Anyone on the board ever do any wildland? Im in EMT school right now and i am thinking of going for a Wildland gig after i pass National Registery. Where can i get a Red card? Any experience or guidance is welcome.

I had 1 season on an EFF crew, 1 on a state helitec crew, and 3 wonderful years on the midnight sun Hotshot crew. My last season was in 95.
I really enjoyed the work, especially on the shot crews. I got to see parts of the country that most will never see. I will say it was the hardest work I ever enjoyed. 16hr days were the norm, my longest working shift was something like 64 hrs. You do this for months on end. Spend all summer under the stars, rain or snow. God I miss that work. But I changed careers for a couple of reasons. I could make more money working oil. After me and my wife had are second child and after the Storm king mountain fire my wife asked me to reconsider my choice of careers.

When I was doing it all you had to do to get a red card was to take a 2 day class and pass the 1.5 mile run. I have heard they are now doing some sort of step test and/or a hike but I don't know anything about these. When you go for Helitac or A shot crew they have different standards. When I was on a hotshot crew it was 1.5 miles in under 9 min, 60 pushups in under a min, 60 sit-ups in under a minute and 14 pull-ups. I would just go to your local forestry office and ask them about getting a red card.

Here I am in Colorado in '94. I have my 35lb line gear on and 5 galls of water (piss-pump) normal I ran a saw.

Clinth



[img]http://home.gci.net/~cdhansen/images/ME%2094.jpg[/img]

Thanks for the reply. Im looking foward to doing this.

I would recommend going to your nearest US Forest Service or BLM office and asking for info/app.  After the 2000 fire season (Los Alamos, etc), huge $$ was given to the federal agencys to increase suppression.  What it amounted to was more engines, hotshot crews, helitack crews, and more prescribed fire.  People are needed, bad.  You can get a job on an engine or helitack crew (maybe even a hotshot crew) with no experience and no red card.  They will get you the training for going out on fires and getting red carded.  It just depends on the needs of the district near you or if you're willing to move.  Go to www.usajobs.opm.gov you can find all the vacancies for different gov jobs.  To find the fire ones, search by specific agency (US forest service, BLM, or National Park Service) or job code 0462 or 0455 (Forestry Technician or Range Technician).  I could go into mass details about what a great job it is, challenging, demanding, rewarding....... but I'm short on time right now.  Feel free to email me if you have any questions about the job or want more info