USFS engine crews on the initial attack of the Caldor Fire, August 14, 2021. USFS photo.
As the western states were entering the busiest part of the wildland fire year in 2021 a U.S. Forest Service document written June 22 said that of the approximately 110 Federal hotshot crews, 25 percent, or about 27 crews, were not able to meet the required standards due to vacant positions. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that last year dozens of wildland fire engines across the state sat idle and others had to cut back to only five days a week because of a shortage of firefighters.
There are indications that the 2022 fire year could see even worse staffing shortages according to an article in Politico:
In an email obtained by POLITICO, Forest Service officials are already warning employees in California that there have been 50 percent fewer applications submitted for GS3 through GS9 firefighting positions this year compared to last. And regional Forest Service officials from across the Western fire regions reported struggling with low staffing on a Feb. 15 call with Fire and Aviation Management, the minutes of which were obtained by POLITICO. “Hiring frenzy – lack of candidates, unable to staff 7 days in many places. Continued decline of folks to do the work,” the minutes read, describing comments made by Regional Fire Director Alex Robertson.
The five federal agencies that have significant wildland fire programs have a total of about 15,000 positions related to fire. In the last few years the number of vacancies has been growing due to difficulty in hiring and experienced firefighters leaving the organization for better pay and working conditions.
Legislation pending before Congress, the Tim Hart Wildland Firefighter Classification and Pay Parity Act (H.R. 5631), could make a difference. It would address many of the heartbreaking issues wildland firefighters and their partners face, including raising firefighter pay, creating a wildland firefighter job series, providing health care and mental health services to temporary and permanent wildland firefighters, housing stipends, and other improvements. (More details are in the Wildfire Today article from October 19, 2021.)
Firefighters being briefed on the Pine Gulch Fire in Colorado, August 21, 2020. InciWeb.
A senior-level wildfire management person in the U.S. Forest Service (FS) told Wildfire Today that there are hundreds of vacant permanent firefighting positions in California. The agency’s difficulties in recruiting and hiring seasonal and permanent firefighting personnel has resulted in multiple hotshot crews not qualifying to respond to a fire with 18 personnel, the minimum required by interagency standards.
More than a dozen FS fire engines in the state are completely unstaffed, or instead of seven days a week coverage they have cut back to only five. (Check with your local fire department and ask which days of the week they staff their fire engines.) Thirty modules of FS hand crews, dozers, or water tenders in California have been shut down due to a shortage of employees, according to our source.
(Read more: Forest Service issues statement saying in part, “Federal wages for firefighters have not kept pace with wages offered by state, local and private entities in some areas of the United States.”)
The personnel issues are caused by two primary factors, difficulty in hiring, and experienced firefighters leaving the organization for better pay and working conditions.
Seasonal federal firefighters in California are generally hired in January and start working in mid-May or mid-June. The centralized hiring process now being used has been heavily criticized as inefficient.
A look at the system for advertising vacant permanent firefighting positions in the federal agencies, USA JOBS, shows a large number of unfilled FS positions. Here is a sample from this week:
Some of the FS fire jobs at the website are open for a few months or a year, and others are basically continually open with no end dates. Hiring of permanent fire personnel can go on throughout the year as additional positions become vacant.
The entry level wildfire job with the federal agencies is usually a GS-3 working under the title “Forestry Technician,” which receives $13.32 per hour, almost $2 less than the minimum wage sought by some politicians recently. In California a state agency that competes with the federal government for hiring firefighters pays about double that rate. A recent survey found that the first and second most cited reason for leaving federal firefighting organizations is to move to a job with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Suppression or local municipal fire departments.
Difficulties staffing Incident Management Teams
Skilled fire personnel leaving the federal land management agencies have made it difficult to find employees qualified and willing to serve on Incident Management Teams (IMT) that are mobilized to suppress large wildfires and manage other incidents.
From a report released May 13, 2021 by the Incident Workforce Development Group:
Today, critical challenges in rostering and managing IMTs is leading to a decrease in the number of teams available for an increasing number of complex incidents.
In the past five years there have been multiple occasions where all available IMTs have been assigned to large fires. Local units have had to face the consequences of managing a complex incident without the services of an IMT.
