ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.
The top Democrat on a House committee is demanding that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins account for discrepancies between her public statements about wildland firefighter staffing and a ProPublica report showing there were thousands of vacancies in the Forest Service’s firefighting workforce as peak wildfire season approached.
In June, the Forest Service claimed it had reached 99% of its hiring goal for its wildland firefighting workforce. But ProPublica’s reporting indicated that the agency was selectively counting firefighters, presenting an optimistic assessment to the public. As many as 27% of jobs were vacant as of July 17, according to data obtained by ProPublica.
Rep. Robert Garcia, a Democrat from California and the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, made the request to Rollins in a letter sent Thursday morning. “The Trump Administration’s staffing decisions are exacerbating an already dire situation: The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season,” he wrote.
The Forest Service’s assertions about its readiness are contradicted not only by its own staff — a wildland firefighter in California quoted in the ProPublica report called the 99% figure “grossly inaccurate” — but by its own statistics. In July, ProPublica reported that, according to agency data, its fire and aviation management program contained more than 4,500 active vacancies, including for such crucial primary firefighting positions as hotshots, dispatchers and engine captains. At the time, a spokesperson for the Agriculture Department disputed that the Forest Service had that many vacancies within its fire and aviation management program but did not provide data showing otherwise. A spokesperson for the Forest Service later claimed that ProPublica’s figures were inaccurate, telling the High Country News, “Their numbers likely come from outdated org charts and unfunded positions.” However, ProPublica excluded all unfunded positions from its analysis, and its data came from active agency organizational charts.
When asked to support its claims that the agency’s fire service is fully staffed, a spokesperson wrote: “The Forest Service is fully prepared and operational to protect individuals and communities from wildfires. The Forest Service has over 19,000 workers, both in and out of the Fire and Aviation Management group, who hold incident response qualifications.”
The Forest Service Claims It’s Fully Staffed for a Worsening Fire Season. Data Shows Thousands of Unfilled Jobs.
According to experts, the agency has long resisted providing a comprehensive and transparent breakdown of its wildland firefighting force. “Unless Congress tells them to, they’re not going to do a report of that magnitude,” said Robert Kuhn, a former Forest Service official who between 2009 and 2011 co-authored such an assessment. Kuhn cited the cost and effort involved in analyzing a sprawling and complex agency. Earlier this year, Grassroots Wildland Firefighting, a labor advocacy organization, wrote, “None of the federal agencies have developed a modern formula for determining how many wildland firefighters and support personnel are truly needed to address 21st century issues.” Most federal wildland firefighters work for the Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture. In addition, the federal government employs thousands of wildland firefighters at four agencies in the Department of the Interior. President Donald Trump has ordered all of them to consolidate their wildland fire programs. Details about that unification have not been released.
Every year, the Forest Service reports that it has filled its ranks with what are known as primary firefighters. But according to current and former Forest Service employees, that assessment — the basis of the claim that the agency reached 99% of its hiring goal — is misleading on a number of levels. The Forest Service simply counts “operational firefighters” working within a specified pay range. That figure includes both temporary seasonal firefighters who have just joined the agency and experienced year-round veterans — but it does not distinguish between the two and therefore elides a great loss of institutional knowledge. In recent years, the agency has suffered an exodus of experienced firefighters. The agency’s assessment also excludes both senior-level fire managers and crucial support staff. The public associates wildland firefighting with its most iconic figures: smokejumpers, hotshots and members of engine crews, who often are supported by aircraft dropping retardant. But the nation’s wildland fire apparatus also includes, for example, human-resource specialists, ecologists, wilderness rangers, meteorologists, trails workers and other employees who possess qualifications allowing them to work on a fire line. Those qualifications are listed in what’s known as a “red card.” An archaeologist could have a red card allowing them to, say, oversee the distribution of food at a fire camp.
A recently departed staffer received this email of Forest Service wildland firefighting job openings in August.
Credit:
Obtained and redacted by ProPublica
According to internal data reviewed in July by ProPublica, approximately 1,600 red-carded staff left the government this winter and spring. The Forest Service has claimed that the actual figure is 1,400. Garcia asked for a full accounting of DOGE’s impact on the Forest Service, demanding “all documents and communications regarding staffing, hiring, reductions in force, the Deferred Resignation Program, or the ‘Fork in the Road,’ and firefighting resources and capacity at the Forest Service.”
The agency’s rosy public assessments of its own force have also been belied by its efforts to rehire the workers it forced out. In a July memo, the Forest Service’s chief, Tom Schultz, allowed that the agency did not have enough resources and was now recruiting red-carded staff who had separated from the agency. More recently, emails reviewed by ProPublica show that, since July 22, the Forest Service has sent multiple recruiting notices to departed staff. The emails advertise dozens of openings for essential firefighting positions — such as dispatcher, engine captain and hotshot superintendent — in at least seven states. When asked about the emails, an agency spokesperson wrote, “We do have active recruitments out for FY26.”
In his letter, Garcia requested that Rollins provide the oversight committee with “a detailed and comprehensive accounting of current staffing and staffing changes at the Forest Service, including firefighting jobs” since Jan. 20.
