Mikaela Balkind received her degree from the University of Washington in 2018, looking for ways to fill two interests in natural resource management and climate science. So when she came across a friend’s Instagram post about a woman at Wildland’s fire boot camp, she thought to herself, “Wow, this is perfect.”
Over two weekends in Vale, Oregon, she digs through fire lines and learns skills such as how to use a variety of tools and equipment during the fire department deployment. All parts of the training are all the parts required for a red card, and are the main certifications that Wildland Firefighters need to work.
But the bootcamp offered something else. It is an unintimidating entrance into the fields, dominated by men, where around 13% of firefighters are women.
“It’s sometimes easy to take that first step when you feel supported by your peers,” she said. “I think it gave me a little relief.”
What made Balkind’s training special was the nightly fireplace chat with a woman who erased her career. After her boot camp, she began working on seasonal firefighter crews, pursuing a master’s degree currently studying the wild fire sciences of Montana.
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“The last five or six years of my life stems from going to one of those bootcamps and opening myself up to this field where I’m obsessed with and passionate,” she said.
The same training that changed the trajectory of Valkind’s life was cancelled as part of a government-wide effort to remove institutions from programs focused on diversity, equity and inclusion under the Trump administration. Training descriptions on the US Forest Service website have been removed. And the announcement about the bootcamp is still available on the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service websites, but they have now This language Top: “Previously published diversity, equity, inclusion, or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered revoked,” and the U.S. Forest Service women on the Wildland Fire Advisory Committee, which was released last year. To help women on the spot Riva Duncan, vice president of advocacy group Grassgroup Wildland Fire, says they convenes and finds policy solutions for things like parenting leave and childcare.
“In the federal government, all of that has disappeared,” Duncan said. “It’s all been discarded.”
The efforts to dismantle the DEI work are difficult to understand for Duncan, who has fought the Wildland fire for 32 years. “It’s simply immeasurable why everyone thinks diversity, inclusion and equity is bad,” she said. “It will probably back things up and hurt the recruitment and retention of women for this profession.”
Agency spokesman Wade Muehlhof wrote in an email response that while training is currently suspended, “both men and women will have the opportunity to complete training for Wildland firefighters, which require them.”
Muehlhof pointed out that these boot camps are not a prerequisite for becoming a wild firefighter. But they have historically been a way of trying to play a game for women who face industry obstacles, said Abigail Bernie of the Wildland Fire Department at Stanford Door Sustainability School. Report has been published Last year, we detailed how Wildland Fire Service can make employees more diverse.
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“Programs like bootcamps and other programs designed for women and other underrepresented groups are not a matter of competence or the need for additional training, but rather because there are often fewer opportunities to practice skills and build abilities,” she said.
The justification provided to end these workforce diversity programs is that they are not usually based on merits and instead give unfair benefits to certain groups, Varney said. But in reality, “These efforts are trying to fix what actually started and are not a fair playing field. What really prevents the system from being really merit-based is discrimination, harassment, bias, and unequal protection.”
Varney, who also worked as a Wildland firefighter, said it’s not right to bring in more representation, but it would create a better wild firefighter workforce when the climate crisis leads to a more devastating fire season. “We really can’t afford not to take advantage of the entire workforce that is interested and excited to be part of the solution,” she said. “Innovative approaches are needed, and diverse perspectives are truly an important part.”
A more representative workforce makes it easier to communicate and trust from communities caught in the fire, Varney said. “It is essential to have a diverse population within the institutions operating on the fire line, act as agency managers, act as liaisons with the community, accurately reflecting concerns, needs and desires, building a better relationship with the fire and working more effectively,” she said.
And in this field, women must meet the same physical standards as men, such as passing the infamous pack test that requires them to carry 45 pounds in under 45 minutes in just three miles.
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But what training offers is something men already have. This is a built-in network and friendship. They provide a way to handle periods that have been unfolded for weeks at a time, and “it’s as easy as changing sports bras for all of us when a cowboy is camping on the field, and space for you to talk about something as simple as you don’t have that privacy.”
They also form a sense of community that participants rely on when more serious issues such as attacks and discrimination arise on the ground. That’s actually part of why Balkind decided to convene his own Bootcamp last year. She previously had experienced sexual harassment while working on the seasonal crew, where she was the only woman.
“I shouldn’t have gone to another woman to talk about this. I had to talk to the head supervisor, but that didn’t seem to be the support I needed,” she said.
Over the next few years, she realized the dynamics were different when she was in the crew with more women, reminding her of the importance of her boot camp in Oregon. There she began working to organize her Montana boot camp. Last fall, 18 women from all over the country were convened for a four-day training held by university firefighters.
Balkind said the Forest Service actually reached out to support the boot camp. I feel that proposition is unlikely now.
