Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is renewing his call for federal wildland firefighters to get a pay raise.
Wyden, along with 14 other Senators and 13 House members, sent a letter this week to the Secretaries of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture urging the agencies to work with the Office of Personnel Management to create a new pay scale for wildland firefighters.
"Years of low pay and other issues have hollowed out the federal wildland firefighting workforce," reads the letter. "This is an urgent threat to natural resources, public safety, and taxpayer dollars, as the Federal Government pays a premium to contract and borrow firefighting resources from state and local authorities when federal resources are unavailable."
The letter, also signed by Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby, notes that heading into the wildfire season, some regions have less than 75 percent of the needed crew members.
Wyden made a similar request to the Biden administration last fall.
