After a series of destructive US fire seasons, a platform of federal pay increases for forest firefighters is set to expire on Sept. 30.
A firefighter uses a drip torch during the Mosquito fire near Volcanoville, California, US, on Friday, Sept. 9, 2022. The wildfire, which started Tuesday evening north of the Oxbow Reservoir, had burned nearly 34,000 acres by Saturday morning and remains 0% contained, making it one of the state’s largest wildfires of the season so far, reported the San Francisco Chronicle. , Bloomberg
Wage tensions familiar to US restaurants, retailers, schools, hospitals and auto workers are also hitting wildland firefighting, arguably at the worst possible time. On Sept. 30, federal pay increases implemented to shore up squads of forest firefighters — also known as hotshots — are set to expire.
The federal government employs roughly 18,700 people focused on wildfires in various capacities, across five agencies: the Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service. Not all of those employees are fighting fires directly. But if Congress declines to extend pay increases, experts warn that the ranks of frontline workers will thin before smoke starts billowing again next spring.
“If we don’t pass this, we will lose wildland firefighters,” Sinema told Bloomberg Green. “The good news is, we all understand that. … I’m confident we have significant bipartisan support to get this done.” “On your typical hotshot crew, I’d say probably a third are homeless,” Casperson says. “Then there’s kids who live in mountain towns or people who just want adventure.”
Despite the instability, US wildfire season has historically provided at least some consistency. Fires smoldered as summer matured and peaked just before the snap of fall. That playbook is less guaranteed in today’s climate reality. Although this year’s fire season has been slow in the US — 43,900 wildfires have burned 2.3 million acres — Canada is having one of its worst seasons ever.
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