Trump plans to streamline efforts to fight wildfires spark criticism from ex-chiefs

Inmate firefighters dig a firebreak as the Thompson fire burns on July in Oroville Photo by Ethan Swope Associated Press President Donald Trump s administration is trying to merge the administration s wildland firefighting efforts into a single agency The move though selected former federal leaders warn could increase the threat 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 entity the Federal Wildland Fire Arrangement under the U S Interior Department That would mean shifting thousands of personnel from the U S Forest Arrangement where greater 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 The Trump administration in its first months temporarily cut off money for wildfire mitigation work and sharply reduced the ranks of federal authorities firefighters through layoffs and retirement That resulted in the loss of more than qualified firefighters in the Forest System an arm of the U S Department of Agriculture and hundreds of people at Interior according to the National Association of Forest Operation Retirees and Democratic lawmakers The personnel declines and proposed agency reshuffling come as conditions change makes fires more severe by warming and drying the landscape More than wildfires across the U S burned almost million acres last year More than of those fires were in California and they burned million acres according to Cal Fire the state s firefighting agency Interior Secretary Doug Burgum noted 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 materials and personnel Burgum mentioned We ve got duplicative and ineffective structures that could be improved But organizations representing firefighters and former Forest Institution authorities say it would be costly to restructure firefighting efforts and cause major disruptions in the midst of fire season Over the long term they explained 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 jeopardy and it s going to be particularly chaotic if you implement it going into fire season revealed Steve Ellis the chairman of the forest arrangement retirees group and a former wildfire circumstance commander The group which includes several former Forest Utility chiefs stated 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 danger Cleaving the Forest Arrangement s firefighting duties from its role as a land manager would be like separating cojoined twins it would basically kill the agency reported 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 bulk of the country according to federal officers More than million acres have burned so far in including in California where several catastrophic blazes in Los Angeles in January burned approximately acres Arizona Minnesota Colorado Nebraska New Jersey and other states The Trump administration proposal has particular bipartisan patronage with California Democratic Sen Alex Padilla and Montana Republican Sen Tim Sheehy sponsoring measure that s similar Before his balloting last year Sheehy founded an aerial firefighting company that relies heavily on federal contracts A prior proposal to merge the Forest Utility and Interior to improve firefighting was uncovered to have key drawbacks by the Congressional Research Utility in a summary A wildfire agency would likely focus on fire control largely because acres burned are the majority of readily measurable performance standard the document announced Wildfire management programs 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 Function workforce was initially cut in February during billionaire Elon Musk s push to reduce federal spending and at least National Park Arrangement workers also were let go A court order to rehire fired workers along with a general outcry brought a large number of workers back to their jobs but Democratic lawmakers have reported it s not enough The Forest Facility had about wildland firefighters as of May with a goal of by mid-July Interior employs about wildland firefighters spread between the National Park Arrangement Fish and Wildlife Organization Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management State bureaucrats in Washington and Oregon stated this month that a loss of federal workers who help help wildland firefighting is making planning for the upcoming wildfire season a challenge The administration has not distributed 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 emergency designation covers square miles of terrain primarily in the West but also in the South around the Great Lakes and in New England Preponderance of those forests are considered to have high wildfire danger and numerous are in decline because of insects and malady