Federal fire agencies take first steps toward consolidation, other reforms

“It seemed from the outset that consolidation was just a means of further downsizing the wildland fire workforce and shrinking the budget for federal fire management,” said Tim Ingalsbee, head of the advocacy group Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

But beyond any specific policy, Ingalsbee wants to see a more fundamental change.

“We need to shift from this reactive mode of emergency wildfire suppression to a proactive mode of intentional ecological fire management,” he argued. “We have to increase and facilitate the use of beneficial fire.”