28. August 2007 by Ranger.

 I suspect that most readers, other than some National Park Service (NPS) employees, do not realize that NPS Rangers are not required to have a college degree.  Perhaps more surprisingly, NPS rangers who currently enter the Service with a college degree, and that is most of them; it is not required that their college education be specifically in the fields of study one would logically suspect for an agency that is responsible for the preservation, management and protection of some of America’s finest natural and cultural resources. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has never recognized the work of a park ranger as professional which required a professional degree which is required for a biologist, forester or an archeologist for example . In the eyes of OPM, park ranger work is too diverse, therefore ranger work is not  recognized by OPM as professional.

 Theoretically, a prospective National Park Ranger could be hired without a high school education and no experience as a GS-1. That may have happened at some time in the history of the NPS after there was an OPM, but I doubt it.  Six months of general experience, which is broadly defined, and graduation from high school, is required for a GS-2 grade. To qualify as a GS-3 you would need one year of college, six months of general experience and three months of specialized experience (experience that demonstrated the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform successfully the duties of the position to be filled.) A GS-4 position candidate must have completed two years of college with twelve semester hours of related course work, six months of general experience, and six months of specialized experience. Most permanent park rangers are hired at the GS-5 level. This requires four years of college leading to the bachelor’s degree with twenty-four semester hours of related course work (this “related course work” is discussed later in this blog), no general experience is required and one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-4 level is required. The specialized experience requirement gives the seasonal rangers and other candidates performing similar work, but with another agency, a “leg up.”

 However, don’t get excited. I have never met a permanent park ranger below the GS-5 level in my entire career. Several may have existed somewhere, but I didn’t know about them. The reality is, and has been for decades if not for the entire history of the NPS, that the competition is horrendous for the few permanent jobs available. Just about all candidates have a bachelor’s degree and seasonal experience. Many candidates have graduate degrees. An important aspect of OPM’s Qualification Standard is that since at least 1957 there was language that allowed equivalent combinations of education and experience to qualify for all grade levels for which both education and experience are acceptable.

 The first park rangers after the creation of the NPS in 1916 were woodsmen and handymen. They knew the backcountry and were self-sufficient folks who knew something about hunting, wilderness travel, survival and horses. No formal training was required and none was offered. The earliest source of field training available began about nine years after the formation of the NPS. This was a six week training session offered by Dr. Harold Bryant’s Yosemite School of Field Natural History in 1925, which remained in operation until 1953.

 Frank Kowski, the first NPS training director, established the agency’s first training facility at Yosemite in 1957. In 1962, the NPS opened a newly constructed training center at Grand Canyon National Park. It is known as the Horace M. Albright Training Center (HOAL); named after the agency’s second director. In 1964, the NPS established its principal interpretive training center, the Stephen T. Mather Training Center (STMA) at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. It was named after the agency’s first director.

 Education requirements to qualify for the GS-5 park ranger position from 1957 until some time during 1969 specified a four year college degree with  “major study in such fields as forestry, conservation, physical geography, wildlife management or in natural history, or the field courses of biology or geology. Training not directly applicable to the work of park ranger positions will not be accepted as qualifying unless supplemented by an adequate amount of course work which is applicable to the work of park ranger positions.”  You still could have come up through the ranks by gaining experience at the next lowest level, but note that most entry level, permanent park rangers at the GS-5 level were required to have a major in the field aspects of natural science. A college major is 30 semester hours and most college majors have more than 30 semester hours in their chosen field of study. During the 1960’s candidates for permanent ranger positions had to pass the Federal Service Entrance Exam (FSEE), and submit their college transcripts to OPM requesting consideration for only two government agencies. Those that were selected by the NPS had to pass a physical exam and an interview which was performed by a park superintendent nearest your place of residence. The Washington Office then made all the selections. Those selected were sent to HOAL Training Center at Grand Canyon for a 12 week training session entitled Introduction to Park Operations. Upon completion of this training the new rangers were sent to “Training Parks” for nine months of on the job training.  I don’t recall all the designated training parks, but they were typically the larger parks of the system including Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Mt. Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and Glacier.

 Specific skills training that a ranger might need to work effectively in any particular park was acquired from wherever the experts might be that could provide the training. Often times the training was available from other park rangers who were known experts in some particular skills, but it could also be from the Department of Justice, The United States Military, the National Interagency Fire Center, various sheriff departments, a metropolitan police or fire department, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, local hospitals, the Scripps Institute or wherever the needed skill training could be found.

