The government hasn’t raised pay in decades, and the Forest Service is losing experience.
Lighting a backburn is significantly different from holding. At the start of your fire career, you’ll get assigned to hold a burn. Another crew lights off a section of hillside, and as holders, you stay put on the bulldozer line, boots sinking into the soft, tread-marked moon dust. You wait behind the lighters as they send flames racing on the wind toward the body of the fire, boxing it in, starving it of fuel. It’s night.
In wildfires, safety depends on your co-workers. There’s luck and there’s the strength to resist stupidity, but often you rely on the experience level of the person beside you.The U.S. Forest Service is losing experience. Federal firefighters are quitting. Leadership is leaving. Recruitment is abysmal. The reason is simple: The government hasn’t significantly raised pay in decades.
In 2022, the bipartisan infrastructure law included a temporary kicker for federal firefighters — an extra bonus meant to approximate a $15 minimum wage — which Congress just extended. It runs out. Pay for actual Forest Service employees appears to depend on Congress, where two bills are stalled. One, the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act, would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
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