Type: Full-time, On-site, Contracted
Location: Petaluma, CA
Salary: $23.75 per hour with required paid overtime
Deadline: 10/21/2024
Audubon Canyon Ranch (ACR), an innovative North Bay conservation science and education organization, is hiring five (5) Prescribed Fire Apprentices to join the Fire Forward team. This is a fulltime position with competitive benefits. Pay rate is $23.75 per hour with required paid overtime. Employment term is 11 months, mid-January through mid-December 2025.
Fire Forward, a program of Audubon Canyon Ranch, brings a unique blend of science-based program design and community organizing as we seek to grow fire-adapted communities tending fire-adapted landscapes. We are building ecosystem resilience together by teaming with private landowners, public agencies, community groups, and conservation partners for the shared purpose of developing a culture of stewardship with a focus on prescribed burning. Reporting to the Squad Lead, the Prescribed Fire Apprentices will perform as a prescribed fire and ecosystem stewardship professional development squad to prepare and conduct prescribed burns while participating in training and workforce development courses and opportunities. The Apprentices will work alongside the Prescribed Fire Practitioner squad as a prescribed fire and ecosystem stewardship crew.
Review position description at https://www.egret.org/work-with-us
Description:
Audubon Canyon Ranch's Prescribed Fire Apprentice is an integral part of a team of highly motivated and committed employees who work closely together and with private landowners, government agencies, other organizations, and the community to bring “good fire” to the landscape in service of ecological health and community safety. The Prescribed Fire Apprentice will operate as a member of a five-person Apprentice Prescribed Fire Squad, one of two squads to form a Prescribed Fire Crew, working under the supervision and leadership of a Prescribed Fire Squad Lead. The Apprentice position is a full-time hourly position with a term of 11 months from mid-January through mid-December 2025. Prescribed Fire Apprentices will prepare and implement fuels management, unit preparation, and prescribed burn projects throughout the greater North San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. The crew will conduct ecological monitoring to inform adaptive management and participate in professional development courses and workshops, with occasional assignments outside the area to support growth as a student and practitioner of prescribed fire.
Responsibilities:
Participate in prescribed fire operations, including the preparation, implementation, holding, and monitoring of prescribed burns. This includes pre-burn monitoring, understory thinning and fire line preparation work, ignitions and holding of prescribed fire, mop-up, and patrol of prescribed burns, and burn reporting.
Operate and care for power tools safely and competently. Training is provided.
Prioritize and maintain positive, inclusive, and respectful interpersonal dynamics, even in challenging working conditions.
Successfully complete a series of National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) courses including Basic Wildland Firefighter (S-130), Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior (S-190), Human Factors in Wildland Fire (L-180), FFT1/Advanced Firefighter (S-131), Wildland Chainsaws (S-212), Ignitions Operations (S-219), Followership to Leadership (L-280), Portable Pumps and Water Use (S-211), and others.
Attend and actively participate in training on topics including fire ecology, monitoring, prescribed burn planning, smoke management and permitting, CAL FIRE permit processes, burn unit map making, meteorology and fire, etc.
Participate in pre- and post-burn ecological and fire effects monitoring.
Implement various native plant stewardship activities such as mechanical and manual removal of invasive species, native plant seed collection and other techniques as appropriate.
Actively participate in After Action Reviews and sand table exercises.
Train and build ability to draft burn plans, produce burn unit maps, and obtain necessary permits and approvals related to prescribed burning.
Maintain gear, equipment, and vehicles in a clean, functional, and orderly fashion.
Participate in organization and team meetings, retreats, initiatives, committees, and events as requested.
Participate in occasional fire assignments with partner organizations and agencies, some requiring overnight and/or out of state travel.
Maintain minimum physical fitness requirements(below) and actively participate in regularly scheduled crew physical training activities.
Other duties as assigned
