Thousands of U.S. Forest Service and National Park employees have a collateral duty to work on wild-land fires as a part of a firefighting militia. Aside from their work monitoring fragile ecosystems and educating people about “Leave No Trace” principles, they are frequently called upon to jump on an engine, go on assignments with the crew, and help with firefighting efforts. Workers from both agencies were also part of California’s wildfire response against the uncontrollable Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County in January — leaving behind catastrophic devastation it will take decades to recover from.
On Feb. 14, the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s DOGE fired about 1,000 National Park Service (NPS) employees and 2,000 U.S. Forest Service probationary employees. Rangers, technicians and scientists say these cuts will make the public lands more vulnerable to wildfires, hamper the ability to fight them with an overburdened firefighting workforce and allow for mismanagement of irreplaceable natural resources. Workers also fear that with the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise, the public lands will be unsafe as visitors will not receive the same care and guidance from staff.
Many who had worked for the agencies for years and had recently been promoted were fired because of their probationary status. The following week, about 50 NPS jobs were restored and Trump promised 7,700 new seasonal positions. So far, fewer than 150 temporary NPS jobs have been posted and another big wave of reductions may be coming. In September 2024, the Forest Service also announced that it would halt all seasonal hiring for 2024, after facing budget cuts during the Biden administration. Both agencies heavily rely on temporary seasonal roles to fill the on-the-ground workforce.
On March 13, a federal judge ordered six federal agencies to reinstate terminated probationary employees including those at the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, which oversee NPS and Forest Service, respectively. U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco made the ruling in a lawsuit brought by a group of unions against the Trump administration’s mass firings, which he declared illegal. The administration has vowed to appeal.
NPS declined an interview with leadership, but a spokesperson said over email that they are focused on maintaining park visitor experience and “the National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers … as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) declined an interview request, but said that “Secretary [Brooke] Rollins fully supports the President’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people. We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.” On March 11, the USDA released a statement saying they would comply with the Merit Systems Protection Board’s 45-day stay on probationary employees terminations and will reinstate them with back pay.
Many former workers tell Rolling Stone that their positions were either soft-funded through outside nonprofit grants or state-funded through special grants to develop and maintain recreation opportunities. The narrative that tax dollars are paying for all worker salaries is not accurate, they say, and in many cases, departments are also funded through recreation fees like park admissions, camping fees, mooring fees, and docking fees.
‘Concerning for fire season’
Fired National Park and Forest Service workers chose their jobs because they loved them.
They loved monitoring endangered species and snowpacks. They enjoyed clearing fallen trees, preserving and repairing structures, and maintaining wildlife health. Camping out in the wild, living out of backpacks and tents, they thrived. Maybe cleaning up trash and even human waste wasn’t a ranger’s favorite task, but the job was always satisfying. They protected water quality across streams, creeks, pools, swimming holes, and rivers, maintained the watersheds; and plowed the roads and groomed ski tracks in the winter. Their jobs were part of their identities.
On Jan. 20, Chuck Sams, the 19th NPS Director resigned and left the NPS. Sams says the agencies train a large number of both permanent and seasonal staff to be wildland firefighters. “You’re most likely to see, potentially, a direct detriment to the forest if we don’t have enough firefighters and professional firefighters on the ground who understand the lay of the land and fire science,” Sams says.
Arianna Knight, a wilderness trails supervisor for the Forest Service in the Yellowstone Ranger District in Livingston, Montana, was terminated with 11 years of trail work experience.
Courtesy of Arianna Knight
National parks and forests lost essential personnel with many crews cut down to half, leaving critical tasks unmanageable. Arianna Knight and Jaelle Downs were among employees with a “Red Card” or Incident Qualification Card certification necessary for working on wildland fires managed by federal and state agencies. The certification must be renewed every year. Field staff who were let go are likely to have taken on the collateral duty as wildland firefighters, according to Sams.
