This will be a long post so bear with me.
Going into my 10th season with the USFS, 3rd as a permanent employee (guaranteed 13 pay periods/6 months a year) and I’m in a primary Fire Position. I’m not a firefighter according to my job title or classification even though the infrastructure bill was passed. OPM of course will take the longest time they can to get us our much deserved pay raise and classification among support in hazardous fuel reduction and work. BLM, USFWS and USFS are only considered firefighters when they die. The majority of the public thinks we are firefighters, but nope we are forestry or range technicians. I’ve explained multiple times to semi famous athletes to celebrities to politicians when I’ve been doing my job protecting their property and have been 100% honest with them when they asked what I’m paid, what the benefits are, among other things.
My mother worked for the USFS from 1976 to 2019 and she basically walked out and hasn’t looked back except to help out the rest of the folks from her generation that have retired the last few years with recreation analysis contracts and NEPA. There’s only one remaining who was there a long time where she worked and he’s had to fight to be able to keep a work truck, dump truck, and backhoe and is responsible for road maintenance on 3 districts…. How messed up is that?!? She saw it go from the good ole days where there were a ton of guard stations and work centers where families liked to live to a ghost town of a combined district office to people who work for the Forest service to push the agenda of tree huggers, fish kissers, and bird watchers. Not too mention if someone messed up like the old days, they would of been fired, now they get assigned a 1-6 hour class or reading by the disasterous HR department.
Okay, if you’re turned off by that, I’ll go into generally what I’ve seen working for the Forest service for 10 years and volunteering since I could basically walk. When I was a kid, I grew up at a work center and my mom switched from timber crew lead to wilderness and trails manager and recreation planner. I helped feed alpacas and was able to hop in the usfs rigs to go to trailheads and go out to work with my mom when My dad was somewhere away falling timber. That was the times when Forest service offices still groomed their own snowmobile trails and what seemed like campgrounds were managed and lookouts were still abundant. Things have changed the last 20 years massively. Trail work and recreation sites mainly are now contracted out to volunteer groups or contractors, the Forest service hardly owns any buildings and instead pays a developer to build new buildings and leases it out, old forest service places are closing due to no funds for maintenance, there is no enforcement of rules on public lands due to workers not wanting to take forest protection officer trainings and forests not wanting to cite and instead educate, among other third including dirt bags not getting fired when they need to. I know several retired military police who did recreation/off highway vehicle program stuff and used to right tickets. They walked out when their efforts of ticketing violators weren’t being upheld by the upper management.
Now onto my career, started off as a temporary seasonal to longer seasons when I to was going to school at the University of Idaho for a Forestry Degree and Minor in fire. First part of my career was in Central Wa in the area I grew up in and loved every minute of it. After 4 seasons there I moved to Idaho to obtain Idaho residency and go to school in Moscow. I got hooked on the Forest I worked on in Idaho as it had and still has that oldcshool feel to it where work centers and guard stations are still very much active and many of the lookouts are still manned. The Forest supervisor then (still is the supervisor) is top class and works for the public and knows what their job is. The district rangers are not the public’s enemy and work with the public. That Forest still logs a crap ton with their own timber management crews and still grazes a ton. After I worked on that Forest for 3 seasons I got my in to a permanent employee status and decided to explore eastern Oregon a little bit. I worked at a cool area and it to be honest had many pros and cons but a con as I didn’t feel like Oregon was where I wanted to be. I came back to Idaho and seen some things I won’t get started about and moved on from that Forest back to region 1 in Idaho (that first Idaho Forest), where it’s just calling me to come home and stay there for the long term.
I like fire, I just don’t like it I love it. I don’t attend weddings in the summer and have missed family events and stuff but don’t care as to be honest spending the last 6 summers living in the woods is cool. I’m not at the stage or my life where I need a woman and still have adventuring years left and choose the woods over women. Having the opportunity to go out in the woods everyday in the summer and hear the birds chirp and elk talk is something I know many don’t have a clue about in the USA on actually how cool it is. To be able to go on a paid vacation almost every year (Fire preposition severity assignments) has allowed me to explore some places out west where I never would go to on my off time. Going on fire assignments all across the west has allowed me to connect with different cultures and people in future years (just like a conversation I had yesterday) People think I’m a foreigner when I talk about my woods and fire experiences at a coffee shop in cities.
Annual leave accrual and retirement (TSP if you’re enrolled in it being in the USN) kind of suck to be honest. The only other job in the federal land management agencies I can see myself doing besides Fire is being an LEO and I think you should look into it. LEOs are needed badly and really it’s a job that many like if they’re in a cool area with not many pieces of shit humans. Timber, recreation, or any other job on the Forest service doesn’t pay that well compared to private sector. Many people I know leave the Forest service to join the private sector companies and I don’t blame them. If I wanted to use my forestry degree and be a forester, I’d join a private sector company before I ever thought about applying for Forest service timber permanent jobs.
So a general recap-
pros: Apply to where you want to live and work and you can change jobs whenever you want as long as you apply for it and get it. Meet people and see some cool area and get paid for it. GREAT SUMMER JOB For college students or those needing some excitement for a summer after getting out of military or transitioning careers.
Cons: tons of bullshit and hard to fire people, pay sucks outside of wildland fire (structure pays more too), HR is a disaster, employees who are there for a guaranteed paycheck and not there to contribute to the Forest Services mission, cliques started from the management down to the lower todemn pole, disgruntled employees, absolute trash of an Employee assistance Program as far as mental health counseling goes.
With your military experience and education, I bet it wouldn’t be that hard for you to get picked up by a private sector timber company or a natural resource management company if you wanted to work for one.
As far as contracting side of things go, definitely is money to be made there as far as Fire contracts to road building contracts to other contracts such as analysis. My buddy replaces culverts when he’s not on fires and had a few pieces of equipment on fires for 110 days last year. Think of that money he brought in….
You could also go into consulting. Future is bright with any sort of natural resources degrees these days.
Edit: I got to mention my trail contract days with another old retired guy. We used to clear out 100 miles of backcountry trails a year and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately he passed away a few weeks ago.
