U.S. Forest Service chief says it is ready for fire season; some staff disagree

USFS Chief Tom Schultz talk with Region 4 employees in Utah.
 (USFS photo via Route Fifty)

Despite shedding 5,000 employees in early 2025, the United States Forest Service leadership feels sufficiently staffed for this year's wildfire season, which started near the beginning of June, peaks in mid-summer and trickles down in late October. "USFS says it’s ready for fire season after asking separated employees to come back," reports Eric Katz for Route Fifty. "But employees say the losses have been 'crippling.'"

U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz admitted that staffing cuts and retirements had left shortages "though he said efforts to bring some of those employees back to work and shift others around to fill 'critical positions' will ensure its readiness," Katz explains. At a Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, Schultz reassured lawmakers that USFS is prepared.

While 2025 USFS staffing levels for firefighters and some deployment teams are comparable to those from 2024, they are just two parts of the operation. An entire team of fire experts, or "red card" holders, support firefighters behind the scenes, and both firefighters and red card holders "depend on support personnel who have left the agency in large numbers," Katz reports. USFS employees who actively fight fires rely on support staff for paychecks, supply purchases and contract management.

Schultz told Senate members that 1,400 [red card] employees will return for the upcoming fire season. He added that the USFS had "reassigned between 600 and 700 employees to move laterally to serve in critical areas," Katz writes. Schultz didn't comment on which areas would supply staff for the lateral move.

Even with the return of experienced key personnel, some active USFS firefighters don't think it will be enough. One firefighter told Katz, "We are not ready. The institutional knowledge of older people who left and the numbers of skilled people who left from all disciplines is crippling.”

Steve Guitierrez, a long-time federal firefighter who represents his colleagues through the National Federation of Federal Employees, told Katz, "I find it difficult to make that without all those employees that we will be fully staffed for this fire season. We were already low on numbers to begin with.”