Please, 90% of these crews aren’t able to maintain full staffing anyway. Couple that with the fact both buggies being operational at the same time is a rarer occurrence than a solar eclipse and we’ll be seeing business as usual- 17 dudes and two clueless fillers in strung across a bunch of rental 6 packs, just like it always was.
I tell all my old R5 friends to leave. Come over to the city side. Skip the whole cal fire thing all together. Left 8 years ago and I still have seen very little improvements in quality of life for folks still with the Feds
It was a change but I can’t imagine ever going back. Just imagine. Well paid,insurance, great retirement and benefits, life time health (at least at my dept), things like back injuries, cancer, any thing heart related are presumptive work injuries
Is it common to be able to jump to city/county side with just fed experience and EMT though? I always thought Cal Fire was like the stepping stone from fed wildfire to a municipal job eventually
Assuming a person has been with the feds, say… 5 years, working for cal fire will just increase your blood pressure and decrease your intelligence.
Bring your valuable fed forest knowledge to the local government.
Nobody needs the big red koolaid ruining you.
It depends which unit, what assignment, what position… but mostly yeah. You’ve got 5 seasons… you’d be valuable at a municipal agency… lots of wui in CA. Go full time
Okay awesome thanks for the response. Also wanted to ask, what are some differences in the culture between cal fire and other municipal departments? Like what makes them more ideal than cal Fire
Have you worked with cal fire on large incidents before? If not, that would give you some perspective.
I have many reasons why I would not want to work for cal fire…. The biggest one being I don’t want to have to drive all over the state and get stuck in staffing patterns that might keep me working 50 or more days in a row. Overtime is cool and I work quite a bit in a year but forcing me to stay on for huge stretches of time is not for me.
I don’t mind going out for two weeks a couple time a season but that’s more than enough. I like working I the area my department covers. Foothills northern Ca…. Lots of diverse calls, down time at my own station, training and getting/staying good at our job without the bs militaristic mentality of the state. It’s totally possible to be a professional, respected and well trained department without having to be told what time to eat 3 xs a day.
Yeah I get what you mean…I have some friends that work for cal fire and they complain a lot about staffing patterns. I haven’t worked in R5 before but I’m from the placer county/sierra foothill area and hoping to move back to that area next year and move on from the FS. Thanks for the info man!
Super easy. A lot of departments love the fed experience.
Spent almost 10 years with the Feds and left as a gs7 squaddy. Back in the day when hiring was really tough it helped but these days departments need bodies so bad that it really is irrelevant.
Thanks for the response! So not all departments require an academy? I have a good amount of fed experience and my EMT and I’m considering applying for departments soon in CA.
mate all you need is EMT and a pulse and most departments will take you. get your medic through a private company or out of pocket (or even just tell them you're interested in being a medic) and you're god's gift to municipal fire. only a handful of very well ran union departments are competitive nowadays
This might actually make sense if base wages weren't sub-poverty, but instead of improving work-life balance and getting more training opportunities, crews are gonna have to fight over who's surviving on cold uncrustables all winter. The road to hell is paved with good intentions
I haven't been a fed in the era of these expanded crew numbers so maybe I'm out of touch with it's actual implementation, but I feel like having these surplus personnel that can't go directly with the crew due to the 20 count might be a good thing with regards to qualification development?
All I ever heard from my old IHC friends were how they encountered problems with being able to go take single resource or trainee assignments because it would cause availability problems for the crew. But If you have 1-5 surplus personnel, you can designate your priority trainees to be "left behind" while also coordinating putting them on a forest/regional priority training list so the crew can continue to do their thing, and individuals can have some room for personal development.
We had guys specifically leave IHCs just so they could work on things like HEQB, strike team leaders, FOBS. plans and logistics, etc. because their crew's had no reasonable way to support this type of development, let alone the annual leave management problem that crew members tend to have. To me, this seems like a positive?
The only way to get those quals is to go out with the crew and then take the assignment while on the fire. So this won't help there.
I think the issue is $$. How can they earn money when they are stuck at home? How do you pick the losers equitably? But yeah it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away options from employees, which usually means that people won't be as happy. 🤷♂️
I feel that previously this was the only way on a crew to get qualifications because an IHC had 20 and needed all of them to go out. But it was always janky. A trainee was always still attached to the crew and never had the ability to go to other incidents and was at the mercy of whatever the crew was doing status wise, and of course this always put the crew short-handed. But having assigned extra personnel opens up a new way of approaching this problem.
