Wildland Firefighter (Fuels Management Specialist)

Wildland Firefighter (Fuels Management Specialist)

Department: Department of Agriculture

Location(s): Salt Lake City, Utah, Seattle, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco, California, Denver, Colorado, Washington, District of Columbia, Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago, Illinois, Indianapolis, Indiana, New Orleans, Louisiana, Boston, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Kansas City, Missouri, Albuquerque, New Mexico, New York, New York, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas

Salary Range: $83639 - $126835 Per Year

Job Summary: This position is located on a USDA Forest Service Unit in Alaska Region, R10 or Pacific Northwest Region, R6. The incumbent assists the Program Manager in the development, organization and administration of the Region-wide fuels management program and provides advice, assistance, and direction to Forests to establish appropriate response to planned and unplanned ignitions. For additional information about the duties of these positions, see Additional Information section below.

Major Duties:

• Duties listed are at full performance grade GW-12.
• Responsible for the development of methodologies and protocols for the fuels management program. Coordinates with air quality specialists in developing and review of smoke management and air quality as it relates to planned and unplanned ignitions.
• Provides advice, assistance and direction to Forests, and participates with other specialists in developing management protocols for assigned program activities.
• Assists with the coordination and development of an integrated program with other resource specialists, interagency partners, and stakeholders. Assists with budget formulation and performance tracking.
• Assists in providing scientific and technical direction for regional natural resources programs and activities, including information on laws, rules, and regulations.
• Utilizes and provides technical help with state-of-the-art scientific methods and computer-based models and databases to identify fuel and vegetative treatments to restore fire adapted ecosystems.
• Serves as a member of fire and fuels review teams, and prescribed fire reviews to ensure compliance with regional and local policies, regulations and laws, and facilitates coordination of fuels management with other resource areas.
• Assists the Program Leader for Hazardous Fuels and Prescribed Fire. Provides significant assistance in the development, organization, and administration of the fuels management, prescribed fire, and landscape restoration programs.

Qualifications: In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Your application and resume must clearly show that you possess the experience requirements. Transcripts must be provided for qualifications based on education. Provide course descriptions as necessary. Basic Requirement 0401 Series: Degree: Biological sciences, agriculture, natural resources management, chemistry, or related discipline appropriate to the position being filled. -OR- Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major, as shown above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. In addition to meeting the basic requirement, you must also possess experience and/or directly related education in the amounts listed below. Specialized Experience Requirement: For the GW-11 level: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GW-09 grade level in the federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: Developed fire management plans to ensure resource objectives can be met from a fire management standpoint; Conducted field inspections before and/or after prescribed fires or wildland fires to determine if defined resource objectives have been met. -OR- 3 years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree or Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree (coursework directly related to position being filled such as biological sciences, botany, ecology, horticulture, climate sciences, natural resource management); -OR- An appropriate combination of specialized experience and graduate level education (beyond what is required for a master's degree, i.e., more than 36 semester hours leading to a Ph.D.). For the GW-12 level: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GW-11 grade level in the federal service. Specialized experience is defined as: Reviewed and evaluated fire management plans for ecological soundness and technical adequacy; Conducted field inspections before and after prescribed or wildland fires to determine if resource objectives were achieved and/or to evaluate the effectiveness of actions taken; Developed analyses on the ecological role of fire and its use and/or exclusion, and smoke management. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. FIREFIGHTER RETIREMENT COVERAGE: This is a secondary firefighter position under 5 USC 8336 (CSRS) and 8412(d) (FERS). Prior wildland firefighting experience is required. There is no age limit for entry into secondary positions. Firefighter retirement coverage of the incumbent depends upon his or her individual work history. To receive consideration for this position, you must provide updated required documents and meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

How to Apply: Please view Tips for Applicants - a guide to the Forest Service application process. Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement. Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (7:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Mountain Time Zone, Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement to be entered into the system prior to its closing. Resumes must not exceed two pages. This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this. To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.

Application Deadline: 2026-01-22