The Recall

In the first months of 2025, the federal government fired thousands of the people whose job it is to fight wildfire. By spring, it was asking them to come back. The DOGE efficiency push cut approximately 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees. Combined with voluntary departures and early retirements driven by the chaos, the total reached 4,800 USFS employees lost in a single year. Among them: at least 1,800 fire-qualified “red card” holders — the certified wildland firefighters who form the backbone of federal fire response. Then, with 25,560 fires already burning and 1.89 million acres consumed year-to-date, the administration recalled the firefighters it had just terminated.

The State-by-State Damage

The cuts did not fall evenly. Across six western states, a total of 5,874 public lands employees were fired from the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Fish and Wildlife Service combined. The Forest Service absorbed the highest cuts in every state. The numbers, by state:

Colorado: 1,753 public lands workers fired — 26% of the state’s federal land management workforce. Dispatch center staffing was cut by 25%. Colorado manages 14.5 million acres of national forest, including the White River, which is the most visited national forest in the country.

California: 1,540 workers, 14% of the workforce. California’s 18 national forests cover 20 million acres and include the highest fire-risk landscapes in the western corridor. The 2025 LA fires had already demonstrated what uncontained wildfire costs: $22.4 billion in insurance claims and counting.

New Mexico: 855 workers, 20%. This in a state still recovering from the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire of 2022 — a prescribed burn gone wrong that destroyed 341 homes and produced the largest fire in New Mexico history. Federal employees were managing the restoration. Now they are gone.

Arizona: 679 workers, 16%. Arizona’s federal lands include the Kaibab, Tonto, and Coconino National Forests — drought-stressed ponderosa landscapes where the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire burned 468,000 acres and remains the state’s largest.

Montana: 578 workers, 15%. Montana’s 16.9 million acres of national forest include vast tracts of beetle-killed timber — standing dead fuel that burns fast and hot. The state has seen five of its ten largest fire years since 2000.

Nevada: 469 workers, 24% — nearly one in four. Dispatch center staffing was cut by 27%. Nevada’s BLM-managed rangelands are increasingly invaded by cheatgrass, a non-native annual that cures to explosive fuel loads by June. Fewer dispatchers means slower initial attack. In cheatgrass country, minutes determine whether a fire stays at one acre or reaches one thousand.

The Courts Said No

Of the 3,400 DOGE-driven USFS terminations, the vast majority were probationary employees — workers in their first one to two years of federal service. Multiple court challenges followed. The results were devastating for the administration’s legal position: only 28 probationary terminations were upheld. The remaining firings were either overturned, enjoined, or remain in active litigation. The government fired 3,400 people and could legally justify removing 28 of them.

But legal reversal does not equal operational recovery. Employees who were fired, fought in court, and were reinstated do not return to their jobs with the same institutional commitment. Many do not return at all. The voluntary departures that accompanied the DOGE cuts — experienced employees who saw the direction of the agency and chose to leave — are the permanent losses. They will not be recalled.

The Work That Stopped

Personnel losses translate directly to acres not treated, fires not prevented, and risks not mitigated. In 2025, the Forest Service completed 38% less wildfire mitigation work than the previous year. Prescribed burning was roughly halved. Trail maintenance fell to its lowest level in 15 years, with 22% fewer miles maintained — meaning less access for crews to reach fires before they grow.

The proposed FY2026 budget envisions a 26% workforce reduction as permanent policy, not a temporary adjustment. This is not a government that cut too deep and plans to rebuild. This is a government that views the cuts as the goal.

No Protection for the Protectors

While the workforce was being decimated, the safety net beneath it was also removed. OSHA’s heat protection program — the federal standard for protecting outdoor workers, including wildland firefighters, from heat-related illness and death — expired on April 8, 2026. It has not been renewed. Federal wildland firefighters now face a fire season where temperatures are running above the 93rd percentile with no enforceable federal heat safety standard.

Wildland firefighting is already among the most dangerous occupations in federal service. Firefighters carry 45-pound packs up mountainsides in 100-degree heat, cutting fireline by hand. Heat stroke, cardiac events, and smoke inhalation are occupational hazards even with safety standards in place. Without them, the government is asking a diminished workforce to do a harder job with less protection.

What This Means

The 2026 fire season is already tracking at 180% of the 10-year average. AccuWeather projects 5.5 to 8 million acres will burn nationally by year’s end. The federal workforce responsible for managing that fire has been reduced by nearly 5,000 people. The courts have ruled most of those terminations illegal. The administration recalled the firefighters. And the budget proposes making the cuts permanent.

This is the sequence: fire the firefighters, lose in court, recall the firefighters, propose firing them again. It would be absurd if the consequences were not measured in acres burned, homes destroyed, and lives lost. Every fire that escapes initial attack because a dispatch center is short-staffed, every acre that burns because a fuel treatment crew no longer exists, every community that evacuates because the prescribed burn that would have protected it was canceled — these are the direct, measurable costs of what happened in 2025.

The recall is not a correction. It is an admission that the cuts were a mistake, delivered without the political honesty to call it one.