Trump backs higher pay for wildland firefighters while DOGE cuts
wildfire support staff
[March 20, 2025]
By MARTHA BELLISLE
SEATTLE (AP) — Wildland firefighters will keep a four-year-old pay hike
under a GOP-led spending bill signed by President Donald Trump, but many
worry that mass federal worker firings will leave the nation more
vulnerable to wildfires.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday credited Trump with securing
the pay increase in a post on the social media site X. He said the
administration is grateful to firefighters who he said "embody the
American spirit by selflessly risking their lives to protect their
neighbors, protect their communities, and preserve our natural
heritage.”
The permanent pay raise comes as Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of
Government Efficiency has cut about 3,400 workers at the U.S. Forest
Service, about 1,000 at the National Park Service and another 1,000 at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Many of those workers kept trails free of debris, oversaw prescribed
burns, thinned forests and were specially trained to work with
firefighters. They say staffing cuts threaten public safety, especially
in the West, where drier and hotter conditions linked to climate change
have increased the intensity of wildfires.
“What I’m hearing from my constituents who actually fight fires in
Washington state is that Trump and Elon are making wildland
firefighters’ jobs far more difficult and far more dangerous by
indiscriminately firing thousands of Forest Service workers and others
who support wildland firefighting,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray
said in an email to The Associated Press. “It’s disingenuous and frankly
insulting for this administration to pretend otherwise.”
The federal government has been rehiring some employees under court
order after the firings were challenged.
According to the National Federation of Federal Employees, wildland
firefighters first began receiving a raise — 50%, or up to $20,000 —
temporarily in 2021 as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law signed
by then-President Joe Biden. Congress subsequently extended the raise on
a short-term basis.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, oversees forest spending as chair of the
House Interior and Environment Appropriations subcommittee and worked to
make the pay raise permanent.
“A permanent pay fix for our wildland firefighters will strengthen
recruitment and retention while providing financial security to the
first responders who protect our communities,” Simpson said in a news
release.
Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees,
likewise celebrated the raise, saying the union had been fighting for it
for years.
“Now, that fight is paying off," Erwin said in a statement. "A permanent
pay fix means we can shift our focus to addressing other critical issues
— recruitment and retention, housing, mental health benefits, rest and
recuperation, and the overall well-being of our nation’s wildland
firefighting workforce.”
[to top of second column]
|
Earielle London looks back as she and other students from Alabama
A&M and Tuskegee Universities march into the woods for a wildland
firefighter training June 9, 2023, in Hazel Green, Ala. (AP
Photo/George Walker IV, File)
He warned that continued efforts by the Trump administration to cut
firefighters and their support personnel “will cripple the workforce
and make Americans less safe.”
“Congress must not let these harmful plans be carried out,” Erwin
said.
Washington State Forester George Geissler, who leads the state's
wildland firefighting efforts, has over 30 years of experience with
wildfires. He said federal officials don't appreciate the roles
those workers play in fighting fires.
“I don’t think there is a desire to reduce the number of
firefighters with the Forest Service,” he said Wednesday. “But I do
think there is a clear lack of understanding about how the
inter-agency wildland fire system is set up, how it works, and how
people that don’t have ‘firefighter’ listed as their job are still a
massive part of the response system in the country.”
Former NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad said a reduction in that
agency’s workforce will also critically inhibit wildland
firefighting.
Spinrad said NOAA and the National Weather Service have about 100
“incident meteorologists,” or I-Mets, who deploy to wildfires to
provide support on the scene — such as by letting firefighters know
where the winds are coming from and what weather conditions are
forecast.
“I know for a fact that some of those I-Mets will not be on the job,
so that capability is going to be compromised,” Spinrad said during
a recent press conference with several laid-off NOAA workers.
Gregg Bafundo was laid off last month from job as a wilderness
ranger and wildland firefighter in Washington’s Okanogan Wenatchee
National Forest.
Bafundo is among those who have at least temporarily been called
back to work, but his long-term future with the agency is unclear.
“I have always placed myself between the danger and my fellow
citizens, and now I feel like I’ve been cast aside like some sort of
parasite class or some kind of fraud,” he said during a press
conference hosted by Murray last month. “These heartless and gutless
firings will lead to the loss of lives and property.”
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
