What Happens When There Aren't Enough Wildland Firefighters?
The repercussions of pulled finding, firings, layoffs, and reduced support for state programs (plus, a fundraiser for an injured firefighter)
My book, Hotshot, debuts on August 12th. Order it HERE if you want to learn more about life as a firefighting and the history of fire suppression in the United States. Bookshop is shipping the books early, so you’'ll receive it before the publication date!
Fire Season Is Underway, but Agencies Are Short-Staffed
As of today, July 28th, the country remains at a preparedness level 4 (out of 5), and there are 69 active incidents throughout the United States. The Governor of Oregon declared a state of emergency on July 16th, due to imminent threat of wildfires. The Trump administration lied, claiming agencies are fully staffed, but agencies are struggling to meet the moment because of understaffing, and this could get worse as we get deeper into the height of fire season.
“Layoffs by the Department of Government Efficiency, voluntary deferred resignations and early retirements have severely hampered the wildland firefighting force. According to the internal national data, which has not been previously reported, more than 4,500 Forest Service firefighting jobs — as many as 27% — remained vacant as of July 17.” -Abe Streep at ProPublica
I scoured various articles, reports, and rosters. Here’s What I found:
Many of the vacant positions are due to highly experienced employees being laid off, fired, or resigning because of pressure from DOGE, which began with the “fork in the road” email last January. Some of these employees were upper-level overhead and close to retirement, but their immediate resignations made it nearly impossible to fill positions in time for this fire season, not to mention the continued chaotic restructuring. This has left some fire crews (including hotshot crews), engines, and aircraft crews with vacant overhead positions, reducing the number of highly skilled decision-makers on fires, which puts everyone at risk.
Public lands and fire officials working within the Biden administration had worked hard to recruit skilled workers (think scientists and land managers) through several specific initiatives after facing worker shortages during the 2020/2021 fire seasons. In my book, I write about how several politicians and nonprofits worked together to increase pay and protections for wildland firefighters. They were on the road to securing a permanent pay-scale increase, thus creating higher employee retention and satisfaction. This was backtracked soon after the administration changed hands, and pay remains low for these high-risk wildland firefighting jobs, which makes recruitment challenging.
In addition, nearly all newly recruited workers were laid-off or fired, because they were still within their first year service period. Employees who had transferred positions within the past year were laid-off and fired without cause. During fire season, many of these folks typically help fight wildfires because they’re “red carded” and qualified to jump in when needed. But most of them are gone, and therefore unavailable.
Lastly, because agencies begin the WFF hiring process during winter, new hires or those in the midst of interviewing were left hanging during a lengthy hiring freeze. This resulted in many possible new hires giving up and looking elsewhere for work, and left recruiters scrambling to hire enough people.
It’s a perfect storm.
The risks of understaffing are substantial, and could result in increased loss of lives and property
Keep in mind that firefighters aren’t the only personnel that help protect us during fire season, when fires are most likely to burn out of control. Forest Service and Park Service employees patrol public lands, making sure campfires are extinguished and usage remains safe for everyone. These are some of the jobs that have been cut, too.
Many fire crews (including hotshot crews), Engines (which bring water and hoses, alomg with their engine crew), and aircraft (like helicopters and helitack, both of which can fly personnel into rough terrain as well as drop water and retardant to slow fires) are running with less personnel than usual. Here’s what’s at stake:
At a base level, when hand crews have less people, crew members have to shoulder a heavier load, and I mean this literally. There are several kinds of fire crews– hotshots, which are on the front lines of fire suppression, in direct contact with fire, type two crews, who come in after the fire has burned through, and type two IA (initial attack) crews, who step in locally when hotshot crews have been called out of region. All crews are designed to run smoothly with a specific number of people, thought this fluctuates throughout the season. If a hotshot crew has less that 17 personnel, they’re not running at operational capacity, and can be grounded until they find someone to step in. But if everyone is low on personnel, there may not be anyone to step in. Or the crew may pull from an engine, who in turn loses an essential crew member. It’s a ripple effect. So, either a crew is running at low capacity or cannot run at all.
Hand crews operate as a team, and overhead (superintendents, captains, squad bosses etc) learn to work with one another over time. Fighting wildfires is part science, part intuition. Filling vacant overhead positions should be done carefully in order to ensure good working relationships. Often overhead have worked their way up from the bottom and have years (even decades) of fire experience. Filling overhead positions with folks who may not have the direct experience needed for the job can put lives at risk, and running with empty positions can put crews at a disadvantage, both culturally (because new overhead often disrupts a crew’s balance) and tactically.
Likewise, engines and aircraft are self-contained units. While employees may rotate in and out at the “lower” levels, more experienced personnel occupy high-level positions that require smart, tactical decisions and adequate on-the-ground experience. With so many vacant positions, these self-contained units can be knocked off balance, increasing the likelihood for injury and even death.
Less people means more fatigue, exhaustion, and injuries. Wildfire are dangerous (do I really have to say that??). Firefighters have to be vigilant whether they’re near a fire or not– after the fire has passed through rocks are more likely to roll down hills, trees are less stable or even burned out entirely, and the ground is sometimes filled with burned-out holes. “Don’t get complacent” is an oft-repeated sentence on the fireline. “Eyes on the green” and “eyes on the black” and “eyes in the trees…” you get the point, right? It’s dangerous that these agencies are understaffed.
When fires reach a certain size, incident management teams are called in to manage personnel and logistics. Many of these teams are composed of older, more experienced federal employees. Elon’s emails resulted in early retirement, directly depleting the number of experienced personnel without replacing them. This puts everyone at risk, including the public and anyone living in proximity to landscapes that burn.
I’ve not even touched on the lack of funding and resources– many personnel and modules are in need of basic equipment and tools, which should be a given, especially when lives are at risk.
I write about the history of fire suppression and our current moment of fire in my forthcoming book, Hotshot: A Life on Fire. Pre-order it HERE.
What’s happening right now?
Renzo Reginato, an El Cariso Hotshot, suffered a life-changing spinal injury while working on a wildfire in California. Please consider donating to his GoFundMe. I’m raffling off two copies of my book, so if you donate more than $10 to the campaign send me a screenshot of your receipt and I’ll enter you into the raffle.
A crew leader from the Alder Springs Fire in Oregon, who requested anonymity, told Reuters her team lacked food and essential equipment after support staff took part in two separate buyout programmes.
Listen to
’s most recent Life With Fire podcast, with fire historian Stephen Pyne. They talk about the “social contract” of managing wildfires and the importance of public communication, especially in relation to the Grand Canyon’s Dragon Bravo Fire.Wildfires have been burning through Greece and Turkey for months, and they continue to burn unrelentingly. Both countries have broken regional heat records. In Turkey thousands have been evacuated.
Fires are also burning in Western Bulgaria, prompting evacuations.
More wildfires have started in Colorado, and it’s not even August yet.
Smoke from Canada’s wildfires have prompted air quality alerts in New York.
Photographer Sunny Mills is documenting the aftermath of Altadena’s Eaton Fire with beautiful tintype photography, and bringing communities together in grief and recovery.
Californians are (understandably) worried about climate change and wildfires.
Anything to add? Share your thoughts in the comments, and please share this with a friend or on social media. You can find my Instagram here.
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