How Trump’s Federal Funding and Hiring Freezes Are Leaving America Vulnerable to Catastrophic Wildfire

“We will be more vulnerable to a catastrophic fire in the future as a result of not being able to do the prescribed burns,” a federal firefighter with direct knowledge of the situation said.

The National Park Service gave conflicting explanations for the cancellation, suggesting in a news release that weather was the cause while internally acknowledging it was due to funding, the firefighter said.

This comes as the U.S. Forest Service, which employs more than 10,000 firefighters, has been wracked by long-running deficits and a lack of support for the physical and mental health stresses inherent in the job. Federal firefighters told ProPublica they were happy to do a dangerous job, but the administration’s actions have added to uncertainty surrounding their often-seasonal employment.

A spokesperson for the Forest Service said in a statement that a major prescribed burn training program was proceeding as planned and “active management, including hazardous fuels reduction and prescribed fires, continue under other funding authorities.” The newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will review the remainder of the agency’s spending, according to the statement. The Forest Service did not say specifically what funding the agency has available or when the freezes might be lifted.

“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority,” the statement said.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The reality is supervisors are guessing how to interpret the White House’s commands, and a “huge leadership vacuum” has resulted in conflicting orders, according to Ben McLane, captain of a federal handcrew, which constructs fireline around an active blaze.

A national firefighting leadership training program that McLane was set to attend was canceled on short notice, he said. McLane acknowledged that federal firefighting agencies need a major overhaul, noting that his crew was downsized 30% by pre-Trump administration cuts. But the current confusion could further impact public safety because of the lack of clear leadership and the disrupted preparations for wildfire season.

“Wildfire doesn’t care about our bureaucratic calendar,” McLane said.

“It’s Always Cheaper to Do a Prescribed Burn”
The threat of wildfire is year-round in the Southeast and spreads west and north as snow melts and temperatures rise. In the West, fire season generally starts in the spring, although climate change has extended the season by more than two months over the past few decades, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Preparations for fire season begin each year in the Southeast, where mild winters allow crews to carry out prescribed burns while snow blankets the West. In a typical year, crews fly in from across the country to assist in containing the planned fires and to train for battling wildfires. The Southeast typically accounts for two-thirds of the acreage treated with federal prescribed burns annually, according to data from the Coalition of Prescribed Fire Councils and the National Association of State Foresters.

The controlled burns serve several purposes: minimizing the size of naturally occurring wildfires by reducing available fuel; promoting biodiversity by creating varied habitat and recycling nutrients into the soil; and providing an opportunity for training in a controlled setting.

Any delays this time of year set preparations back, and numerous firefighters raised the alarm about the canceled burn in the Everglades.

Crews had arrived for three-week assignments to assist with the burn, which was planned alongside the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and was to remove fuel near the Miccosukee Indian Village. The goal, according to a National Park Service press release, was to “protect the Tribal Community from wildfire, enhance landscape resiliency, aid in ecosystem restoration, protect cultural values and improve firefighter and public safety.”

But some crews were told to head home early, according to a firefighter with direct knowledge of the situation. “We do not have the resources to control this burn,” the firefighter said.

A National Park Service representative confirmed the burn was canceled but did not answer questions about the reason for the cancellation.

Internally, however, the agency acknowledged that gaps in funding and staffing forced it to abandon the plan until at least the next fiscal year. The agency also told staff that congressionally appropriated funds were frozen, some hiring was halted and overtime was strictly limited, the firefighter said.

Prescribed burns across the country that require travel or overtime pay have also been limited. Nonprofits that manage complementary burns, adding to the acreage treated, have also seen their federal funding frozen. And some state agencies have been locked out of these funds.

In Montana, for instance, the state’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation uses federal grants to assist communities in becoming more resistant to wildfires. That money was recently cut off, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. (The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

“What do they want, more fires?” Mary Louise Knapp, a Montana resident who has worked with the department on fire resiliency in her own neighborhood, said of the Trump administration.

