Maybe you’re eating dinner with your forestry-tech crew or getting back from a prescribed burn when word reaches you about an untamed wildfire. You know to be ready — get the truck prepared, fuel up the chainsaws and leaf blowers — so that when the call comes, the team can head toward the flames and smoke.
“My first fire touched me. It was an immediate realization of knowing, this is what I want to do,” Ethan White, 21, tells Teen Vogue. He is one of many young people working in natural resource management to protect landscapes through fire service and science. As the length of North America’s burn seasons and wildfire frequency grows, so does the need for forestry and wildland firefighting professionals.
But not everyone fighting fire needs to handle heavy equipment in dangerous situations; there’s also a need for academics and scientists to develop a well-rounded understanding of the factors involved, and for organizers to advocate for and support frontline communities. Much of this important work is preemptive and proactive in study and procedure, and those who do this work, whether at federal agencies, state institutions, or nonprofits, for tribes or private contractors, are just as important as firefighters on the frontlines.
Teen Vogue speaks to some of the young people working in this area about their career paths — and how we all have to learn to live with fire.
Sierra Mahseelah, 30, strives to protect the Flathead Reservation for future generations, but not by managing live burns on the ground. Instead, she’s equipped with an undergraduate degree in environmental science and is earning a Masters of Science in natural resource management at Salish Kootenai College (SKC). Natural resource management is the intersection of land, water, soil, plants, and animals, and those in the field solve problems to better analyze and mitigate environmental impacts, save lives, and help develop regulations.
Wildfire fighting is informed by the “connected” fields of hydrology, forestry, and wildlife studies, Mahseelah says, adding that SKC brings Native American perspectives and practices into Western academia. “I wanted to be able to have knowledge without being stuck in one position forever. I want to be able to help wherever I'm needed.”
Indigenous groups have historically been left out of fire service and planning, despite their being stewards of the land since long before this country existed and shaping ecosystems we see today as “natural.” With the addition of Indigenous expertise, un- or mismanaged landscapes could have improved wildfire conditions over time.
More frequently, those living in fire-prone areas are turning to groups who have coexisted with fire for generations. Controlled, intentional burns and other strategies enable the landscape and wildlife to thrive, mitigating climate change and offsetting future wildfires. “The way that I was raised, we look at resources as relatives. It is our obligation to take care of them,” Mahseelah says. “Our tribe practiced fire management long before we were on the reservation. Fire is medicine, it's rebirth, regeneration, cleansing. It is needed.”
Melanie Rudolf's science degrees propelled her into firefighting. She works as a terrestrial restoration ecologist for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a nonprofit, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Rudolf, 30, worked at an environmentally focused desk job before finding TNC, which sponsored her training for certifications to begin work in fire service.
No matter the organization, agency, or field role — whether a fuels specialist, forestry technician, or ecologist — those engaged in wildfire service are required to pass a medical exam, work-capacity test of physical capability, and an academic test to gain certifications to obtain an interagency incident qualification card, or a “red card.'' Certifications can include FEMA training, chainsaw certification, and mental health, first aid, and psychological first responder training. Getting a red card and becoming “firefighter type 2” generally gives you permission to work on the ground, joining the “backbone” of wildfire fighting.
Instead of putting out fires, Rudolf's team actually starts them, as a means to reducing fuel loads — the amount of combustibles that feed a fire, like vegetation — so that wildfires don’t occur. Flammable brush is managed this way to avoid a quickly spreading fire in the future. The area’s history makes Indigenous perspectives and knowledge crucial to modern practice, which informs contemporary work.
Says Rudolf, “We have records that the woods were open enough that you could drive a carriage through them, but that is because there were people here and they were absolutely burning this landscape.”
When tribes in Arkansas were pushed to Oklahoma, generational knowledge was too, which resulted in a loss of sophisticated land management techniques. To rectify that exclusion and prioritize Native knowledge, today the TNC administers the Indigenous Peoples Burning Network, or IPBN, in which Indigenous practitioners work with organizations and agencies to impart traditional fire culture into a contemporary context for burns around the country.
The Nature Conservancy intentionally conducts burns at a state park near Little Rock, Rudolf explains, to normalize the practice. “People that are not in conservation aren’t used to fire,” she says. “We want people to see smoke right in the metro area. Fire should be in this landscape. This is normal.”
Federal and state agencies require a high school diploma or GED to fight fire, but a higher degree isn't necessary. Ethan White’s journey is nontraditional. At 17, he was sentenced to time in a juvenile facility, where he earned his GED. He knew about smoke jumping, because his uncle was on one of the nation’s most elite, highly skilled firefighting teams that travel nationwide to dispel fires in hard-to-reach areas. He started asking questions, and with family support, pursued a career in fire service.
