Veteran Firefighters Rejected for Permanent Jobs

The Forest Service is hiring thousands of full-time firefighters this year but has bypassed some of its most experienced veterans because pension rules deny such permanent jobs to anyone over 35.

Some of those veterans worked the fire lines for more than a decade as temporary employees, without pension or benefits. And some of them question whether inexperience contributed to the deaths of four firefighters in Washington state on July 10 and say reliance on rookie crews could result in more deaths.

“People are going to die this summer,” said Kathy Hudak, 41, of Missoula, Mont., who was denied a full-time job despite two decades of experience fighting forest fires.

“When you’ve been on the line, and you’ve got years of experience, you kind of develop a sixth sense of what is going on around you, and you know if you shouldn’t be there.”

The Forest Service denies inexperience was a factor in the recent deaths of Tom L. Craven, 30, Devin A. Weaver, 21, Jessica L. Johnson, 19, and Karen L. FitzPatrick, 18.

It also denies it is having trouble finding experienced workers to fill the thousands of firefighting jobs funded by Congress after the disastrous 2000 fire season.

“We’re not short of experience,” said Harry Croft, the agency’s assistant national fire plan coordinator. “We have adequate supervisors for the people we have. We don’t put anybody out there unless they are trained.”

In the 1970s, federal firefighters and law enforcement officers petitioned Congress to lower their retirement age because of the physical demands of the jobs. Such workers now can retire with full pensions after 20 years of experience, with mandatory retirement at 55.

But that also means that firefighters hired after age 35 would not be able to put in the 20 years needed to get a pension. The Forest Service believed it would be unjust to employ firefighters for years and then deny them a pension. So it instituted a rule that says those over 35 are not eligible for new permanent firefighting jobs, even if they have been temporary hires for years.

Union activists say the rule hurt about 500 experienced firefighters throughout the country.

Firefighting was not always so regulated. In the early years of the last century, fire bosses would wade into taverns, flop houses and railroad yards, taking anyone with a pulse to the fire lines.

More recently, firefighters came from the ranks of college students, teachers, nature lovers, adventurers and local youths looking for a temporary job with good pay. Managers, skilled workers and some of the crews would be full-timers, but seasonal workers made up much of the fire corps.

That focus changed last year, after wildfires burned 6.8 million acres in the worst season in half a century.

Congress authorized an additional $1.8 billion to hire firefighters, boost prescribed burns and thin forests to prevent blazes. The Forest Service was ordered to hire 3,500 new firefighters and the Bureau of Land Management an additional 1,700.

With permanent Forest Service jobs nearly impossible to get in the past, many temporary firefighters jumped at the chance.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Hudak, who is working at a brewery this summer. “But they looked at my age and stopped right there.”

There is no doubt that firefighting is physical work.

Candidates must be able to carry a 45-pound pack for three miles within 45 minutes. Firefighters hike through rough terrain in scorching heat and heavy clothing to clear vegetation and create dirt and rock barriers, often in the middle of nowhere and without much sleep. They can make up to $13 an hour in pay and overtime when actually on a fire line.

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is circulating a petition among congressmen urging Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman to waive the age limit.

“The Forest Service would greatly benefit from the ability to hire a ready pool of proven, experienced firefighters,” Stupak wrote to colleagues last month. “We cannot afford to lose some of our best firefighters.”

Croft said waiving the age limit would create problems later. Workers who say they do not care about pension benefits now will probably feel differently as they near 55, he said.

There have been questions about the experience level in the fire crew trapped by a wildfire July 10 near Winthrop, Wash. Two of the four killed were rookies; a third had relatively little experience. Three were also temporary hires working without benefits.

On Monday, Forest Service officials said the four died--all were found huddled in their tent-like foil shelters--because they had no time to escape a raging firestorm.

Hudak said experience, not training, is what keeps firefighters from becoming trapped in the first place.

“You should never even be in a situation where you even have to think of putting your hand on your fire shelter,” Hudak said. “Experienced firefighters will tell you that.”