Supervisory Wildland Firefighter (Fire Management Officer)

In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards.

Credit will be given for all appropriate qualifying experience. Your resume MUST clearly indicate the nature of the duties and responsibilities for each position, starting and ending dates of employment (month/year), and must reflect full and/or part-time or total number of hours worked (i.e., work 40+ hours a week, rather than indicating full-time). If an applicant's resume is incomplete a rating of "ineligible" will be applied and no consideration for employment will be granted.

This position has been identified as one of the key fire management positions under the Interagency Fire Program management (IFPM) Standard. This position requires selectee to meet the minimum qualification standards for IFPM prior to being placed into the position. For more information on IFPM, click here.

Basic Qualification Requirements:

• Candidates must possess Primary/Rigorous wildland firefighting experience, gained through fire line work in containment, control, suppression or use of wildland fire. You must clearly demonstrate this experience in your resume, including the months, days and hours per week at which the work was performed in order to be considered. AND
• Successfully completed the Primary NWCG Core Requirements of:
  • Division/Group Leader (DIVS) AND
  • Incident Commander Type 3 (ICT3) OR Prescribed Burn Boss (RXB2)
• -OR-
  • Air Support Group Supervisor (ASGS) AND
  • Incident Commander Type 3 (ICT3)

In addition to the requirements described above, the following additional experience are required for the grade specified.

For the GS-12 level:
One year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-11 level, or higher in the Federal service, or equivalent; Examples of specialized experience include: Providing leadership and supervision for fire management staff and cooperators during preparedness and incident response assignments; assigning crews and wildland firefighters; Supervising administrative program functions such as planning, budget formulation/execution; Working closely with multiple cooperators and interagency partners, political boundaries, jurisdiction boundaries, multi-land base areas, partners and cooperators to develop inter- and intra-agency agreements; Developing, reviewing and evaluating complex fire management plans for ecological soundness or consistency with land management goals and/or potentially adverse impacts to cultural and natural resources; conducting field inspections before and after prescribed or wildland fires to determine if resource objectives were achieved and/or evaluating the effectiveness of actions taken; Analyzing the ecological role of fire and its use and/or exclusion, and smoke management; Analyzing and/or applying fire management strategies in mobilization and/or dispatch coordination, fire prevention and education, training, logistics, equipment development and deployment, fire communication systems, suppression and preparedness or aviation; Analyzing fuel conditions and determining appropriate fuel treatment methods (i.e. prescribed fire, mechanical, chemical, or biological treatments); Performing land use planning and environmental compliance; Evaluating prescribed burn plans or fire management plans to ensure fire containment is possible and identifying appropriate suppression contingencies if fire containment is not obtained; Implementing fire management planning, including evaluation of objective in resource management plans to develop strategies to accomplish these objectives; Developing evaluation measures to determine if fire management activities have accomplished objectives and adapted future activities based on findings.

In order to be considered for this position, copies of your Incident Qualification and Certification System (IQCS) Master Record (or equivalent training documents) which contain documented proof of the certification or attainment of the IFPM Selective Placement Factor for this position MUST be attached to your application. Red Cards are not acceptable documentation. Currency Requirement: Required to maintain currency once hired into the position. Currency of NWCG qualifications is not required for selection. If not currently qualified, the applicant must provide documented evidence that they have been fully qualified in the past, and are able to regain currency within one year of being hired. Failure to provide this documentation will result in disqualification.

Secondary Firefighter Retirement Coverage - Applicants for this secondary administrative fire fighter position under the provisions of 5 U.S.C. 8336 (c) (CSRS) and 5 U.S.C. 8412 (d), must possess knowledge of the principles, methods, and techniques of wildland firefighting as demonstrated by direct wildland firefighting experience. In order to receive credit, you must provide a written description of your experience in wildland firefighting. Education without hands-on wildland firefighting experience does not meet this requirement. Periods of wildland firefighting experience, gained through militia and rural fire departments, can also be credited. Wildland fire is defined as any non-structure fire that occurs in the wildland. Two distinct types of wildland fire have been defined and include wildfire and prescribed fires as follows: Wildfire: Unplanned ignitions or prescribed fires that are declared wildfires. Prescribed Fires: Planned ignitions. This description includes only fireline experience on a Prescribed Fire; it does not include experience in the planning stages. Prescribed fire experience must be supplemented by fire suppression experience in order to be creditable as previous wildland firefighting experience.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.