Founder’s desk
“Improving workers’ lives on the job cannot be separated from improving their lives when off work.”
–Erica Smiley & Sarita Gupta in The Future We Need (p.62)
As the new administration prepares to take office in 2025, the future of fire and forestry work in America is at a critical crossroads. The twin crises of escalating wildfire impacts and workforce retention have exposed critical gaps in our nation’s wildfire mitigation and land management systems.
Fire and forestry workers endure extreme conditions, risking their physical and mental health to make communities safe and landscapes resilient. Coupled with housing insecurity and lack of pay parity, it can be challenging to sustain family-sustaining careers in this line of work. As a result, the fire and forestry industry is seeing a generational loss of skilled workers, exacerbating challenges with recruitment and retention at a time when a robust workforce is urgently needed to mitigate catastrophic wildfire and smoke impacts.
Current approaches to workforce development no longer serve a transitioning workforce seeking greater voice, agency, mobility, and flexibility in achieving family sustaining careers. Compounding legacy issues, rapid advances in technology adoption have widened the gap between the skills workers have and the skills employers need.
Incoming policy transitions present an opportunity to reimagine fire and forestry work in ways that can secure a dignified future for all fire and forestry workers. Linear workforce pipelines must be replaced with a modular career development system that embraces whole person approaches to life long learning and opportunities to upskill at each career stage. The system must be redesigned in ways that democratizes access to training and credentials no matter where you live or your prior educational background. The system must recognize people’s transferrable skills, build their competencies through on-demand virtual and hybrid training models, and give people affordable options for career transitions and mobility at every stage.
This is why FireUp exists. Aligning with wider calls for transforming America’s education and workforce systems, FireUp is advocating for a bold agenda to modernize legacy systems because every American worker deserves a system with no dead ends to opportunity. FireUp is showing how private industry can take the lead in building a worker-centered future-ready platform that solves inefficiencies and misaligned processes to serve workers where they are.
Reimagining fire and forestry work in this way will deliver greater flexibility in work-life arrangements and empowering well-being outcomes. We recognize that this paradigm shift will require a bold new policy agenda to modernize traditional degree-focused and linear workforce training pipeline models to instead meet people where they are in their life and career trajectories. Based on our experience of building America’s first future-ready career platform for fire and forestry workers, FireUp is emphasizing six policy recommendations to shape the new administration’s priorities in the first 100 Days:
1. Expand and Cross-train the Workforce, with a Focus on Mitigation:
Addressing the wildfire and smoke crisis will require an expanded, cross-trained, and year-round workforce. The Trump-Vance administration must invest in the development and procurement of virtual and hybrid training platforms that can certify workers to conduct a range of wildfire management, mitigation, and restoration actions. Such trainings must emphasize multi-disciplinary skills, enabling personnel to shift between active fire management, ecological restoration, infrastructure assessments, and property mitigations. Federal and state programs should continue to provide targeted support for communities most affected by wildfires, especially underserved, Tribal, and rural populations. Expanding federal support to conservation corps, apprenticeship programs, and mentee and volunteer opportunities in affected and at risk communities will allow workers to earn while they learn, creating accessible pathways into this area of work. Developing a year-round regional workforce that is cross-trained for a range of tasks will be essential to restoring forest health and addressing the wildfire and smoke crises effectively.
2. Enhance Career Navigation Tools and Systems:
Easy to access career navigation services must be available to guide all fire and forestry professionals through a growing universe of roles in the fire and forestry industry. Beginning at K-12 level, all workers should have access to a range of digital tools at their fingertips, including real-time labor market data, digital credential wallets, and comprehensive resources accessible both remotely and in-person through local career navigation and job centers, community colleges, conservation corps and networks, and local services, including libraries and high school training centers. The new digital interface must highlight on-ramps and off-ramps to various career pathways, ensuring workers are empowered with choices to transition, upskill, or cross-train as relevant to their evolving career goals. Competency-based hiring practices should replace degree requirements for federal jobs, recognizing transferable skills and credentials earned on the job. The administration must work with private industry to incentivize the development of career coaching and mentoring through e-learning platforms that democratize access to fire and forestry professionals at all career stages, irrespective of their access to community colleges or local career navigation programs.