 In 1969, the NPS changed the Qualification Standard that had previously been designated GS-452 (park naturalist) and GS-453 (park ranger) to GS-025 (park manager). The designation of park naturalist within the OPM Standards was dropped. All new park rangers would be officially designated by OPM as park managers. The new standard still required a full four year college education with a bachelor’s degree for qualification as an entry level park manager at the GS-5 level, and you could still substitute experience for education to qualify. Candidates that began their career after completing the bachelor’s degree were now required to have “24 semester hours in one or not more than two of the following: park and recreation management, any field oriented natural science, history, archeology, police science, sociology, business administration, the behavioral sciences, or closely related subjects applicable to park management.”   During this period there was the requirement to pass the FSEE and a pre-employment interview. Successful candidates then attended the 12 week park operations course at HOAL. Many of the HOAL graduates from this era were sent to urban parks for their “basic in-park experience” as the Service began to recognize the importance of urban parks serving a large segment of the population, and the difficulty in getting the rangers from the large western parks to take assignments in those urban areas. In the first year after the new standard was in effect, only 33% of all new employees in the Park Ranger Series had a degree of any kind because OPM allows the substitution of experience for education. By the late 1970’s a personnel survey showed that only half of all park rangers held degrees in the natural or cultural sciences. This was largely due to the substitution of experience for education, the numerous acceptable courses of study in the 1969 Standard, and the lack of a required college major in that 1969 Standard.

 Prior to the 1970’s rangers acquired their law enforcement training partly during the Introduction to Park Operations  training at HOAL, and additional academy type law enforcement training was acquired at various sheriff’s academies if they happened to be near the park of employment. A number of rangers were selected to attend the FBI National Academy over the years. Sometime in the early 1970’s all law enforcement certified rangers had to attend the Federal Law Enforcement Center 12 week course which was initially in Washington, D.C., and eventually was relocated to Glynco, Georgia, where it is to this day.

 The FSEE was abolished in 1973, and replaced with the Professional Administrative Career Exam (PACE), though it was abolished in 1980. The comprehensive 12 week training experience became a Ranger Skills course in 1979 and varied from six to nine weeks in subsequent years.

 The NPS changed the educational requirement for the Qualification Standard again in 1985. The entry level GS-5 park manager still required a bachelor’s degree (or the substitution of experience for education if they already had status as a GS-4), but they now needed “30 semester hours of course work in any one or combination of the following: any field oriented natural science, natural resource management, earth science, history, archeology, anthropology, park and recreation management, or closely related subjects pertinent to the management and protection of cultural and natural resources.” A qualified candidate could have a college major in one of the above areas of study or 30 semester hours by any combination of the listed areas of study.”  There were no exam requirements such as the FSEE or PACE. There was no interview requirement, and there was no centralized training experience for the new rangers.

 The latest change in the Qualification Standard for park ranger (officially park manager) took place in 1990.  Entry at the GS-5 grade level specified a bachelor’s degree but reverted back to “24 semester hours of related course work in the fields of natural resource management, natural sciences, earth science, police science, social sciences, museum science, business administration, public administration, behavioral sciences, sociology or other closely related subjects. Course work in any field other than those specified may be accepted if it clearly provides applicants with the background of knowledge and skills necessary for successful job performance in the position to be filled”.   Essentially just about anything in the college catalog could be construed as qualifying by the hiring official which was now the park.  OPM also instituted a new set of exams entitled Administrative Careers with America (ACWA). Potential park rangers are required to take the test for law enforcement officers under this exam. Interviews could occur if the hiring official in the park chose to conduct interviews. There is no centralized training experience such as the 12 week Introduction to Park Operations course, but HOAL has produced several videos that are available for new employees to view, though they are not mandatory.

 The work of National Park Rangers varies widely depending upon the park that one is assigned. While some of the day-to-day duties are similar in historic parks in the eastern part of our country and the large western parks in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest or Alaska; the skills requirements are very different. Generally speaking the duties of a working park ranger in the field are broadly involved with park conservation, public safety, public use and recreation, interpretation, public relations, law enforcement and park management. That fact is at the center of OPM’s conclusion that the work of a park ranger is too diverse to command a professional degree requirement.  However, what I, and others, contend is that OPM’s decision ignores or dismisses the actual structure of the way things really operate in the NPS areas, the autonomy of those positions and the fact that many of those employees with educational training in something other than natural or cultural science go on to higher level management positions where their day-to-day decisions can affect one park or resources in many parks.

