“Recruitment and retention of qualified firefighters is a critical issue for national security”
Morning briefing May 8, 2022 on the Calf Canyon – Hermits Peak Fire as firefighters break out into Divisions. USFS photo.
A survey of 708 federal wildland firefighters found that they reported dissatisfaction with recruitment and hiring processes, insufficient base salaries, poor mental health outcomes, elevated risks to health and safety, and significant effects of wildland firefighting on family status.
It was conducted by Robin M. Verble, Rachel Granberg, and Seth Person, the latter two of which are federal wildland firefighters. On their wildlandfiresurvey.com website all three are seen in photos wearing Nomex fire clothing.
“Given the ever-increasing length, extent, and intensity of wildfire season, recruitment and retention of qualified WFF is a critical issue for national security,” the researchers concluded. “Concentrated legislative, organizational, and agency efforts are needed to systemically address the issues identified in this survey: Our survey provides specific actionable items that can improve retention and recruitment, as prioritized by current federal WFFs.”
The majority of respondents had a bachelors degree or higher, had a mean base salary of $28,545 to $37,113, and 75 percent worked for the US Forest Service.
Here are a few of the survey’s many findings:
92% of the respondents stated that they needed more than 300 hours of overtime work annually to pay their bills. 27% needed over 900 hours of overtime work annually to pay their bills.
Most of the respondents disagree or strongly disagree that they have affordable childcare options.
Approximately 67% of respondents reported that they have experienced an injury or illness as a result of their work in wildland fire.
Wildland firefighters divorce at a rate 2.5 times the national average.
Approximately 60% said they have missed out on jobs because of mistakes that Human Resources made.
Conservatively estimated rates of suicidal thoughts and ideation among WFFs is 16.5%.
Respondents report rates of ADHD at approximately 4 times the national average.
Based on the survey, the researchers listed ten strategies that federal agencies can implement to improve working conditions for wildland firefighters. In the report each one is explained in detail, but here are the topics:
Provide the right pay for the right job
Recognize the strain on families
Increase mental health care accessibility and resources
Combat unhealthy and unsustainable work-life imbalance
Rectify issues with workplace safety (rates of injury, violence, and sexul assault)
Improve health insurance benefits and timely injury compensation
Reimagine the hiring process
Address chronic mismanagement at the Albuquerque Service Center (human resources and hiring)
Promote a new deal for diversity
Build organizational trust through empowering local units
Data from Granberg, R., Pearson, S., and Verble, R. 2022. Survey of federal wildland firefighters: working conditions, safety, morale, & barriers to recruitment & retention. Report. Available online at wildlandfiresurvey.com
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.”
Chief Randy Moore said the agency has 10,184 firefighters on board
Updated at 9:04 EDT June 10, 2022
Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources June 9, 2022
In Washington today Senators questioned Chief of the US Forest Service Randy Moore about a number of issues during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Some the key topics included firefighter pay, fuel treatments, prescribed fire, escaped prescribed fire, hiring and retention, the number of firefighters in the agency, and firefighting aircraft. We’ll touch on some of them here, in the order they appeared in the hearing. An archived video of the entire hearing is available at the Committee’s website. Embedded below are clips created by the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.
48:29 — Senator Ron Wyden (OR) said, “The shortage of permanent wildland fire positions, if not addressed, is on it’s way to becoming a four-alarmer…What’s the most important response? Better pay, decent benefits for these firefighters so they can pay their rent and buy groceries. That is not the case today according to firefighters talking to me.”
Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, during June 9, 2022 hearing
Chief Moore replied, “You know Senator, if I had the ability to set the pay for my firefighters I would certainly do that. I am left with trying to implement direction that is given through legislation…We are going to use every tool in that legislation to pay our firefighters more because they are very deserving of it. It’s dirty, nasty, hard work and they do deserve better pay, they deserve better benefits, they deserve better care in terms of mental and physical health conditions out there.”
48:29 — Senator Wyden got a commitment from the Chief to respond within two weeks to the issues he listed in a June 7, 2022 letter sent to the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture about how the funds in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation (BIL) are being allocated and dispersed to the field, strategy for filling vacant positions, how to retain employees, progress on establishing the new Wildland Firefighter job series, and how to reduce the number of unfilled orders fires place for firefighting crews and engines.
1:02:09 — Senator Martin Heinrich (NM) asked questions about the escaped prescribed fires that led to the currently burning Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire.
1:15:50 — Senator Angus King (ME) gave an impassioned plea to implement the pay raises that were signed into law by President Biden eight months ago as part of the BIL.
“Eisenhower retook Europe in 11 months”, Senator King said. “You can’t do a pay raise in seven months? Come on!”
Senator John Barrasso (WY) also called for a pay raise.
1:18:45 — Senator Cortez Masto asked about what may be a temporary pay raise required by the legislation which would increase the salary of wildland firefighters by $20,000, or 50 percent of their base salary, whichever is less. Chief Moore said it will occur in “a couple of weeks”, and later said, “by the end of this month…That’s the goal. That’s what we’re shooting for.” Senator Masto was persistent, seeking facts and clarity, asking follow up questions, and getting details.
