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#firefighters

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"Most notably, about 700 Forest Service employees terminated in mid-February’s “Valentine’s Day massacre” are red-card-carrying staffers, an agency spokesperson confirmed to ProPublica. These workers hold other full-time jobs in the agency, but they’ve been trained to aid firefighting crews, such as by providing logistical support during blazes. They also assist with prescribed burns, which reduce flammable vegetation and prevent bigger fires, but the burns can only move forward if there’s a certain number of staff available to contain them. (Non-firefighting employees without a red card cannot perform such tasks.)

Red-card-carrying employees are the “backbone” of the firefighting force, and their loss will have “a significant impact,” said Frank Beum, a board member of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees who spent more than four decades with the agency and ran the Rocky Mountain Region. “There are not enough primary firefighters to do the full job that needs to be done when we have a high fire season.”

ProPublica spoke to employees across the Forest Service — which manages an area of land nearly twice the size of California — including staff working in firefighting, facilities, timber sales and other roles, to learn how sweeping personnel changes are affecting the agency’s ability to function. The employees said cuts, which have hit the agency’s recreation, wildlife, IT and other divisions, show the Trump administration is shifting the agency’s focus away from environmental stewardship and toward industry and firefighting.

But notwithstanding Trump’s stated guardrails, the cuts have affected the Forest Service’s more than 10,000-person-strong firefighting force."

propublica.org/article/trump-d

ProPublicaTrump Said Cuts Wouldn’t Affect Public Safety. Then He Fired Hundreds of Workers Who Help Fight Wildfires.
More from ProPublica
#USA#Trump#DOGE
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NOTE: As with many actions of the Trump admin, this one too may be reversed. Or it may not.

"The country’s pre-eminent federal fire training academy canceled classes, effective immediately, on Saturday amid the ongoing flurry of funding freezes and staffing cuts by Donald Trump’s administration."

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m
#firefighters

The Guardian · Trump administration cancels classes at National Fire Academy amid funding freezeBy Guardian staff reporter

"On February 14, Adin Kloetzel lost his job as a trails forestry technician at the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in southwest Montana, where he hauled supplies into remote areas by mule, cut trails, and supported firefighting efforts.

Like many of 3,400 Forest Service employees abruptly fired by the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Kloetzel landed a permanent job offer last spring that came with a yearlong “probationary” period, giving him fewer job protections. Since he lives in Forest Service housing, he also lost his housing. Altogether, around a quarter of the ranger district’s employees were fired. “It’s a bitter pill to swallow,” he says.

But Kloetzel is worried about more than just his career. He fears the cuts to the Forest Service will prevent the agency from properly managing national forests and wildfire threats — and potentially be used as justification to transfer federal management to the states, opening the door to privatizing public lands and services.

Stripping the Forest Service of its seasoned workforce ensures that when fires spark, they will find public lands less defended and ready to burn, as climate change creates warmer, drier conditions and extends fire seasons. Reducing firefighting services leaves communities more vulnerable to these growing risks."

jacobin.com/2025/03/wildfires-

jacobin.comWhen a Wildfire Comes for Your Home, Will DOGE Stop It?The Trump administration’s cuts have targeted personnel who work to prevent wildfires and support firefighters as they battle blazes. With fire season approaching and climate change intensifying the risks, disaster is looming on the horizon.
#USA#Trump#Musk
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“My deeper concern with the hiring freeze is if it doesn’t get resolved in time for fire season, just where will that leave us?” he said. “I’ve spent somewhere in the ballpark of 400 days fighting #wildfires. We are wildfire specialists. That is all we do, and we’re good at it.

"If our workforce continues to be gutted, the experience that will be lost is irreplaceable.”

nbcnews.com/weather/wildfires/
#Firefighters

NBC News · Hiring freeze of firefighters could be deadly, Forest Service captain warnsBy Jacob Soboroff
Replied in thread

" The federal hiring freeze implemented by President Donald Trump has affected the hiring of a crucial group of federal workers: #firefighters.

The freeze comes at a critical time, when fire departments across the country would typically onboard thousands of seasonal federal firefighters in preparation for wildfires in the spring and summer. "

edition.cnn.com/2025/02/08/us/

CNN · Trump’s federal hiring freeze halts onboarding of federal firefighting crews ahead of wildfire seasonBy Zoe Sottile

How people can help the incarcerated #firefighters:

The #LosAngeles -based Anti-Recidivism Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to ending mass #incarceration, started a fundraiser

Some of the $ will go to necessities — such as new boots, toiletries and other gear... Whatever money is left over after the blazes [will go] toward scholarships for formerly incarcerated firefighters or to individual prisoners’ commissary accounts
antirecidivism.org/donate/

Anti Recidivism Coalition - · Donate - Anti Recidivism Coalition