Anybody a wildland firefighter?

[Scott85]

Anybody a wildland firefighter? I have a couple of questions. I'll be looking for a career change in 5 years, I'll be 38. I know I'll be over the maximum age limit for the job but I'm not worried about that. Is 38 too old to start a career as a firefighter? Would 40-42 be too old to apply to be a smoke jumper? I think I'm in pretty good shape with a lot of room for improvement but I don't feel any worse than I did at 21. As a season position do you find the need to get another job? Sorry I have a lot of question and I don't know anybody who went down this career path. Thanks in advance for the help!!

 

[dannyb278]

Go take the S130/190 School. That would be a good start in really knowing if you want to do it and it will only cost you a few days of vacation time. Than see if you can take a fire season off from your normal career, and join the rest of the mostly seasonal fire fighters on the fire line.

I did my training at Colorado Fire Camp. At 30, I was one of the oldest by far. The oldest was a 38-year old police officer from Breckenridge, CO. Being used to training at 10 thousand feet, he took first in the pack test at around 5k feet. Coming from Minnesota and 900 feet above sea level, I was the 5th to finish out of 30+ trainees, at 29 minutes and some change. There was a fair amount of 22-25 year old Vets who looked much better in their workout gear than us old guys, but could barely keep up.

https://coloradofirecamp.com/index.html

The biggest challenge for most is the pack test. 3 miles in 45 minutes or less with a 45 pound pack across level terrain. It does not sound that tough, but kicks a fair amount of butts, even though its the bare minimum of a measure for what it takes to be physically capable of the job.

Since you mentioned smoke jumpers, yes they are badass, but its like saying "I'm 38 and want to be a Navy SEAL;" there is a lot more to it than age and fitness, but those would be 2 huge boulders to get over, not to mention all the other guys that have already been at wildland fire fighting for years and have been working toward that goal as well. Another group of equally badass, but publically unsung heroes of Wildland are the Hot Shots. I worked with a few when I was a S130/190 qualified Archaeologist with the U.S Forest Service. While I fought a few fires both as a resource specialist and as a fire line crew member swinging a Pulaski, I wouldn't call myself one of them.

Good luck. Its a highly rewarding, if not dangerous and relatively low paying job. Its ideal for young, single men and women. If you are neither young nor single I'd reconsider it, especially if you have other skills you could market to Agencies like the BLM and USFS.

 

[MTGomer]

My parents used to own engines they would contract to the FS. The work isn’t as exciting as a shot would see, but it’s easier on the body and pays well. They paid their firefighters $300/day and
engine bosses $400. I imagine it’s a little more now a days.
You can, of course buy your own engine and go through the red tape of getting it signed up. You can make a lot of money on a good year. You can also sit all year if there aren’t fires after taking on a pretty significant expense. That happened to them a couple years, but it doesn’t look like it would be a problem lately if they were still in the business…

If you are in good enough shape to hunt, you can pass the pack test, which requires you to carry 45 pounds, for 3 miles, over level ground in 45 minutes or less.

 

[Scott85]

Thanks for the insight guys.

 

[TLowell02]

I am 34 and hoping to get on with the FS this year as a seasonal. If the dang Dept. of Ag would ever reopen so I could find out if I was selected, I could stop substitute teaching! I do have a little bit of fire experience in prescribed fire as well as GIS certificate and wildlife biology background so I am hoping to quickly parlay the seasonal work into a permanent position.

 

[IDFireLass]

Don't even think about woodland fire jobs with the Forest Service or BLM. It's all to political. Run Far Run Fast and DON"T look back. 40 years in wild land fire. Getting a permanent position is very hard now a days. Going up the ladder won't be over night and you can only go so far with out college/degree.

It has changed big time since I started and it's going down hill each season. That is my advice DON'T DO IT!

 

[jmden]

What's your wildland firefighting background? I jumped with the USFS out of the North Cascades Smokejumper Base '91-'94 working my way through college. At that time there were about 300 USFS Smokejumpers and 100 BLM Smokejumpers in the nation. They (BLM and USFS) used and still use very different parachute systems, each with its advantages and disadvantages. We had a number of BLM guys come jump our super steep, rugged North Cascades country and get broken up bad and get sent back to Alaska or Idaho to their bases often due to the way their parachute system had to work--better designed for big jumps spots, not the super small ones rimmed by 100'+ timber.

Back then to apply you had to have 2 years prior wildland firefighting experience as training you from the ground up to be a wildland firefighter was not what they wanted to spend time training you to do. I'm sure things have changed since. We had a couple of guys go through rookie training in late 30s, one guy that was 40 and they did ok, but were hurting. I was the youngest at 19 and they wished many times to be that young going through it. We lost 1/3 of the folks in rookie training that year--some just left in the night and weren't to be seen at start of training the next day.

I could go on with stories, etc. for a long time. But...suffice it to say, knowing what I know, I would not try to start a career as a smokejumper at 38. Those old guys that age only lasted a season or two as I recall. But, there were some guys that worked the job into their 50s, but were pretty beat up and did a fair amount of office work and spotting from the jump plane and less actual jumping/firefighting. At 47 now, I can understand that.

At the time there were no benefits, no nothing and it was seasonal work and gone all summer and to make money you had to be willing to go anywhere at anytime and be gone for many weeks at a time from home working insane hours. I had one two week pay period in '94, I think it was where I worked 144 hours of OT and jumped 10 fires in that two weeks. Not typical, but it happens. My rookie year, the first fire I jumped was north of the artic circle in AK and I jumped fires down in AZ and NM later in the year and virtually every state in between. I also lost a couple of smokejumper acquaintances to the CO fire on Storm King Mountain in '94--not cool. Part way through college I realized that I loved smokejumping but it wasn't really, at least at the time, much of a good job for a family or longevity and and looked more closely at structural firefighting. That's were I would look, knowing what I know now, if I was you. Much better pay, benefits, schedule, etc. But I miss 'jumping and always will. What an awesome, adventuous job for a young guy. Still can't believe I lived through it all sometimes, but most of us can say the same.

Have you been a jump base and talked to the base manager there, other jumpers, etc.? If not I would highly encourage you to do so and make sure as much as you can that you fully understand what you are thinking about getting into. See if you can take a couple of them out for coffee or a meal and then explore your other options as well. (I remember one guy they let come back at 50 yo (previous jumper). Rest of us couldn't figure out why, but can't age discrimnate, right? He broke his pelvis on his first or second practice jump, as I recall and he was in good shape for a 50 yo. Not that it can't be done, but even in my business now, many call it a young man's job--parts of it were certainly much easier 20+ years ago than they are now.)

I've obviously been out of it for a long time, but feel free to PM me for more info, but I'm sure things have changed quite a bit and I haven't done the best job keeping up with the guys that are left and the job in particualr. Here's a link to the USFS Smokejumper Bases: https://www.fs.fed.us/science-technology/fire/smokejumpers/bases I jumped with the current Base Manager at the North Cascades Smokejumper Base, Darren Belsby. He'd be a good guy to talk to.