US Wildfire Fighters Are Hitting a Pay Cliff at the Worst Time

 In Fairbanks, Alaska, the US Forest Service is looking to hire a smokejumper, a person who parachutes out of a rickety airplane to wrangle wildfires that break out far from roads or rivers. Little experience is necessary; the pay starts at $18.06 per hour.

...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. Established in late 2021, those provisions bumped base pay to $15 an hour and provided a raise of the lesser of $20,000 or 50% to wildfire firefighters, following some of the worst fire seasons on record.

...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...more