Wildland Firefighter Requirements: Age, Pack Test, Medical and Red Card

You can apply for a wildland fire job without ever having been on a fire. What trips people up is the paperwork and the gates between an offer and a first day: the age and citizenship rules, the medical screening, the pack test, the drug test and the five courses behind a red card. This is the checklist, with the rules each agency actually publishes.

For crew types and which ones take beginners, see wildland firefighter jobs. For the GW pay tables, overtime and hazard pay, see wildland firefighter pay.

What are the basic requirements to be a wildland firefighter?

You need to be 18, hold a driver’s license, pass a pack test and a drug test, and clear a background check. Federal jobs add U.S. citizenship. The details shift by employer, so here is what four kinds of employers published for 2026.

Employer	Age	Citizenship or work status	Driver’s license	Other conditions
Forest Service and U.S. Wildland Fire Service (federal)	18; under 37 at hiring for permanent primary firefighter jobs, with exceptions	U.S. citizen or national	Valid state license required on many announcements; some Interior firefighter jobs require a CDL within a year	Selective Service registration, fingerprints and background check, E-Verify, pre-employment and random drug tests, arduous pack test, medical screening
CAL FIRE, Fire Fighter I (seasonal)	18 at appointment	Not listed on the job page	Valid Class A, B or C	Live Scan criminal records check for jobs at a camp or supervising incarcerated people
Montana DNRC (seasonal)	18 at date of hire	Proof of authorization to work in the U.S.	Valid license	High school diploma or GED, or enrolled in a program; relatively clean criminal record; pack test upon hire
Miller Timber Services (Oregon contractor)	18	Not listed	Not listed	Remain drug-free, including marijuana, and test on request; pack test; willingness to travel

Sources: USAJOBS announcements 881278700, 853304900 and 865168400; Join CAL FIRE; Montana DNRC; Miller Timber Services, accessed Sep 14, 2026.

Experience is the requirement you do not need. NWCG lists “None” as the required experience for Firefighter Type 2, the entry position. The Forest Service’s permanent GW-3 firefighter announcement for 2027 asks for six months of any work, paid or unpaid, and names feeding livestock and maintaining ranch facilities as qualifying examples (USAJOBS 881278700, accessed Sep 14, 2026). Your resume must fit on two pages or you are removed from consideration.

Is there an age limit for wildland firefighters?

The floor is 18 at every employer in the table above, and the ceiling of 37 applies only to permanent federal firefighter jobs. The 2026 Red Book, the interagency standards for federal fire operations, says people under 18 will not perform hazardous duties on federal fires. CAL FIRE, Montana DNRC and Miller Timber also set 18 as the minimum.

The maximum entry age comes from the special firefighter retirement system. A 2026 U.S. Wildland Fire Service announcement defines it as the day before your 37th birthday and says these jobs carry a mandatory retirement age of 57. There are two ways past it. Preference-eligible veterans can apply after 37 with a DD-214, and people with prior federal service in a covered firefighter or law enforcement job can subtract those months. You must also send proof of age, such as a driver’s license, with the application (USAJOBS 865168400 and 881278700, accessed Sep 14, 2026).

Temporary seasonal jobs are different. The Forest Service’s temporary GW-5 firefighter announcement for the 2026 season listed “Must be 18 years of age” as its only age condition, with no maximum (USAJOBS 853304900, accessed Sep 14, 2026). If you are over 37 and not a veteran, seasonal federal crews, state agencies and contractors are still open to you.

What is the wildland firefighter pack test?

It is the arduous Work Capacity Test: walk 3 miles over level terrain carrying a 45-pound pack in 45 minutes or less. Jogging or running is not allowed and gets you disqualified. Administrators may stop anyone who is well behind the pace at the midpoint, which for the pack test is 22.5 minutes (NWCG PMS 307, accessed Sep 14, 2026).

Tests held above 4,000 feet add time to the limit:

Test site elevation	Seconds added to the 45-minute limit
4,000 to 5,000 feet	30
5,000 to 6,000 feet	45
6,000 to 7,000 feet	60
7,000 to 8,000 feet	75
8,000 to 9,000 feet	90

Source: NWCG Work Capacity Test Administrator’s Guide, PMS 307, November 2023, accessed Sep 14, 2026.

If you fail, you wait at least 48 hours to retest. Under the 2026 Red Book, federal temporary employees get one attempt and may get a second at fire management’s discretion, while permanent employees and the Forest Service’s primary and secondary fire personnel get three. A test cut short by an injury a medical provider verifies does not count. You take the test every year, the result is good for 13 months, and treadmills are not allowed. Federal agencies will not test non-federal firefighters, so contractors run their own: Grayback Forestry gives the test at no charge. Support jobs use lighter tests, 2 miles with 25 pounds in 30 minutes or a 1-mile walk in 16.

What medical screening do wildland firefighters need?

You must be medically cleared before you are allowed to take the pack test, and the Forest Service and Interior do it differently. The Forest Service uses the Health Screening Questionnaire, form FS-5100-31. Its Medical Qualifications Program says that under an April 2025 update, its arduous medical exam process remains paused and all red card holders use the updated HSQ (Forest Service, accessed Sep 14, 2026).

