Kelly Schwenger had no intention of ever chasing fire.
Growing up farming in Esparto, California, a small town of roughly 3,500 people located in Yolo County, Schwenger always thought she would pursue a career in the agricultural industry, or in medicine.
“My mother was a retired fire captain and so I saw I think the physical strain it took on her body and I was like ‘Yeah that’s not me,’” Schwenger said while laughing.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and she graduated from high school, Schwenger decided to volunteer for her local fire department during the summer of 2020. Still contemplating a future in medicine, she hoped to gain hands-on patient care experience.
Along the way, however, something changed. She fell in love with the profession and chose to pursue the one thing she always said she wouldn’t: firefighting.
“I fell in love with helping my community,” Schwenger said. “Being able to make a difference, and just being able to help people on their worst day.”
At the age of 18, Schwenger entered a fire academy and passed the required training to become a firefighter, all while simultaneously completing her first year of online coursework as a Cal Poly student. By the summer of her sophomore year, Schwenger was working on an engine as a seasonal wildland firefighter for Cal Fire.
Now a forest and fire sciences senior, Schwenger is preparing to return to the profession full time after graduation.
Schwenger is among a new crop of rising fire professionals who have made the decision to pursue a college degree despite it not being required for most positions.
The San Luis Obispo Fire Department, for instance, only requires that applicants are at least 18 years old, possess a valid driver’s license, have an EMT certificate and have received a certificate from a fire academy. Many fire departments across the state follow these same requirements, with some – such as the Burbank Fire Department – also requiring a high school diploma or a GED.
At Cal Poly, the forest and fire sciences major has been reinvented to accommodate and prepare students like Schwenger who want to pursue firefighting with the help of a college degree.
Forest and fire sciences is one of three majors housed under Cal Poly’s natural resources management and environmental sciences department in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. The major prepares students for careers in sustainable forest management and educates them on the role of fire in that process, according to the Cal Poly Catalog.
Graduates often go on to pursue careers in forestry, park administration, environmental planning, watershed management, hydrology, fuel management and even firefighting – though you might not have guessed it a few years ago.
Up until 2020, this major went by another name – forestry and natural resources – and it lacked its current emphasis on fire.
2020 marked the end of a roughly three-year-long process to revamp the major, in an effort to attract more students who were interested in fire, natural resources management and environmental sciences Department Head Jeremy James said.
“The guidance originally came from our accreditation review, which is a really great example of how we think about evolving our programs in higher education,” James said.
According to James, roughly every seven years, Cal Poly requires each program to enter into a typically year-long review period where faculty from other institutions and industry professionals are invited to evaluate the program and give recommendations for moving forward.
“One of the main identifiers from that effort was the opportunity to more broadly bring in the fire component into the major name so that when students were searching up majors and thinking about applying to Cal Poly, they could more directly see the link between forest and fires,” James said.
Department faculty designed an updated curriculum to accompany the major name change and further support its new fire focus. According to James, this included adding additional classes and altering current classes to include a fire component.
After the major redesign was complete, it saw a significant jump in applications and enrollment.
Projections and actual enrollment data show enrollment jumped 55% from 40 new undergraduates – which includes first-time freshmen and new transfers – in fall 2020 to 62 new undergrad in fall 2021.
“It was really, really great to see,” James said. “Cal Poly in general is an impacted campus so we always have lots of students that apply to every major. But in this situation, by changing the major name, we had applications jump by 300% or something like that.”
Students like Schwenger who want to pursue a career in fire choose to obtain a college degree for many reasons, one of which is the hope it will offer them an advantage when entering the job pool.
“We’re finding that just to get into like an entry-level firefighting position is extremely competitive,” natural resources professor Christopher Dicus said.
There are 32,930 employed firefighters in California, yet per every 1,000 jobs in the state, there are only 1.87 firefighter jobs, according to May 2022 data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fire departments often look for applicants with a diverse skill set and varied experience to set them apart. This includes post-secondary education such as a four-year college degree, EMT training or a fire academy certification, Dicus said.
Forest and fire sciences majors at Cal Poly, for instance, can take Wildland Fire Control (NR 204), a functional equivalent recognized by the federal government that meets the basic requirements for a wildland firefighter certificate for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service. This class also meets part of the requirements for the Cal Fire Firefighter 1 classification.
“It is a lot easier nowadays to get in with a bachelor’s degree because it’s just more impacted now,” forest and fire sciences junior and hopeful firefighter Sean Angelovic said. “Also, if you want to be promoted in the industry, a lot of times you’ll need a bachelor’s degree.”
Padding the path to future advancement within the fire profession is one proposed benefit of the forest and fire sciences major, according to Dicus.
“We’re not training you to be on-the-ground firefighters,” Dicus said. “We’re trying to … give a big overview so that you will be the managers; you’re gonna be the boss.”
Firefighters start their careers at the same level, regardless of whether or not they have a college degree, yet “they reach a point where very rapidly our students climb up through the ranks,” Dicus said.
While building a competitive resume is a motivation for many forest and fire sciences majors, some students have decided to pursue a four-year degree because of the holistic and applicable education it offers, as well as the vast work opportunities it provides.
According to forest and fire sciences sophomore Cadence Estermann, many students find that “there’s a lot more than just fire out there.” The major allows students to explore the connection between fire and the forestry industry, Estermann said, and perhaps gives them alternate career paths to fall back on if their firefighting career ends early.
“You can’t fight fire forever,” Estermann said.
Dicus agrees. He said he tells most of his undergraduate students, “the vast majority of you are not going to have a career as a firefighter.” The physical toll it takes on a person’s body is typically too much to sustain over a long period of time, according to Dicus.
Schwenger has also contemplated alternative career paths — such as obtaining her registered professional forester’s license after graduation — but she said she also has an appreciation for how what she has learned from the forest and fire sciences major is applicable to her current career in fire.
“Fire academy teaches you the skills,” Schwenger said. “Whereas here you go more into the science.”