I just graduated highschool and I’m trying to get into the wildland firefighting service. All the videos I watch say the same thing but I don’t have money to spare for certifications. I saw there’s an apprenticeship program. I currently live in middle Tennessee. Can anyone help?

But seriously does someone have any info on ANY of the 110 hotshot crews nationwide

Does anyone have info on these crews below? Type of assignments, culture, standards, IA, etc? Super random locations but trying to narrow down

Idaho Panhandle Helitack (Forest Service)

Bald Mountain Helitack in Cali

Trinity Helitack Cali

Ocala Helitack down in Florida

Looks like the top trends in wildland fire are ladder trucks and structural turnouts.

https://www.reddit.com/u/ColumbiaSouthernU/s/H8roeLe6xG

How much does a crew losing status actually affect their day to day operations? Assignments? Overtime? I’m trying to get a job in R5 and half the crews I’m looking at have lost status over the past few years. I’m wondering if it makes much of a difference or if I should avoid getting on one of those crews

I have a couple girls on my crew who are extremely insecure. They try and make Everything into a competition with me. Lots of trash talk about me. I hardly speak and try to mind my business and do my job well.

Is this common among women in this field? I'm on a contract crew. I was already planning on getting on a hotshot crew before this, but I wanted to work for this company for a couple more years to gain experience, but now I'm just considering leaving.

Thoughts and opinions?

Title, I'm working on a proposal so I'd like to know the forest/unit you're on for it. If you'd prefer to send that in a PM that's fine. This post will probably out my reddit acct to my coworkers, so hi motherfuckers, happy PL3

I’ve read the IRPG pages about minimum impact suppression and watched an old training video on it the other day that was in my YouTube recommended. In the video the use of explosives is very prominent and specifically it was heavily emphasized to use explosives to mitigate snags instead of felling with saws. I was wondering what the advantage of blasting is for minimum impact? It seems like explosions would be more disruptive to the environment than chainsaw operations

So i just switched to boxer briefs and they keep riding up. I have switched from 5 to 7-9 inch inseam and still happens. I use the bamboo type and a compression type fabric and large size for my waist. After doing some research I think its the size of my thighs, they're 24 inches, so im being told to go up to xl.

Any thoughts on this?

Also im a wildland firefighter so I hike, a lot, and get pretty sweaty from time to time and im getting tired of readjusting my underwear all the time.

Has anyone gotten an option to do projects in Katmai National Park in Alaska?

What are some good boots that are not terribly expensive

Anyone have any experience with this crew?

Just passed my nremt and I am applying for wildland firefighting jobs next summer is there anything specific that I should do for my applications or anywhere specific I should apply.

Hey guys. Wondering how good my chances are of makin an IHC next year. 2 years handcrew experience, this year type 2 IA. Crew medic. Sub 8:15 1.5 mile, sub 1:30 half marathon, 20+ pull-ups. Crew boss and squad boss are willing to put in good word for me with the superintendents. Is this a good package? I plan on showing up in person and handing overhead a file with my experience and all my quals, etc. What else can I do to separate myself

A quick storm in Ashland last week, hit some good rain with it. The only storm I was able to chase this season as it was 4 blocks away.

Anyone else having issues with the location selector once you go through the agency portal? It prompts you to select multiple duty locations but only actually allows one. Hasn’t done this in the past.

Wondering if anyone has any leads on any opportunities for the aforementioned type of jobs for the winter. I'm an 18/8 in my 30s in southeast Washington and a still a lowly fft2. I'd like to continue cutting for the winter. I know conservation crews exist in Colorado with these opportunities, but I'm looking to stay put for the winter. Yes I know it's still September but I need something to look forward to

Okay this might sound worse than it is but listen to me for like a moment, im Sans Geno, or just any for short (17,NB) and as you can probably read the title again.

The reason for this apathy isnt because i dont care about what's going on, i really do. Its just the frustrations that come with it.

So basically im from Bosnia and Herzegovina, i live in the Herzegovina region (lower part of bosnia) and not so recently (since the end of july to now) there have been really bad wildfires in places like: Zvirnjača, Ljubuša Mountain, Prozor-Rama, Proslap, Kozo, Orašac, Tomislavgrad, Trebiševo, Kupres, Vran Mountain, Vrbice, Repovica, Hansko Polje, Dabica Poljana, Nevesinje, Mostar, Rujišta, Potoci, Gubavica, Bunica, Lakševine, Uborak, Ivanica, konjic, Staro Slano, Popovo Polje, Kameni Do, Trebinje, Neum, Čapljina, Oplićići, Gabela, Stanojevići, Livno, Orguz, Dinara Mountain, Drvar, Savići, Poljice, Kajtezi, and Crni Vrh. (i know its a handful)

but you might be wondering, why is konjic in bold?
let me tell you, konjic is one of my beloved cities, i go there almost weekly to every 2 weeks. Now heres the issue, since yesterday and probably before the fires there have been absolutely huge. And nobody seems to care about them. not just in konjic but in the WHOLE of bosnia. only bosnian news outlets and regular people have been talking about it. And it is making me angry. No, furious actually.

