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|                                     | D |     | > July 13, 2007     |
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| U.S. Department of Labor            |   |     |                     |
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| Wage and Hour Division              |   |     |                     |
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| Employment Standards Administration |   |     |                     |
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| Attn: Mr. Arthur M. Kerschner, Jr.  |   |     |                     |
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| Office of Enforcement Policy        |   |     |                     |
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| Child Labor and Special Employment  |   |     |                     |
| Team                                |   |     |                     |
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| Room S-3502                         |   |     |                     |
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| 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W.       |   |     |                     |
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| Washington, DC 20210                |   |     |                     |
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Dear Mr. Kerschner:

This letter represents the U.S. Forest Service comments to the proposed
rule on "Child Labor Regulations, Orders and Statements of
Interpretation," published in the Federal Register Volume 72, Number 73,
on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 by the Department of Labor (DOL).

We applaud DOL's new revision to Hazardous Occupation Order 4 to
prohibit minors between 16 and 18 years of age from performing forest
firefighting duties. We fully agree with the study conducted by the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 2002 that there
is a high risk of fatality and serious injury on firefighting incidents.
We consider our firefighters who are battling blazes "on the front
lines" to be performing hazardous work and feel this work should be
limited to individuals over 18 years of age. In fact, many of our
Federal firefighters receive an additional 25% premium pay as a way of
recognizing the hazardous nature of the work. In addition, we consider
the following types of activities which are directly related to
controlling and extinguishing the fire on the front line to be
hazardous: digging a fire perimeter with a shovel; ground scouting; spot
fire patrolling; search and rescue operations; and backfiring.

However, we would recommend that DOL make a distinction in Section 29
CFR 570.54 (a) and (b) between the hazardous duties that are directly
related to controlling and extinguishing the fire on the front line and
what we feel are non-hazardous forest fire prevention duties. We would
like to continue to have the flexibility to use 16- and 17-year-olds for
work in forest protection- type activities, such as clearing fire trails
or roads, maintaining fire fighting equipment, and acting as a fire
lookout or fire patrolman. We interpret these activities to be more
secondary in nature or in support of the fire; these activities are not
hazardous or detrimental to the health and well-being of youth. We
currently use 16- and 17-year-old Job Corps employees and private
contractors in our fire camps to perform such tasks as building
platforms for tents, stocking commissary items, performing timekeeping
activities and providing food services.

If you have any questions, please contact Debbie Rigden at (703)
605-0822 or email her at <drigden@fs.fed.us>.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| */s/ Kathleen D. Burgers*                                             |
|                                                                       |
| KATHLEEN D. BURGERS                                                   |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Director of Human Capital Management                                  |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

cc: Tom Harbour