Fire Marshal > News > U.S. Dept. of Labor Revises Child Labor Rule for Junior Firefighters
U.S. Dept. of Labor Revises Child Labor Rule for Junior Firefighters
The United States Department of Labor has revised their rules pertaining to Junior Firefighters and the Child Labor Rules. Below are the details for these changes. ALL FIRE DEPARTMENTS TAKE NOTE.
Forest fire fighting and forest fire prevention occupations, timber tract occupations, forestry service occupations, logging occupations, and occupations in the operation of any sawmill, lath mill, shingle mill, or cooperage stock mill
All occupations in forest fire fighting and forest fire prevention, timber tracts, forestry services, logging, and the operation of any sawmill, lath mill, shingle mill, or cooperage stock mill are particularly hazardous for the employment of minors between 16 and 18 years of age, except the following:
- work in offices, repair shops or maintenance shops
- work in the construction, operation, repair, or maintenance of living and administrative quarters, including logging camps and fire fighting base camps
- work in the repair or maintenance of roads, railroads or flumes and work in construction and maintenance of telephone lines, but only if the minors are not engaged in the operation of power-driven machinery, the handling or use of explosives, the felling or bucking of timber, the collecting or transporting of logs, or work on trestles.
The following tasks in forest fire prevention may be performed if not in conjunction with or in support of efforts to extinguish a forest fire:
- clearing fire trails or roads
- construction, maintenance or patrolling of fire lines
- piling and burning of slash
- maintaining of firefighting equipment
- acting as a fire lookout or fire patrolman
- work in forest marketing and economics when performed away from the forest
- work in the feeding or care of animals
- peeling of fence posts, pulpwood, chemical wood, excelsior wood, cordwood, or similar products, when not done in conjunction with and at the same time and place as other logging occupations declared hazardous by this section
Contact:
Anthony W. Carrico, Deputy State Fire Marshal
304-558-2191 Ext. 53219
anthony.w.carrico@wv.gov