 Depending on the park they are assigned, NPS rangers have such a wide assortment of responsibilities that they frequently function as game wardens, health and sanitation officers, border patrol agents, customs agents, coast guard enforcement, search and rescue specialists, emergency medical personnel and local police officer. It is even possible that a ranger might be involved in a variety of these responsibilities in the same day. Rangers today enforce a broader range of laws than any other agency of government. Though the variety of ranger work is more diverse and complex than any other agency of government; the NPS does not provide an extensive ranger academy training experience other than the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Glynco, Georgia. That is a major agency failure

 NPS rangers have a great deal of autonomy and the range of that independence increases significantly as one ascends the ladder to more responsible positions. Sub-district, District and Chief Rangers regularly make day-to-day decisions that could affect park resources.  They comment on park plans for all campgrounds, facilities, visitor use, fire management, concession operations, park closures, and make decisions involving stock or human access in the backcountry. Superintendents and his or her assistants do the same. The incremental impacts of those decisions over the years are significant.

 Likewise the opposite could occur. A responsible and conscientious ranger or superintendent, because of their lack of comprehension and innate fear of not wanting to be the decision maker that could destroy or negatively impact park resources, might be more likely to deny access or institute closures because they do not fully understand the resiliency of some park resources, or they might find it easier to prevent access rather than manage the situation in such a way that….” shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”.  (NPS Organic Act 1916)

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20. August 2007 by Ranger.

The origination of traveling over snow with a powered tracked vehicle is thought to have originated in the early years of the 20th. Century when a Model T Ford was fitted with tracks and skis. A Canadian company began building a machine that resembles the modern snowmobile in 1947. I am not sure when National Park Rangers first used snowmobiles, but we were using them in Yellowstone from at least 1967 to access the far reaches of the park’s northern boundary during Montana’s extended elk season in the winter of 1967-68. The machines were not very dependable then and the models we had were not able to function well in the deep powder snow of the mountains. Rangers used snowmobiles and a surplus U.S. Army “Weasel,” a tracked vehicle built by Studebaker to patrol the unplowed roads of Yellowstone which attracted hundreds of recreation snowmobile users. The purpose of those boundary patrols was to prevent hunters from shooting elk that were in the park. The road patrols were necessary for visitor use safety and to prevent ambitious snowmobile riders from harassing the park wildlife which was already under stress from the deep snow the park had at that time. I counted over 300 snowmobiles parked at Old Faithful one day that winter. Those earlier model snowmobiles broke down a lot. All rangers carried their cross-country skis on their snowmobile, and many of us skied away from a cantankerous snowmobile or that extremely undependable “Weasel” many times in 30-40 below zero weather.

Since then, snowmobiles have been consistently improved. Today they are much more dependable and can travel hundreds of miles without incident, and they are much better at negotiating deep powder snow, though in recent years there hasn’t been a lot of the very deep powder snow winters that used to cover the buildings in West Yellowstone and the park interior during the late 1960’s. The snowmobiles that most people buy have two-cycle motors (oil and gas mix), which have more power and are faster than a four-cycle motor snowmobile. But, the emissions of the two-cycle motors pollute the air much more than the four-cycle motor. The virtually unlimited number of two-cycle snowmobile entries into Yellowstone from the 1970’s to the mid 1990’s caused a major management problem for the National Park Service, and drew widespread criticism that the machines were causing excessive pollution of the air within the park which was also a hazard to park service personnel working at the West Yellowstone entry gate from which most snowmobiles entered the park.

The National Park Service (NPS) with the support of many environmental organizations moved to eliminate the private use of snowmobiles within Yellowstone. This led to court challenges from the snowmobile manufacturers, owners of motels and renters of snowmobiles at the park entrances, and from private citizens who have traveled on their snowmobiles in Yellowstone for decades. Counter suits by those desiring to continue the use of snowmobiles in Yellowstone eventually led to a series of compromise solutions that varied from year to year for the past eight years or so. During that time the snowmobile industry reduced the emission of the snowmobile by perfection of the four-cycle machine.

In an effort to resolve the conflicts and polarization of opinions while at the same time allow for some level of winter use in the park; the NPS prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the winter use plans for Yellowstone and the Grand Teton, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway. Six alternatives were presented in the DEIS. One alternative (#2) allows snowcoaches only, another (#3) only the road from the South Entrance to Old Faithful would be available for a limited number of oversnow access, alternative (#4) allows for increased snowmobile use to the historic use numbers, but all must with Commercial Guides, alternative (#5) provides for unguided access by private and rented snowmobiles, alternative (#6) emphasizes plowing the west side roads to allow wheeled commercial access, and allows guided access through the South Entrance only as in alternative #3. The park’s preferred alternative (#1) provides for nearly historic levels of use, but requires commercial guides. In three of the alternatives, numbers 1, 2, and 6 above; Sylvan Pass at the park’s East Entrance would be closed. As I write this in August 2007 the current policy for the use of snowmobiles to travel in Yellowstone requires that 720 machines a day will be allowed in the park, all snowmobiles must be four-cycle machines, and the snowmobile riders must be accompanied by a private guide that they hire. This essentially is the park’s preferred alternative in the DEIS. The final EIS and rulemaking is to be announced before the 2007-08 winter use season.

