SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021
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3A
Wildland
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from their families for weeks at a time,
and are typically paid less per hour and
get fewer benefits than traditional
municipal firefighters.
Many don't stay in the job long, and
it's a struggle to find replacements.
About 20% of available federal firefight-
ing positions currently remain unfilled,
and in some localities, such as Califor-
nia, the shortfall is even higher.
"The scarcity of resources is probably
something you're going to hear about all
summer," said John Huston, Division
Program Manager for Montana's De-
partment of Natural Resources and
Conservation (DNRC). "The reason
they're scarce is there's fires burning
across the whole state and most of the
West, and everybody's kind of trying to
hold on to what they have."
Another historic fire season
Federal land management agencies,
including the U.S. Forest Service and
those under the umbrella of the Depart-
ment of the Interior (Bureau of Land
Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, National Park Service and Bu-
reau of Indian Affairs), have an array of
fire fighting resources at their disposal.
According to NIFC, these include more
than 17,000 personnel, 348 helicopters,
1,320 engines and 36 air tankers.
It's the largest professional firefight-
ing force in the world, but with fire sea-
sons growing progressively longer and
more intense, effectively allocating
these resources has become a perennial
dilemma.
Nationwide data compiled by the Na-
tional Interagency Coordination Center
(NICC) shows that while the annual
number of wildfires has decreased
slightly since the 1990s, the total acre-
age burned has grown dramatically.
Over the past 10 years, an average of
34,000 wildfires has burned each year,
charring about 3.8 million acres.
Already this year — before the typical
peak fire season in the Northwest has
even begun, more than 37,000 wildfires
have burned more than 3.4 million
acres.
"I spend most of my day on the phone
constantly looking for resources for
these fires," Kip Colby, a Prescribed Fire
& Fuels Specialist with the U.S. Forest
Service in Montana said. "I do my best
to put in the most bodies I can, and try
and figure out how to get more resources
here to fight fires in this district, but
there's a whole lot of other people doing
the same thing.
"My biggest concern is for the light-
ning that comes tomorrow, and trying to
figure out where to find the resources to
fight the fires that are already burning,
but any new ones," he added.
The five worst wildfire seasons since
1960 have all occurred since 2007. In
2020, 10.12 million acres burned, the
second-worst fire season on record.
Nearly 40% of the acres were in Califor-
nia.
"Almost 10,000 fires burned more
than 4% of the state — 4.2 million acres
— during California's 2020 wildfire sea-
son," the Record Searchlight in Redding
reported. "The most extensive, the Au-
gust Complex, burned more than a mil-
lion acres across seven Northern Cali-
fornia counties."
Ballooning costs
Statistics from the U.S. Department
of Agriculture show that the U.S. Forest
Service's discretionary budget has re-
mained stable over the past decade,
with incremental increases occurring
year over year. The agency's discretion-
ary budget went from $4.85 billion in
2012 to $5.14 billion in 2020.
A more significant change has come
in how those dollars are spent.
In 1995, roughly 16% of the Forest Ser-
vice's budget was dedicated to Wildland
Fire Management. In 2020, it was more
than half, leaving little room for expen-
ditures on other Forest Service priori-
ties such as conservation, forestry and
recreation.
State governments also are incurring
increasing costs for wildland fire sup-
pression.
Firefighting costs in Oregon reached
$354 million in 2020 during the deadli-
est and most destructive season on rec-
ord.
The most expensive fire season in
Oregon's history was actually 2018,
which reached $514 million due to mul-
tiple large fires that started early in the
southern half of the state and threat-
ened communities all summer — even
though it ultimately didn't destroy near-
ly as many homes as 2020.
While resources are not yet stretched
thin on Oregon’s fires, lawmakers this
year took steps to ensure such shortages
are not a part of the state’s wildfire
fighting future.
One of the 2021 legislative session’s
crowning achievements was Senate Bill
762, a bipartisan wildfire resiliency and
preparedness bill that required the cre-
ation of defensible space requirements,
new building codes, a statewide wildfire
risk map and health systems for mon-
itoring the public health risks of wildfire
smoke.
It also committed $55 million to allow
the State Fire Marshal to increase its
wildfire readiness and response capac-
The Bootleg Fire is burning in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon. U.S. FOREST SERVICE
ity. This includes bolstering its person-
nel for response and administrative
support and improving efficiency
through technological innovation and
modernizing its systems.
Funds can also be used for preposi-
tioning of resources and contracting
with other entities for fire prevention,
suppression and response.
Proponents of the legislation said in
addition to protecting property and
lives, the bill would ultimately save the
state money by prioritizing prepared-
ness and coordination between agen-
cies.
“This is a framework upon which we
can build sustainable resiliency: mitiga-
tion, preparedness, response, recovery
strategies and capacities,” Rep. Paul Ev-
ans, D-Monmouth, said when the bill
passed the House. “These reforms are
reflective of our needs right now. Cli-
mate change is the fight of our life-
times.”
Over the past 10 years, Montana has
spent an average of $21 million annually
to fund its wildland firefighting efforts
through the DNRC. In big fire years, the
costs have been much higher.
