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 establishment s wildland firefighting efforts into a single agency a move specific former federal administrators warn could increase the hazard 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 Operation 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 Arrangement where majority of 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 Spanning Fire in Southern California East Bay firefighters respond to vegetation fire State Farm seeks to boost California home insurance rate hike to Analysis 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 governing body firefighters through layoffs and retirement That resulted in the loss of more than qualified firefighters in the Forest Organization an arm of the U S Department of Agriculture and hundreds of people at Interior according to the National Association of Forest System Retirees and Democratic lawmakers The personnel declines and proposed agency reshuffling come as atmosphere 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 commented Tuesday during testimony before the House Appropriations Committee that the new fire organization 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 revealed We ve got duplicative and ineffective structures that could be improved But organizations representing firefighters and former Forest Operation 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 stated 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 danger and it s going to be particularly chaotic if you implement it going into fire season declared Steve Ellis the chairman of the forest amenity retirees group and a former wildfire happening commander RELATED California bill would give homeowners cash to fireproof their properties The group which includes several former Forest Institution chiefs declared in a letter to lawmakers that consolidation of firefighting work could genuinely increase the likelihood of more large catastrophic fires putting more communities firefighters and guidance at pitfall Cleaving the Forest Operation s firefighting duties from its role as a land manager would be like separating cojoined twins it would basically kill the agency commented 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 leaders More than million acres have burned in including in Arizona Minnesota California Colorado Nebraska New Jersey and other states The Trump administration proposal has particular bipartisan help with California Democratic Sen Alex Padilla and Montana Republican Sen Tim Sheehy sponsoring decree that s similar Before his polling last year Sheehy founded an aerial firefighting company that relies heavily on federal contracts A prior proposal to merge the Forest Provision and Interior to improve firefighting was exposed to have substantial drawbacks by the Congressional Research Arrangement in a review A wildfire agency would likely focus on fire control largely because acres burned are the the greater part readily measurable performance standard the statement mentioned Wildfire management engagements 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 Organization workforce was initially cut in February during billionaire Elon Musk s push to reduce federal spending and at least National Park Institution workers also were let go A court order to rehire fired workers along with a community outcry brought a great number of workers back to their jobs but Democratic lawmakers have revealed it s not enough The Forest Arrangement 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 Operation Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Land Management State executives in Washington and Oregon announced 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 disclosed 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 Bulk of those forests are considered to have high wildfire danger and a large number of are in decline because of insects and ailment