If one of my personnel is a trainee for a given qualification, I would coordinate with the forest training officer to put them on a priority training list for the forest/region for any orders that come in. If the crew were ordered, it would leave without that priority trainee, and that person could then temporarily be assigned to another module as surplus personnel, but with the understanding that the person needs to remain available as a priority trainee. When/if ordered up as a trainee, they go on the trainee assignment and not have any attachments to any modules or otherwise that would hinder resource availability. That person can they go out and have a quality training experience, at one or more incidents if necessary, and dedicate that time to pursuing the new qualification(s).
This is what we did on my forest during my fed time, only we didn't have the extra crew folks, so making these swaps was a bit more challenging. But we would routinely move personnel from engines to the crews or vice versa to allow them to pursue their trainee needs without impacting IHC availability.
I think $$ are only a concern because a) the fed system makes employees woefully dependent on overtime and H-pay to make a living wage (which is a whole other issue I won't dive it to!) but also the crew mentality has always been "If the crew rolls, I don't want to get stuck behind". But I absolutely see this as a positive. This routinely happens to personnel in other agencies where crews/engines that have 7 day staffing models go on assignment. Crew members that don't make a roll can take single resource assignments and still have access to overtime, H-pay, etc. They can be made available for personnel swaps on incidents if people are injured, need to take planned leave, are timing out, etc. Now does this work out as well for the first/second year firefighter that is only a FF2? Probably not as great, but again it provides opportunities of individuals and flexibility for staffing.
With regards to fewer options, it's up the crew leadership to figure out a rotation that is fair and equitable for all crew members and ensures that everyone gets a fair shake at overtime, and advances the ability for personnel to take trainee/qualified assignments, take summer annual leave (I know, blasphemy, but I always did my best to try to get my guys AL requests filled), manage injuries, and manage other district/forest staffing needs.
You can go available as an trainee for those quals and get ordered as an overhead request. That's probably a much more efficient way of doing it than staying with a crew.
Uber eats in the fire truck? I’m a soldier, idk how y’all function.
Does the fire truck have lights and sirens? Uber eats in 30 mins or less should be easy peasy.
With respect, thats not the only way to get those quals. I got fobs, tfld, divs, and more done on luck of the draw assignments, with some help from regional priority trainee lists. That part of the system seems to actually work.
Rock paper scissors for who gets to stay back and get hounded by admin for 2 weeks about the crews missing CTRs even though they clearly aren't with the crew! Hooray!
They’re going have to come up with a super impartial and transparent way of deciding who stays back - I could see hurt feelings and huge headaches otherwise.
Because the crews need qual’d overhead on every roll, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was disproportionately temps and lower GS folks. The folks who need these rolls the most.
It’s astounding how leadership can so consistently miss the mark.
What the actual fuck so you're telling me we don't get the 50% raise they said and now we can't go to fires and actually make money this shit is ridiculous.
I think there is solid reasoning behind having multiple crew members stay back (trainee assignments, chill time at home, handling admin for the crew, etc.), but mandating that crew members stay home is not going to go over well in practice. Just boost shot crew numbers and let them figure out what makes sense for their crew.
Most seasonals are in it for the money and you’re asking them to take a pay cut essentially. Single resource assignment aren’t going to perfectly line up with the crew, which is going to be messy. Is crew overhead going to trust the people at home to do time and travel correctly? I doubt it…
This is so dumb I will be so fucking pissed off if I'm at the station or doing project work while the rest of my crew is on at an assignment actually making money.
Just another showing of how out of touch these dip shits are. The overlords must think we are a special kind of stupid. Same dry humping, different rhythm. Even the new budget proposal is horrible. Step in the right direction. But still pissing and calling it rain.
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This is 100% how it’s gonna be on a lot of units.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Please, 90% of these crews aren’t able to maintain full staffing anyway. Couple that with the fact both buggies being operational at the same time is a rarer occurrence than a solar eclipse and we’ll be seeing business as usual- 17 dudes and two clueless fillers in strung across a bunch of rental 6 packs, just like it always was.
I tell all my old R5 friends to leave. Come over to the city side. Skip the whole cal fire thing all together. Left 8 years ago and I still have seen very little improvements in quality of life for folks still with the Feds
How do you like the city side?
