CALIFORNIA — As wildfire conditions across California are expected to increase steadily through the summer, state officials last month expressed concerns about cuts in staff and funding at federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, a division within the Agriculture Department that partners with the state to fight wildfires and manage forests.
California is home to 18 national forests, with 48% of its land owned and managed by the federal government.
“On critical priorities like wildfire, safety and water supplies, federal agency effectiveness is critical,” said California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot during a webinar, in which he and other state officials discussed potential impacts of federal staffing reductions to the state’s natural resources, including forests.
Patrick Wright, executive director of California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force, expressed concern about how a 10% cut in U.S. Forest Service staffing could affect firefighters’ ability to battle wildfires and support efforts to thin forests and do prescribed burns to reduce wildfire fuels.
“The key is we need to scale up across the board if we are going to meet our targets and keep our communities safe,” Wright said. “This causes real concern in the federal ability to step up and meet our joint targets.”
A June executive order by President Trump called for “commonsense” wildfire prevention and response, and directed the secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to consolidate wildland fire programs, strengthen the use of partnerships and mutual aid, remove barriers to preventing and responding to wildfires, and strengthen wildfire mitigation.
A budget request for fiscal year 2026 would unify wildfire management programs under a single U.S. Wildland Fire Service within the Department of the Interior. The president also called for increased timber production on federal land and reduced environmental red tape to expedite logging projects.
The 2026 federal budget and appropriations are under discussion in Congress and being heard in committee hearings. The proposed budget includes a reduction in Forest Service spending, including for fire suppression.
“Many Farm Bureau members are stakeholders who work and live among the state’s forests, so as this federal agency reorganization plays out, we want to maintain strong communications to ensure that our members are informed and that their property, livelihoods and families are safe,” said Erin Huston, federal policy consultant for the California Farm Bureau.
Huston said the Farm Bureau supports “efficient and well-executed fire suppression,” including timber harvest and livestock grazing.
Last month, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources related to Trump’s budget request for the Forest Service for fiscal year 2026. When questioned about sufficient Forest Service firefighting personnel this year, he said the agency currently has 11,250 firefighters, and the maximum that is typically hired is 11,300.
“We have not made any changes to our resource availability this year, whether it’s aviation resources or firefighters,” Schultz said.
About 1,400 nonfirefighting personnel who had “red cards,” or incident qualification cards, which indicate they are qualified to do the job when arriving at an incident, retired through the deferred resignation program, he said. Firefighters are not eligible for the program, he added.
To prepare for this fire season, Schultz said he met with local, state and other partners, and they agreed to operate agreements related to who pays the cost of fighting fires.
Cal Fire reported 4,423 wildfires and 221,000 acres have burned in the state since January.
Cal Fire Battalion Chief David Acuña said the state has a very robust mutual aid system, and the closest personnel are the first to respond.
“We’re fully staffed as we would be in every peak fire year situation,” he said, adding that Cal Fire responds to fires within its “responsibility area,” including in cities and counties, and sends resources when federal firefighters request help.
Staci Heaton, senior policy advocate of the Rural County Representatives of California, said her group has long wanted Forest Service restructuring and “don’t necessarily see it as a bad idea in the long run.”
“Our concern at this point is the slow pace at which this sort of restructuring of the Forest Service is happening and the large percentage of staff that they have eliminated,” she said.
To help the Forest Service, Matt Dias, president and CEO of the California Forestry Association, said his association is working to advance a public-private partnership for federally managed lands. He called the effort a strategy to allow partners to assist the Forest Service on meeting its objectives.
“The (federal) directive to increase fiber outputs is really an analogous to increasing pace and scale to provide better levels of protection for communities and natural resources through management of national forests,” Dias said. “The public-private partnership that we’re launching is actually having some of our members — the forest products sector — also carry some of that load.”
However, there are still lots of unknowns, he warned.
“It is fair to say that we don’t really know what the impact is going to be right now,” Dias said. “We are paying very close attention to how that restructuring occurs. Everybody is waiting to see where the chips fall.”
Article courtesy of California Farm Bureau.
