• Making A Difference
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Organization

Organization

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Fire Management Branch is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System and is headquartered at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. This location provides an excellent forum for coordinating and communicating closely with other fire management organizations. The Service fire program provides mutual aid to other agencies and rural fire departments, and assists partner organizations with burning on non-Service lands.

The Chief, Fire Management Branch, and eight Regional Fire Management Coordinators comprise the National Fire Leadership Team, which directly oversees the Service Fire Management Program. Each regional coordinator has a regional fire staff. In addition, Service fire management officers, specialists and firefighters are also strategically positioned on many refuges, in interagency geographic area coordination centers and at other locations across the nation.

The Service has more than 500 full-time employees, approximately 100 seasonal or part-time fire staff, and more than 3,000 "red-carded" employees who are qualified to provide assistance during wildland fire incidents.

The Service Director is a member of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, a group of senior managers from the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior who provide leadership and policy oversight for federal wildland fire management.

US Fish & Wildlife Service Regions

Diagram of Service Fire Program - Download PPT
National/Regional Contact Flyer - Download PDF
Fire Management Branch Organizational Chart - Download PPT

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.