BEND, OR -- The U.S. Forest Service is working to shore up its wildland firefighting force in the Pacific Northwest. Recruitment events will be held in Bend, Sandy and La Grande on September 12th, in an effort to hire a couple hundred permanent seasonal positions. "That's our goal, is to hire up to 200, maybe even a little more if we can, into these what we call entry level, perm-fire-hire positions, which are typically your six to nine-month timeframe employment within the agency," says Jason Heinz, who works in regional workforce development for the Forest Service.
He says those jobs are spread around Oregon, Washington and Alaska, and in most cases fill an existing position, "We aren't creating new boxes. These are filling currently either vacated boxes or trying to move some of our workforce to a more permanent workforce."
Several factors have made it more difficult to recruit wildland crews in recent years, "We are increasing the number of individuals that work for the agency, our fire seasons are getting longer, burnout is a real thing," says Heinze, "And so, we're trying to work on adding more capacity to our crews so that we can have a better work-life balance." That long season isn't only in the Pacific Northwest, "I would consider all of our crews, even though they work within Oregon, Washington or Alaska, they can go anywhere within the lower 48. And they also go to Alaska, Hawaii, and we've fought fire in Canada and we've sent folks to Australia. So, our crews go all over the place."
Applications must be submitted through USAJobs.gov before September 24th. Heinz says they'll take all work experience into consideration, "Make sure that when you're building your resume, you're putting anything on there you've done in the past, whether it's a paid job or working for grandma and grandpa in their orchard and get paid with dinner or a roof over your head, type thing, or any volunteer work that you do." He notes no previous firefighting experience is required, "We roughly hired 250 of these individuals last year, and approximately 30-40 had no prior experience."
The Forest Service hosts a local recruitment event on September 12, from 1-6 p.m. at the Deschutes County Road Department office (61150 SE 27th Street) in Bend. Prospective firefighters will be able to talk to current staff, learn about benefits and get help with the application process.