“I went on multiple fire assignments. I committed myself for two weeks to going somewhere and being attached to a specific fire incident as well as helping fight fires in our district,” Downs says. “The number of people that helped fill out those roles, people that we lost who did that work, is really concerning for fire season.”
Downs gave seven years to the Forest Service as a seasonal temporary employee and was offered a permanent job as a forestry technician last year at the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in north-central Washington. She was terminated along with nine others in her office. “We had this opportunity to be the next generation of public land stewards,” she says. “And then to have that ripped away, it’s so heartbreaking.”
On Feb. 26, after the mass layoffs, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore also announced his retirement with an attempt to address the situation in a letter saying, “Our agency’s work supports the nation’s wellbeing and its economy … The federal government is undergoing a significant transformation. How agencies are structured, staffed, and operate is shifting, and the Forest Service is not exempt from these changes.”
Knight, a wilderness trails supervisor for the Forest Service in the Yellowstone Ranger District in Livingston, Montana, was terminated with 11 years of trail work experience. “We’re just going to have a lack of people, lack of resources, and that’s going to put stress on our wildfire seasons,” Knight says. With a team of five, she managed 800 miles of trails, cleared 4,000 trees in 2024 and built several trail maintenance structures. She was three months shy of finishing her two-year probationary period as supervisor. She had been on multiple fires as well, including initial attacks and prescribed burnings.
“I’ve worked my entire life in this industry, doing work that I really believe in … to create access to our public lands for our [recreationists],” she says. According to Knight, the firings were based on lies that her crew wasn’t working up to the required standards despite performance evaluations saying otherwise. “There was a lot of emotion, feeling angry because things were being said that weren’t true, feeling devastated because I just lost my career, and devastated because I lost something that I believe in,” Knight says.
These trained field staff also do fire mitigation projects. This involves scoping out and analyzing where to do fuel reduction, and monitoring smoke after lightning strikes and at campgrounds. When the weather is suitable, usually in the fall and the winter, they set prescribed fires and dig and construct buffers or hand lines by clearing the vegetation down to the soils, according to wildlife biologist Elaine Leslie.
“That’s what those seasonal [employees] are doing. It’s back-breaking work, and without those [buffers and prescribed fires] there’s more chance of wildfire,” she says. Leslie served NPS for over 25 years and is now an Executive Council member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, a nonprofit that advocates for the NPS’ mission and its employees.
Andria Townsend holding a fisher after attaching a radio collar before it was released back into the wild. She was a carnivore specialist at Yosemite National Park.
Courtesy of Andria Townsend
Before being laid off, Andria Townsend had been a carnivore specialist at Yosemite National Park since May 2024. With over eight years of experience, she oversaw two research programs on endangered Sierra Nevada red fox and fisher. Her termination letter from Lena McDowall, deputy director of management and administration at NPS, which was reviewed by Rolling Stone, said, “You have failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment because your subject matter knowledge, skills, and abilities do not meet the Department’s [of the Interior] current needs.” NPS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Rolling Stone verified that Townsend had been rated “Outstanding” by her supervisor according to a U.S. Department of the Interior Performance Appraisal document. Other interviewed workers had received similar positive evaluations.
J. Elizabeth Peace, a senior public affairs specialist at the Interior Department, said in an email that, with the terminations being challenged in court, “department policy is to not comment on litigation.” Peace said that they “do not anticipate any impacts” of the firings on wildland firefighting and “do not comment on personnel matters.”
As climate change intensifies large-scale wildfires in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the invisible work of scientists becomes even more critical to the protection of public lands, Townsend says. During large-scale wildfires, her team would locate and ensure the safety of wildlife structures needing protection — especially those that provide habitat to endangered species, like spots where fishers reproduce.
Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs with the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) nonprofit, worries about the long-term protection of many resources across public lands as the agencies lose key staff who protect those resources. “There were people who were doing preventative work on wildfires who were fired,” she says. “Then there were also quite a lot of search and rescue people who were fired, people who [help] when you get into trouble like if someone gets dehydrated and collapses or falls off the side of a canyon. These are the people who come and rescue you, and many of them were fired on Feb. 14.” The NPCA is a nonprofit advocating for national parks with Congress, the White House, and the courts.
