Assistant Prescribed Fire Jobs (NOW HIRING)

Position Title: Fuels Technician Americorps - Individual Placements

Conservation Legacy Program: Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps

Site Location: Shawnee National Forest/USDA Forest Service

2221 Walnut St. Murphysboro, Illinois 62966

Terms of Service:

• Start Date: 08/03/2026
• End Date: 06/25/2027
• AmeriCorps Slot Classification: 1700 Hours - 46 weeks

Purpose:

• The mission of the Forest Service at Shawnee is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.

  The Shawnee National Forest (SHF) is a unit within the Forest Service that encompasses about 289,000 acres in 10 southern Illinois counties and sits between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The lands that make up the Shawnee were acquired piecemeal, resulting in an extremely patchy ownership pattern. Working with our neighbors and partners is therefore a must in this landscape.

• The fire management program of the Shawnee National Forest is charged with providing a safe, efficient, and cost effective organization to provide for public and firefighter safety, protect property and resource values, reduce wildfire risk to rural communities, and use fire to maintain desired vegetative communities and ecosystems. Vegetation in most of the SHF evolved with frequent fire. A lack of fire in the past 90 years has resulted in dramatic changes to the landscape. To reduce risk and meet our vegetation and fuels objectives, we need to return fire to the ecosystem in a major way. The SHF currently averages about 10,000 acres of prescribed fire per year. To meet our ecological and fire protection needs, this should probably be more than 20,000 acres per year.

• To meet these goals, we need to do three things.

1. We need to grow out ability to prep burn units, on both public and private land and get them burned.
2. Given our ownership pattern, we need to work extensively with partners and landowners to burn across ownership boundaries. We are currently working the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and Shawnee Resource Conservation and Development (RCD) to outreach to landowners and plan, prepare, and implement cross-boundary prescribed fire/burning.
3. We need to grow our social license for prescribed fire. We have decent public and partner support and acceptance for prescribed fire, but it is not universal, and our public affairs staff is limited. Further, we seek to engage our removed tribes in a more robust way regarding fire and fuels management, including improved understanding of the others values, priorities, and concerns.
   

• We are working on several initiatives to enhance our prescribed fire, fuels and risk reduction programs, including our cross-boundary program. A document authorizing the use of prescribed fire Forest-wide is expected to be signed late summer 2026. This should allow us to develop cross-boundary burns much faster, but will also increase the demand for meeting with adjoining landowners and increase the demand for burn unit preparation.

• A second initiative is developing a comprehensive and potentially inter-agency monitoring plan and mobile applications to document fire effects to ensure we are meeting objectives.

• A third initiative is revising, enhancing, and increasing our print, visual, and in-person communications around prescribed fire to build and maintain our social license for burning. A fourth initiative is supporting our counties in implementing or developing their Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) and fire prevention and mitigation programs.

• The Individual placement serving with the SHF will provide key support to these efforts that we are struggling to achieve with our staff alone. They not be responsible for any of these things but would assist with pieces of them, depending on his or her interests and skills.

Description of Duties:

• Preparation and implementation of burn units. Prep would include posting signs, constructing fire line(s), cutting or excluding snags and jackpots along the line, structure preparation or defensible space clearing, setting up portable water tanks, etc. Implementation of burns would occur under the leadership of Forest Service burn bosses.

• In-person landowner outreach regarding the benefits and need for prescribed fire, fire hazard assessments, and techniques to reduce risk to homes and communities. The Individual Placement would also help scout burn units to determine proper fireline locations, and coordinate with resource specialists to minimize adverse impacts. IPs may initially focus on the Frost Mountain Project. This is an integrated vegetation management project,

• Harvest
• Thinning
• Prescribed fire
• Invasive plant treatments

• Under development in what the Union County CWPP calls a High Priority Treatment Zone. There are over 400 landowners within this zone. We would like to outreach to nearly all of them through individual or community events. The IP would also work on similar projects in other CWPPs and in targeted outreach to landowners adjoining potential future Forest Service prescribed fires outside of CWPPs.

• Development or revision of brochures, websites, social media engagement, community engagement opportunities, and signage targeting the public at large, in regards to the need for and benefits of prescribed fire, fire prevention, and risk mitigation efforts. The IP would post information about the prescribed fire program and individual projects and coordinate responses to public inquiries as needed and directed. They will also help track public engagement for upward reporting and refinement of the outreach efforts.

• After our local fire season, they would be encouraged to join our crews for off-Forest assignments for either fire suppression or prescribed fire work. In these cases they may be switched to "AD status" and paid directly by the Forest Service.

• Ideally we would incorporate Traditional Knowledge into all of these projects.

Qualifications:

• United States citizen, United States national, or a lawful permanent resident alien
• At least 17 years of age
• Has received a high school diploma or equivalency certificate; or has not dropped out of elementary or secondary school to enroll as an AmeriCorps participant, and agrees to obtain a high school diploma or its equivalent prior to using the education award
• Agrees to provide information to establish eligibility and to complete a National Service Criminal History Check.
• Drivers license - clean driving record
• Firefighting Qualifications
• Communication, verbally and written and working alongside various teams
• Experience with common software (Excel spreadsheet, word and doc.)
• Complete the Work Capacity Test for Firefighters at the moderate level and or higher

Our Commitment:

Conservation Legacy is committed to the full consideration of all qualified individuals and will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to perform essential job functions. Physical requirements may include periodic overnight travel, non-traditional work hours, ability to move across varied terrain, use program-specific tools and a range of technology on an infrequent or frequent basis. Exerting up to 25 pounds of force occasionally to lift, carry, push, pull, or otherwise move objects. The ability to safely drive an organizational vehicle may also be required for some positions. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to the hiring manager.

Time Requirements:

• Typically, this position is expected to serve 08/03/2026 to 06/25/2027, but exact service schedules may vary. A half hour lunch break will not be counted towards AmeriCorps service
• Member may be required to participate in national, state, or local service projects or events as part of their service term.

Note: Stated are required by AmeriCorps. Programs may add additional qualifications

Orientation and Training:

• Member will receive an orientation that includes training on AmeriCorps prohibited and unallowable activities.
• Conservation Legacy driver training and orientation
• Mapping, compass/GPS - FieldMaps and Avenza software
• Radio use for communications
• UTV training - completing structure/property assessments, and training on what options/programs are available for landowners.

Benefits:

• Segal AmeriCorps Education Award of $7,395.00
• Living Allowance of $65.00 per week.
• Additional Benefit of $200.00 per week.
• Healthcare Coverage if Eligible
• Childcare Coverage if Eligible
• Loan forbearance if Eligible
• Interest Payments if Eligible

Evaluation and Reporting:

As an AmeriCorps member, performance will be evaluated on whether the member has completed the required number of hours, the member has satisfactorily completed assignments, and if the member has met other performance criteria that were clearly communicated at the beginning of the term of service.

Reporting requirements include, but are not limited to, bi-weekly timesheets and accomplishment tracking.

Supervisor Name and Contact Information:

ALCC Individual Placement Program Coordinator

Cody Fetty - cfetty@conservationlegacy.org

Service Site Contact information (if applicable)

Conservation Legacy is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodations due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to the hiring manager.