>>2411662Quickest way to get your foot in the door with USFS/BLM is wildland fire in my experience. Fire is all competancy/qualification based. It helps to be educated, but you don't need a degree. Do that in the summer, and pursue education relating to natural resource conservation in the off-season. Outposts/agencies that hire temporary/seasonal fire personnel know that many people go back to school or other jobs in the off-season, so your layoff date is usually pretty flexible as long as you aren't currently pursuing a permanent position. Working as a forestry aid/technician will give you skills with facilities maintenance, general forestry (since you're not always going to be out on a fire and they have to keep you busy) and of course wildland fire suppression/prescribed fire. Using your knowledge of fire behavior to conduct prescribed fires will help you down the road when you want to get involved with things like habitat rehabilitation since fire is a common tool in conservation. This is what I'm doing anyway, god I hope it works. If not, then I'll just stick with fire, I love it anyway.
You should get into wildland fire especially right now because tons of people just got a huge raise on their salaries (+50%, or 20,000 to base salary, whichever is less), but it won't be around forever. This is especially crucial because most jobs relating to fire, forestry, fish and game, etc typically suck ass because of reasons like
>>2411664 stated. For a lot of people it's a labor of love and it's not nearly enough to make ends meet and live comfortably, even less if you want to raise a family of your own.
t. forestry tech with USFS on his 3rd season sitting around waiting for the other engine to get back so I can fucking go out on a roll already
