Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sept. 29, 2022.
During a hearing today before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee a number of issues important to federal wildland firefighters were discussed. The two witnesses from the agencies were John Crockett, Associate Deputy Chief, State and Private Forestry, Forest Service, and Jeff Rupert, Director of the Office of Wildland Fire for the Department of the Interior.
We don’t have time to get into the details, but here are the points at which some key topics were covered in the video above, which shows the entire hearing:
45:19. Three-day break in service which can result in a firefighter (FF) losing eligibility for FF retirement.
49:50. Forest Service counting the same acres of fuel treatments multiple times.
54:47. FF mental health.
1:00:00. Protecting Giant Sequoias from fire during their 3,000-year life span.
1:06:30. How many firefighting aircraft do the agencies have?
1:22:20. FF pay, and a long term solution.
1:27:50 and again at 1:37:30. A possible new requirement for air tankers to have pressurized cabins.
1:33:45. Why have the agencies not accomplished more acres of fuel treatments?
The Grassroots Wildland Firefighters clipped portions of the hearing, as you’ll see in the short videos below.
Senator Murkowski asks the USFS and DOI about long-term pay for Federal Wildland Firefighters:
Senator Heinrich asks the DOI what they are doing for Firefighter Mental Health:
Forest Service and DOI Respond to Three-Day Break In Service Issue for Wildland Firefighters:
The House of Representatives narrowly passed the legislation Friday. Now it goes to the Senate.
12:46 EDT, July 27, 2022
Rep. Joe Neguse interviewed on CNN July 27, 2022 about the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act.
In this video from CNN, Brianna Keilar interviews Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse about the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, H.R. 5118, which would benefit wildland firefighters. It boosts their pay and benefits, helps the Forest Service fill gaps in fire management staff, and promotes bigger forest management projects to reduce hazardous fuels.
The bill is a conglomeration of half a dozen pieces of legislation, including the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Pay Parity Act (H.R. 5631), all rolled into one. It would require that the minimum basic pay for any Federal wildland firefighter position be no less than the pay for a GS-6 Step 3, which is $42,946 a year ($21.29 an hour). It would also stipulate that the salary be adjusted annually by not less than the change in the Consumer Price Index.
Firefighters on the Dixie Fire at Greenville, CA, 2021. Jay Walter.
Saturday morning CBS broadcast an 8-minute piece on national TV that laid out some of the issues causing the recruitment and retention issues for wildland firefighters in the federal land management organizations. They interviewed several very experienced firefighters including some who resigned. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore was confronted about his statement before a Congressional Committee that 90 percent of firefighting positions were filled. It turns out he was assuming that 100 percent of the job offers were accepted, which was not accurate.
Firefighters near the site of a venting propane tank on the Dixie Fire. August 4, 2021. Jay Walter photo.
By Kelly Martin, President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a personnel specialist nor am I am classification expert.When I worked on the inside as a federal government employee, I witnessed first-hand my inability to effectively recruit, promote and retain top talent.I felt frustrated as a Fire Management Officer to see applications disqualified because of our conservative approach to human resource management.301 versus 401 job series; two different Departments creating Interagency Fire Program Management Standards; lack of career ladders and developmental position descriptions; five different agencies interpreting personnel regulations; GSA policy which forces agencies to raise employee housing rents to be comparable with surrounding communities; and known higher morbidity and mortality among wildland firefighters.I’m sure the reading audience here will add to this list.There are many systemic problems with recruitment, promotion and retention that cannot be fixed by creating a new job series classification for federal wildland firefighters and implementing hourly wage increases, but it’s a start to a long game that people have been dedicated to for decades.
To say that Grassroots Wildland Firefighters started this effort to correct years of misclassification and addressing oppressive wages falls short of recognizing the many hundreds of people who have come before us.As I read old reports and research, I can say there have been some very dedicated and persistent federal employees who tried to correct a growing concern about recruitment and retention who are now watching their original efforts come alive again.They are there silently and some vocally stepping forward to advocate on their own behalf for much needed reforms.All of us past, present, and future federal wildland firefighters feel like we have finally elevated our collective voice to our DC agency leaders who are willing to listen, sympathetic national media outlets, and most importantly the people we have elected to represent us in Congress who are interested in becoming more educated about federal wildland firefighters
We are on the eve of announcements from Office of Personnel Management through our five federal wildland fire agencies regarding Wildland Firefighter Classification and Compensation.Grassroots Wildland Firefighters holds a hard line that any new classification shall include a job series that addresses all primary and secondary firefighters from “hire to retire”.What gets announced from OPM is anyone’s guess. Not exactly sure why this classification process has to be so secret and opaque.
