Range Technician (Fire)

Duties

Summary of Duties:

• Perform Wildland fire related duties involve fire prevention, patrol, detection or prescribed burning.
• Serves as a skilled crewmember on an engine, helitack, or hand crew.
• Utilizes a variety of specialized tools, equipment and techniques while actively suppressing wildfires, such as a Pulaski, shovel, McLeod, ax and chainsaw to control the spread of wildfire.
• Serves as an assistant on a wildland fire engine, works as a trainee engine operator driving the engine, operating the pump and making hose lays under the director of the engine foreman.
• As a helitack crewmember, loads helicopters, determines weight calculations, completes crew manifests, and may rappel from a hovering helicopter near ground level in remote areas to construct helispots, or to attack small fires, hot spots, and spot fires.
• Performs basic fireline activities such as line construction, hose layout, operations of pumps and accessories, lopping and scattering of fuels using hand tools and holding, patrolling, monitoring, and mop-up operations.
• Moves dirt, chops brush, small trees, etc. to construct fire line.
• Provides assistance on a wildland fire engine, operating the pump and making hose lays under direction.
• Independently carries out specialized assignments such as tree falling, backfire and burnout, mobile and stationary engine attack, construction of helispots specialized helitack operations and hover hookups.
• Serve on an organized crew during prescribed burns, monitoring and controlling the fire and collecting data on fire weather and fire behavior.
• Performs project work such as fuel inventory and hazard fuel reduction projects.

Qualifications

Experience and Education Requirements: (OPM Operating Manual, Qualification Standards for One-Grade Interval Technical or Medical Support Positions, and Individual Occupational Requirements for GS-0455: Range Technician Series).

GS-4: 6 months of general experience and 6 months of specialized experience OR 2 years of successfully completed education above the high school level that included at least 12 semester hours in any combination of course such as forestry, agriculture, crop or plant science, range management or conservation, wildlife management, watershed management, soil science, natural resources (except marine fisheries and oceanography), outdoor recreation management, civil or forest engineering, or wildland fire science. No more than 3 semester hours in mathematics is creditable OR 4 seasons of specialized experience.

General Experience: (1) Any type of work that demonstrates the applicant's ability to perform the work of the position, or (2) experience that provided a familiarity with the subject matter or processes of the broad subject area of the occupation. Specialized experience may be substituted for general experience.

Seasonal Experience: A season of experience is considered to be a period of no less than 3 months of continuous employment on a seasonal basis. Shorter periods may be combined to make a season, provided a total of at least 3 months' experience is shown. For any period where the work exceeded 3 months, the excess work is credited towards an additional season of experience.

Specialized Experience: Experience which has provided the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to successfully function in the wildland fire management position. Possession of the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities can be evidenced by:

• Work in the conservation, regulation, and use of public or federally controlled lands for grazing.
• Range research activities.
• Work in the operation of a livestock ranch or in assisting in the management or preservation of lands comparable to the public range.
• Range or forest fire control, prevention, or suppression work.

Selective Factor: Prior Wildland Firefighting Experience: applicants must have prior firefighting experience as gained by substantial service in a primary firefighter (wildland fire) position or equivalent experience outside the Federal government. This is a MANDATORY qualification requirement/selective factor of this position. Wildland firefighting experience is defined as on-the-line wildland firefighting experience gained through containment, control, suppression, or use of wildland fire. Wildland fire is defined as any non-structure fire that occurs in the wildland. The three distinct types of wildland fire are wildfire, wildland fire use, and prescribed fire (includes only fireline experience on a prescribed fire and does not include experience in the planning stages).

Note: Selective factors are knowledges, skills, abilities, or special qualifications that are in addition to the minimum requirements in a qualification standard, but are determined to be essential to perform the duties and responsibilities of the position. Applicants who do not meet the selective factors are ineligible for further consideration.

Education

Foreign Education: If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education.

Qualifying education from colleges and universities in foreign countries must be evaluated in terms of equivalency to that acquired in U.S. colleges and universities. Applicants educated in whole or in part in foreign countries must submit sufficient evidence, including transcripts, to an accredited private organization for an equivalency evaluation of course work and degree. You must provide a copy of the letter containing the results of the equivalency evaluation upon request. Failure to provide such documentation when requested will result in lost consideration.