The latest estimates are that the Trump administration has reduced U.S. Forest Service staffing by 10%.
Summit County Lands and Natural Resources Director Jess Kirby acknowledges the USDA isn’t cutting wildfire staff or funding, but says that’s not the whole story.
Politico reports 75% of USFS staff are trained in firefighting, so cuts elsewhere reverberate through the agency.
“It's not that they're targeting the wildfire funding. They're targeting the support staff,” Kirby told the Summit County Council June 4. “This goes back to the partners who have reached out to us, who have said, ‘Hey, do you have anybody on the county staff who can run the administration during a fire because I need to take the folks that would usually do that and put them on the line.’”
She also said the cuts reduce the number of staff available to close roads in emergencies, for example.
According to a county staff report, the USDA is shifting wildfire mitigation duties away from public employees and to commercial logging.
“While this management focus is intended to reduce wildfire risk, increase financial support for rural economies, and accelerate project implementation, it is likely to have the opposite effect for Summit County,” the report states on “increased wildfire risk.”
The report points out that logging comes with fire risk — as was seen in the Yellow Lake Fire — and the Uinta Mountains’ timber supply is less commercially viable thanks to beetle infestation.
Kirby said local rangers are stretched thin in other ways, having received just $2,500 to manage all 57 pit toilets along Mirror Lake Highway this summer, a number she called “unsustainable” for the estimated 2 million people who visit the scenic byway annually.
“There’s not even people to answer the phones at the ranger stations. It’s just, it's a sad place for the partners that we have worked so closely with,” Kirby said. “You want to help them in so many ways, but they're so — they don't even know right now what the response is.”
County Council Chair Tonja Hanson speculated in February that the Heber-Kamas Ranger District lost up to half its staff at one point; some may have been rehired. But KPCW has not been able to confirm exactly who or or how many have been cut — the USDA has been tight-lipped.
Inquiries are directed up the chain to the Washington, D.C., press office, which said earlier this year Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins “fully supports the Presidents’ directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.”
“As part of this effort, USDA has made the difficult decision to release about 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the forest service,” an agency spokesperson told KPCW in February. “To be clear, none of these individuals were operational firefighters.”
Workers are considered “probationary” if they are new to their role. An additional 1,400 workers were also let go that month, according to Reuters. The U.S. Forest Services says it employs roughly 35,000 people nationwide.
In an April interview with KPCW, Recreation Staff Officer Renee Flanagan said the agency isn’t expecting changes to the amount or kind of recreation opportunities in the Uinta Mountains this year.
The forest service recently reopened Soapstone Bridge, linking Mirror Lake Highway to the Soapstone Basin and state Route 35.
But the U.S. Forest Service also provides grants to local governments, and some of that money will be reduced or more difficult to get, Kirby said.
Summit County officials believe the $40 million in forest service funds they’re relying on to purchase the 8,600-acre 910 Cattle Ranch is safe, after being temporarily frozen.
Kirby added that her department will need to adjust how it writes grants to align with the “new narrative” in Washington to secure future funding.
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