The NPS preferred alternative requires that all 720 snowmobiles entering the park must be accompanied by a guide. Any other over snow use would require they be transported in one of the 78 snow coaches authorized for each day. While there is the possibility that some percentage of snowmobile users who are completely unfamiliar with the park might prefer a guide, and certainly a percentage of visitors who do not have a snowmobile or know how to safely operate a rented snowmobile would find the snow coaches a welcome alternative to experience Yellowstone in the winter.

But this NPS preferred alternative ignores the hundreds, if not thousands, of locals in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, or regular winter visitors from other states who have traveled extensively in Yellowstone on snowmobiles for decades. These folks do not need a guide. Most of these folks are accomplished riders and have a long history of use in the park. The proposed alternative that they must have a guide discriminates against that user group, as well as former park rangers who may have spent years patrolling the park in the past on a snowmobile. Requiring that all motorized winter use travel be in a snow coach or must be accompanied by a rented guide, if traveling by a private snowmobile, is conspicuous privatization of Yellowstone’s winter use.

If the NPS believes that some level of snowmobile use must be set and that regulatory infractions by snowmobile users are a threat to the wildlife and other park resources, then they should set a specific number of users and have the rangers enforce the regulations regarding proper use of the snowmobiles. Rangers should be enforcing the regulations rather than farming out the responsibility to guides.

Of course, the NPS might then be challenged by the environmental groups that they do not have data to scientifically specify a safe number of snowmobiles to be allowed within the park each day. That is a court case that the NPS should welcome. Who else in the Nation has more responsibility and information to make that management decision? The NPS could more likely defend the case with the argument that yes they have arbitrarily set a level of use, but they would monitor the level of pollution and either increase or decrease the number of users based upon the data from those studies. This would be a fair, responsible management decision based on annual emission data. It would not be necessary to measure the emissions every year. The NPS would only need to establish a baseline number of snowmobiles where emissions were irrelevant because they are disseminated by the winter wind.

A common sense approach to managing snowmobiles in Yellowstone would have served both the park and those that desire to experience the park as their own guide. That would have been a less complicated and wiser management decision.

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17. August 2007 by admin.

As I write this the local news reported there were 262 fires started in Montana by a lightning storm this past Friday. That is an impressive number of fires for one day, but years of gathering statistics suggest that for every wildfire caused by lightning there were twelve caused by human error. Fires that may have been caused by tossed cigarettes, unattended or mismanaged campfires, garbage and debris burning, equipment operation, arcing power lines, railroad trains or arson.

At one time or another wild land fire was present all over the Earth since the beginning of the planet. It is logical to assume that before humans there were numerous lightning fires and fires caused by fiery volcanic eruptions that were a major influence on the type and diversity of the plants and animals that evolved over eons of time. In the absence of any suppression those fires burned until they ran out of fuel or were naturally controlled by the weather. Because those fires were able to continue as long as the weather and fuel allowed, many forested areas were cleared of heavy underbrush by fire.

 In North America the earliest settlers from Europe observed that Native Americans frequently used fire to clear the land, provide better hunting or farming conditions, or during warfare. The Native American practice of burning the land opened up grazing areas and is thought by many scientists today as a factor which allowed the bison to populate the eastern shore of the United States. Fire was a useful tool for most Native Americans. However, the early settlers who lived in immobile log homes viewed fire as something to be suppressed. Fire meant the loss of their home or their crops, whereas nomadic Native Americans moved to another desirable location.

 Wildfire was a threat to the existence of the earliest settlers and is even a greater threat to those that live in the West today. There are hundreds of thousands of contemporary homes built in or adjacent to lands that are covered with brush, grasslands, or forest lands that are subject to a conflagration. Likewise there are millions of acres of government lands managed by the National Park Service, National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management that are vital resources for wildlife, recreation, grazing and timber that are subject to loss or change due to fire. It is not a matter of if a fire will occur; it is only a matter of when.

 Without adjustments to the forest to reduce the accumulation of fuels, the risk to property owners, their buildings and private or government managed lands which are important for diverse wildlife habitat, timber, and recreation will continue. However, the general public sentiment that all wildfires are bad is not true. There are good fires and bad fires.

