We need a more flexible way to manage wildland firefighters. We need pre-trained, part-time crews that the government can activate as needed.

Fires are a national security problem, that are hard to predict, with a straightforward – though physically demanding – training pipeline. I’ve spent 10 years in the Army Reserves: this is literally the same set of problems that the Reserves and Guard were designed to solve. War is rare, unpredictable, and requires a country to have trained soldiers before it starts. We should use the military reserve/guard force structure as a model and apply it to the way we fight fires.

Policy Proposals:

1. More Firefighters: fund, train, and equip thousands of Wildland Fire Reservists trained to a basic handcrew level (FFT2) that the Federal Government can call up when needed.
2. Protect protect the civilian employment of wildland firefighters who are activated to fight large fires: USERRA for firefighters. The U.S. military protects its reserve members through USERRA – which protects the jobs of Reservists and Guardsmen when they are called to military duty. Reserve firefighters should have similar protections.
3. Bring high-tier firefighters into full-time employment or split fire/university billets. We cannot lose highly-skilled firefighters to more stable civilian employment. In addition, educating motivated and experienced firefighters to take on positions of greater authority – such as professional foresters – can help fill personnel requirements within USFS/BLM/NPS.