Forest Service says it's fully staffed as wildfires erupt in the West

The U.S. Forest Service announced Tuesday that it has filled its seasonal wildland firefighter ranks ahead of schedule, even as fast-moving wildfires broke out in and around populated areas in the West and the agency continues to shed permanent staff under the Trump administration.

Newly released figures provided to NPR show that 11,550 seasonal staff are now either in training or ready to deploy, about 200 more than the agency’s initial hiring target and roughly 6% ahead of the typical pace for this point in the season.

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz credited recent pay raises for wildland firefighters with helping the agency hit its hiring goals.

“I think the conditions we have are alarming,” Schultz told NPR. “But the Forest Service will be prepared for this season.”

The hiring update comes as Western states face historically dry conditions. Fast-moving wildfires ignited in the last day in and around populated areas including Spokane, Washington, an area already under severe drought pressure.

But state officials and former agency employees voiced skepticism about whether the agency’s firefighting capacity can hold up over the course of a severe season, pointing to the broader downsizing underway at the Forest Service.

Since President Trump returned to the White House last year, the Forest Service has lost close to 6,000 permanent staff to layoffs, buyouts, or early retirements. The agency is also undergoing a major reorganization that includes moving its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Utah and closing or consolidating dozens of research facilities and regional offices. The Trump administration has said the moves are intended to put the agency closer to the forests it manages.

Dave Upthegrove, Washington state’s elected public lands commissioner, said the cuts raise concerns about the availability of elite incident command teams that states depend on during major fires.

“These layoffs at the federal level are presenting risk as to our ability to respond to major wildfires,” Upthegrove said.

Upthegrove noted that an untold number of permanent employees who have been let go — rangers, timber technicians, and others — also held “red cards,” meaning they were trained and certified to leave their regular duties and deploy to wildfires.

“If we have a bad year for fire throughout the United States it could mean a shortage of these federal teams,” Upthegrove said. “We are preparing contingency plans.”

The tension between the Forest Service’s seasonal hiring success and its simultaneous loss of permanent staff echoes concerns MSI previously reported on regarding the Trump administration’s approach to federal land management. The administration’s plans to rescind the Roadless Rule and move the agency’s headquarters to Utah are among the structural changes that state officials say compound the risk.