Toward full-time wildland firefighting
WHEN I BEGAN WORKING as a hotshot firefighter for the Forest Service in 2001, I was hired as a part-time, temporary worker. At the time, over half the crew was made up of part-time employees. Today, the Forest Service employs approximately 10,000 wildland firefighters, but still less than half of them are permanent fulltime workers.
When the Forest Service was formed in the early 20th century,