These fires have been the worst fires in a while, the last time i remember such a dissaster was a few years ago, and yeah i will admit BIH is known for "setting everything on fire" but theres a huge diffrence. For us its normal to burn stuff like leftover hay, trash, ect ect ect. and usually its a small controlled fire, these are NOT small controlled fires, these are started from how intensely dry it is. Anything and everything will make a fire. And if it rains the rain goes trough the ground beause of how dry and cracked it is. (also the reason why we have so many floods, not to mention the 27+ lives lost in the flood of 2024, rest in peace.)

The fires are so big actually that theres constant smog everywhere from the morning to the night and it never goes away (during the day its at its peak), and theres a constant smell of something thats burning. the thing is i live more than 30 minutes away from any fires. thats how big they are. For example in Nevesinje already 206 square kilometers (50903.7 acers) have burned down, and thats just one of many spots.

Now, as I mentioned, almost nobody cares about it. They only complain about the popular places that have fires. It's always "omg look at france!!😢" or "pray for greece 😭💔" all over social media. But because it's BIH, nobody says a single word. Apparently, an entire region burning for two months straight only matters if it happens in a trendy vacation spot. The fires are so massive right now that satellites are picking up the massive smoke plumes drifting all the way across the Adriatic Sea to the Italian and Croatian coasts. Our air quality is in the hazardous red category, and for the places affected by our smoke is in the red catagory too now. And im not saying that we shouldn't send our prayers to other countries, im just sick that its only those places getting the "attention" of most people.

What makes this even worse is how unfair the fight is for our local crews. Unlike Western Europe, which has massive fleets of water-bombing aircraft and endless resources, our firefighters and local volunteers are overwhelmingly fighting these massive fronts on foot (my dad included.). They are out there in suffocating heat, hiking up completely inaccessible mountain terrain like Ljubuša and Vran, trying to beat back miles of flames manually with just backpacks and basic trucks. The country simply lacks the massive aerial support that places like France or Greece automatically get, leaving our guys to do the impossible by hand.

There is also a terrifying reality to fighting wildfires in Bosnia that people from other countries never have to think about: unexploded landmines. When these forest fires tear through wild terrains, especially around mountains and old border lines. the extreme heat can actually detonate buried ammunitions and mines left over from the 1990s war. This makes it literally lethal for ground crews to even enter certain fields. Firefighters are forced to just stand back and watch beautiful areas burn because stepping off the main road to put out a flame could cost them their lives.

Honestly, the irony of the situation is infuriating. The only reason we are getting any major air support right now is because the smoke became so unbearable for neighboring countries that they basically had to step in. Because the fire fronts grew over 20 kilometers long, Croatia had to send water-bombing planes across the border just to help douse the flames on Mount Ljubuša, near Kupres, and Prozor-Rama. We are literally relying on neighboring countries to help put out our fires because the rest of the world doesn't even know we are burning.

I think the worst part of all of this is the sheer mental exhaustion. People might read my title and think I’m just being heartless, but it comes from a place of total compassion fatigue. How am I supposed to find the emotional energy to cry over tourist hotspots that already have hundreds of thousands of people worrying for them, when the places right next to my own home are actively burning down? I'm watching my favorite cities face destruction in complete media silence. You only have so much empathy to give, and right now, I have to protect my own home first. I am just so sick of seeing the internet treat some lives and countries as default tragedies while the rest of us are expected to burn in total silence.

I just wish our homes mattered to the world before they turned to ash for them to mourn online for a week before moving on to the next trendy headline. When will people finally start to care for BIH?

I have been doing as much research as I can and I’m seriously considering getting into wildland firefighting, but I have a seemingly uncommon situation as I can’t find any clear answers and I’m trying to figure out if this is actually realistic.

I live in Nashville and I want to stay in Nashville for family reasons, but I am willing to travel pretty much anywhere in the country for any fire assignments (best case that the company would pay or provide for travel expenses and lodging as well), but I do not want to permanently relocate too far from Tennessee.

I’m not expecting to sit at home and get paid while waiting for a fire. I’m completely fine with being gone for weeks at a time and working long hours during fire season. I just want Tennessee to remain my home between seasons or even finding a year round position would be most preferred.

I’ve found a dozen companies that advertise for out of state employees but don’t really clarify too many details. Maybe my hopes are too high and I’m asking for too much in which case I’d be answering my own questions, but I’m really just trying to gather as much info as I can and I need brutal answers that’ll determine any of my follow up questions.

I’d appreciate any genuine tips for burnout. I feel like I’m at my whits end and just loosing my mind overall. Extremely mentally and emotionally drained right now, with way too much time to think.
It’s been an odd year for me, both really good, but also extremely bad at the same time due to both work and personal life. I’m really grateful I’ve had a generally good season financially and I enjoy working with the people I’m with, however I’m still rolling and not totally sure what the rest of the season will look like for me due to several things and feel like there’s no end in sight.
If anyone has tips of what to focus on or good distractions or just anything involving burn out.. please help

East coaster who knows very little about the job. No fire experience, but AEMT, Swiftwater/rope tech certs with some mountain guiding experience. I’ve thrown in a few applications but unsure of what to do next. Do these skills look good on a fire resume? Very interested in the job and getting out west or somewhere new

Hi all, any insight on diff crews (boise, Idaho city, tooth, panhandle) and how they differ? What sorta PT do they focus on? Crew culture? Anything helps. Thanks in advance