First let me start with what we can anticipate will be addressed as it pertains to Classification.We will not likely remain in the GS-0462 Forestry Technician series as federal wildland firefighters, although you can choose to stay in that series.In the late 60’s and early 70’s there was a series for entry level firefighters called Fire Control Aids as GS-0456-3,4 and 5’s.Maybe it went higher than a GS-5 but I can’t seem to find any documentation of such.Many people older than me who spent a career in federal wildland fire explained that there were no career ladders for wildland firefighters above the GS-5.Enter 0462 Forestry Aids and Forestry Technicians.In the 1970’s Regional and National leadership could see a career path for this new and emerging field of wildland fire management.Problem was there was very little career advancement beyond a GS-9 technician.Some of you reading this will remember the shift to a GS-0460 to get people in higher leadership positions but they needed a college degree in Natural Resources.The GS-0301 and GS-0401 series for upper management positions is still in use today but was to be discontinued when OPM completed the new position description for Federal Wildland Firefighters.I remain hopeful we will all be in one series.
So where does this leave us today?We may see a re-tread of the GS-0456 series – the original Fire Control Aid of the 60’s and 70’s; we could see the GS-0081 series, a mostly Department of Defense structural firefighter series which would subsume wildland firefighters, or we could see a whole brand-new series devoted specifically to federal wildland firefighters.Whatever gets announced will surely be welcomed by thousands of federal wildland firefighters, or maybe it will fall short of our expectations.We do know there is no link between this new classification series and an increase in pay.The new series will be the same pay as our current General Schedule pay rate; no change.
Now for compensation.We know that an increase in pay is not the answer to all our proposed reforms, but compensation will certainly begin to address the oppressive wages we have been living and dying with for decades, to say nothing of our inability to secure affordable housing.
As you know the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has a provision in the law to increase wildland firefighter compensation.Our original hope was to increase firefighter pay by 50% or $20k for all primary and secondary firefighters regardless of GS level.The intent of the law, as broadly defined, would provide an hourly pay raise by 50%.So a GS-3 making $13.78 in 2022, under the law, would essentially become $20.67 an hour for base pay and roughly $31.00 overtime rate.Given the risk, exposure and consequences for these women and men on the frontlines as we speak, they are the ones most vulnerable to accidents, injuries, lifetime disability, and potential line-of-duty death. Hard to affirm if this compensation seems reasonable for federal wildland firefighters in an effort to better recruit and retain top talented individuals, but certainly better than we have now.
This is a once in a generation (or several generations) to get this right for the federal wildland firefighters who are on the firelines today watching us, expecting us to act deliberately for classification and compensation reforms, providing physical and mental health resources, and affirming presumptive diseases and cancers.We are far from the finish line but we are making an impact due in large part to all of you who have and continue to support and put sweat equity into Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.
A sincere heartfelt thank you to all of you and to Wildfire Today for amplifying our collective voices!
Fire crews on the Route Fire in Southern California, 4:40 p.m. Sept. 11, 2021, about five minutes before they were nearly entrapped. Photo by one of the firefighters.
I have never seen anything like this. Over the past few months numerous politicians have been motivated and nationally recognizable media outlets have assigned reporters to dig through the opaque barriers established by the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service to expose the worsening working conditions of wildland firefighters. Even though Congress passed a law requiring improvements in several areas, the bureaucratic morass of inaction driven by the indecisiveness of leaders has led many of them to abandon all hope, and quit.
Reasons cited by current and former firefighters include very low pay, long hours, too much time away from home, too little time with families, limited opportunities for career growth, costs of housing, inadequate mental health support, and the temporary and sometimes life-altering physical injuries experienced by these tactical athletes. This has led to severe difficulties in hiring and retaining firefighters, resulting a large number of vacant positions at all levels.
One of the latest well-researched pieces about the decline of working conditions for federal firefighters was published today, written by Alex Wigglesworth, a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. It is titled, “Hellish fires, low pay, trauma: California’s Forest Service firefighters face a morale crisis.”
In addition to documenting and elaborating on the issues above, their research found:
“Only 62% of federal firefighter positions [in California] are filled, according to a source within the agency. Before 2020, nearly all firefighter positions across the nation would typically be filled at this time of year.”
“Roughly a third of all Forest Service fire engines in California are on five-day staffing, meaning there aren’t enough crew members to operate them seven days a week.”
“Another 13% of engines are “down staffed” — essentially parked due to lack of firefighters.”
The reporter mentioned Chris Mariano who was a GS-6 Squad Boss on the Truckee Hotshots in Northern California until April 7, 2022 when he resigned. Wildfire Today published a letter he wrote at the time. He said drafting it was difficult — the best part of his life was working as a hotshot on the Tahoe National Forest:
“I prospered — I was all in,” he wrote. “I wanted nothing more than to be a hotshot, to be a leader, to care for the land and to be of service. While the sense of purpose and camaraderie remain, I now feel hypocritical to recruit or encourage crew members to work for an agency that is failing to support its fire management programs and thus the public.”
“The agency is failing its firefighters on so many levels. Classification, pay, work life balance, mental health, presumptive disease coverage, and injury/fatality support. There are efforts to correct some of these issues but for many it is too little too late…We are losing people at a terrifying rate at a time when wildfires burn longer, hotter, more frequently, and with devastating severity.”
