I make more working at Starbucks across the river from Oregon than I would as an Oregon firefighter. I was listening to the head of the department this afternoon and he said the firefighters make about $8 an hour and the chiefs make around $10-12. Minimum wage in Oregon is about $7.50 an hour.
So filp burgers or fight wildfires? These guys are paid so cheap because of the illegal labor.
They've always been paid cheap. This is not a new thing.
It's 40 hours a week straight time. But you don't work a 40 hour week. You work 12 hour days, about 84 hours a week on a big fire, for two weeks straight with three days off. Your meals are provided. Half of the time you're in the field during peak fire season is OT.
For those that don't mind the fact that it's hard work, when you add in all the over time, the value of the provided meals, the fact you are in places where you aren't going to spend much money, the earning potential is much better than it looks, which is why it used to be such a favored job for college students. And there is some status and pride if you're good enough to be a smoke jumper or on a hotshot crew.
And if you can move out of line work into something like dispatch, the money goes up.
But it's not for people who don't want to work. Hard.
There have been people who make their living doing fire in the summer and ski patrol in the winter...