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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021
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Wildland
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from their families for weeks at a time,
and are typically paid less per hour and
get fewer benefits than traditional
municipal firefighters.
Many don't stay in the job long, and
it's a struggle to find replacements.
About 20% of available federal firefight-
ing positions currently remain unfilled,
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 fires 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 fire 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 Affairs), have an array of
fire fighting 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 firefight-
ing force in the world, but with fire sea-
sons growing progressively longer and
more intense, effectively 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 wildfires has decreased
slightly since the 1990s, the total acre-
age burned has grown dramatically.
Over the past 10 years, an average of
34,000 wildfires has burned each year,
charring about 3.8 million acres.
Already this year — before the typical
peak fire season in the Northwest has
even begun, more than 37,000 wildfires
have burned more than 3.4 million
acres.
"I spend most of my day on the phone
constantly looking for resources for
these fires," 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 figure out how to get more resources
here to fight fires 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
figure out where to find the resources to
fight the fires that are already burning,
but any new ones," he added.
The five worst wildfire seasons since
1960 have all occurred since 2007. In
2020, 10.12 million acres burned, the
second-worst fire season on record.
Nearly 40% of the acres were in Califor-
nia.
"Almost 10,000 fires burned more
than 4% of the state — 4.2 million acres
— during California's 2020 wildfire 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 significant 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 fire sup-
pression.
Firefighting costs in Oregon reached
$354 million in 2020 during the deadli-
est and most destructive season on rec-
ord.
The most expensive fire season in
Oregon's history was actually 2018,
which reached $514 million due to mul-
tiple large fires 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 fires, lawmakers this
year took steps to ensure such shortages
are not a part of the state’s wildfire
fighting future.
One of the 2021 legislative session’s
crowning achievements was Senate Bill
762, a bipartisan wildfire resiliency and
preparedness bill that required the cre-
ation of defensible space requirements,
new building codes, a statewide wildfire
risk map and health systems for mon-
itoring the public health risks of wildfire
smoke.
It also committed $55 million to allow
the State Fire Marshal to increase its
wildfire 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 efficiency
through technological innovation and
modernizing its systems.
Funds can also be used for preposi-
tioning of resources and contracting
with other entities for fire 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
reflective of our needs right now. Cli-
mate change is the fight of our life-
times.”
Over the past 10 years, Montana has
spent an average of $21 million annually
to fund its wildland firefighting efforts
through the DNRC. In big fire years, the
costs have been much higher.
Montana experienced its worst fire
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 firefighting 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 fight wildfires and create preven-
tion programs. The legislation came at
the urging of Hilary Franz, state com-
missioner of public lands.
Not enough wildland firefighters
The most significant shortfall
amongst federal firefighting agencies is
in the recruitment and retention of
trained and experienced wildland fire-
fighters.
"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 fill
those positions and keep those posi-
tions filed when we have folks vacate."
Official data on firefighter staffing
shortages within the U.S. Forest Service
and Department of Interior is difficult to
ascertain. However, the wildland fire-
fighter advocacy group, Grassroots Wil-
dland Firefighters (GWF), estimates
that nationally, 20% of available federal
firefighting positions remain unfilled,
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 firefighter 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 firefighters, but even permanent
firefighters are leaving federal service.
"We've had a lot of folks who ... have
stopped being firefighters 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 finding that across the western
U.S."
Mayben noted a growing trend with-
in federal firefighting agencies wherein
both newly trained seasonal firefighters
and experienced veterans are migrating
to state and local firefighting agencies
where the pay is sometimes double that
being offered by the federal govern-
ment.
"Firefighters are leaving in droves to
take advantage of better pay and better
working conditions within state and
private firefighting organizations," said
Brandon Dunham, a former wildland
firefighter with both the BLM and USFS,
and a founding board member of the ad-
vocacy group Grassroots Wildland Fire-
fighters.
At a conference with western gover-
nors on June 30, President Joe Biden
described the salaries paid to federal
firefighters as "ridiculously low" and an-
nounced an immediate, one-time 10%
wage bonus for permanent federal fire-
fighters 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 fire, and they deserve to
be paid and paid good wages.”
Low wages are not the only factor
turning firefighters away from federal
service.
As fire seasons have progressively
grown longer and more intense, the
physical and emotional toll of fire fight-
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 firefighting.
"The way the schedule works for any
wildland firefighter 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 fire
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 firefighters. A
2018 study by the Ruderman Family
Foundation found rates of depression
and post-traumatic stress disorders
among firefighters are as much as five
times higher than that of the general
population and that firefighters 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
firefighters contend with. "You tend to
develop some form of complex Post
Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI)."
Given the drawbacks of employment
as a wildland firefighter, why would
anyone choose it as a career? Dunham
said the personal fulfillment he experi-
enced as a firefighter almost out-
weighed its disadvantages.
"It is the single most fulfilling 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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