Firefighters in the Department of the Interior
A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior told Wildfire Today that they do not anticipate having a large number of vacant firefighting positions. (Wildfire Today was unable to confirm this claim):
The Department of the Interior is on track to have available a total of approximately 5,000 firefighters, a similar number to what was available last season.
The initial bureau hiring targets are:
Bureau of Indian Affairs – 600
Bureau of Land Management – 3,450
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – 530
National Park Service – 930
How many firefighters does the FS have?
The Forest Service, which is in the Department of Agriculture, has been saying for years that they have 10,000 fire personnel. Wildfire Today filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the the agency on December 10, 2019 to obtain the actual number of firefighters. We are still waiting to receive factual information.
Widespread news coverage
Three major news organizations have published articles this week about the recruitment and retention of federal wildland firefighters. Below are excerpts:
Despite the increased threat, the Forest Service does not expect to meet its goal of hiring 5,200 federal firefighters in California this year.”It will be below that number,” said Bob Baird, director of fire and aviation management for the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region. “With hiring challenges and attrition, it could be a lower percentage than that, but we won’t know until we finish our hiring process.”
“California is ground zero for attrition,” said Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service officer who is the executive secretary of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, which advocates for federal fire personnel. “We’re losing people at an accelerated rate because there are so many other opportunities.”
The [FS] projected a shortfall of 313 firefighters in Region 5 this year, at least 8% fewer firefighters than it aimed to employ. The shortfall is frustrating for many in California’s state government, which relies on the federal service to help put out wildfires, but has little control over staffing levels.
Thom Porter, the chief of California’s state fire agency, CAL FIRE, said he’s had regular conversations with California-based Forest Service officials about staffing this year. He said he’s most worried that when the agency’s teams are moved to fight fires in other states, the Forest Service won’t have enough people, or enough experienced people, to backfill those roles in California.
“If they’re unable to hire, if they’re unable to keep staff on when we’re having our most critical periods, it is a public safety risk,” Porter said of the Forest Service. “Because we so much rely on each other that—there isn’t a single agency in California that has all of the resources it needs for a major incident of any type. It’s all hands on deck.”
Jon Groveman, a spokesman for the Forest Service in California, said the agency attempts to staff 46 hotshot crews in the state annually, but it hasn‘t been able to fill all of those positions for several years, leaving it with between 35 and 40 crews. The agency expects “a similar number of crews to be staffed this fire year,” he wrote in an email, adding that “some crews for various reasons (mainly due to staffing challenges) will not be able to attain Hotshot standards.”
Hotshot crews that have lost that designation include the Horseshoe Meadow Hotshots in the Sequoia National Forest and the Modoc Hotshots in the Modoc National Forest, both of which the agency considers “unstaffed.”
A Forest Service job posting earlier this spring for a full-time, experienced firefighter in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Jackson, Wyoming, warned applicants that real estate costs were high. It suggested a few affordable options, including Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit home builder that helps low-income people get into new homes.
Advertises jobs as “firefighter”, which is not accurate
3:30 p.m. MDT April 7, 2021
The Bureau of Land Management released yesterday a two-minute video that supposedly answers questions, including, “Should I apply to be a wildland firefighter with the BLM?” This is at best, misleading, since most if not all of their employees that do fight fire work under job titles of “Forestry Technician” or “Range Technician”.
Besides the “Should I apply” question, the video addresses others, such as:
“I don’t know, it seems kind of boring. And not fun at all.
— Bureau of Land Management Fire (@BLMFire) April 6, 2021
Our take
The federal land management agencies that hire employees with a primary function of fighting fire put most of them in positions with job titles of Forestry Technician or Range Technician. It is deceptive advertising to publish documents or videos stating that you can be a “firefighter” with their agency.
The Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits advertising that is likely to mislead consumers and affect consumers’ behavior or decisions about the product or service.
If an advertiser under the Federal Trade Commission’s jurisdiction is advertising a product that does not comply with the law, violators could face enforcement actions or civil lawsuits with fines up to $43,792 per violation, or civil penalties up to $40,654 per violation.
In the case of the BLM encouraging the public to apply for firefighting jobs, the solution is to do the morally and ethically right thing — accurately describe the positions these employees would be working under. In the longer term, change their job descriptions from Range or Forestry Technicians, to Firefighter.
And, let them earn a living wage that is commensurate with the work they do, and is competitive in the firefighting community.
We have reached out to the BLM about this issue. If we hear back, we will update this article.