1:21:45 — Chief Moore discussed fuel treatments and emphasized that the treated areas must be large in order to effectively slow the spread of a very large fire. As far as accomplishing that, he said, “… Based on the fires we are having now, we do not have enough firefighters to really successfully stop fires the way they are behaving because they are behaving in a catastrophic manner.
1:27:10 — Senator Martin Heinrich (NM) questioned the trend toward closing fire lookout towers staffed by humans, and replacing them with technology. The Chief did not take the bait or respond directly.
1:55:50 — Senator Maria Cantwell threw Chief Moore what could have been a softball question. “Where we are with our [firefighting] air capacity,” she said. “We previously had this discussion with the Forest Service wanting them to have more ready resources. The Forest Service I think at that time didn’t want to be in the fleet management business and said we’d rather contract. How are you viewing those air resources now that we know that we have so many more fire starts…We want to know that we have that early phase retardant or water…How is the Forest Service managing that given the huge increase in fire starts?”
Chief Moore responded: “You may know now that we have access to about 27 VLATS, Very large air tankers, also the large air tankers and so far we are not running across a need for additional tankers in this particular case at this particular time. We also — I don’t know why these decisions were made in the past about the aircraft but we do know that they are expensive to maintain if Forest Service had ownership of them. But you know there are pros and cons about that so I won’t really go into that, I’m not familiar with what went into that many years ago. In terms of our aircraft, we certainly need aircraft to help us with fire suppression. We also know that there are limitations with aircraft as well because aircraft don’t put out fires. It’s boots on the ground is where the fires are really put out.”
His predecessor in April 2021 squandered a softball opportunity to tell the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies that the Forest Service needed more funding in two very important inadequately budgeted areas, fuels treatment and aerial firefighting. Today Chief Moore squandered a similar opportunity, giving an incoherent response when basically asked, “Do you have enough firefighting aircraft?”
The facts are, there are 2 Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT) and 16 Large Air Tankers (LAT) on exclusive use (EU) contracts, working for 160 days. To say “We have access to 27” VLATs and/or LATs is intentionally misleading. The Forest Service assumes that the additional tankers on Call When Needed (CWN) contracts that may or may not ever be used, are always available at private companies, with flight crews and mechanics that are available and ready to quickly activate if the phone rings. And, it assumes that those companies are still in business and the very expensive aircraft which may have been idle for months are fully maintained and airworthy.
There are only a total of four VLATs in the Western Hemisphere that could be used on fires in the United States, all DC-10s. Two are on 160-day Forest Service EU contracts and the other two were recently activated on 120-day “surge” contracts. It is also usually possible to activate up to eight military C-130s temporarily converted to air tankers by carrying a Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS). But after hearing some chatter, we are checking to see if those will be available this year.
Two studies conducted for the Forest Service made recommendations for the number of air tankers that are needed on exclusive use contracts. One said 35 and the other said 41.
2:00:30 — The very last topic covered was what we have called the Holy Grail of wildland firefighting safety; knowing the real time location of the fire and firefighters. Senator Manchin pointed out that “15 months past the deadline in the statute the Forest Service has not equipped firefighters with the safety gear despite the technology having been commercially available on the shelf for many, many years, and despite Congress having appropriated $15 million for this, so maybe you have an explanation for that.”
Chief Moore said “No one believes in this more than I do”, but he said his staff told him it was not funded. The Senator said he understood it was funded. The two sides agreed to get together and figure it out.
The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act required that by March 12, 2021 the five federal land management agencies “…develop consistent protocols and plans for the use on wildland fires of unmanned aircraft system technologies, including for the development of real-time maps of the location of wildland fires.”
While this technology has been demonstrated, real time mapping appears to be far from being used routinely.
The Dingell Act also mandated that the five federal land management agencies “jointly develop and operate a tracking system to remotely locate the positions of fire resources for use by wildland firefighters, including, at a minimum, any fire resources assigned to Federal type 1 wildland fire incident management teams”, due by the same date.
The US Bureau of Land Management has installed hardware for Location Based Services (LBS) which are now operational on more than 700 wildland fire engines, crew transports, and support vehicles. Vehicle position and utilization data are visually displayed via a web-based portal or mobile device application.
Fifteen months after it was required by Congress the US Forest Service has made very little progress on this mandate.
Whether or not the technology was specifically funded, it should be considered that the lack of situational awareness had led to dozens of fatalities on wildland fires and must be addressed.
We asked Kelly Martin, President of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, for their impression of today’s hearing:
Federal Wildland Firefighter Pay has been a priority for our elected officials since the BIL was passed last October. We are still waiting. We are hopeful this increase in pay will be delivered to firefighters in the next two weeks.
The article was updated to include the question and answer about the requirement for the five federal land management agencies to provide technology for the real time location of the fire and firefighters.
Approximately 35 percent of entry- to mid-level positions on engine crews are filled in California
La Grande Hotshots on a fire in New Mexico, May, 2022. Photo by Lagrande Hotshots.
