President Donald Trump’s actions to purge the federal workforce and budget threaten to undermine one of his goals: getting wildfires in the United States under control.
As hazardous smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed the Midwest and Northeast this month — not for the first time — Trump moved via executive order to consolidate federal firefighting personnel and ramp up the use of artificial intelligence and other technologies to identify and respond to wildfires. The Trump administration is also looking for state and local officials to take more responsibility for wildfire response despite blaming California officials for the January wildfires that devastated Los Angeles.
But public health, meteorology, forest management and disaster experts said it’s Trump’s actions to sharply shrink the federal government that will decimate the nation’s wildfire defenses.
The Trump administration is “doubling down on a failed approach,” said Dave Calkin, who served 25 years in the U.S. Forest Service before leaving in April through the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program. He said the administration’s executive order is a “return to a war on fire” that prioritizes ad hoc responses over investing in the personnel, planning and strategy to prevent blazes before they begin.
