do with a change of pace or a weekend read, here is the story of Ron Guy Jr, currently a wildland fire training coordinator at Tall Timbers.
The first time I fought fire, the world felt alive in a way I’d never experienced before—crackling flames, smoke curling against the spring sky, and the raw smell of scorched earth. Colorado, 21 years old, fresh-faced and wide-eyed, I’d just joined a volunteer fire department, still trying to make sense of the tools in my hands and the heavy bunker gear on my back. The call had come in about an agricultural burn gone sideways—out-of-control flames racing through dry grass and brush, threatening to jump fences into neighboring fields.
When they handed me the pulaski, it didn’t feel awkward or oversized—it felt like destiny. The weight of it in my hands hummed with purpose, as if it had been forged for this very moment. It wasn’t just a tool; it was an extension of me, a weapon against chaos, the hammer of Thor in a rookie’s grip.
Our crew moved quickly, scattered across a smoldering landscape littered with blackened cow patties. My job? Mop up. The seasoned guys smirked as they pointed me toward the smoking remnants of manure, a rookie’s rite of passage, but I didn’t flinch. Every swing of the pulaski, every shove of the shovel, felt like I was answering some ancient call—taming the fire, reclaiming the land.
The work was gritty, humbling, and unrelenting. Every step kicked up ash and dust, the heat biting at my face despite the cool spring air. But somewhere in that chaos, I found clarity. The fire had a rhythm, and so did we, moving in sync as we cut lines, doused embers, and worked to bring order back to the land.
That first fire wasn’t heroic or glamorous—it was dirty, exhausting, and full of cow patties—but it sparked something in me. I didn’t know it then, but those long hours in the smoke were the start of a journey, one that would carve into my soul a lifelong addiction to the wild, unpredictable beauty of fire and the camaraderie forged in its wake. And that was just the beginning.
Ron Guy Jr, Tall Timbers, on a burn in Colorado 2014
Discovering the mountains
I was born and raised in Ohio, where the forests were my playground and the seasons marked the rhythm of life. Growing up in the ’90s, my brothers and I spent every free moment outside, running wild through the woods behind our house. We climbed trees like squirrels, built forts out of fallen branches, and turned creeks into battlegrounds for stick-sword wars. When the leaves fell and the air turned crisp, we swapped games for hunting—following in the footsteps of our father, uncles, and grandfather.
Those woods were where I learned to shoot a gun, track a whitetail, and sit still long enough to let the forest come alive around me. We’d tromp through the underbrush in borrowed camo, carrying shotguns that felt too big for us, chasing deer in the fall and ducks in the winter. It wasn’t just about the hunt; it was about being part of something older than ourselves—a tradition, a rite of passage, a bond forged in cold mornings and quiet moments in tree stands.
I never wanted to be indoors. The hum of fluorescent lights and the artificial glow of TV screens couldn’t compete with the smell of wet leaves, the crack of a twig underfoot, or the thrill of spotting a set of antlers moving through the brush. The woods were my classroom, the wild my teacher, and every scrape and bruise a badge of honor. Those early days shaped me, carving into my soul a deep-rooted need for adventure and the outdoors—a spark that’s never gone out.
By my teenage years, the woods of Ohio started to feel small. My body had grown, but so had my hunger for something bigger. I started trekking into the Appalachians, flipping through the pages of a storybook written in stone and sky. Rock climbing became my new drug of choice—the exhilaration of dangling hundreds of feet off a cliff edge with nothing but calloused fingers and a thin rope to keep me alive. Backpacking was my therapy, days and nights spent wandering the Appalachian Trail, lost in my thoughts and the rhythmic crunch of boots on dirt. One winter, I climbed Mount Washington in a full-on whiteout, a white hell of wind and snow so fierce it could strip the sanity from your soul. And I loved every second of it.
But the Appalachians, wild as they were, couldn’t hold me forever. At 21, I left Ohio in search of something grander. The Rocky Mountains called to me, their jagged peaks slicing into the clouds like the spine of some ancient beast. Colorado became my new playground. I climbed 14ers, those mythical mountains towering over 14,000 feet. I shredded powder on snowboards and skis at resorts like Vail, where the snow was champagne-soft, and the air was as thin as a razor’s edge. Mountain biking through wildflower-laden trails and scaling vertical rock faces became my daily rituals. Life was raw, thrilling, and utterly intoxicating.
