The Trump administration is prepared for what could be a “significant fire season,” despite thousands of Forest Service employees departing under Trump’s deferred resignation offer. That is according to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who spoke to Fox New Digital on Friday.
“It did not compromise and will not compromise at all, 1%, what needs to be done to make sure that we are ready,” Rollis said. It comes as more than 4,000 US Forest Service employees took voluntary redundancies under buyouts offered by the Trump administration, according to a POLITICO report.
Wildland firefighters were largely exempt from the buyouts and a federal hiring freeze, but blue state leaders say President Donald Trump‘s slash-and-burn approach cuts key support staff. “The reality is that Trump has decimated the U.S. Forest Service,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a May press conference. “Nearly every Forest Service employee supports fire operations in some capacity.”
Many workers who departed held Red Cards, meaning they have special training to either fight fires or “provide essential frontline support to the firefighting crews,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said. But Rollins said the Biden administration wasted taxpayer funds on unsustainable and irresponsible hiring of people who “really had no job description.”
“That was in the — not hundreds — in the thousands of hirings that went on just in the Forest Service in the last administration,” she said, adding that the service is becoming “more lean” but no less effective.
Trump wants to cut 22% budget from the US Department of Agriculture
It comes after Politico’s E&E News reported that Donald Trump wants to cut 22% of the US Department of Agriculture budget, which Politico warns will disproportionately hit conservation and state and local forestry assistance. Wood Central understands that the budget—which would cut discretionary spending to US $22 billion—will see Secretary Rollins promote the fight against plant and livestock pests and diseases.
“Those are some of the themes emerging from the more detailed spending wish list the administration released late Friday for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1,” Politico said today. “(And whilst) Presidential budget requests typically don’t go very far in Congress, where lawmakers are less likely to embrace the most far-reaching spending reductions. Trump’s request reflects the administration’s priorities and offers some hints about planned agency reorganisation.”
It comes as Rollins and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed a memo on May 30, signalling the Trump administration’s wildfire response strategy and calling for eliminating barriers and “unnecessary procedures” to ensure a rapid response when wildfires threaten life and property. The memo also directs the Forest Service to examine the impact of “voluntary departures” on the firefighting workforce and propose a plan to “remedy critical vacancies.”
Rollins said non-fire staff should also be deployed to support frontline firefighters as wildfire activity increases, allowing for a “more robust, more intentional, and more effective force as we move into this season,” she said. “But we are not going to waste taxpayer dollars the way we’ve seen happen in the past.”
Wood Central understands that wildfires have already scorched more than one million acres across the country so far this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Centre. The centre’s outlook shows higher temperatures and drier conditions than typical across much of the West this summer: “Our prayer is that it won’t happen, that it will be lighter than usual, but indicators are showing that it actually may be a heavy fire season,” Rollins said.
She added that she was confident that Americans would see “an unprecedented level of coordination” among federal, state, and local governments as the summer progressed: “There is zero compromising on having the most prepared, most effective [firefighters],” Rollins said. “And we’ll do everything possible to ensure that they have every tool they need to be successful this season.”