As the Western states enter the traditional wildland fire season there is a report that only 65 to 70 percent of US Forest Service firefighting positions in California are filled. An article written by Brianna Sacks of BuzzFeed News stated that about 1,200 full-time positions are unfilled in the state. Approximately 35 percent of entry- to mid-level positions on engine crews are filled, as are about half of the similar positions on hotshot crews.
An excerpt from the article:
With the open positions, some units are left unable to operate their engines at all. A recent internal document tallying engine staffing across California also obtained by BuzzFeed News shows that about half of 260 Forest Service engines are either understaffed, so they can’t run seven days a week, or not staffed at all. That’s resulted in about 35 engines being “on blocks,” or inoperable.
Hotshot crews that can’t meet the rigid interagency standards for staffing and training will not be able to respond to a fire as a hotshot crew, and will be reduced to becoming a less qualified Type 2 crew, or forming “modules” of smaller numbers of personnel. Some of them may export their personnel to fill in on engines so that THOSE resources can respond.
Over the last two years, at least, the five federal land management agencies that hire large numbers of wildland firefighters have been experiencing increasing difficulties recruiting and retaining personnel. 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, and the temporary and sometimes life-altering physical injuries experienced by these tactical athletes.
It takes five to seven years for a wildland firefighter to soak up enough experience and training to reach a lower to mid-level leadership position, and 15 years or more to begin to serve in the higher ranking positions day to day and while assigned to fires. With people at all levels resigning, the federal agencies are losing not only corporate knowledge but the hard-earned proficiency of safely and efficiently suppressing small and large wildfires while supervising dozens or hundreds of emergency workers performing one of the more dangerous jobs on the planet. A resigning senior firefighter with 15 years of experience “slides” in his brain can’t be replaced overnight with a person off the street.
Implementing the pay raises that were signed into law by President Biden eight months ago as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would be a huge step in the right direction. The agencies knew several months before the legislation was signed in November that it was most likely going to happen, so they have had nearly a year to plan for and implement this requirement. It is not optional. It’s the law. And while the USFS and DOI fiddle, the United States will burn, more engines will be “on blocks”, and some hotshot crews will disappear at least on paper.
Any visible progress has been slow. Today on the Forest Service website Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry Jaelith Hall-Rivera, who has become the public point person for implementing the pay raises, issued what she described as an update:
In the next few weeks, we will make announcements about the firefighter occupational series and the increased payment that is funded in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law…We understand your frustration and thank each and every one of you for your patience. Implementation has taken longer than any of us could have expected but getting it right is important.
There have been few signs of “patience.”
Meanwhile, the National Federation of Federal Employees is very concerned about what they have learned about proposed changes.
Another @NFFE_Union letter to DC leadership. Looks like they’ve seen some notes from @USOPM and are not happy about the current effort to reform Wildland Firefighter Pay & Classification. They even provide 19 pages of feedback, calling for a career ladder to GS12, similar to @CBPpic.twitter.com/aWd1DV87XX
— Grassroots Wildland Firefighters (@GrassrootsWFF) June 7, 2022
If the exodus is not reversed, the ability of the federal agencies to fight fires and treat fuels is at stake — during a time when there is a goal of quadrupling the number of acres treated by prescribed fire and mechanized methods. Who is going to onboard new employees, plan the projects, meet with stakeholders, obtain environmental clearances, issue contracts, run the chain saws, and carry the drip torches? And who is going to fill the slots on the shrinking Incident Management Teams?
All while escalating wildfire activity demands MORE skilled and qualified fire personnel, not fewer.
Firefighter on the Cerro Paledo Fire in New Mexico, May, 2022 by Blake McHugh.
In today’s edition of the Washington Post Joe Davidson writes about the Administration’s foot dragging and failure to implement the pay raises that were signed into law by President Biden in November as part of his Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
One stumbling block the US Forest Service and Department of the Interior appear to be dithering over is the law stated that the new pay structure would only apply to firefighters in “a specified geographic area in which it is difficult to recruit or retain” them. However the conventional wisdom in the ranks is that all areas have serious recruitment and retention problems. In some locations, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said May 4 in Congressional testimony, the staffing levels are at 50 percent.
Below are excerpts from the Post article:
“Congress appropriated this money months ago, and yet, federal wildland firefighters have still not seen a dime of it,” National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) President Randy Erwin complained in a letter Wednesday to top Biden administration officials. “Congress intended this money to move quickly into the hands of wildland firefighters, a very large percentage of whom experience significant difficulty making ends meet on their current salaries.”
Aana Kulaas and her husband, Chad Bresnahan, are Forest Service firefighters in Washington state. Although she has a bachelor’s degree in natural resource science and 23 years of experience, Kulaas, speaking as a union official, said she earned $23,023.52 last year. She had no overtime pay because she had to care for three children.
Her husband did earn overtime pay. Without it, “we would not be able to afford our mortgage or my medical bills,” she added. “Our financial well-being is directly tied to how severe the fire season is. The busier the season, the more money he makes … While the overtime keeps us afloat, the downside is all the family time and mental and physical health that must be sacrificed.”
To make matters worse, “we work in an unsupportive environment, so there is no rest and recovery even during the brief offseason,” Kulaas, 42, added. “There’s just this constant cycle of being chewed up and spit out and the expectation to perform at a high level.”
