Forest Service layoffs and frozen funds increase the risk from wildfires
Despite being in office for less than a month, the Trump administration has already made the United States more exposed to catastrophic wildfires in ways that will be difficult to reverse, current and former federal employees say.
Trump funding freeze halts wildfire prevention work
The Trump administration has halted funding for federal programs to reduce wildfire risk in western U.S. states and has frozen hiring of seasonal firefighters as part of broad cuts to government spending, according to organizations impacted by the moves.
The Oregon-based non-profit Lomakatsi Restoration Project said its contracts with the federal agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to reduce hazardous fuels in Oregon, California and Idaho, have been frozen.
Oregon senators call for federal firefighters to be exempt from hiring freeze
Oregon U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have joined over a dozen other lawmakers, all Democrats, in calling on the administration to issue an exemption for thousands of seasonal firefighters so federal agencies can prepare for “what’s expected to be another devastating wildfire year.”
“The Administration must not sacrifice the safety of the American people for the benefit of implementing a political agenda,” their letter reads.
EXCLUSIVE: The Forest Service is using the threat of wildfires to meet timber targets
Recognized as both a legacy of the agency’s past fire suppression policies and the effects of climate change, the wildfire crisis now consumes a significant chunk of the Forest Service’s time and resources.
In crisis, however, the agency also sees opportunity, according to both public reports and internal Forest Service documents obtained by the nonprofit WildEarth Guardians through a public records request and shared with Columbia Insight.
Internal documents show the Forest Service discussing—both internally and with the timber industry—how its various legal and policy “tools” and emergency authorities related to its wildfire prevention programs could be and have been harnessed to increase sales of board feet of timber.
Loper Bright opens scrutiny of Forest Service's war on wildfires
Environmentalists say USFS abuses discretion to favor logging. Loper Bright offers new avenues to challenge project studies
The US Forest Service is fighting to keep in place a plan to raze the equivalent of 500 Central Parks in California’s forests as wildfires ravaging the southern part of the state put a spotlight on the agency’s management of these natural disasters.
Federal firefighters fought L.A.’s blazes. Then came resignation offers.
Federal firefighting teams are already underpaid and suffering from attrition, firefighters and union leaders said. Shrinking those forces, they said, would hamper the country’s ability to respond to another life-threatening blaze as climate change causes fire seasons to lengthen.
Trump orders USDA to take down websites referencing climate crisis
On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered the US agriculture department to to take down its websites documenting or referencing the climate crisis.
By Friday, the landing pages on the United States Forest Service website for key resources, research and adaptation tools – including those that provide vital context and vulnerability assessments for wildfires – had gone dark, leaving behind an error message or just a single line: “You are not authorized to access this page.”
USDA ordered to scrub climate change from websites
The directive from USDA’s office of communications, whose authenticity was validated by three people, could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA climate hubs and Forest Service information regarding wildfires, the frequency and severity of which scientists have linked to hotter, drier conditions fueled by climate change.
They helped save L.A. Will California ever pay them fairly?
Thanks to a state constitution that allows forced labor as a form of criminal punishment, California’s incarcerated workers are regularly deployed to complete dangerous, necessary work, from manufacturing key medical supplies during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensuring that sanitation systems continue to function. But the state’s century-old incarcerated firefighters program, the largest in the country, stands out in its scope. According to some estimates, it accounts for nearly a third of California’s total firefighting force. In a state where destructive wildfires are common and growing more frequent, they are vital workers. They typically make less than a dollar an hour.
New evidence links heavy metal pollution with wildfire retardants
The research, conducted by a team from the University of Southern California and published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found that between 2009 and 2021, wildfire retardant application in the U.S. released at least 380,000 kg (more than 400 tons) of at least four toxic metals into the environment. Toxic metals — like cadmium, chromium and vanadium — accumulate in ecosystems and organisms and are linked to organ damage, cancer and neurological disorders.
How wildlife survives after wildfires
Fire is a serious problem for humans, particularly when they build in fire-prone areas, and the losses of life, property and economies can be immense. The Los Angeles wildfires that occurred in January 2025 are predicted to have cost in excess of $135bn (£109.7bn).
However, it is not intrinsically a problem for wildlife. One study, which looked at the results of 31 research papers from 1984 to 2020, found that 65% of studies did not report any animal fatalities as a direct result of fires. Many species have a strategy for evading the fire itself, ranging from simply running away to hiding in burrows underground or sheltering in the treetops.
Global warming set the stage for Los Angeles fires
A new attribution analysis found that climate heating caused by burning fossil fuels significantly increased the likelihood of extreme fire conditions.
The Tongva’s land burned in Eaton fire. But leaders say traditional practices mitigated damage
“It’s important to listen to Indigenous voices and to understand that the knowledge that communities hold is thousands and thousands and thousands of years of knowledge,” she said. “I think that listening and allowing that knowledge to be practiced is really the key to the future of wildfire.”
A new kind of urban firestorm
Rising temperatures and shifting seasons have increased the risk of wildfires that burn faster and are harder to contain. When those blazes jump into nearby communities, they are fueled not by forests but by buildings — moving from home to home, from garage to business to school, until they consume even areas far away from the wilderness.
“It’s a new beast,” said John Abatzoglou, a climatologist at the University of California at Merced. “Or rather, it’s a beast that existed and we thought we had controlled.”
Experts say one practice could have slowed down devastating LA fires
But one thing that could have limited the mind-boggling devastation, many experts say,r is better preparation by communities, specifically the widely promoted, yet sometimes overlooked, practice of creating “defensible space” around buildings and “hardening” homes to fire.
In Los Angeles County, like in so many parts of California, entire neighborhoods exist in or next to fire-prone wildlands. With flames bound to reach these areas and no assurances they can be stopped, especially in an age of climate-charged mega-fires, many say focusing on community-level safety should be top priority.
Trump’s pick for energy secretary rejects linking climate change and wildfires
Oil executive Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Energy Department, has argues that climate change has not fueled more frequent and severe wildfires — a claim at odds with the scientific consensus.
Could better brush clearance have helped slow the spread of the Palisades fire?
Given the weather conditions, Moritz is skeptical that more landscape-level brush clearance would have done much to slow the fire’s initial spread. He also noted that landscape-level brush management is distinct from brush clearance around individual homes, which is typically the responsibility of the property owner and can help give firefighters opportunities to protect structures.
High winds do more than spread fires — they keep firefighting aircraft on the ground
Aerial support during the California wildfires has been grounded at times by high winds. Here's what the aircrafts do and why they can't fly in certain conditions.
Fires are moving much faster now. Here’s how to prepare.
In short, we need to prepare. By the time a fast fire ignites, it is too late. To support firefighters and protect our communities, we need to be ready long before fire comes.
Could more controlled burns have stopped the L.A. fires?They can be an effective wildfire prevention tool — but not always.
Once the fires stop burning in Los Angeles and the city picks itself up from the rubble, the chorus of voices asking how such a disaster could have been prevented will rise. In California, the answer to that desperate query is so often “better forestry management practices,” and in particular “more controlled burns.” But that’s not always the full story, and in the case of the historically destructive L.A. fires, many experts doubt that prescribed burns and better vegetation management would have mattered much at all.