I completed my paperwork side of the red card portion several years ago and currently instruct my states wildland fire curriculum. I called our forest service recently to see about doing the field exercise for the red card so i could go out of state to help. I was told within the past few years, the federal government has pushed liability onto the states and now the states will no longer allow anyone to do the field exercise portion unless you are a current federal or state forestry employee.

Was basically told thats the reason forestry came up with our state curriculum, to still certify firefighters in state wild land.

Is there any alternative, or way around this, to go through the federal side to do the exercise as a municipal employee?

im currently attached to a local department, and volunteers run through the same system. According to the state, no aside from state forestry can pack test and this recently change in the past few years after some federal issues came down.

Is your department a co-operator with the state in wild land FF? What level of ICS training do you have? You could get training as a single resource pending on what your training and skill set are like a Heavy equipment boss for instance. Most of those positions require you to task book out as a trainee etc before your turned loose. Are you just wanting attached to a hand crew? There are very large differences in how each state allows this to work. I am FF TYPE 1 dozer /plow operator, heavy equipment boss, squad boss state and fed-then on a my state level I got a stack of certs that do not count for much on federal assignments unless I wanted to pursue those task books.

edit-I have not been active out west for over a year.

ICS 400 along with everything related underneath that...200,300,700 etc etc, as well as ifsac fire officer 2 and other supervision courses

pump ops and the state fire academy wildland classes put together with conjunction of the state forestry, are the equivalent of instructor for s130 and instructor for intermediate wildland. I teach those instate, but was wanting to get on a crew.

For example, my home state FL burns everynow and then. Its only a few hours away and I would be interested in going down and attaching with a group and working, but the forestry site there wants a redcard for out of state help.

Theres no real formal setup between local agencies and forestry here...you need help, you call them, they show up with what you ask....usually one tractor and a part time forester

Your in FL? Speak to your district manager and he will put your request into Tallahassee. I know that they have had structure guys attach to hand crews. Have all your documentation on hand and you will have to pack with them and get your red card.

no, originally from florida just using it as an example of moving between states. For example, we took swift water boat teams to other states when hurricanes came by, i didn't need anything like a red card

however to go between states, as a municipal fire fighter, florida wants out of state fire fighters to have a red card. What my issue ive been trying to explain is that unless you are a federal forestry/fire fighter, or state wildland fire fighter, you can't get a red card anymore...so is there a way around that? or will states ignore that or simply turn manpower away.

Team Rubicon hosts several Red Card/Pack tests around the country each year; if you'd like to sign up, check out Team Rubicon.