---
title: "Forest Fire Inspector and Prevention Specialist"
description: "Enforce fire regulations, inspect forest for fire hazards, and recommend forest fire prevention or control measures. May report forest fires and weather…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-fire-inspector-and-prevention-specialist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Forest Fire Inspector and Prevention Specialist

**Category:** Protective Service · **SOC code:** 33-2022 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 33-2022.00

Enforce fire regulations, inspect forest for fire hazards, and recommend forest fire prevention or control measures. May report forest fires and weather conditions.

Also advertised as: Fire Management Officer; Fire Operations Forester; Fire Prevention Officer; Fire Prevention Technician; Fire Technician; Forest Officer; Forest Patrolman; Forestry Patrolman.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $56,870 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $27.34/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $35,420 to $105,460, with the middle half between $43,760 and $81,500
- **Total US employment:** 2,780
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +13.1% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 67/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 2,780 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $35,420 |
| 25th | $43,760 |
| 50th (median) | $56,870 |
| 75th | $81,500 |
| 90th | $105,460 |
| Mean (average) | $66,640 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CA | $97,370 | $87,943 | 480 |
| UT | $90,020 | $91,054 | 50 |
| LA | $75,480 | $85,571 | 90 |
| OR | $73,530 | $71,139 | 140 |
| ME | $68,310 | $70,386 | 60 |
| OK | $61,700 | $70,239 | 310 |
| AZ | $58,570 | $58,176 | 40 |
| NJ | $57,380 | $52,737 | 140 |
| FL | $51,690 | $49,984 | 100 |
| CO | $50,170 | $48,684 | 210 |
| GA | $48,010 | $49,858 | 350 |
| ID | $47,050 | $49,270 | 50 |
| AR | $43,310 | $49,818 | 140 |
| AL | $37,430 | $42,140 | 40 |
| MS | $31,720 | $36,479 | 100 |

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 3,000 in the 2025–2035 base year to 3,400 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 400 jobs, or +13.1%. Much faster than average: 13.1% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 31.6% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 24.0% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 17.9% |
| Some College Courses | 17.5% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 8.9% |

## What the work involves

- Maintain records and logbooks.
- Relay messages about emergencies, accidents, locations of crew and personnel, and fire hazard conditions.
- Educate the public about fire safety and prevention.
- Conduct wildland firefighting training.
- Compile and report meteorological data, such as temperature, relative humidity, wind direction and velocity, and types of cloud formations.
- Extinguish smaller fires with portable extinguishers, shovels, and axes.
- Estimate sizes and characteristics of fires, and report findings to base camps by radio or telephone.
- Examine and inventory firefighting equipment, such as axes, fire hoses, shovels, pumps, buckets, and fire extinguishers, to determine amount and condition.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Coordination — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Administration and Management — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Education and Training — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Personnel and Human Resources — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Investigative (I).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 6.35 |
| C — Conventional | 4.57 |
| I — Investigative | 3.56 |
| E — Enterprising | 3.41 |
| S — Social | 3.18 |
| A — Artistic | 1.11 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 89.3 |
| ESTJ | 80.0 |
| ISFJ | 75.2 |
| ISTP | 72.7 |
| ESTP | 64.8 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [First-Line Supervisor of Firefighting and Prevention Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-firefighting-and-prevention-workers) — median $93,530
- [Firefighter](https://nuecareer.com/careers/firefighter) — median $59,280
- [Fire Inspector and Investigator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fire-inspector-and-investigator) — median $75,920
- [Fire-Prevention and Protection Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/fire-prevention-and-protection-engineer) — median $115,160
- [Forest and Conservation Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forest-and-conservation-technician) — median $54,560
- [Forester](https://nuecareer.com/careers/forester) — median $76,400
- [Emergency Management Director](https://nuecareer.com/careers/emergency-management-director) — median $93,330
- [Range Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/range-manager) — median $73,010
- [Occupational Health and Safety Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/occupational-health-and-safety-specialist) — median $90,150
- [First-Line Supervisor of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-farming-fishing-and-forestry-workers) — median $59,320

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

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