11/12/2025
The Folsom Lake Veterans’ Fire Crew would like to thank all those who’ve supported us through another tough fire year.
Thank you first to our families who always pick up the slack while we’re away for weeks at a time, sometimes out of contact range, missing birthdays, weddings, funerals, chores, life moments.
This year, we especially want to thank our fellow civilian federal employees, one-third of whom are US military veterans themselves. Without you working behind the scenes, we cannot do our work.... The chronically understaffed and overworked HR department, who processes endless paperwork to hire thousands of federal firefighters over the winter, into spring, and this year into the summer as their staff were slashed, hiring was frozen, and certs were cancelled and reflown. The chronically understaffed and overworked Fire Admin Officers, who fix our constant timesheet errors, travel voucher errors, pay code errors, and random errors nobody thought were possible. The chronically understaffed and overworked non-fire Admin Officers, who jump in to help when we lose Fire Admin Officers, and are always answering our stupid questions, even while currently furloughed. The chronically understaffed and overworked Resource Staff, who do all the planning, research, public bridge-building, funding, and writing that make our prescribed burns and fuels projects possible. The overworked IMTs and underpaid CCCs who run fire camp, make sure we are fed, rested, fueled up, connected, transported safely, and most importantly, informed on accurate fire weather from NOAA.
All of you fellow public servants do the work we’d honestly rather not do, so that we can go do the job we love, despite our complaints. “Thank you for your service” are words often spoken to veterans, but you truly show it and live it everyday, working to support our fire crew and your fellow public servants. Thank you for your service.
