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U.S. Forest Service Firings Wreak Havoc on Careers, Endanger Rural Areas [1]
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Date: 2025-02-25
Working in the Bob Marshall Wilderness for the Forest Service was Josh Vega’s dream job. On Friday, February 14, 2025 he was fired from that job, “based on performance.”
Before he had a permanent position with the Forest Service, Vega had been working as a seasonal employee occupying the same position — forestry technician — for two years. Prior to that, he spent six years working with Conservation Corps crews in California and Montana. Vega had never received anything less than satisfactory quarterly performance reviews from his previous Forest Service positions.
About 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees within their probationary period have been fired due to Trump’s reforming the federal workforce executive order. For USFS employees, that probationary period does not take into account any past seasonal positions. Some employees had worked with the forest service for many years but were still considered probationary.
An amendment put forward by Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), to the budget resolution that passed on February 21, 2025, would have reinstated fired Forest Service (as well as other federal land management) employees but was rejected by the Senate in a vote on February 20. The vote was 48-52 with only one Republican senator voting in favor of the amendment.
National forests are vital to rural economies. The outdoor recreation industry contributed 1.2 trillion dollars to the American economy in 2023, according to the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable. This includes hunting, boating, skiing, RVing, fishing, hiking, and so much more — most of which would not exist without our public lands like those managed by the U.S Forest Service. That number also includes the hotels, restaurants and retail stores that support visitors that are participating in outdoor recreation, usually located in small towns surrounded by public lands.
Megan Lawson is a researcher at Headwaters Economics who studies the outdoor recreation economy. She said that jobs in many rural gateway communities — the closest towns to outdoor recreation areas — rely on public land, whether the jobs are in the public or private sectors. It also brings people to rural areas because they want to be close to outdoor recreation. “But all that depends on those resources being managed well,” she said.
A long-time employee of Umpqua National Forest, located in parts of Douglas, Lane, and Jackson Counties in Oregon, who did not want to be identified by name said these firings hurt his whole community. Everyone “whose livelihood is supported by these public lands, whether it’s outfitting guides or people that work in the timber industry that depend on timber from federal lands. All these impacts aren’t just affecting the government workers here. They’re impacting people who use and depend on the forest.”
Josh Hicks, director of conservation campaigns for The Wilderness Society, says he is worried about the potential for public land to be sold off through legislation under the guise of dysfunction and fundraising. “These agencies have been for decades chronically underfunded and oftentimes conservative anti-conservation members of Congress are quick to point out that the federal government is falling down on the job […] They need to be invested in and to deliver clean water, to deliver clean air and recreation benefits,” said Hicks.
Cyrus Issari at work on the trail in the Gila Wilderness, using a Pulaski tool to finish chopping through a log on the trail. (Photo courtesy of Cyrus Issari)
Lawson said federal jobs, as a whole, have been declining over time. She sees a trend of more contractors taking over the responsibilities of what was once a federal employee. She is also concerned that these combined actions could lead to legislation that supports selling off public land.
“[…]The Umpqua [National Forest was] short-staffed to begin with. Many jobs on our organization chart were unfilled and so many people were doing 2 or 3 jobs, many of the projects having to do with disaster recovery after major wildfires,” said the previously mentioned long-time USFS employee.
While it’s been stated that none of the Forest Service employees being terminated are wildland firefighters, Vega said that he and everyone in the Rocky Mountain Ranger District — Vega’s district out of Choteau, Montana — has their red card and are able to assist when there is a fire. An Incident Qualification Card, commonly known as a red card, is an interagency certification qualifying someone to work on a fire.
But on February 24th, a source revealed that seasonal firefighters may be in the next round of terminations. A wildland firefighter in Southwest Colorado who did not want to be named said that he was asked to make a list of seasonal firefighters to prioritize for future eliminations. He said that they were told that the Southwest Colorado district would have a 20-22% cut in seasonal firefighters. “Everyone’s afraid for their jobs,” he said.
“We’re usually the first people that get called when there’s a search and rescue in the area,” said Vega. They’re also cleaning bathrooms, clearing roads, and making sure that trails stay open. In Wilderness areas, there is no motorized equipment allowed — which includes chainsaws — so Vega’s trail crew was out in the woods with a hand saw, clearing trails for 10-day shifts with four days off, for 100 days a year. He said that out of 15 members, he thinks there are maybe three or four members remaining after terminations.
The Umpqua National Forest employee said that during a wildfire, it’s all hands on deck. Known as the “fire militia”, many employees who are not necessarily firefighters are very involved with maintaining fire camps or working to protect natural resources during and after fires. “Those positions are affected. And the hiring freeze and the terminations will impact the ability to fill those roles and to support a fire in a fire camp,” he said.
National Federation of Federal Employees Forest Service Council (NFFE-FSC), the union for the Forest Service, said all the federal unions are working together to sue the Trump administration for wrongful termination of employees.
Warner Vanderheuel, president of the NFFE-FSC said that if it were “normal times” he would be very optimistic about the outcome of the “cut and dry” lawsuit. “Now, who knows,” he said in a Daily Yonder interview.
For many of the terminated employees that were interviewed for this story, the opportunity for a permanent job with the Forest Service was the first time that they had received benefits like year-round access to health insurance and retirement savings through the Thrift Savings Plan, the federal version of a 401k. Seasonal positions don’t offer year-round benefits and also have the added stress of needing to reapply for the same job year after year.
The agency moved many of their temporary seasonal positions to permanent seasonal positions and had already frozen seasonal hiring last fall. So while it’s been reported that the National Parks Service will expand their seasonal hiring this year, the Forest Service did not have any open positions for seasonal employees when applications were open last fall for summer employment.
Vega said because he and many other permanent seasonal Forest Service employees assumed they would have jobs this summer season, he couldn’t have applied for any of those seasonal positions.
Although more secure than seasonal work, these permanent seasonal positions aren’t high-paying jobs. Cyrus Issari worked in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico before being fired on the 13th of February, 2025. Issari said he made $18.96 an hour “for eight days straight for 10 hours a day, sleeping in the dirt, digging a trail, breaking my back, and fighting fires and cleaning toilets and picking up trash and driving around the forest and walking for miles and destroying my body.”
Issari said he doesn’t do it for the money. He does it because he cares about public land and wants to keep it accessible and protected.
Without jobs with the Forest Service, many former Forest Service employees might leave their rural communities because there are not that many other jobs available in their fields, said Lawson.
“I really love the surrounding towns of the Gila National Forest, and I am devastated that I’ve lost my job. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stay there,” said Issari.
UPDATE: The story was updated to include additional information on potential future firings at the USFS.
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