Feinstein: To turn back Dixie fire and others in California, raise pay for federal firefighters (via latimesopinion)
Last year, wildfires burned a record 4.4 million acres in California. Thirty-three people were killed and 10,000 structures were destroyed, including 5,500 homes.
The only long-term solution to reduce wildfires is to confront climate change head-on. Unless we take strong action, conditions that cause wildfires will continue to worsen.However, there are near-term actions we can take that would make a real difference in confronting the wildfire risk. One of those actions is eliminating the extreme pay gap between federal and state wildland firefighters.
By contrast, Cal Fire hired nearly 3,000 additional temporary firefighters last year to support more than 5,000 permanent firefighters and expects to hire even more this year. The infrastructure bill currently being debated in the Senate includes $600 million to help address the pay gap. It would increase federal firefighter salaries by 50%, up to a maximum increase of $20,000 per individual. An entry-level firefighter’s $28,078 salary would increase to $42,117, narrowing but not eliminating the pay gap.
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