|
Earlier this year, the Trump administration fired thousands of Forest Service employees and offered deferred-resignation packages to others. As a result, many federal wildland firefighters have been reassigned to duties that have nothing to do with fire—such as cleaning restrooms and mowing ranger station lawns—reducing the agency’s firefighting capacity and negatively affecting firefighter morale.
Despite official statements suggesting that staffing goals have been met, ProPublica recently found at least 4,500, or 27 percent, of firefighting positions remain unfilled.
“It’s definitely not normal. What we’re doing—for instance, building trails—that’s never been something I’ve been asked to do,” Madi Kraus, a union steward and wildland firefighter, told Capital & Main. “Cleaning out campgrounds and [recreation] areas is not something I had ever previously been asked to do, but have been recently.”
Riva Duncan, a former Forest Service fire chief and current vice president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, said she fears that long work hours without relief, combined with new non-firefighting responsibilities, may put many wildland firefighters in danger.
“This workforce is already dealing with a lot of stressors and distractions,” she said. “A distracted firefighter is a firefighter that’s not safe.”
Budget bill steals timber funds from rural counties
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended public land payments that rural communities have relied on since 1908—diverting those funds to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. When the U.S. established the National Forest System, it began sharing 25 percent of revenue from commercial activities, primarily timber, with local governments as compensation for those foregone property taxes. Since 1986, that program has put approximately $25 billion into county services like schools, roads, and public safety. Now, those funds will go to the federal government, not local communities.
|
We continue to wait until species are in dire straits before we protect them under the Endangered Species Act… and in doing that, we are more or less ensuring that it’s going to be very difficult to recover them and get them off the list.”
