Firefighting resources are ‘critically low’ in record fire year

But fire experts said that the firings decimated the ranks of older, experienced officials whose knowledge is valuable against increasingly large, complex fires.

“These require the most seasoned and experienced managers. And we lost a lot of them last year” to the budget cuts, said Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the nonprofit Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology and a former firefighter for federal agencies. “We are just now seeing the impact of that.”