‘Attacks on our public lands’
As the Trump administration rolls out massive federal cuts, plans to end office building leases, and freezes funds, the parks and forests are more disempowered and vulnerable than ever. On March 1, thousands gathered at national parks across the country to protest the firings.
Marine biologist Kenan Chan worked in various seasonal contractual NPS roles for a decade and got a permanent role in October 2024 at the Channel Islands National Park in Ventura, California as a biological science technician and lead fisheries diver. Chan was visiting Yosemite National Park when he learned that he was one of six people at the Channel Islands National Park losing their jobs. Additionally, several new hires — who were given start dates, had moved to Ventura County, and even signed leases — were also told their jobs were being canceled, Chan says.
On Chan’s last day, the supervisors held a meeting to explain what was happening. “The entire meeting, I was fighting back tears — tears of frustration and tears of anger,” Chan says. He says the team was minimally staffed to begin with and the system is now left with huge gaps.
Kenan Chan was a biological science technician and lead fisheries diver at the Channel Islands National Park in Ventura, California.
Courtesy of Kenan Chan
“We’re starting to see these attacks on our public lands … Telling America’s story shouldn’t all be about revenue,” says retired park superintendent Russell Galipeau. “They’re trying to monetize those lands — they do other things besides provide oil and gas opportunities, grazing opportunities, timber sales or mining opportunities. They provide a chance for you to connect with nature.”
Galipeau retired in 2018 after a 40-year career with NPS. He currently works with the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. “Our national parks are a tapestry, and it’s made up of all the fabrics of stories [about] what makes America great,” he says. Galipeau emphasizes the historical significance of national parks whether it’s women’s rights sites, Martin Luther King’s home, Revolutionary War sites, Civil War sites, Colonial America sites or Native American sites.
Galipeau recalls the last government shutdown, which occurred during President Trump’s first term. “We saw poaching [of animals], we saw plants taken out of parks,” Galipeau says. “We’ve seen Joshua trees — the namesake tree of the Joshua Tree National Park — cut down by visitors in a campground because they thought they needed some firewood. So with nobody being out there, you see those extractive uses, and they amount to a lot over time. We start to see trails where they’re not maintained.”
“People care deeply about their national parks and public lands. It is America’s best idea,” Leslie says. According to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey, 76 percent of Americans view the National Park Service favorably. Over 331 million people visited national parks in 2024, according to NPS visitation statistics.
Betsy Walsh, a former ranger at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, New Jersey, says that with all the recent federal upheaval, “the government is trying to centralize power and have a dictatorship.” She started her career with a museum job during high school, got a history degree, spent about four years as a seasonal park worker, and eventually secured a permanent position, thinking it was her “big break.” She was fired via phone call during a furlough period, unable to access her government email.
“Everyone is hoping that the National Parks continue to exist,” Walsh says. “I’ll get another job … but the amount of destabilization this is doing to the Park Service is really damaging it as a system.”
Nick Graver is a biologist at Joshua Tree National Park who is still employed. He researches how to mitigate wildfire risk associated with Joshua trees and Joshua Tree woodlands. He says he doesn’t speak on behalf of NPS but is worried about parks losing the resources they need to stop future fires from getting out of hand. About six rangers were fired at Joshua Tree National Park and the park currently has over 40 vacant positions.
“We have firefighters that go out to the front lines of the fire, and I go out with them as a biologist,” Graver says. “It takes a massive support operation to put firefighters on the front line, and that whole firefighting system is collapsing with every fired employee.”
“Everybody is really worried that parks are not going to be as beautiful,” he says. “We’re going to see species go extinct. We’re going to see wildfires get out of control, and we will see the parks, which are the economic engine of these areas, collapse, and then the communities that surround them lose jobs, and lose everything that makes those communities whole.”
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