 Bad fires destroy property and lives. Because people build their homes in and around forested areas they subject themselves and their property to losses due to fire. There are preventive measures they can employ such as having a reliable water source, clearing the property around them of heavy underbrush, having a non-combustible roof and porches or decks with a similar roof cover, but there is still an elevated risk. It would be a safer situation if the forest surrounding their property is a healthy ecosystem maintained by prescribed fire which reduces the opportunity for a catastrophic wildfire due to an excessive buildup of ground level fuels.

 Fire is actually the key to healthy forests and grasslands. It is, in fact, absolutely vital to maintaining a healthy ecosystem, and is mandatory for the continuation of plant and animal diversity. A good fire is one that burns through the under story of light fuels without excessive heat. Without fire, plants and animals requiring nutrients and a diverse mix of vegetation would eventually disappear. Fire converts some of the atmospheric nitrogen that is not available for plant growth to nitrates, which is then readily available to the succeeding plants. Fire converts phosphorus to orthophosphate releasing it into the soil as a beneficial nutrient for plant growth. Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide and fire releases the carbon in organic matter in the form of carbon dioxide. Plants then return the carbon back to the soil as the plants grow, die off and decay on the forest floor. The black ash after a fire absorbs a higher level of the solar energy which enhances seed germination.

 Fire is required for the continuation of Jack pine and Lodgepole pine. The heat of the fire opens the cones for seed dispersal. The Giant Sequoia tree of the Sierra Nevada range in California is a fire resistant tree due to its heavy bark. The Sequoia requires fire to thin out the firs and pines that would effectively compete with the Sequoia and eventually occupy the forest, and Sequoia seeds are released in their greatest number to the mineralized soil after a fire. Ponderosa pine, principally found in the Intermountain West, is adapted to low intensity fires. Fires which spread through the ground bed of Ponderosa pine needles at low intensity, reduces the opportunity for a crown fire, which can kill the Ponderosa. The nutrients released by this type of fire provide an excellent seed bed for the Ponderosa pine seeds.

 The fires in North America were so great and widespread in 1880, that Professor Stephen Pyne in his book America’s Fires: Management on Wildlands and Forests (1997) described the period as “The Great Barbecue.”  Most of North America was on fire. Prior to that in 1871, 1,300 people died as one million acres were burned in Wisconsin. There were numerous other destructive fires such as the well known Chicago fire in 1871 that killed many residents, and major forest fires in Washington during 1902 and in Virginia and Oregon during the 1930’s and 1940’s. These and other fires were largely responsible for the public perception and government agency policies of the U.S. Forest Service (1905) and the National Park Service (1916) that all fires were to be suppressed and extinguished as soon as possible. Though the concept of prescription fires as an effort to manage forests and prevent major fire conflagrations was floated in the literature in the 1930’s, it was rarely or effectively practiced. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that the science of Fire Ecology was beginning to be accepted and their principles applied in land manager’s fire management plans. The general public understanding of the importance of fire to the ecology of the Nation’s forests experienced serious setbacks and caused numerous debates due to the massive media coverage of the fires in Yellowstone in 1988, and the heavy fire seasons of 1994 and 1995.

 Many of the residents of North America believe that all wildfires can be controlled. If the fire is big enough and the conditions are favorable, they cannot. But, the belief is widespread because Mr. and Mrs. America view many building fires on their television being extinguished every time, and all wildfires eventually go out because they run out of fuel, weather conditions slowed them up where they could be controlled or it snows on them.

 Today the federal land management agency’s policies recognize that fire is an essential ecological requirement for a healthy forest. The previous decades of aggressive suppression has led to the buildup of underbrush and other fuels which became the source for massive fire conflagrations. Their policies now reflect that natural lightning fires, or fires purposely ignited to control the under story of brush buildup (prescription fire) will not be aggressively fought IF the conditions of air temperature, fuel moisture, humidity, wind speed, drought conditions and wind direction are conducive to allow the reduction of fuel accumulation. Fires that threaten people or structures will be aggressively fought. This is not an easy job because of the many years of suppression and the massive buildup of fuels throughout the Nation’s forests, but that is the policy intent. Eventually, more and more of the Nation’s forests and national parks will be in compliance.

 As you can imagine, the science of Fire Ecology and the knowledge and techniques for fire management are complex and require considerable training. Many of the universities that offer courses and/or degrees in fire ecology are in the western United States in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, California and Wyoming.
The important pine forests and national parks of America’s southeast likely have similar courses and degrees available at the universities in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and North or South Carolina.

 The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, coordinates with eleven Regional Coordinating Centers scattered throughout the lower forty-eight states and Alaska. Should a wildfire escalate beyond the capabilities of personnel and equipment in any one of the regions they can call upon NIFC for locating air tankers, radios, fire crews or Incident Management Teams.

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