Montana experienced its worst fire
season in more than a century in 2017,
when roughly 1.4 million acres of timber
and grasslands burned. That year, the
state's share of firefighting costs bal-
looned to $65 million.
In 2020, the Washington State Legis-
lature passed a bill allocating $500 mil-
lion over the next eight years to help the
state fight wildfires and create preven-
tion programs. The legislation came at
the urging of Hilary Franz, state com-
missioner of public lands.
Not enough wildland firefighters
The most significant shortfall
amongst federal firefighting agencies is
in the recruitment and retention of
trained and experienced wildland fire-
fighters.
"We have the same number of tank-
ers we had in the past, the same number
of helicopters," said Sara Mayben, act-
ing supervisor for the Helena-Lewis and
Clark National Forest, "but we are run-
ning short of people who put boots on
the ground. We are struggling to fill
those positions and keep those posi-
tions filed when we have folks vacate."
Official data on firefighter staffing
shortages within the U.S. Forest Service
and Department of Interior is difficult to
ascertain. However, the wildland fire-
fighter advocacy group, Grassroots Wil-
dland Firefighters (GWF), estimates
that nationally, 20% of available federal
firefighting positions remain unfilled,
and in some localities, such as Califor-
nia, the shortfall is even higher.
One major disincentive is low pay.
According to GWF, the starting wage for
a temporary seasonal firefighter work-
ing for a federal agency is $13.45 per
hour — less than what a newly hired
clerk at Target is paid.
Extensive amounts of overtime pad
the paychecks of most temporary sea-
sonal firefighters, but even permanent
firefighters are leaving federal service.
"We've had a lot of folks who ... have
stopped being firefighters because they
don't feel like they're getting paid
enough to put their lives at risk," May-
ben said. "We are short in human re-
sources, especially Hot Shot crews.
We're finding that across the western
U.S."
Mayben noted a growing trend with-
in federal firefighting agencies wherein
both newly trained seasonal firefighters
and experienced veterans are migrating
to state and local firefighting agencies
where the pay is sometimes double that
being offered by the federal govern-
ment.
"Firefighters are leaving in droves to
take advantage of better pay and better
working conditions within state and
private firefighting organizations," said
Brandon Dunham, a former wildland
firefighter with both the BLM and USFS,
and a founding board member of the ad-
vocacy group Grassroots Wildland Fire-
fighters.
At a conference with western gover-
nors on June 30, President Joe Biden
described the salaries paid to federal
firefighters as "ridiculously low" and an-
nounced an immediate, one-time 10%
wage bonus for permanent federal fire-
fighters and a $1,000 spot award for
temporary ones. He promised to work
with Congress to make the wage in-
creases permanent.
"A one-time boost is not enough," Bi-
den said. "These courageous women
and men take an incredible risk of run-
ning toward the fire, and they deserve to
be paid and paid good wages.”
Low wages are not the only factor
turning firefighters away from federal
service.
As fire seasons have progressively
grown longer and more intense, the
physical and emotional toll of fire fight-
ing has grown with it. According to Dun-
ham, the unending grind of days with
little rest was a major factor in his deci-
sion to leave firefighting.
"The way the schedule works for any
wildland firefighter out there ... you can
work for 16 hours a day for 14 days up to
21 days straight," Dunham said. "You
then must take two mandatory days off
for rest and recovery — then do that cy-
cle all over again for as long as the fire
season dictates.
"That's 224 hours of work in a two-
week pay period. It's excruciatingly
hard labor and its very hazardous," he
said. "You have a lot of fatigue and a lot
of time away from home.
"That's one of the many reasons why
I got out of the game. I didn't want to be a
part-time father, I didn't want to be a
part-time husband."
Depression and psychological trau-
ma are endemic among firefighters. A
2018 study by the Ruderman Family
Foundation found rates of depression
and post-traumatic stress disorders
among firefighters are as much as five
times higher than that of the general
population and that firefighters are
more likely to die by suicide than in the
line of duty.
"These year-after-year cycles of go-
ing 110-miles-per-hour to practically
slamming the car into reverse ... it builds
up. It kind of accumulates over time,"
Dunham said of the six months on, six
months off schedule that most wildland
firefighters contend with. "You tend to
develop some form of complex Post
Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI)."
Given the drawbacks of employment
as a wildland firefighter, why would
anyone choose it as a career? Dunham
said the personal fulfillment he experi-
enced as a firefighter almost out-
weighed its disadvantages.
"It is the single most fulfilling and
purposeful thing that I've ever done in
my life," he said. "It has taught me lead-
ership, it has taught me patience, it has
developed me as a human. The camara-
derie is amazing. The places that you'll
go that are completely untouched by hu-
manity, in the middle of nowhere ...
you'll never experience that in any other
profession."
Statesman Journal reporter Zach Ur-
ness contributed to this article.
David Murray is Natural Resources/
Agriculture reporter for the Great Falls
Tribune. To contact him with comments
or story ideas; email dmurray@great-
fallstribune.com or call (406) 403-3257.
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