Fighting fire
I started out as a volunteer firefighter with a small-town Volunteer Fire Department, the kind of place where the firehouse doors were always open, and every call was answered by someone you knew. The pager on my hip became an extension of me, its shrill tone snapping me to attention at all hours. At first, it was a blur of training courses—swift water rescue, technical rope rescue, EMT-B. I learned to tie knots that could hold the weight of a truck and how to keep calm when someone’s life depended on it. We rappelled off bridges, waded chest-deep in icy rivers, and even practiced crevasse rescue, though I figured those skills were more suited to the Rockies than the Midwest. Every class felt like a new key unlocking a door to a world I’d barely begun to understand.
But for all the adrenaline and camaraderie, something was missing. Most of our calls were medical runs or the occasional car fire—not the roaring infernos I’d imagined when I first pulled on my turnout gear. One day, between drills, I sat down with my captain, a grizzled veteran who’d seen more fire than I could fathom. He’d spent years as a hotshot in California, battling blazes in places where the sky turned orange and the air itself felt combustible.
I asked him what it was like, and his eyes lit up as he described the rush of digging line, the roar of a crown fire racing uphill, and the unbreakable bonds forged on the fireline. “If you really want to fight fire,” he told me, “not just run medical calls, you’ve got to go west. You’ve got to be a wildland firefighter.”
Those words stuck with me. Fighting fire wasn’t just a job—it was a calling, a test of grit and endurance against something primal and unforgiving. I didn’t know it then, but that conversation was the spark. The next step was clear. If I wanted to trade medical bags for a pulaski and sirens for the roar of wildfire, I’d have to chase the flames to where they burned hottest.
When I decided to go west, I didn’t stop at the Pacific Coast—I went as far as I could go, all the way to Alaska. The land of endless summer daylight and fire seasons that stretched across millions of acres. I joined the Northstar Fire Crew, a feeder crew for the Midnight Suns and Chena Hotshots, the two elite Interagency Hotshot Crews in the state. The Northstars wasn’t just a fire crew—it was bootcamp and Survivor rolled into one. They weren’t just training firefighters; they were breeding hotshots, testing us in ways I never imagined, weeding out the weak and hardening the strong.
Ron Guy Jr, Tall Timbers, bottom right, with saw team Midnight Suns Interagency Hotshot Crew in 2011.
Every day was a grind. We worked long hours cutting line, hauling gear, and hiking through some of the most unforgiving terrain I’d ever seen. Alaska doesn’t care about your comfort—it’s a place that demands respect, where the fire is relentless, the mosquitoes are legendary, and the wilderness stretches farther than the eye can see. If the grueling pace wasn’t enough, we had weekly reviews out on the fireline. The leadership would call us together, go through each person’s performance, and then someone would be sent packing—flown out by helicopter from the middle of nowhere. It didn’t matter how remote we were or how hard they’d worked. If you didn’t meet hotshot standards, you were gone.
Those reviews kept us sharp. Every swing of the tool, every cut, every step—it all mattered. I pushed myself harder than I ever had, not just to stay, but to prove I belonged. By the end of that first wildfire season, I’d made it through. I wasn’t just surviving anymore; I was thriving. That fall, I earned my spot on the Midnight Suns, stepping into the ranks of some of the toughest firefighters in the nation.
That’s where I learned what it truly meant to be a hotshot, fighting fire in the most unforgiving conditions imaginable. Long hikes through tundra, carrying 50-pound packs across bogs that threatened to swallow you whole, and cutting line for hours under the midnight sun. Alaska wasn’t just a proving ground—it was a crucible, and it forged me into something stronger than I ever thought I could be.
I stayed on hand crews my entire career—ground pounder for life. After my time on the Midnight Suns, I shifted to a Wildland Fire Module, where we specialized in fire use and backcountry operations. It was a different pace, but the work still demanded grit and precision, lighting prescribed burns in remote areas or monitoring fires that were too rugged or dangerous for traditional suppression crews. From there, I moved to a prescribed fire crew, trading the chaos of wildfire for the controlled intensity of setting fires to restore landscapes. Every burn felt like a chess game against nature, balancing fire behavior, weather, and the land’s needs.
