By Michael Scott Hill
While being briefed pre-season on changes to the wildfire staff for U.S. federal resource agencies, I realized that many people don’t understand the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Department of Interior AD system.
We’re called ADs but few people realize the acronym stands for Administratively Determined; we’re the hidden resource of federal fire response, the steady backbone that helps to staff federal resource agencies on emergencies year after year. ADs are managed by local federal administrative units but deployed to assist on federal responses to nationwide emergency events.
This article is first published in Wildfire Magazine – read the full edition.
Background
In the early days of the Forest Service’s responses to local wildfires and other emergencies, employees were often required to wear two hats. One of the hats was a person’s primary job, such as being a ranger or forester; the other role was crew boss or fire engine operator.
The Forest Service was young and many of its remote offices were far from each other. At times, extra help would be hired and brought from nearby communities to assist with fire emergencies; the extra personnel were released from employment once the need passed.
This loose emergency-responder militia structure, with its ability to swell by accessing the Forest Service’s professional but non-fire workforce and then bring in contract people quickly afterwards, is unique. Having worked around other international fire agencies and the military in Afghanistan, my sense is that the flexible fire-response militia is a hidden strength for the Forest Service and its related federal agencies with wildfire response commitments.
Neither the US military nor other international fire agencies can deploy such an efficient, low-paid workforce, coiled and ready to respond at a moment’s notice, to the range of wildfire and national emergencies to which the Forest Service’s ADs respond and then quickly fade back into the civilian landscape. Indeed, even US National Guard members do not deploy as frequently as the federal ADs, nor do they face the range or volume of risks that ADs regularly experience.
Who are they?
The idea of an AD workforce that is deployed then quickly released when no longer needed is built on a labor force supply of retired, or separated, federal employees who maintain their federal response qualifications.
Many people believe all ADs are retired employees with full federal retirement benefits; some ADs fit that description. However, others who became ADs had left their federal employment for various reasons then began working as ADs, making annual salaries of only tens of thousands of dollars, with no retirement or other benefits from the Forest Service or its sister federal agencies, while being sent to the front lines of federal emergencies more often than most US military units.
I have been in the AD ranks for years and have helped to save countless communities and lives from wildfires; I’ve also served with US military forces overseas in war zones. I have seen how US military service members are honored for taking sometimes only a fraction of the risks experienced each summer by many ADs and other federal forces, who are on call for the Forest Service, risking their lives and potentially damaging their health during national emergencies.
The official guidance for land management agencies supports AD hiring to:
1. Cope with a sudden and unexpected emergency caused by a fire, or extreme fire potential, flood, storm, or any other all-hazard emergency that threatens damage to federally protected property, has the potential to cause loss of life, serious injury, public health risk, or damage to natural or cultural resources unless brought under immediate control.
2. Provide emergency assistance to states under formalized agreements.
3. Meet mission assignments issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
How are ADs used?
ADs fill in seamlessly at the side of federal and state employees on the front line of federal disaster responses. ADs staff many federal incident management teams organized to provide leadership in emergency response. ADs manage firefighting crews, conduct federal aviation operations, and fill in elsewhere, often having advanced skills and qualifications.
ADs face the flames and other dangers including floodwaters, often right next to the active federal employees but without the security net of retirement benefits, job protections or decent annual salaries, while cumulative health damage takes its toll on the future quality of our lives.
Why do we do it?
Being an AD has its benefits. As temporary on-call federal employees, ADs can feel part of the federal emergency response force while still going about our normal lives and finding regular employment. We are free to take assignments for which we are available, and we have the freedom to decline those for which we are not. We can use and hone skills and qualifications developed during lengthy careers in various aspects of federal emergency response. Many ADs enjoy the comradery of the work, the travel it offers, and the satisfaction of assisting during emergency responses.
Challenges
The Forest Service’s AD world has experienced challenges. In 2017, there was a push at the national level to terminate the ADs hired locally by USFS units, seemingly due to cultural changes as a new generation of management began to fill gaps left by Baby Boomer retirements. In response to this 2017 push, the USFS relationship with its ADs became formalized.
Post 2017, as ADs were a federally deployed national resource, some local AD managers began to view as unnecessary the extra work it took manage the ADs.
In some cases, local AD managers began to prune their AD ranks, even going outside federal polity to do so. As there is no mechanism for ADs to file complaints against their full-time federal managers, many ADs walked away. Because there is minimal employment protection for ADs, their sponsorship can easily be terminated, even after years of service.
During this era, policy was enacted requiring ADs to live in the same geographic location where they were sponsored by an AD unit. The policy, combined with the new management culture, resulted in the loss of many experienced ADs.
In some cases, managers have seemingly put personal projects ahead of long-practiced policy. One example was someone who wanted to make the fire ground safer and championed a formalized medical screening process for ADs to ensure they were fit enough to go to the firelines. In theory this was a great idea that could save lives. However, not all ADs have health insurance, and the screening policy resulted in the loss of many more good ADs.
Where from here?
There is talk within the Forest Service about reorganizations and staffing cuts. My purpose for writing this piece is to ensure ADs are not forgotten as the federal resource agency’s hidden force multipliers. ADs, with their knowledge and federal emergency qualifications, are and have long been a valuable part of the federal work force. I would argue that if the AD role remains during any reorganization of the US federal wildfire efforts, the framework of AD management in place since 2017 should be reviewed.
