COLORADO—The Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center Fire Program has supported the National Forests in Alabama with 8- to 10-person prescribed burn modules since 2017. Recently, Blackwell and Jacobs Creek Job Corps centers firefighters traveled to the Tuskegee Ranger District, hauling some much-needed heavy equipment vital to accomplishing the forest’s prescribed fire goals.

Common images from news coverage of wildland firefighting include a firefighter wielding a Pulaski or an airplane dropping retardant. Oftentimes overlooked is the heavy equipment on-scene used to move large amounts of earth, remove vegetation, and create fuel breaks and fire lines. Alabama national forests and Job Corps wildland fire leadership collaboratively examined forest needs and available Job Corps resources to use Job Corps’ heavy equipment program to support its prescribed burn plan in February 2022.

Fire Management Officer Joseph Smith was pleased that a bit of outside the box thinking yielded impressive results. “What I loved about this [Job Cops] program is that it was so amazing to see a vision generated from tailgate talk become a reality,” he said. “It is a challenge to get resources and make management of fuels on this forest a priority because of its size.”

Jacobs Creek provided the Tuskegee Ranger District with two modules with a skid-steer masticator, two utility terrain vehicles and a burn boss for two 14-day assignments. Blackwell’s support included one 12-person module with a Type 6 engine, dozer, a UTV and a burn box for 21 days. The machinery the centers provided was used to prepare lines that were extremely thick with brush much better and faster than firefighters equipped with hand tools, allowing the district to increase its treated acreage.  Machinery was also used to remove fuel near structures and in places where using fire as a fuels removal tool was infeasible.

The Forest Service faces a shortage of qualified heavy equipment operators, but burn plans require a dozer, which is why working with Job Corps is so important—several centers provide heavy equipment training. Anaconda, Cass, Fort Simcoe, Jacobs Creek and Mingo Job Corps centers all have established heavy equipment, heavy equipment operations and/or heavy trucking programs. Job Corps heavy equipment programs provide training on a wide range of machinery, including bulldozers, excavators and forklifts. The Class A commercial driver’s license license offered by the Fort Simcoe Job Corps center allows graduates to operate heavy vehicles such as livestock carriers, tractor-trailers and passenger vans.

Job Corps students trained as pre-apprentice heavy equipment operators typically accept highly paid private sector jobs. Forest Service human resource staff are working with the Job Corps to place these graduates into entry-level wage-grade 5 engineering equipment operator helper positions that require CDL certification. Not only will this effort help accomplish Job Corps hiring goals established by the Chief, but this pipeline of talented applicants could also help solve the agency’s staffing problem for this hard-to-fill position. The target performance level for Job Corps recruits accepting engineering equipment operator helper positions is WG-8 and WG-10.

Jacobs Creek heavy equipment graduate Dustin Cattee, who is currently is completing an apprenticeship with the Cherokee National Forest, appreciates the opportunity to connect with Forest Service staff who are helping him make his career aspirations a reality.

“Working with Matt Watson and the skids steer in Alabama helped me gain experience for the future career path I’d like to take as a Forest Service heavy equipment operator,” he said. “Working in Alabama was a great career development opportunity.”

Cattee is just the type of young person that Smith feels the agency needs and who could be the future leaders of fuel management and fire programs. “Let’s face it, a lot of the upcoming generation don’t spend time outside when growing up like past generations. They see the trees in pixels and through PlayStations, not parks and forests,” he said. “Job Corps is one way to help introduce them to the outdoors in a unique and challenging way and hopefully light the fire for a love of the outdoors for years to come. This in turn will hopefully feed the need we have for qualified folks to manage the lands we are entrusted to care for.”

The two modules provided by the centers were a shared resource working on prescribed fire, wildfire response and storm damage on the Okmulgee, Bankhead, Conecuh and Escambia ranger districts. Job Corps students gained useful Rx, preparation and wildland fire experience.

“I truly feel that the Tuskegee, because of its size, location and characteristics could become a great learning forest,” said Smith. “This is where Civilian Conservation Centers came in. We had a need; they had a need. Take two needs and put them together and we have a vision. Act on that vision and we have a reality, which is what happened this year.”