Wildland firefighters need our support

Wildland firefighters typically log 16-hour days for weeks at a time, burning 4,000 to 6,000 calories a day while carrying heavy backpacks. Yet despite the hardships and the history, a mandated pay raise in June 2021, spurred by President Joe Biden, brought the minimum wage for federal wildland firefighters up to a mere $15 an hour. Enter a temporary order from President Biden raising that base pay rate by 50 percent. Put in place in August 2022 and retroactive to the previous October as part of a hotly contested package of infrastructure-funding policies, the pay raise was funded only until Sept 30, 2023, after which pay for wildland firefighters drops back to 2020 levels.