Hiring freeze of firefighters could be deadly, Forest Service captain warns

SKAMANIA COUNTY, Wash. — A freeze on the hiring and onboarding of thousands of federal firefighters could have deadly consequences as the national wildfire response operates at a “diminished capacity,” a federal firefighting captain told NBC News.

The federal hiring freeze ordered last month by President Donald Trump will hinder the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to “deliver the lifesaving service that Americans deserve,” said Capt. Ben McLane, who serves in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, in southern Washington.

The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service employ more than 15,000 career and temporary seasonal firefighters who conduct fuel management, fight wildland fires and assist other agencies in emergencies under the National Incident Management System. 

Hiring federal firefighters is a lengthy process because federal background checks are required, raising concerns among McLane and other high-ranking firefighters that the federal force will be understaffed going into the 2025 fire season, which technically begins next month but in practicality has become year-round.

“I have firefighters who I should be bringing on, and I’m not able to because our HR practices have stopped until the hiring freeze is lifted, or they’re given permission to continue,” McLane said in an interview last week at the site of the 2023 Tunnel 5 Fire, which burned over 500 acres. “It’s as simple as that.”

McLane toured the area with NBC News as a winter storm blanketed the Columbia River Gorge with snow, which fell on the remains of homes destroyed by fire.

“This is the time of year where we’re training, we’re preparing, we’re getting the qualifications that we need to answer the call to service when the summer does come,” said McLane, who serves on the board of the nonprofit Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy group.

As snowflakes covered his hair and jacket bearing a patch from his time working as an elite “hotshot” firefighter in Lake County, California, McLane dismissed the notion that fighting fires — and preparing to fight fires — was a part-time job.

“The only place fire season still exists is in our administrative practices,” he said.

McLane said his work as a senior hotshot had taken him to fires throughout the United States, “from Alabama to New Hampshire to California, Alaska and everywhere in between.” He was part of the Forest Service’s “initial attack response” to the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, the deadliest in the state’s history.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

But the newly confirmed secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, thanked firefighters in a video released Friday for their mutual aid response to last month’s deadly Los Angeles wildfires. 

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the largest and most sophisticated wildland firefighting workforce in the world,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, “and I am committed to ensuring that you have the tools and resources you need to safely and effectively carry out your mission.”

She did not address the hiring freeze nor its impact on the firefighters she was speaking to.

A seasonal firefighter who has worked for the federal government for six years and on a hotshot crew for four told NBC News that while he had completed a drug test and background check, and received correspondence from the federal government indicating he would be re-hired, an official offer has yet to arrive.

“There are a lot of talented people who said, ‘Screw it, I’m going to take a county job or state job,'” said the firefighter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has been tasked with downsizing the federal government.

“My deeper concern with the hiring freeze is if it doesn’t get resolved in time for fire season, just where will that leave us?” he said. “I’ve spent somewhere in the ballpark of 400 days fighting wildfires. We are wildfire specialists. That is all we do, and we’re good at it.

“If our workforce continues to be gutted, the experience that will be lost is irreplaceable.”

More than a dozen Democratic senators have called for firefighters to be exempted from the hiring freeze to no avail.

“Pausing the hiring and onboarding of federal seasonal firefighters — while historic wildfires destroy communities and upend livelihoods across the West — is simply irresponsible and dangerous,” they wrote in a letter last week to the Trump administration.

As more than 3,000 of his Forest Service colleagues were being laid off last week, McLane said it was important he speak out: “Our nation’s wildfire response system transcends politics, because wildfire transcends politics, and it’s the right thing to do to bring on firefighters and ensure that the public is getting the service that they deserve and that they pay for.”