3. Support Workforce Sustainability with Wraparound Services:
The fire and forestry workforce’s long-term sustainability depends on providing high-quality jobs with fair pay, health benefits, and access to child and family care. The administration should provide incentives for employers to provide affordable child and family care, addressing a key barrier for many workers. Access to decent housing, flexible work arrangements, and career progression metrics, including ongoing training and development opportunities, will retain talent and build a sustainable fire and forestry workforce. All services must be provided remotely and through in-person access point, including community-based organizations, libraries, community colleges, and K-12 guidance centers. The system must be redesigned in ways that ensure all services can be accessed by as many people as possible, including residents of rural areas, populations so far underrepresented in family sustaining and quality jobs, and communities that remain underserved by public and private institutions. Additionally, federal support for a range of fire and forestry trainings must remain adequately funded, reiterating the shared responsibility of government and private industry in building a competitive and resilient workforce.
4. Build Shared Talent Pools:
Building robust talent pools shared across government agencies, private industry, and community-based organizations can alleviate recruitment delays and inefficiencies across the system. Fire and forestry talent pools must include a focus on cross-trained personnel who can be rapidly deployed on a range of wildfire risk management activities, including preparedness, mitigation, response, recovery, and adaptation related actions. Gaining experience across geographies and industries must be incentivized so the nation can build a robust pool of fire and forestry reservists who can provide surge capacity and expertise where required. Collaboration with trade associations and small businesses will be critical in maintaining ongoing skills development and retention. Expanding wildfire and smoke related mitigation competencies and certifications must become central to public-private talent development partnerships, ensuring resilience outcomes for communities across the nation.
5. Leverage Data for Workforce and Industry Insights:
Current workforce discussions are overly focused on federal roles, neglecting the private and non-profit sectors that employ significant portions of the workforce around the year in related and adjacent areas of preparedness, mitigation, and risk reduction work. The administration must prioritize comprehensive data collection, reporting, and sharing to better understand and utilize informal, seasonal, and non-federal worker capabilities, including formerly incarcerated and justice impacted people who must be given pathways to reintegrate into the workforce. Data insights can inform policies to close gaps in workforce capacity and planning at all levels and across sectors, while facilitating a much needed periodic assessment of the job readiness capabilities of an expanded fire and forestry workforce. The administration must be responsive to workforce data by focusing on both regional employment opportunities and the increasing proportion of jobs that can be performed remotely.
6. Champion Employer-Driven Solutions and Entrepreneurship:
Small and mid sized business owners and private employers must be incentivized to play an active role in addressing the workforce crisis. The administration can partner with private industry to understand best practices in recruitment, retention, and work-based learning. Encouraging entrepreneurship and small business development will fulfill critical local and regional mitigation needs, creating resilient ecosystems and economic opportunities for millions. The administration should consider piloting entrepreneurship hubs that provide agile capital and mentorship to trained forestry and fire workers to start up small businesses, procure equipment, create resilient local infrastructure, and contribute to multi-scalar wildfire resilience goals.
By expanding and cross-training the fire and forestry workforce, democratizing access to career navigation and training, investing in wraparound services, and fostering public-private collaboration, the incoming administration can transform fire and forestry work into a dignified and sustainable career path for millions.
FireUp is already working to deliver a worker-centered digital infrastructure of care that forms the basis of these recommendations. We stand ready to partner in this transformation, helping to build a future where fire and forestry professionals thrive and their work contributes to a safe and healthy future for all Americans.
In partnership,
Shefali Juneja Lakhina, PhD
Founder & CEO, FireUp
p.s. Partners, if you’re working towards any of these shared goals, please feel free to cite this article to amplify messaging and reiterate these priority actions to the new administration. If you’d like to discuss any of these priorities, please reach out with comments to hello@fire-up.net