It wasn't easy to track Ben McClane down for an interview as he's been on fire assignments. He's a federal hand crew captain for a team of wildland firefighters based in the Pacific Northwest, and he's been quite busy lately.
"I worked 28 hours straight and then left the fire line to come home for an afternoon off. We have a day off today and then we'll be, we'll be out again tomorrow for probably weeks," he said before he began packing up again for his next assignment.
The life of someone on a federal hotshot crew is one that requires grit, passion and sacrifice. Groups of 20-25 people go to an assignment for weeks at a time, away from family and friends for long stretches.
While on assignment, they sleep on the ground in sleeping bags near the fire. During the day, they bushwhack through remote areas, most of the time not on trails, using chainsaws and other tools to get rid of fuel to stop wildfires.
It's brutal work, but for McClane, who's been doing this for about a decade, the purpose of what he does and being surrounded by others called to serve drives him to continue.
"Once I was there, it hooked me. I got to be on a team that was serving a bigger 'why' than any why I had ever experienced before," he said.
He also helps recruit and train wildland firefighters from the Southeast to come to the West, exposing people who have the right attributes for the job to wildland firefighting and the same sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that it brings him.
"The smiles you see when people like that get to find out what they're made of, that stuff lasts their entire lives," he said.
However, he says with the way things are going, he's not going to be able to continue if there aren't more people to share the burden of the job, which along with being physically taxing, can take a mental toll as well.
To get more people, he says that it starts with better pay for federal firefighters.
"It doesn't matter what color of vehicle the folks I'm working with show up in, we do the same job and we do it together; but the reality is the person I'm doing that job right next to, if they work for a state or local municipality, probably make two to three times more money than I do for the same position," he said.
Jeff Marsolais oversees fire and aviation resources for the U.S. Forest Service as an associate chief. USFS is in charge of the most wildland firefighters, but there are other wildland firefighters that work for other agencies like the Department of the Interior. Altogether, there are over 17,000 federal wildland firefighters.
Marsolais agrees that there is an issue in retaining talented and experienced firefighters, and pay and benefits are a big reason why.
"The personal fatigue is a part of it. The being away from home is a part of it. And when you combine all that for low wages, in some cases, our folks are barely squeaking by with the finances," said Marsolais. "You hear stories of them living in their vehicles behind the fire stations because they can't afford the rent of a location. Those things all combine to make a really tough environment."
Last year, U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said that the service saw a 45% attrition rate.
This year, USFS hired 11,300 firefighters, hitting their goal for the fiscal year, but Marsolais says that number is merely the operational bare minimum.
"What that number doesn't tell is where some of those more experienced people, senior fire leaders, mid-level fire managers might have been recruited away," he said.
McClane is worried about this too, saying having those experienced people on scene when a wildfire takes an unexpected turn could be the difference between life or death for the crew or for the nearest community.
"It should take years before you're trusted with the responsibility of making a decision under extreme stress that could impact whether someone lives or dies," said McClane, "Whether a small fire gets big, whether a big fire burns down a town, and that's what we're talking about here."
What's helped recruitment has been a temporary pay increase by the Biden administration that was part of the Infrastructure Bill. It raised the hourly wage for an entry-level firefighter from about $13 per hour to $15.
USFS research says that 115 million Americans, more than one-third of the population, live in high-risk fire areas. With wildfire season lasting longer, threatening communities near forests, there's pressure on lawmakers to make that pay bump permanent.
"It's always been an issue, but it has evolved and just gotten exponentially worse," said Luke Mayfield, a former wildland firefighter and now co-founder of the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters.
The group is working to convince lawmakers to vote for legislation like the Wildland Firefighter Pay Protection Act, which would make pay increases permanent. There's also a proposed $136 million increase in President Biden's 2025 budget that would hire 570 more firefighters to the USFS.
"This is a solvable problem, but you can't solve the problem without people on the ground and the urgency — like we're past urgent, this is a dire situation," said Mayfield.
Without action, the temporary pay increases will expire this fall.
"When our firefighters lose hope that a pay solution is on the horizon, they will find other better work that is more sustainable for their lives. And we're gravely concerned that that will cause us to not have the capacity we need when we need it and where we need it," said Marsolais.
To McClane, budgeting for more resources and people for the federal wildland firefighting system is not for the firefighters to get rich, it's for public safety.
"It's the foundational element that ensures the right people are there because without it, the fire department doesn't show up. What does that say?" asked McClane.
The work wildland firefighters do is hidden — it's usually remote, and when they get the job done we barely hear about it.
As McClane prepares for yet another couple weeks away from his wife and dogs, he's asking his neighbors for help in advocating for moving this issue to place it from the backcountry to the front of his mind.
"If we're doing it right, wildfires are in the backcountry, not the backyard. So if things are going well, you won't keep hearing about this, and I really hope that that's the case," he said.
