Department of Agriculture

Wildland Firefighter (Regional Fire Management Planner)

Salt Lake City, Utah, Seattle, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco, Full time

Wildland Firefighter (Regional Fire Management Planner)

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: $97564 - $146671 Per Year

Job Summary: Theses positions will be located on a USDA Forest Service Unit. The incumbent is a technical expert for the Regional Fire Director or Deputy and provides oversight and coordination to national forests and grasslands within that region or area. See ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Section for location representative details.

Major Duties:

  • Duties listed are at full performance grade GW-13 level.
  • Review fire management plans to ensure they reflect national, regional, and local management goals.
  • Ensure fire management plans are in compliance with laws, policies, regulations and/or environmental mandates.
  • Evaluate effectiveness of existing wildland fire and/or aviation management programs to provide recommendations for improvement and success of the program.
  • Provide guidance to field units on the evaluation of fire hazard risk, fuels, effects, historic occurrence, climatology and/or weather.
  • Coordinate budget development with other staff areas to ensure unit staffing levels are met.
  • Monitor expenditures, including budget allocations, discretionary spending accounts to report accomplishments to leadership.
  • Conduct trend analysis for direct and indirect spending to adjust budget allocations as needed.
  • Ensure plans are consistent with land and resource management plans, enabling laws, policies, regulations, and environmental mandates.
  • Consult program leadership for the development of short -term AND long-term strategic fire management planning, assessments, interagency and/or fire management plans.
  • Use wildland fire expertise to resolve problems relating to development, execution, and/or monitoring of fire related issues.
  • Work with cooperating agencies to develop an interagency approach to wildland fire management planning.
  • Provide guidance of policies, standards, methods, and/or guidelines received from national and regional levels to resource management staff.
  • Provide advice on fire management planning to support the development of forest land management goals and/or objectives.

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. Specialized Experience Requirement: GW-12: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GW-11 in federal service or equivalent. Examples of specialized experience may include: Provided expertise for short and long term strategic fire management planning, assessments, and interagency and/or unit fire management plans; Evaluated the technical aspects and effectiveness of existing wildland fire and/or aviation management programs by providing recommended changes or initiatives to improve the overall efficiency and success of the programs; Performed data collection and evaluation of fire hazard risk, fuels, historic fire occurrence, fire effects, climatology and weather; Provided wildland fire planning technical support and coordination with fire management officers, land or resource management staffs, and planners throughout the local area. GW-13: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GW-12 in federal service or equivalent. Examples of specialized experience may include: Provided program management direction and/or expertise for interagency and/or national forest and grasslands fire planning efforts; Provided program leadership and/or consultation for short-term or long-term strategic fire management planning, assessments, interagency and/or unit fire management plans; utilized specialized software and modeling to evaluate the effectiveness of fire and/or aviation management strategies to meet land and resource management goals and objectives; Developed annual program of work, including budget allocations, discretionary spending accounts, and severity requests. 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