Our nation’s wildland firefighters safeguard vital benefits for communities across the nation: protecting our nation’s critical infrastructure, defending lives and private property from the risk of catastrophic wildfire, preserving forests so they can help us combat climate change, and protecting landscapes that contain cultural and natural resources of significance and value to Tribes, provide habitat to fish and wildlife, and serve as a source of drinking water for more than 60 million people. Investing in our wildland firefighting workforce is a matter of national security as there are more than 460 million acres of land at moderate to very high risk from wildfire this year, and the number of acres burned in 2021 is the highest on record.
For decades, Federal wildland firefighters have faced the challenges of longer, more severe fire years with pay that has lagged behind their counterparts. Shifting development patterns, land and fire management decisions, and climate change have turned fire “seasons” into fire “years” in which increasingly destructive fires are exceeding available Federal firefighting resources. Federal firefighters also lack an official, uniform occupational series and a clear path for career advancement through the Federal government.
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of bold steps to increase pay, create new mental wellness and health supports, and establish a new wildland fire management job series for federal...
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