Biological Science Tech (Lead Fire Effects Monitor) Direct Hire Authority

Positions are located at Indiana Dunes National Park. Indiana Dunes National Park is a 15,000-acre park located at the southern tip of Lake Michigan, approximately 45 miles southeast of Chicago, Illinois. The park is among the top 10 most visited National Park units annually.

If you have additional questions about these positions, please contact Scott Weyenberg at scott_weyenberg@nps.gov

Please visit find a park for additional park information.

Major Duties for the GS-7 position

• Leads employees in the collection, inventory, processing, and reporting of data for one or several parks' fire ecology programs.

• Implements and leads remote field projects.

• Establishes monitoring plots in a variety of vegetation/fuel types in accordance with established guidelines.

• Measures a variety of ecological attributes in monitoring plots including vegetation structure, plant species composition, soil properties, and wildfire metrics (i.e., burn severity).

• Collects and identifies grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees to species.

• Collects, organizes, manages, and ensures quality control of field data using standardized data collection procedures.

• Collects geospatial data, creates project maps, navigates to predetermined field points, and records field locations using a variety of GPS devices.

• Enters natural resource field data into a computer using customized software. Routinely performs data error checking, quality-control, and performs simple to complex statistical analyses.

• Composes summaries of collected field data and field activities in annual and other written reports. Communicates ecological information to a variety of audiences.

• May perform duties of prescribed fire operations, wildland fire assignments and/or additional projects if qualified and as needed.

All qualifications must be met by the closing date of this announcement 03/25/2024 unless otherwise stated in this vacancy announcement.

In order to qualify, you must meet the eligibility and qualifications requirements as defined below by the closing date of the announcement. For more information on the qualifications for this position, visit the Office of Personnel Management's General Schedule Qualification Standards. Credit will be given for all appropriate qualifying experience.

To receive credit for experience, your resume MUST clearly indicate the nature of the duties and responsibilities for each position, starting and ending dates of employment (month/year), and the resume must reflect full and/or part-time with total number of hours worked (i.e., work 40+ hours a week, rather than indicating full-time). If part-time, the hours must be annotated to be able to pro-rate the amount qualified specialized experience.

EXPERIENCE AND EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS: For the GS-07: Applicants must have at least one year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-06 level in the Federal service which includes the following: Reading vegetation and/or woody fuels monitoring plots by identifying trees, shrubs, and/or herbaceous plants to species; making and/or documenting field observations of fuel loading and plant species height, cover, and/or density; collecting and/or reporting fire behavior and/or weather data relating to spread rate, flame length, fuel consumption, smoke dispersion, and/or other fire prescription or fuels treatment elements.

• OR-

One full year (18 semester/27 quarter hours) of successfully completed graduate level coursework that is directly related to the work of the position such as: plant sciences, ecology, botany, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, natural resource monitoring/management, agriculture, forestry, fire science, or other directly related subject matter.

• OR-

A combination of graduate level education that is directly related to the position AND specialized experience.

To receive consideration for this position, you must provide updated required documents and meet all qualification requirements by the closing date of this announcement.