A letter signed by 12 Democratic Senators is demanding answers from U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz after a report found that the Service is far behind its usual wildfire risk reduction efforts across the nation, stemming from the administration’s mass layoffs.
The letter demanded the answers to multiple questions, including the number of vacant wildland firefighter positions, whether current staffing levels are sufficient to meet current wildfire risk, and the total number of acres treated over the past calendar year. It was written by Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley from Oregon, Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota, and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Martin Heinrich from New Mexico, and signed by nine others.
The concerns addressed in the letter stem directly from an analysis by Grassroots Wildland Firefighters that showed hazardous fuel reduction work across National Forest lands was down 38% in 2025 compared with the same period over the previous four years. Fuel reductions between June and August were barely half of what they were compared to previous summers.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: USFS far behind usual hazardous fuel treatments nationwide, due to DOGE cuts
“You have continued to maintain that the Forest Service has adequate resources and staffing to manage wildfire preparedness and response on federal lands, and that, while the Forest Service is significantly behind on hazardous fuels reduction work overall, there have been more positive results in certain regions like the Pacific Northwest,” the Senators said in their letter.
“You have also claimed that in certain Western states, the Forest Service has even exceeded annual hazardous fuels reduction goals. However, it appears that to make these claims, you are referencing all Fiscal Year 2025 data, which began under the Biden Administration and includes five months of work prior to the beginning of the Trump Administration and its mass staff firings, forced retirements, and unnecessary pauses on projects.”
Grassroots’ analysis blamed the personnel and budget cuts to the USFS that Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, made at the start of the new administration. Around 6,000 United States Department of Agriculture employees were terminated on February 13 before an independent federal court ordered the department to rehire all 6,000 employees a month later. Grassroots previously told Wildfire Today that around 75% of the temporarily terminated employees had secondary wildland fire duties.
The Senators gave Schultz a deadline of December 12 to answer their questions.
4 Comments
Chickens are coming home to roost. It was just luck we had a relatively slow fire year during peak months or the shortage of personnel would have been glaring
The wettest fall in Phoenix history put a pretty good damper on any RX burning in the Southwest this year.
My old district, where my son is now a firefighter, is still using burn plans I signed off on as District Ranger in the 2000s. They are logging on EAs and EISs that I signed off on at the same time. It’s because the agency has been steadily gutted. Then add on the continue movement to f firefighters to other agencies both state or local in some places bc wages suck and hours are long. But to ask this with all the BS firings and lay offs and crap from this administration?
That is our land. It does not belong to Trump or the republican politicians. For them to neglect those lands is one more reason to vote them out.