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Partnership with Mutual Benefits

Januray 2009

In the world of biology, the partnership between the Service’s Fire Management Program and AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps would be considered a symbiotic, or mutually beneficial, relationship. In 2006, Steven Hubner, the fire program’s fuels coordinator for the Northeast Region, learned of 15 young adults available as first-time wild-land firefighters through AmeriCorps’ public service program. He took the volunteers on crew assignments on four fires in Nevada and Utah.

Hubner, in partnership with funding from AmeriCorps and instructional support from Shenandoah National Park, subsequently provided classroom and field training to nearly 100 AmeriCorps firefighters. This effort has produced a ready supply of firefighters to fill staff shortages when multiple wildfires are burning in different parts of the country. The AmeriCorps crews also assist with prescribed burning programs on refuge lands in the Northeast, including the fire partnership in Virginia. All but three of the 42 red-carded, or qualified, firefighters in 2007 were deployed to some type of fire assignment; The 2008 AmeriCorps crews became available for assignments in July.

In turn, the Service provides AmeriCorps volunteers with valuable experience in responding to fires, as well as hurricanes, tornados, floods and ice storms. Several past volunteers are considering careers in fire management.

AmeriCorps, started by President Bill Clinton, is an 11-month volunteer program for people between the ages of 19 and 24. It is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs in the 1930s and 1940s. Upon completion of the program, members receive a $5,000 stipend for college expenses.

	AmeriCorps volunteers work on a fire as part of a handcrew.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages public land in every U.S. state and territory, including 547 national wildlife refuges and 69 national fish hatcheries.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages 75 million burnable acres, including 24 million acres of forest/brushland and 4 million acres of grassland.

More than 50% of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands in the continental U.S. (and more than 90% in Alaska) include fire-adapted ecosystems with vegetation dependent on periodic fire.

An average of 500 wildfires burn 260,000 acres each year on U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lands. The Service also burns about 300,000 acres a year using prescribed fire.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service annual fire program budget is approximately $80 million.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employs more than 530 permanent fire professionals, along with 270 seasonal and temporary fire employees during fire season.

More than 3,000 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees are qualified to assist with wildland fire management on an interagency basis.

The U.S. Fish and Wildland Service Fire Management Program protects more than 700 communities and wildland-urban interface areas.

Historically, an acre was the amount of land tillable by one man behind an ox in one day. This measures 90% of a football field. There are 640 acres in a square mile.

More than 90% of the hazardous fuels reduction by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is completed using prescribed fire.