Clarification from the agency

Applications will be accepted from any U.S. Citizen. DIRECT HIRING AUTHORITY will be used to fill this position.

Major duties at the GS-9 level:

• Provides unit technical advice for short- and long-term strategic fire management planning, assessments, and interagency and/or unit fire management plans.
• Coordinates with the park compliance coordinator(s) to ensure these plans are consistent with land and resource management plans (L/RMPs), laws, policies, regulations, and environmental mandates (e.g., National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, National Historic Preservation Act, etc.).
• Presents technical information and complex issues coherently and concisely that is understandable to a variety of audiences.
• Provides technical advice in the implementation of fire management plans and supporting plans (e.g., prescribed fire, fire danger or prevention plans) and applications (e.g., decision support tools, wildland fire reporting,).
• Coordinates the collection, review, retention, and appropriate record-keeping for documents related to fire management plans.
• Coordinates fire planning-related agreements between park fire programs and cooperating agencies and organizations.
• Reviews fire management data for adequacy, appropriateness, and accuracy.
• Ensures fire management plan updates are timely, accurate, and defensible within established standards.

Major duties at the Full Performance Level at GS-11 include but are not limited to the following:

Conditions of employment

• U.S. Citizenship required.
• Appointment subject to background investigation and favorable adjudication.
• Meet Selective Service Registration Act requirement for males.
• Selectee will be required to participate in the Direct Deposit Electronics Funds Transfer Program.
• You will be required to submit to a drug test and receive a negative drug test result prior to appointment. In addition, this position is subject to random testing for illegal drug use.
• You will be required to operate a government (or private) motor vehicle as part of your official duties; a valid driver's license is required.
• You may be required to work on-call, evenings, weekends, holidays, overtime and shift work.
• Subject to frequent extended travel 10 particularly during fire season, and you must obtain a government charge card for travel.
• Position may be remote depending on location.

Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) Statement: COLA pay in Alaska is 3.53% with the exception of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, which is 2.01%. The salary annotated on this announcement includes the locality, however, does not include the cost-of-living allowance.

Qualifications

In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement.

For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit OPM Qualification Standards

To receive consideration for this position, you must provide updated required documents and meet all qualification requirements by the close date of this announcement07/19/2023.

Credit will be given for all appropriate qualifying experience. Your resume MUST clearly indicate the nature of the duties and responsibilities for each position, starting and ending dates of employment (month/year), and must reflect full and/or part-time or total number of hours worked (i.e., work 40+ hours a week, rather than indicating full-time). If part-time, the hours must be annotated to be able to pro-rate the amount qualified specialized experience. You must provide a legible copy of your transcript(s).

Selective Placement Factor: Candidates must possess a minimum 90 days of wildland firefighting experience, gained through fire line work in containment, control, suppression or use of wildland fire. You must clearly demonstrate this experience in your resume, including the months, days and hours per week at which the work was performed in order to be considered. This experience can be met by serving in a temporary, seasonal, or equivalent private sector fire position for no less than 90 days. Periods of wildland firefighting experience, gained through militia and rural fire departments, can also be credited. Wildland fire is defined as any non-structure fire that occurs in the wildland. Two distinct types of wildland fire have been defined and include wildfire and prescribed fires as follows: Wildfire: Unplanned ignitions or prescribed fires that are declared wildfires. Prescribed Fires: Planned ignitions. This description includes only fireline experience on a Prescribed Fire; it does not include experience in the planning stages. Prescribed fire experience must be supplemented by fire suppression experience in order to be creditable as previous wildland firefighting experience.

Basic Education Qualification Requirements:
Degree inBiological Sciences, Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position.
Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree that included a major field of study in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, fire science, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position.
-OR-
Successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in an accredited college or university leading to a bachelor's or higher degree in a major field of study that included 24 semester hours in course work in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, fire science, chemistry, or related disciplines appropriate to the position. Related coursework generally refers to courses that may be accepted as part of the program major.
-OR-
Combination of education and experience: Courses equivalent to a major, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. Courses equivalent to a major may be defined as 24 semester hours in biological sciences, natural resources, wildland fire management, forestry or agriculture equivalent to a major field, of study, plus appropriate experience or additional education that is comparable to that acquired through successful completion of a full 4-year course of study in the biological sciences, agriculture, or natural resources.

In addition to the requirements described above, the following experience is required for the grade(s) specified.

