After a rash of federal job cuts earlier this year, the U.S. Forest Service is reversing course and asking people qualified to fight fires to come back to work. Missoulian outdoors reporter Sam Wilson sat down with MTPR’s Austin Amestoy with more.
Austin Amestoy: As we both know, it was very hard to track the layoffs and the buyouts and the terminations at the federal level earlier this year. But today we are talking about a very specific group of people. So who are the folks the Forest Service wants to come back to work?
Sam Wilson: Yeah, so these are folks that took the deferred resignation program earlier this year. There were at least two rounds of it, but it essentially gave Forest Service workers the option to take voluntary early retirement, given that they didn't necessarily know what was going to be coming later on in terms of potential additional layoffs. So this was about, within the Forest Service, this is about 4,200 people, according to some testimony that Tom Schultz, the chief of the Forest Service, gave to the Senate last week.
Austin Amestoy: That was 4,200 people who took the deferred resignation.
Sam Wilson: 4,200 people overall, and then he said that of those, about one-third or 1,400, were fire-qualified or red-carded. Meaning they didn't have wildfire fighting as their primary job role, but they had the qualification to jump on wildfires if needed.
Austin Amestoy: I see. And those 1,400 are the ones that the Forest Service would like to come back to work this summer. So, what do these people do? You mentioned they're fire qualified, but it's not their primary role, necessarily?
Sam Wilson: Yeah, I mean, they could really have any kind of role within the Forest Service. A lot of folks, whether they're geologists or hydrologists or maybe in an administrative role, they can go and get these additional qualifications that allow them to be activated during an active fire season. And it allows them to essentially pad out the firefighting workforce at the Forest Service.
Austin Amestoy: It sounds like, Sam, that some fire managers had been warning about the sort of layouts and buyouts earlier this year, is that right?
Sam Wilson: Yeah, both current and former Forest Service employees had spoken with us at the Missoulian and news outlets across the country warning, kind of when some of these initial rounds of layoffs and voluntary retirements were coming through the Forest Service, that this could potentially decimate the firefighting capability.
Austin Amestoy: And it seems like there's a particular concern about this year's fire season in general, is that correct?
Sam Wilson: Here in Montana, there's been a lot of indicators to fire experts — people that keep an eye on what the humidity levels are and forest fuels and water availability is across the state — some of them are saying that in certain places it's looking a little bit more like we'd expect in early to mid-July rather than mid-June at this point.
Austin Amestoy: And I think it's probably important to note that this is all happening, of course, as the Trump Administration is also moving to restructure and consolidate federal firefighting efforts.
Sam Wilson: Yeah, the cliche that I keep hearing from folks that I talk to is 'the devil's in the details.' Last week, there was an executive order from President Trump that indicated that he wants the Department of the Interior and the USDA to consolidate wildfire operations to the extent possible in the next 90 days. And the administration's budget also calls for, in 2026, creating a consolidated wildfire agency that would pull wildfire personnel from five federal agencies across those two departments and combine them in a single agency in the Department of the Interior.
Austin Amestoy: Lots of moving pieces to keep track of. Missoulian Outdoors reporter Sam Wilson sharing his reporting today. Sam, thanks for being here.
Sam Wilson: Thank you, Austin.
