The Forest Service has long struggled with staffing shortages, but the challenges have intensified amid a hyper-competitive labor market and cost-of-living concerns
As the KNP Complex Fire approaches, U.S. Forest Service firefighters clear vegetation around the Ash Mountain headquarters in Sequoia National Park, Calif., on Sept. 15, 2021. | Noah Berger/AP PhotoThe Biden administration has unveiled ambitious plans to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires that have plagued the West in recent summers. The “Great Resignation” has thrown a serious wrench in that strategy.for over a decade.
Workplace conditions like low and non-competitive wages and housing availability and affordability have long been issues for the Forest Service recruitment. Hannah Ohlson, a Forest Service fire prevention technician in Colorado, just wrapped up a hiring process she described as “pretty brutal”: Out of 10 vacancies, her post was only able to fill five. Many applicants either found jobs elsewhere, couldn’t find housing or didn’tA member of the Mile High Youth Corps walks near a smoldering pile of tree debris during a controlled burn with the U.S. Forest Service in Hatch Gulch on Feb. 23, 2022, near Deckers, Colo.