To qualify for this position at the GS-09 level, you must possess one of the following:
A. One year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-07 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience is experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience for this position must demonstrate an understanding of fire behavior relative to fuels, weather, and topography and how fire affects natural and cultural resources. Examples of experience may include: Wildland fire activities (such as planning an/or implementing prescribed fire or managing wildfire) to ensure resource objectives can be met from a fire management standpoint; Developing and/or implementing initial attack incident management strategies and tactics to meet the stated resource objectives; Implementing mitigation measures during wildland fire activities to protect sensitive habitats, endangered species, sensitive plants, or cultural values.

-OR-

B. Successful completion of at least a Master's (or equivalent graduate degree). You must provide a copy of your transcript(s).

-OR-

C. 2 academic years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a master's degree. You must provide a copy of your transcript(s).

To qualify for this position at the GS-11 level, you must possess one of the following:
A. One year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-09 level in the Federal service, or equivalent, which includes the following: Providing advice and technical support to fire management officers and land or resource management staff; ensuring fire management plans are consistent with and complement land or resource management plans, are consistent with enabling laws, policies, regulations, and environmental mandates such as National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, National Historic Preservation Act, etc.; exchanging and presenting technical and policy information to groups of others at management meetings, professional conferences, and other events; use of geospatial information technology in strategic fire management planning, ensuring fire management plan updates are timely, accurate, and defensible within established standards; reviewing fire management data for adequacy, appropriateness, and accuracy; incorporating decision support tools and modeling into strategic response and planning; guiding field units on data collection and evaluation of hazard risk, fuels, historic fire occurrence, fire effects, climatology, and weather.

Prescribed fire/fuels management: Examples of this type of experience may include: Professional forest or range inventory methods and procedures (e.g., Brown's planar intercepts for dead and down fuels; live fuel loading assessments); Analysis of fuel loadings and determination of appropriate fuel treatment methods (i.e. prescribed fire, mechanical, chemical, or biological treatments); Land use planning and environmental compliance; Evaluation of prescribed burn plans or fire management plans to ensure fire containment is possible and identification of appropriate suppression contingencies if fire containment is not obtained.

Fire management operations: Experience in analyzing and/or applying fire management strategies in at least five of the following activities:

• Mobilization and/or dispatch coordination
• Fire prevention and education
• Training
• Logistics
• Equipment development and deployment
• Fire communication systems
• Suppression and preparedness
• Aviation

-OR-

EDUCATION: Successful completion of at least a Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree.

-OR-

3 academic years of progressively higher level graduate education leading to a Ph.D. degree.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Applicants will be evaluated based on how whether they meet the qualification requirements.

Upon receipt of the completed application package, a review of your application will be made to ensure basic qualification requirements are met.

This vacancy will be filled through a Direct Hire Authority. Veterans Preference and traditional rating and ranking of applicants do not apply to positions filled under this Authority. All qualified applicants, as determined by the SHRO, will be referred for consideration. While managers and supervisors are not required to conduct interviews, it is highly recommended that they do so in order to assess the competencies of each applicant.

If an applicant's resume is incomplete or does not support the requirements for minimum qualifications or specialized experience a rating of "ineligible" or "not qualified" will be applied and no consideration for employment will be granted.

If a determination is made that an applicant has inflated qualifications or experience on the resume, the applicant will receive no consideration for the position, as per OPM regulations.

This is a secondary-administrative firefighter position under the special retirement provisions of 5 U.S. C. 8336 (c) (CSRS) and 5 U. S. C. 8412 (d) (FERS). PLEASE NOTE: Applicants may meet qualification requirements but may not be eligible for special retirement coverage. If such an applicant is selected, they will be placed in the regular retirement system. FERS TRANSITION REQUIREMENT: To be eligible for Secondary retirement coverage under FERS, an employee must: 1) transfer directly (without a break in service exceeding 3 days) from a primary position to a secondary position, AND 2) complete 3 years of service in a primary rigorous position including any such service during which no FERS deductions were withheld, AND 3) must be continuously employed in a secondary position(s) since moving from a primary rigorous position, except for any break in employment from a secondary position that began with involuntary separation (not for cause). It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure this office has enough information to determine your special retirement status to ensure you do not lose benefits (normally through submission of your work history or other documentation that demonstrates work history of approved covered positions). You must let this office know if you are in a Primary coverage position.

Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) OR Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP): CTAP/ICTAP provides placement assistance to permanent Federal employees who are surplus, displaced, or involuntarily separated. Applicants claiming CTAP/ICTAP eligibility must submit a copy of their most recent performance appraisal, proof of eligibility, and most current SF50 noting position, grade level, duty location with their application. To be considered under CTAP/ICTAP, applicants must be qualified (i.e., meet the minimum qualification requirements, including any selective placement factors; education, and experience requirements), and be able to perform the duties of the position upon entry. For Information on CTAP and ICTAP visit: Career Transition (opm.gov)