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Letting It All Burn
The Trump Administration has used its first six months to shortchange America’s emergency response efforts in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
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The United States is on fire. A massive heat dome hovers over three-quarters of the country, broiling 100 million people with“100 degree days.” Over a million acres from Alaska to Florida are on fire. As I write, of the 473 wildfires burning, 63 have consumed 1,000 acres or more.
The Cram Fire in southeastern Oregon is on the verge of mega-fire status. It has already destroyed close to 100,000 acres. In Northern Arizona — the Dragon Bravo Fire that turned the historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the park’s north rim into a pile of rubble — has been raging for over two weeks.
Just a few weeks ago, we saw how Donald Trump’s intentionally hobbled FEMA fell terribly short in flood-ravaged Texas. The usually robust federal relief agency showed up late, with far fewer people to help — just 100 compared to the initial 1,000 the former President Biden’s FEMA sent to help after Hurricane Helene. CNN reports that the response was so bad that “some FEMA teams, which are involved in large area searches, water rescues and finding human remains, didn’t arrive in Texas and begin field work until a week after the flood.” That failure apparently caused FEMA’s top search and rescue leader to quit in disgust.
Not surprisingly, the Trump Administration is now also falling short fighting the growing number of wildfires scorching the country. Thousands of seasoned experts and key support personnel are gone leaving fire crews stretched dangerously thin. That includes so-called “red card” employees trained to assist in fire emergencies and wildland fire meterologists who provide critical weather information. There are even reports that front line firefighters are going without meals or being diverted to do non-fire jobs like clean toilets and mow lawns.
The DOGE inflicted-shortages may have played a role in the still-burning Arizona wildfire. Arizona’s two U.S. Senators and Governor Katie Hobbs are calling for an investigation into how the Trump Administration handled the fire. She said:
"An incident of this magnitude demands intense oversight and scrutiny into the federal government’s emergency response.They must first take aggressive action to end the wildfire and prevent further damage. But Arizonans deserve answers for how this fire was allowed to decimate the Grand Canyon National Park. While the flame was started with a lightning strike, the federal government chose to manage that fire as a controlled burn during the driest, hottest part of the Arizona summer."
It’s not just the “let it burn” strategy that is raising questions. Trump’s indiscriminate DOGE staffing cuts and forced retirements, funding freezes and rollbacks are all undermining federal fire fighting efforts. The cuts were so debilitating that the US Forest Service begged recent retirees to return for the fire season. How many of them actually did come back to work is anyone’s guess. During heated congressional hearings this summer, it was hard to get a straight answer from Trump appointees.
While government officials are refusing to share critical first responder staffing information, journalists are busy digging up the details. A recent ProPublica investigation found that “4,500 Forest Service firefighting jobs — as many as 27% — remained vacant as of July 17.”
The Guardian US reports the staffing shortages are especially bad in … you guessed it, the most fire-prone regions of the west.
The Guardian’s reporting also found that many firefighters are facing particularly grueling conditions beyond the fires themselves including power outages, late or halved paychecks and even no meals. Reuters is also confirming the shortages:
“The crew leader on an Oregon blaze said her team went hungry for several days, ran short of medical supplies, and had to scrounge for chainsaw fuel after support staff quit the agency during two rounds of "fork in the road" buyouts. "I had guys who were going to bed hungry after working 16 hours," said the crew leader on the Alder Springs Fire, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job.”
As if missing meals isn’t bad enough, Riva Duncan, a fire duty officer in New Mexico, told Reuters that fighter fighters are not actually fighting fires but instead are “answering phones at the front desk, or cleaning toilets at campgrounds or mowing the lawn at administrative sites.”
Of course, the DOGE cuts we are seeing today are only the beginning. Congress just clawed back already appropriated funds in the just passed rescission bill and Trump’s 2026 budget calls for even greater cuts to the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Services, and other related agencies.
Those ever increasing cuts come as the number of fires and the ferocity of those fires is only increasing. Fire season has only just begun yet The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports that over 1 million acres have already been destroyed by fire so far this year. It began with the devastating fires in Los Angeles and in just seven months, there have been 39,441 fires burning up 2.99 million acres. That is almost double the number of fires and acres damaged by this same time last year.
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Natural disasters and climate-related emergencies come in all forms- floods, fires, earthquakes, heat waves. The Trump Administration has used its first six months to end efforts to combat climate change, and to shortchange America’s emergency response efforts in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, to create an internal concentration camp system, and to hide the truth about Jeffrey Epstein.
Sure looks like the biggest disaster of all is the Trump Administration itself.
Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.” Read the original column here.
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