In 2022, White was hired on a private-contract crew in Oregon. Working alongside experienced firefighters who “teach the rookies as best as they can,” he was surprised to meet teammates from inner cities, like him. “The camaraderie is what helped drive me,” White recalls. “There's a job for everyone, whether you like aviation, digging, using hoses, dispatch, logistics, fuels.”
Spencer, 20, who asked to use a pseudonym in order to speak candidly about his working conditions, took a basic fire-skills class as a teenager in Minnesota, and has worked as a seasonal federal forestry technician in Idaho for the past three summers. “Fire is an essential part of many ecosystems and can be used as a tool to improve timber value, wildlife habitat, and just maintain a healthy forest,” Spencer says. One year out from finishing his undergraduate degree in forestry in Michigan, the majority of his wildfire experience comes from entering the field head-on, not classroom time.
After high school in New Mexico, Joseph, who also asked to use a pseudonym in order to speak candidly, was “kind of lost.” He saw erosion and avalanche terraces while hiking and realized how much labor goes into landscape and ecosystem maintenance. “I want to do that,” he remembers thinking, and then joined Americorps, which pairs with national, state, and local conservation and fire agencies, in St. Louis. The majority of his colleagues are under age 30, almost all from different states; he says about half have college degrees.
“Before this year I’d never touched a chainsaw,” Joseph says. Fire is a field he stumbled into, receiving training and certifications through Americorps. In his first season, he participated in seven prescribed burns and five wildfires, thousands of acres that included a cemetery, wetlands, and woodlands.
The work is challenging, extremely dangerous, and unforgiving, he says. This year, a wildfire in the area reignited for five days straight, which made for grueling 12- to 18-hour days. “For a Western crew it would've been pretty light work," he notes, "but for a 19-year-old kid, it was intense.”
But the work spurred him into wanting to make a career of it. When his 11-month program ends, Joseph will join the Missouri Department of Conservation as a forestry and wildlife technician. “There is something raw and basic about wildland fire, almost primal,” Joseph says. “To be able to interact with it is highly rewarding.”
Beyond schooling, barriers into the field do vary. The federal and state application process is lengthy and “the most minuscule error can delay your start or end your year before it even started,” White explains. The seasonal nature of the work undermines stability, he adds, noting that living at a fire camp means living in a tent. Unless training certifications are paid for by an organization or agency, rookies are responsible for expensive out-of-pocket fees to join the playing field.
After being hired, pay and labor conditions can be rough. Says Spencer, government salaries leave much to be desired, and unless a person dies in the line of duty, forestry technicians like Spencer who work for a federal agency aren't considered wildland firefighters. Therefore, they are paid less, with some wages around $15 an hour, though they put themselves in the same danger.
As a conservation corps member through a state agency, Joseph is paid $1,500 a month before taxes, and is responsible for off-season housing costs. Contractors like White are not insured in case of death under the benefits available to federal and state employees. This month, President Biden approved a temporary continuation of a $20,000 pay increase, but legislation will be needed to make that permanent.
“With the way the system is set up, it’s really hard to move up and make a livable wage,” Spencer says. Joseph agrees: “Firefighters with years of experience still rely on overtime and hazard pay to make it,” he says. Many use the wildfire world as a means to gain experience and eventually transition to city firefighting, which offers a stable home life, pay, and career-building opportunities.
At university, most of Spencer’s classes are split equally in terms of gender. But in the remote forest where he currently works, he tells Teen Vogue, there is “a bit of a good ol’ boy culture” and few women on his crew. At his last job, in a bigger town, he says, management worked proactively to hire a diverse crew.
High-level positions in wildfire management are still held primarily by white men, as is the story in other professions within the wide realm of bio- and ecological sciences. Based on Joseph's estimates, "a third of our corps is made of women. I'd say, without polling people, maybe a quarter are BIPOC, also a decent amount of [people who are] LGBTQIA+.'' But without mentorship, one-on-one support for marginalized identities is lacking.
“The fire world is very hierarchical,” says Rudolf, citing widespread racial and gender inequity. “You have to work extra hard to be able to prove yourself. It's exhausting.” Finding a mentor “can absolutely make or break it.”
Young people who are considering a job in outdoor service must also consider the dangerous nature of these positions. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, 20 line-of-fire deaths among wildfire fighters occurred from January to August 2022. In 2021, seven of the 76 on-duty deaths were people under age 25. More recently, in July of this year, a 19-year-old fighting Canada’s ongoing wildfires was killed by a falling tree.
According to Rudolf, this inequity creates more unsafe conditions: “People have died in wildfires and prescribed burns when they saw something that wasn't safe or they didn't feel good about, but they didn't say anything.”
The profession is at an inflection point. It’s evolving to be more inclusive, Rudolf says, as the threat posed by uncontrolled wildfires becomes increasingly urgent and the need for more firefighters escalates. “People are trying really hard,” she adds, ”but we're going to need all hands on deck to figure it out.”
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