Any short-term savings from the funding freeze, one federal firefighter said, are likely to be eclipsed by the vast resources needed to combat even larger wildfires. “It’s always cheaper to do a prescribed burn,” the firefighter said.

“They Still Don’t Have the Budget Under Control”
Even before Trump’s second inauguration, the federal firefighting force faced severe challenges.

The Government Accountability Office, in a 2023 study, found that low pay, which “does not reflect the risk or physical demands of the work,” made hiring and retaining firefighters difficult. The study also pointed to well-documented mental health and work-life balance issues across the Forest Service and the four agencies within the U.S. Department of the Interior that constitute the then-18,700-person strong force.

Then came the Forest Service’s attempts last year to close a budget shortfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The agency stopped hiring seasonal workers outside the fire program.

“The reality’s setting in — they still don’t have the budget under control,” one Forest Service firefighter said. Even though firefighting positions were exempted, personnel who do other jobs often assist with fires. And a lack of support staff could force firefighters to do additional work such as maintaining recreational trails, taking them away from fire-related duties.

Much of the force is hired seasonally or switches between crews and agencies at different times of the year. But the increased uncertainty has prompted once-reliable seasonal hires to take other jobs that offer more stability.

“We’re the only ones left,” the Forest Service firefighter said of the hiring freezes.

(In early February, Sen. Tim Sheehy, a Montana Republican, and Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, introduced legislation to create a new, unified firefighting agency.)

All this comes as wildfires are growing larger and more catastrophic. The area of land burned annually over the past decade was 43% larger than the average since the federal government began tracking it in 1983, according to data from the National Interagency Coordination Center.

“Long, Snowballing Effects”
The bureaucratic turbulence will have long-term consequences for the force and for communities in fire-prone areas, firefighters said.

One federal employee involved in training programs likened the federal funding freeze during the prime training season to a “massive sledgehammer” hitting the force. The firefighter painted a stark picture of the harm: instructors quitting, workers in the dark about whether they can travel to receive instruction and leadership positions potentially remaining vacant as firefighters, who lack required training, are unable to qualify for promotions.

“Any pause in a training system like this can have long, snowballing effects,” they said.

Additionally, the workforce has been stressed by Trump’s executive orders calling for programs relating to the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion to be shuttered, including employee support groups and seminars on topics such as women in the wildfire community. Government websites have already been scrubbed of information lauding progress in diversifying the male-dominated federal firefighting force, ProPublica found.

Workers who deal with the aftermath of wildfires are also under pressure.

In Southern California, the Environmental Protection Agency has more than 1,500 employees and contractors working to clean up toxic pollution released by the Palisades and Eaton fires. There, too, the Trump administration’s orders have caused confusion, particularly a decree that the effort must be completed within a 30-day window.

That timeline is unprecedented, EPA staff on the ground told ProPublica, and has led to logistical headaches and an inability to gather community input on how to best approach the cleanup. “We’re doing as much as we can, but we’re down to the wire already,” an EPA employee working on the response said.

The agency had completed hazardous material removal at more than 4,600 properties as of Wednesday, according to a statement from Molly Vaseliou, an EPA spokesperson. “EPA is on track to meet President Trump’s ambitious cleanup timeline,” she said.

As Trump has signed more executive orders aimed at shrinking the federal workforce, firefighters voiced concern about their long-term ability to do their jobs.

On Feb. 11, a Trump order demanded agencies only hire one replacement for every four people who leave the government. Firefighters in multiple divisions said they had asked whether their jobs were protected by an exemption for public safety but received no clear answer.

“The 2 million federal employees are seen as the boogeyman, and we’re really not,” said Kelly Martin, the former chief of fire and aviation at Yosemite National Park. “It’s had a really devastating impact on morale for the federal employees that have committed their lives and moved their families into rural communities. Now, they’re finding, ‘I may not have a job.’”

Mark Olalde covers the environment, natural resources and public health around the Southwest. This story was originally published by ProPublica.