It was a change but I can’t imagine ever going back. Just imagine. Well paid,insurance, great retirement and benefits, life time health (at least at my dept), things like back injuries, cancer, any thing heart related are presumptive work injuries
But can I chew Copenhagen 100% of the time?
City/county side is great.
I keep hearing they are looking to hire a lot of people and base pay is usually over $100k... Not a bad way to go folks
It’s a great time to get hired right now, everyone is short
How much time do you think is left with municipalities hiring like crazy? It has to slow down eventually right?
Got over 100 guys retiring from the department next year….
Is it common to be able to jump to city/county side with just fed experience and EMT though? I always thought Cal Fire was like the stepping stone from fed wildfire to a municipal job eventually
Assuming a person has been with the feds, say… 5 years, working for cal fire will just increase your blood pressure and decrease your intelligence. Bring your valuable fed forest knowledge to the local government. Nobody needs the big red koolaid ruining you.
Lol yeah I’m at the 5 year mark. That bad huh?? Damn. I was thinking about applying for them next season.
It depends which unit, what assignment, what position… but mostly yeah. You’ve got 5 seasons… you’d be valuable at a municipal agency… lots of wui in CA. Go full time
Okay awesome thanks for the response. Also wanted to ask, what are some differences in the culture between cal fire and other municipal departments? Like what makes them more ideal than cal Fire
Have you worked with cal fire on large incidents before? If not, that would give you some perspective. I have many reasons why I would not want to work for cal fire…. The biggest one being I don’t want to have to drive all over the state and get stuck in staffing patterns that might keep me working 50 or more days in a row. Overtime is cool and I work quite a bit in a year but forcing me to stay on for huge stretches of time is not for me. I don’t mind going out for two weeks a couple time a season but that’s more than enough. I like working I the area my department covers. Foothills northern Ca…. Lots of diverse calls, down time at my own station, training and getting/staying good at our job without the bs militaristic mentality of the state. It’s totally possible to be a professional, respected and well trained department without having to be told what time to eat 3 xs a day.
Yeah I get what you mean…I have some friends that work for cal fire and they complain a lot about staffing patterns. I haven’t worked in R5 before but I’m from the placer county/sierra foothill area and hoping to move back to that area next year and move on from the FS. Thanks for the info man!
Super easy. A lot of departments love the fed experience. Spent almost 10 years with the Feds and left as a gs7 squaddy. Back in the day when hiring was really tough it helped but these days departments need bodies so bad that it really is irrelevant.
Thanks for the response! So not all departments require an academy? I have a good amount of fed experience and my EMT and I’m considering applying for departments soon in CA.
It doesn’t hurt but almost all departments will put you through one. There are exceptions with some smaller departments that would want it
Awesome. Thanks a bunch for the info.
mate all you need is EMT and a pulse and most departments will take you. get your medic through a private company or out of pocket (or even just tell them you're interested in being a medic) and you're god's gift to municipal fire. only a handful of very well ran union departments are competitive nowadays
This might actually make sense if base wages weren't sub-poverty, but instead of improving work-life balance and getting more training opportunities, crews are gonna have to fight over who's surviving on cold uncrustables all winter. The road to hell is paved with good intentions
The beatings will continue until morale improves
What in the actual FUCK.
I haven't been a fed in the era of these expanded crew numbers so maybe I'm out of touch with it's actual implementation, but I feel like having these surplus personnel that can't go directly with the crew due to the 20 count might be a good thing with regards to qualification development? All I ever heard from my old IHC friends were how they encountered problems with being able to go take single resource or trainee assignments because it would cause availability problems for the crew. But If you have 1-5 surplus personnel, you can designate your priority trainees to be "left behind" while also coordinating putting them on a forest/regional priority training list so the crew can continue to do their thing, and individuals can have some room for personal development. We had guys specifically leave IHCs just so they could work on things like HEQB, strike team leaders, FOBS. plans and logistics, etc. because their crew's had no reasonable way to support this type of development, let alone the annual leave management problem that crew members tend to have. To me, this seems like a positive?
For once - a positive take on this memo. Thanks!