In my opinion, ADs should be offered some buffer as temporary federal employees so they can activate the federal grievance system if necessary. I also believe the geographic location hiring rule for ADs should be discarded, as ADs are used by the Forest Service at the national level.
Why does it matter?
Wildfire professionals who have given their lives to emergency response work – often at great personal cost – deserve respect, fairness, and procedural integrity. When experienced ADs can be dismissed with no avenue for review, it sends a message that dedication and expertise count for nothing. In an updated AD program that serves our national goals, former ADs who have been removed from the program should be able to have their AD sponsorships reviewed and renewed at a national level, as we are national resources.
In return for their call-when-needed roles, ADs should be provided pay, protections and allowances equal to the risks they undertake. Thus, we should consider the simplest solution – to make the federal AD program national, based under one umbrella, or convert the program from individual ADs into a group of federal contractors who are employed by private companies. Then all the above concerns can be covered within the contract.
The AD system is and has always been of tremendous value to the whole of the Forest Service and related agencies. It’s time this loyal workforce is better understood, recognized and valued.
Michael Hill, a longtime member of the Administratively Determined workforce of the United States federal fire responders and one of Wildfire magazine’s Associate Editors, manages a Chinook in California.
7 Comments
Spot on! Some units have respect for AD’s, while others are jealous of the skills and knowledge acquired by working in different fuel models!
Yes low pay, no overtime or hazard pay. Yet the AD works beside employees who are receiving.
Personally, I spent 20 years as an AD, and was never a full time Federal employee. I was also the first AD to achieve primary Chief Officer on a federal incident management team, with no fed employment history. People such as myself built entire careers as an AD. Frankly I do not see how the national teams could exist without AD members.
Fully agree
Excellent summary of the issues and program. As someone who continued as an AD in incident management after I retired from the National Park Service I finally feel many of my concerns validated. After only a year as an AD I realized the we as a group were not valued by the agency which surprised me since many were recent retirees of the same agencies. I was going out in two positions; as an air operations director and as a PIO. Both paid only a couple of dollars more per hour that I was paying someone to do house keeping.
The forest and dispatch center that sponsored me had an AD militia of about 25 folks. Then suddenly in 2018 they held a meeting and told us they were culling and would only keep those who could most benefit the local unit. They said it was costing more to have a 1/2 time FTE manage the program that it was worth. I was spared probably because of my high aviation quals, plus I had started working as an AD dispatcher. Only about 7 were kept. I worked as an AD sponsored by the forest until 2020 when I got fired and had no recourse to appeal. My offense? In a Facebook post to my friends (which include many in my fire family) I mention that all of us who were assigned to a large fire were tested for covid because someone who had tested positive had been in camp a couple days leading to exposures.
Ironically, many who were dumped after the 2017 purge came out better in the long-run and discovered the golden road of coorperator sponsorship. Municipal fire departments were coming to realize that they could make some extra revenue by sponsoring qualified wildland personnel. I became sponsored by my local sherriff’s emergency services division. That entitled me to overtime pay which we didn’t get as a federal AD. I have heard that some departments will even pay their call- when -needed wildland folks a hazard premium for work that meets the federal requirements.
I think the feds have shot themselves in the foot with how they’ve handled the AD program. I don’t see things getting better under this adminstration.
They (WO level folks) have been trying to get rid of the AD program for as long as I can remember. In the early 2000’s I was a member of the national business management committee, and still vividly remember a HR person from the WO saying the AD program had to be abolished. When I asked why, the answer was “because”. When I mentioned that a significant percentage of our IMT’s were staffed with highly qualified AD’s, and that without them our response levels would drop dramatically, I was told I was wrong. IMO it is jealousy driven by people who want to retire but can’t, or want to AD but have not shown the commitment to get IQCS quals through the proper process. The AD program provides a really cost effective work force for the Wildland Fire agencies, yet management still struggles to recognize the value….
I remember when the purge came. One of the SoCal forests aggressively pushed folks out the door while the other three left it as is. Also, unit by unit AD’s are either treated like a valued resource or the unwanted stepchild.
Back in the day full-time employees both fire and non-fire were motivated and able to join the IMT world. As budgets shrank and attitudes about work/life balance evolved, the “pool” of green shirts diminished, the blue shirt and AD pool increased. I thought when they disbanded a California IMT, that something would change….. it’s the USFS nope.
As far as local government supplemental employees were concerned, that was getting out of hand, with portal to portal and administrative fees in a few cases exceeding 20%. When the language changed in the CFMA and local agreements, many of those folks opted to drift into full retirement versus going back to the federal government as an AD.
The AD ranks are a mixed bag for sure, many units staff their tankerbase and dispatch operations with AD’s for the entire fire season. I can think of one unit in which the dispatch center uses AD’s year-around. We could pick apart the reasons behind all of that, ranging from recruitment/retention issues to the “good old boy” system, but that’s not my point. The use of AD’s expanded from the days where the Ranger would run into town and grab the stumblebums out of the bar and send them to the fire.
How would I modernize the program? I’m not quite sure, might have to leave that up to the smart people.