The HSQ is a checklist, not an exam. The version the Forest Service posts (v 11/2022) asks if you take prescription medication regularly, carry an EpiPen, have a hernia, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes or a heart condition, have blood pressure greater than 139/89, cholesterol over 200 mg/dL, or a history of heat illness that needed care. A second section flags risk factors: less than 30 minutes of activity fewer than 3 days a week, a BMI of 30 or more, or smoking in the past 6 months. After you submit it you may be cleared, sent to a Forest Service medical officer, or asked to get an OF-178 exam. If you are in pay status or hold a tentative selection, the government reimburses an exam from your own provider, but extra records a medical officer requests are yours to obtain and pay for.

The U.S. Wildland Fire Service requires an in-person baseline exam for new arduous-duty hires, a periodic exam every three years and a self-certification in between. The government pays for the exams. Determinations arrive about two weeks after the exam. The federal standards it applies call for vision correctable to 20/40 in each eye, the ability to tell red, green and amber apart, and an average hearing threshold no worse than 40 dB at 500 to 3,000 Hz in each ear, without hearing aids. A “not qualified” result can go through a risk mitigation and waiver review.

What training do you need for a red card?

Five courses and no experience. A red card is the Incident Qualification Card, and the positions on it are recorded in the Incident Qualifications and Certification System (IQCS), which the 2026 Red Book calls the only approved fire qualifications record system. For Firefighter Type 2, NWCG requires:

• S-130, Firefighter Training. Blended: an online portion NWCG says takes 13 hours, then an instructor-led field exercise that may be arduous.
• S-190, Introduction to Wildland Fire Behavior. Online or classroom.
• L-180, Human Factors in the Wildland Fire Service. Online.
• ICS-100 and IS-700. FEMA independent study courses of 2 hours and 3.5 hours. FEMA’s exams take 75 percent to pass and do not limit attempts.
• RT-130, the annual refresher. Not required in your first year, required after that, and taught only by instructors, never self-paced.

Your card stays valid until the earliest of three dates: your pack test, your refresher and your annual certification, each good for 13 months. Federal agencies certify their own employees; non-agency firefighters, such as contract crew members, are certified by state or local fire departments or by private training providers approved through their geographic area coordination center (Red Book 2026, accessed Sep 14, 2026). Many employers train you after hiring. Montana DNRC provides all required training and ran a mandatory statewide academy in Dillon from May 26 to June 5, 2026. The certification courses are compared in outdoor job certifications.

CAL FIRE asks for more. Its Fire Fighter I hand crew applicants rank higher if they already hold CPR plus Public Safety First Aid, EMT or paramedic; FEMA IS-100, IS-200, IS-700 and IS-800; and CAL FIRE 1B and 1C or approved NFPA equivalents, where 1C covers L-180, S-190, S-130 and S-131. Applicants with documents for all of them are placed in Category 1 as “fully trained” (CAL FIRE, accessed Sep 14, 2026).

How do federal, state and contract crew requirements differ?

Federal crews have the strictest entry rules, state agencies set their own, and contractors mostly care about your certificates and your pack test. There are now two federal fire employers. The Forest Service is in the Department of Agriculture. Interior’s crews at the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs were unified into the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, established January 12, 2026. It says it employs 5,780 federal wildland fire personnel annually and supports about 900 tribal personnel. Both post jobs on USAJOBS in the 0456 Wildland Fire Management series.

State agencies hire through their own systems and do not all ask for citizenship: Montana DNRC asks for proof you are authorized to work in the U.S., while Interior’s seasonal hiring office says non-citizens are not eligible for its jobs. State jobs also differ on gear. Montana DNRC supplies protective equipment but you buy your own fire boots, which must be lace-up, at least 8 inches tall, with melt-resistant lug soles. You can find state and contract openings on our wildland firefighter jobs board.

Contractors want proof of training. Grayback Forestry asks for a 40-hour basic firefighting course from a certified provider, or offers its own class free, and supplies your protective equipment. Miller Timber Services asks for five online precourse certificates before its hands-on class; its class listed for September 14 to 18 in Philomath, Oregon, includes the pack test and the S-130 field day for a complete FFT2 certification.

How long does it take to get hired as a wildland firefighter?

Months, because federal hiring runs well ahead of the season. Interior’s seasonal hiring office says most temporary fire jobs are posted October through March. The Forest Service’s permanent Fire Hire round for the 2027 fire year closed September 22, 2026, and its first start dates for new hires are in March 2027 (Forest Service Region 6, accessed Sep 14, 2026). Selections come by phone in November and December, so keep your phone on. The month-by-month view is in the outdoor job hiring calendar.

An offer starts onboarding, which the Forest Service says takes around 60 days. The tentative selection phase runs 30 to 45 days: you complete Form OF-306, get fingerprinted through Fieldprint for an FBI check, and take the drug test, which you must pass before the official offer. The official offer phase takes about 30 days. Medical clearance has to come before the pack test.

On USAJOBS, build a two-page resume with month and year dates and hours per week for every job, because Interior’s hiring office gives no credit for a job without hours. You can pick up to 7 locations per Interior announcement. State calendars run on their own clocks: CAL FIRE takes Fire Fighter I applications November 1 to 30 and may hire as early as January, and Montana DNRC opens in January, interviews from mid-March to mid-April and gives the pack test in the first or second week of May. Summer seasonal jobs outside fire are covered in Forest Service seasonal jobs.