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First, watch these videos. I picked them out myself to show you what you would be committing to and to show you just a bit of what the wildland firefighting life is about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxJFIfkOQLY

In that video, you can see all the different types of fire modules that exist.

There are generally two ways you will get your foot in the door:

A) on a hotshot / hand crew; a specialized 20-man firefighting crew

B) on an engine; made up of 3-5 firefighters who staff one engine

After proving yourself in this line of work and building up your reputation, you can move onto harder / more challenging things like heli-rappel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtICNDRp6mQ) and smokejumping (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzNFaWFUcIU)

All of those paths are shown in the video above.

Hotshot / hand crews and fire engines work together to put out fire but they also work independently as well.

Check these videos out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhLhP-7Y3iU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWqzee9hb-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN-9DjDbAg

The three videos up top are end-of-season videos created by members on three hotshot crews around the country. I thought all three were edited well and show some of what you will be getting yourself into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQytFZuIBiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw_-rTRnvS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ8ofqVUt8k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMZ07LD3qBA

These three videos show what its like from the engine side of things. You will be working in smaller teams doing a ton of initial attack on big walls of fire. You will be one of the first resources that arrive at a fire in most cases. It will be up to you and your engine crew to be the first ones to put water on the fire and start putting it out.

 

Whatever you decide you want to pursue first, you have to decide where in the country you want to work: http://www.fs.fed.us/appeals/images/us-map.gif

One of the best things about this job is that there are firefighter positions and firefighting modules all around the nation. Every single state west of the Rockies has a long-established wildland firefighting tradition and system. You can get a job as a firefighter in almost every single state west of the Rockies. ​ After that, you want to find the places that are hiring for new firefighters. You do this by searching online (on google basically - search using any of these terms:"2016 wildland seasonal firefighter hire hiring application").

Find out specific names and phone numbers. It's not hard. The information is all kept online by the fire modules. You want to find out the names and numbers of crew superintendents / captains / squad bosses OR engine captains / assistant captains.

 

All hiring is done through www.usajobs.gov.

    1. Create an account.
    1. Fill out your information and create a resume using the simple system that usajobs.gov uses. It creates it automatically for you - all you have to do is fill in the boxes.
    1. Start calling the crew and engine overhead beginning in November. Introduce yourself. Tell them who you are, tell them that you want to work for them, ask them specific questions that you have. (I will send you a list of the questions you should ask), ask them if they are going to be hiring this winter for next year's fire season. Get all the information you need. Let them know you'll call back after you've applied.
    1. Apply to the specific crew or engine you want to work on in December / January (find out when the application window opens up; usually its only 7 - 14 days so you have to make sure you get it in on time).
    1. Call the crews / engines that you applied for the first week of February. Ask them how the hiring process is going. Tell them that you applied for their crew / engine.
    1. If all goes well, your resume has gone through and they've reviewed it and think that you should be given a chance. You've been selected out of dozens of applicants and you will get a call back asking if you are still interested in a position. Then you will eventually be interviewed over the phone. If that goes well and the crew / engine overhead wants to offer you a job, they will send it up to the fire chief and he will finally approve you and you will get a call back saying they want to offer you a position for the 2016 fire season.

 

That's pretty much the process. It's the same every year.

Search and call in November. Apply in December / January. Call back in February. Call again in March and April. Do a phone interview with the crew / engine overhead. Get hired. Start work in April / May. Finish the season and be released from duty in October / November.

The most important things are to reach out to the people who will be hiring you. You do not just want to send out applications on usajobs.gov without atleast introducing yourself over the phone.

 

Check these out for more tips and information.

http://hotshotfitness.com/career_tips.html

http://www.wildfirenews.com/fire/articles/jobs.html

http://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/management/hotshot_history.htm

http://www.hotshotfitness.com/hotshotcrewlist.html

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wildland-Firefighters/98891859251

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interagency_hotshot_crew

 

Here is a list of all the Type I Interagency Hotshot Crews around the nation: http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/hotshots/IHC_index.html

 

Ask me if you have any questions at all. I've been sleep deprived these past three nights and I probably left a few things out here.

I will say this: I love my job. A season (5-6 months) of wildland firefighting is one of the craziest adventures you will ever experience. You will see some of the biggest fires you will ever see in your life. You will work incredibly hard and get stronger every single day you are out there. You won't build much show muscle - in fact, you might even lose 10 - 30lb over the course of a hard fire season (I dropped just about 15lb over the course of June, July, August last year) - but you will build actual functional strength. The strength you need to carry a shitload of weight on your back and in your hands and push yourself up the steepest hill you have ever seen and then get to the top and start cutting line or setting up a hose lay and begin working for the next six hours straight without break. The kind of strength that doesn't leave you for the rest of your life - it just turns into old-man strength.

You will travel the country and see places that 95% of Americans will never get to see. You will meet and be surrounded by and work alongside some genuine hardcore badass men. It's one of the last refuges of toughness left in our culture. Like certain sport teams or units in the military or certain police / structural fire departments or a few vocations / lines of work. No pussies or weaklings allowed. No bitching. No whining. No crying. You put out 100% or as close to it as you can manage all the time.

Because you will (hopefully) be so busy during the peak of the fire season, you will get to save up a ton of money too. I'm talking anywhere from $8,000, $13,000, $19,000 sitting in your bank account at the end of your first season that you haven't even had the chance to look at let alone spend after a few months of your first season fighting fire. It all depends on how busy your crew or engine is during the fire season. Of course, this pay gets bumped up as you get promoted.

 

To conclude, check out these photos, a collection of a few photos related to wildland firefighting that I put together:

http://abulletproofmind.tumblr.com/post/54292579096


[–]dherik3 points4 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

no thanks recruiter

[–]get_real_quick2 points3 points  (0 children) | Copy Link

When do we think the Tough Mudder ads will start up on this sub too? Maybe the Army or the Navy too.

You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

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