Eventually, I found myself on a Type 2 IA crew—back to the grind of initial attack, where you live and die by your speed, teamwork, and ability to adapt. Helicopter bucket drops or sawyers ahead of us, boots on the ground, digging line and holding fire in some of the toughest conditions imaginable. I loved it. Whether it was holding the torch, swinging a pulaski, or scouting the next line, I was exactly where I was meant to be—on the ground, in the thick of it, shoulder to shoulder with my crew. A frontline leader. A squad boss. That was the heartbeat of my career, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. For 15 years, I chased flames across the country, from the deserts of Arizona to the tundra of Alaska. The life on a handcrew is not for the faint of heart—long days, short nights, and the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that most people never experience. We slept under the stars more often than not, the ground our bed and the sky our blanket. But there’s something pure about that kind of life, something that strips away all the noise and leaves you with nothing but the essentials: grit, sweat, and a fierce love for the land you’re fighting to protect.
With a crew in California in 2015.
Eventually, I found my way to Tall Timbers Research Station in Florida, where I now serve as a training coordinator, sharing everything I’ve learned about fire with the next generation of practitioners. My focus has shifted from fighting fire to teaching about it—leading courses, mentoring future firefighters, and instructing practitioners on the art and science of prescribed burning.
Fire is a tool. When used with intention, it shapes ecosystems, restores balance, and breathes life into landscapes that depend on its renewal. It’s a delicate craft—a kind of alchemy that transforms destruction into growth—and it’s one I’ve come to respect deeply. Now, my role isn’t just to ignite the land but to ignite the minds of those who will carry this work forward, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to wield fire as a force for good.
Instructing in Alaska in 2019.
Finding balance
When I stand in front of a class of future fire practitioners, I tell them that there are so many ways into fire—it doesn’t have to be the federal route, and it doesn’t have to mean boots on the ground. If they do choose the federal path, I remind them that they don’t need to chase the hotshot dream if it’s not what drives them. Yes, hotshots see the most intense fire activity, and yes, they do things most people can’t even imagine, but that life isn’t for everyone. Hotshots are built different. Hand crew personnel are built different. Wildland firefighters, as a whole, are built different than structure firefighters. The key is to find what fuels your fire—whether it’s running saws on a crew, lighting drip torches, flying drones, or coordinating behind the scenes.
Students tell me it’s hard to find work-life balance, and I’m honest with them—it is. On a crew, fire becomes your life. You eat, sleep, and breathe it for months on end. That’s the reality of this work, and it’s not for everyone. If you want a life outside of fire, you need to pick a role that allows for balance. There are so many ways to fight fire while carving out a career that won’t burn you out. The future of fire doesn’t just need people who can dig line and carry heavy packs—it needs thinkers, planners, and leaders who can sustain the mission for decades.
Stepping away from being a primary firefighter wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the right one. My daughters mean more to me than chasing spot fires outside the line ever could. Fire season is relentless—long days, weeks away, missing birthdays and milestones. I didn’t want to miss any more. Being present for my family became my priority, and I knew I had to find a way to balance what I love with who I love.
Now, as a training coordinator, I can still contribute to the fire community that shaped me. I can pass on the knowledge and experience I’ve gained to those stepping into the field, helping them navigate their own journeys. I still feel the pulse of fire in my veins, but I’ve found a way to honor it while keeping my family at the center of my life. I’ve traded the frontlines for a role that lets me guide, teach, and support—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.It’s been a journey of grit, growth, and purpose, marked by moments of intensity, camaraderie, and transformation. Fire has taught me patience, resilience, and humility—qualities I now pass on to those stepping into this world for the first time.
As I look back, I see the threads that tie it all together: the lessons learned in the woods with my brothers, the early calls with the VFD, the relentless grind of hotshot life, and the quieter, deliberate craft of prescribed fire. Each step prepared me for this role, where my job isn’t just to teach but to inspire, to show students the many paths they can take and help them find the one that fits their fire.
The future of fire lies in their hands now, and I see the spark in their eyes. They are eager, determined, and ready to carry the weight of this responsibility. I tell them that fire is more than a job—it’s a calling, a lifelong commitment to something bigger than yourself. And while the work is hard and often unforgiving, it’s also deeply rewarding. If they can find their place in it, whether on the ground or in the air, behind the wheel or behind a desk, they’ll discover what I did: fire doesn’t just consume—it transforms.
This isn’t the end of my story—it’s just a new chapter. And as I step back to guide others, I know that the flame will burn brighter and stronger in their hands, carrying forward the work that began long before me and will continue long after I’m gone.
