Trump plans to merge wildland firefighting efforts into one agency, but ex-officials warn of chaos

By MATTHEW BROWN Associated Press BILLINGS Mont President Donald Trump s administration is trying to merge the authorities s wildland firefighting efforts into a single agency a move several former federal leaders warn could increase the liability of catastrophic blazes and ultimately cost billions of dollars Trump s budget would centralize firefighting efforts now split among five agencies and two Cabinet departments into a single Federal Wildland Fire Organization under the U S Interior Department RELATED Will Cal Fire get funding for more year-round firefighters in California s state budget That would mean shifting thousands of personnel from the U S Forest Amenity where largest part federal firefighters now work into the new agency with fire season already underway Budget documents do not disclose how much the change could cost or save Related Articles Map Traveling Fire in Southern California East Bay firefighters respond to vegetation fire State Farm seeks to boost California home insurance rate hike to Assessment When a neighborhood floods foreclosures often follow Will Cal Fire get funding for more year-round firefighters in California s state budget The Trump administration in its first months temporarily cut off money for wildfire mitigation work and sharply reduced the ranks of federal executive firefighters through layoffs and retirement That resulted in the loss of more than qualified firefighters in the Forest Arrangement an arm of the U S Department of Agriculture and hundreds of people at Interior according to the National Association of Forest Institution Retirees and Democratic lawmakers The personnel declines and proposed agency reshuffling come as circumstances change makes fires more severe by warming and drying the landscape More than wildfires across the U S burned almost million acres last year Interior Secretary Doug Burgum reported Tuesday during testimony before the House Appropriations Committee that the new fire institution would streamline work to stamp out blazes We want more firefighters on the front lines and less people trying to make manual decisions on how to allocate tools and personnel Burgum announced We ve got duplicative and ineffective structures that could be improved But organizations representing firefighters and former Forest Amenity administrators say it would be costly to restructure firefighting efforts and cause major disruptions in the midst of fire season Over the long term they declared it would shift the focus from preventing fires through forest thinning and controlled burns to extinguishing them even in cases where fire could have beneficial effects You will not suppress your way to success in dealing with catastrophic fires It s going to create greater peril and it s going to be particularly chaotic if you implement it going into fire season explained Steve Ellis the chairman of the forest function retirees group and a former wildfire event commander RELATED California bill would give homeowners cash to fireproof their properties The group which includes several former Forest Arrangement chiefs mentioned in a letter to lawmakers that consolidation of firefighting work could really increase the likelihood of more large catastrophic fires putting more communities firefighters and guidance at peril Cleaving the Forest Function s firefighting duties from its role as a land manager would be like separating cojoined twins it would basically kill the agency declared Timothy Ingalsbee with Firefighters United for Safety Ethics and Ecology a Eugene Oregon-based advocacy group Another destructive fire season is expected this year driven by above normal temperatures for most of of the country according to federal officers More than million acres have burned in including in Arizona Minnesota California Colorado Nebraska New Jersey and other states The Trump administration proposal has a few bipartisan endorsement with California Democratic Sen Alex Padilla and Montana Republican Sen Tim Sheehy sponsoring ordinance that s similar Before his vote last year Sheehy founded an aerial firefighting company that relies heavily on federal contracts A prior proposal to merge the Forest System and Interior to improve firefighting was determined to have key drawbacks by the Congressional Research System in a overview A wildfire agency would likely focus on fire control largely because acres burned are the preponderance readily measurable performance standard the summary explained Wildfire management exercises that seek to reduce damages such as protecting individual structures and reducing biomass fuels are less likely to be emphasized Burgum indicated the administration was not waiting for the bill to pass and he would work with Agriculture Sec Brooke Rollins to begin coordinating operations for the current fire season The Forest Facility workforce was initially cut in February during billionaire Elon Musk s push to reduce federal spending and at least National Park Function workers also were let go A court order to rehire fired workers along with a general outcry brought plenty of workers back to their jobs but Democratic lawmakers have explained it s not enough The Forest Utility had about wildland firefighters as of May with a goal of by mid-July Interior employs about wildland firefighters spread between the National Park Institution Fish and Wildlife Operation Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management State officers in Washington and Oregon stated this month that a loss of federal workers who help patronage wildland firefighting is making planning for the upcoming wildfire season a challenge The administration has not published the exact number of fired and rehired workers In a separate action aimed at wildfires the Trump administration last month rolled back environmental safeguards around future logging projects on more than half of U S national forests The urgency designation covers square miles square kilometers of terrain primarily in the West but also in the South around the Great Lakes and in New England The greater part of those forests are considered to have high wildfire peril and a large number of are in decline because of insects and infection