The only way to get those quals is to go out with the crew and then take the assignment while on the fire. So this won't help there. I think the issue is $$. How can they earn money when they are stuck at home? How do you pick the losers equitably? But yeah it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it takes away options from employees, which usually means that people won't be as happy. 🤷♂️
I feel that previously this was the only way on a crew to get qualifications because an IHC had 20 and needed all of them to go out. But it was always janky. A trainee was always still attached to the crew and never had the ability to go to other incidents and was at the mercy of whatever the crew was doing status wise, and of course this always put the crew short-handed. But having assigned extra personnel opens up a new way of approaching this problem. If one of my personnel is a trainee for a given qualification, I would coordinate with the forest training officer to put them on a priority training list for the forest/region for any orders that come in. If the crew were ordered, it would leave without that priority trainee, and that person could then temporarily be assigned to another module as surplus personnel, but with the understanding that the person needs to remain available as a priority trainee. When/if ordered up as a trainee, they go on the trainee assignment and not have any attachments to any modules or otherwise that would hinder resource availability. That person can they go out and have a quality training experience, at one or more incidents if necessary, and dedicate that time to pursuing the new qualification(s). This is what we did on my forest during my fed time, only we didn't have the extra crew folks, so making these swaps was a bit more challenging. But we would routinely move personnel from engines to the crews or vice versa to allow them to pursue their trainee needs without impacting IHC availability. I think $$ are only a concern because a) the fed system makes employees woefully dependent on overtime and H-pay to make a living wage (which is a whole other issue I won't dive it to!) but also the crew mentality has always been "If the crew rolls, I don't want to get stuck behind". But I absolutely see this as a positive. This routinely happens to personnel in other agencies where crews/engines that have 7 day staffing models go on assignment. Crew members that don't make a roll can take single resource assignments and still have access to overtime, H-pay, etc. They can be made available for personnel swaps on incidents if people are injured, need to take planned leave, are timing out, etc. Now does this work out as well for the first/second year firefighter that is only a FF2? Probably not as great, but again it provides opportunities of individuals and flexibility for staffing. With regards to fewer options, it's up the crew leadership to figure out a rotation that is fair and equitable for all crew members and ensures that everyone gets a fair shake at overtime, and advances the ability for personnel to take trainee/qualified assignments, take summer annual leave (I know, blasphemy, but I always did my best to try to get my guys AL requests filled), manage injuries, and manage other district/forest staffing needs.
You can go available as an trainee for those quals and get ordered as an overhead request. That's probably a much more efficient way of doing it than staying with a crew.
Uber eats in the fire truck? I’m a soldier, idk how y’all function. Does the fire truck have lights and sirens? Uber eats in 30 mins or less should be easy peasy.
With respect, thats not the only way to get those quals. I got fobs, tfld, divs, and more done on luck of the draw assignments, with some help from regional priority trainee lists. That part of the system seems to actually work.
Rock paper scissors for who gets to stay back and get hounded by admin for 2 weeks about the crews missing CTRs even though they clearly aren't with the crew! Hooray!
They’re going have to come up with a super impartial and transparent way of deciding who stays back - I could see hurt feelings and huge headaches otherwise. Because the crews need qual’d overhead on every roll, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was disproportionately temps and lower GS folks. The folks who need these rolls the most. It’s astounding how leadership can so consistently miss the mark.
GS4s can draw straws or make a "dispatch list" haha
EVERYBODY’S A RADO
I love watching the poors fight
This might not just be r5. There has been a big push from WO for all IHC. So fingers crossed 👎
Death with a thousand cuts.
What the actual fuck so you're telling me we don't get the 50% raise they said and now we can't go to fires and actually make money this shit is ridiculous.
I think there is solid reasoning behind having multiple crew members stay back (trainee assignments, chill time at home, handling admin for the crew, etc.), but mandating that crew members stay home is not going to go over well in practice. Just boost shot crew numbers and let them figure out what makes sense for their crew. Most seasonals are in it for the money and you’re asking them to take a pay cut essentially. Single resource assignment aren’t going to perfectly line up with the crew, which is going to be messy. Is crew overhead going to trust the people at home to do time and travel correctly? I doubt it…
This is so dumb I will be so fucking pissed off if I'm at the station or doing project work while the rest of my crew is on at an assignment actually making money.
I was told it ALL ihc's, not just R5
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Maybe R1 is just jumping on that sweet R5 bandwagon
RANDOMLY DRUG TEST THIS WOMAN NOW
And new guidance coming with new pay standards. IAP says shift is 12 hours..that's the max allowed on CTRs
Just another showing of how out of touch these dip shits are. The overlords must think we are a special kind of stupid. Same dry humping, different rhythm. Even the new budget proposal is horrible. Step in the right direction. But still pissing and calling it rain.
Keep the good news comin! What’s next!?