Grassroots Wildland Firefighters
Congratulations to all federal wildland firefighters!
Grassroots Wildland Firefighters celebrates with you in recognizing this historic and incredibly monumental day, as the Infrastructure Bill has passed through Congress and been signed into law by the President of the United States. For decades our federal wildland firefighting community has given everything we have to protect our citizens, our communities, our lands, and one another. Together, through long smoky shifts with an unbreakable bond forged through hard work and the belief that there is no challenge that we cannot overcome, we have always found a way to push forward and take care of our own and our communities. But as we experience longer and more intensive fire seasons with less support, this profession comes with incredible challenges, heartbreak, and issues that demand solutions. These solutions and ideas have and will always belong to many generations of federal wildland firefighters; wildland firefighters that have lived through these experiences, challenges, and sacrificed so much to get the job done. Grassroots Wildland Firefighters will continue to advocate and push forward with a unifying voice for meaningful and long-term reforms.
This law takes the historic first step of “developing a distinct ‘wildland firefighter’ occupational series,” while also addressing near-term solutions to increase currently inadequate wages. It also places emphasis on “establishing programs for permanent, temporary, seasonal, and year-round wildland firefighters to recognize and address mental health needs, including post-traumatic stress disorder care, and developing and adhering to recommendations for mitigation strategies for wildland firefighters to minimize exposure due to line-of-duty environmental hazards.”
Grassroots Wildland Firefighters is committed to working with firefighters, legislators, and the land management agencies to ensure that the solutions presented in this law are carried out in the best interest of all federal wildland firefighters and in line with legislators’ original intentions when serving as subject matter experts and advisors during the creation of the bill language. We will do everything in our power to see to it that wildland firefighters and their wellbeing remain the priority and are addressed on a national scale! While we recognize this bill is focused on near-term solutions 2022-2026, we continue to push forward with additional long-term solutions presented in existing legislation that further support the wellbeing of our firefighters.
We are extremely grateful to the Senators, Congressional Representatives, and President Biden for their continued support of our federal wildland fire community. But more importantly, we are so very grateful for all of you federal wildland firefighters, and all of the hard work you put in year after year. Stay strong and stay positive. There are brighter days ahead.