Perspective | Fires spread as firefighters plead for pay raise promised last year

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Federal firefighters still haven’t received a pay boost approved last year. Meanwhile, the number of acres burned as of Wednesday was 112 percent higher than the 10-year average, according to the government’s wild land fire outlook.

Yet the nation risks losing wild land firefighters because a pay hike, signed into law by President Biden in November as part of his massivehas not been delivered. Under the law, that boost would only apply to firefighters in “a specified geographic area in which it is difficult to recruit or retain” them. It provides for increasing annual pay by $20,000 or 50 percent of base pay, whichever is less.

Recruitment and retention, along with pay, are scary challenges not just for the Forest Service, an Agriculture Department agency, and the Interior Department’s firefighting components, but also for the individuals who risk their lives beating flames. Wednesday to top Biden administration officials. “Congress intended this money to move quickly into the hands of wildland firefighters, a very large percentage of whom experience significant difficulty making ends meet on their current salaries.”Aana Kulaas and her husband, Chad Bresnahan, are Forest Service firefighters in Washington state. Although she has a bachelor’s degree in natural resource science and 23 years of experience, Kulaas, speaking as a union official, said she earned $23,023.

To make matters worse, “we work in an unsupportive environment, so there is no rest and recovery even during the brief offseason,” Kulaas, 42, added. “There’s just this constant cycle of being chewed up and spit out and the expectation to perform at a high level.”Eric Franta, 45, has fought fires or worked to prevent them in 16 states from Alaska to Florida.

 

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I'll bet Ukraine already has their money

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