A wildland firefighter has produced an eight-minute video enthusiastically laying out what she sees as the pros and cons of the job.
Ronni Ocampo describes herself on YouTube:
I’m here to showcase all aspects of my true passion, wildland firefighting. This channel is a place where I want to serve those who serve their communities by providing fitness, nutrition, fire education, inspiration and discuss mental health to the fire world.
On June 28, 2020 in the first of 19 videos she has posted, Mrs. Ocampo explained that she was five months pregnant and about to be a first-time mom.
PyroLife will train a new generation of experts in integrated wildfire management
Two of the 15 positions available for fire-related PhD candidates in Europe. Click to enlarge.
An organization in Europe is recruiting 15 PhD candidates who have wildfire-related masters degrees. They will be part of the PyroLife Innovative Training Network (Marie Skłodowska-Curie) involved in integrated fire management.
Ten leading institutions will host and monitor the research done by the 15 individuals who are early-stage researchers. The interdisciplinary and intersectoral consortium spans across Northwest and Southern Europe and beyond, encompassing the key disciplines and actors in fire; from academia and research institutes to small and large businesses, advocacy, governance, and emergency management.
The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Innovative Training Networks.
The applicants will be based in various locations in Europe. Some of them will at times be in one or more of the following countries: Spain, Canada, France, Netherlands, Greece, United States, Poland, UK, Denmark, New Zealand, or Germany.
The positions may have unusual requirements concerning the location of the applicant. Here is an example:
PyroLife as a Marie Curie Action is a researcher mobility programme. You are therefore required to undertake transnational mobility in order to be eligible for recruitment. As such, you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (e.g. work, studies) in the country where you have been recruited for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately before the recruitment date.
Do you have a genuine interest in landscape fires and resilience? Are you up for an interdisciplinary challenge, looking and learning beyond your own field and assumptions? With an international team that is inclusive, collaborative, creative and open minded? Then we are looking for you!
The 2018 wildfire season was a glimpse of what to expect in the future: deadly mega-fires in Mediterranean regions and high fire activity in temperate and boreal areas outside the typical Spring fire season. We cannot solve this challenge with the old mono-disciplinary approach of fire suppression: there is a critical need to change fire management from fire resistance to landscape resilience: Living with Fire. This requires a new type of diverse experts, who not only understand fire, but who are also able to communicate risks, deal with uncertainty, and link scientific disciplines as well as science and practice.
The new Innovative Training Network PyroLife will train the new generation of interdisciplinary experts in integrated fire management, acknowledging that 1) knowledge transfer from southern Europe (and worldwide) to temperate Europe can support the new generation of experts; and 2) fire risk planning, communication and management can learn from cross-risk lessons including temperate European expertise in water management. In doing so, this project combines how the North solves community problems with the fire knowledge of the European South.
We are hiring 15 PhD candidates across Southern and Northwest Europe and across a range of scientific disciplines, from social sciences and policy to environmental sciences and engineering. We are looking for a diverse group of creative and open minded Early Stage Researchers who are able to link innovative science to society, and communicate with media, stakeholders, and policy makers.
These 15 positions are open at 6 universities, 2 research institutes, a foundation and a company across Southern and Northwest Europe. For an overview of all positions, please visit https://pyrolife.lessonsonfire.eu/
This PhD project will help formulate an effective temperate European Fire Danger rating system that is urgently needed to support the management of increased wildfire occurrence expected under changing climatic conditions. The project will take a hydrological approach, predicting the moisture content of fuels (living and dead vegetation) at a range of spatial scales; from targeted high risk localised plots to temperate European regions. Fuel moisture predictions will be devised from the development of a low-cost wireless fuel moisture sensor network combined with remotely sensed water and vegetation data. Working with secondment partners, the impact of the refined temperate fuel moisture contents on fire behaviour and fire danger will be assessed at exemplar sites. The PhD project will be based at the University of Birmingham, UK, with secondments to both the University of Alberta, Canada, and to industry partners Tecnosylva, Spain.
Above: Screen grab from U.S. Forest Service recruitment video featuring Johnny Walker.
The U.S. Forest Service has released four videos that appear to be designed to entice more people to apply for wildland fire jobs within the agency. Considering the allegations of sexual harassment within the agency during the last two years it is interesting that three of the four people featured in the videos are women.
