Jared Huffman
09/05/2025 | Press release | Archived content
Reps. Huffman, Neguse, and Colleagues Demand Update on Working Conditions for Federal Wildland Firefighters
Reps. Huffman, Neguse, and Colleagues Demand Update on Working Conditions for Federal Wildland Firefighters
September 05, 2025
Washington, D.C. - As the Trump administration continues to cut funding for the United States Forest Service (USFS), public reporting has surfaced underscoring the dire working conditions for wildland firefighters employed by the agency. In response, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman and Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse, Ranking Member of the House Federal Lands Subcommittee, led more than a dozen of their colleagues in a letter to U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz expressing extreme concern and demanding urgent answers on plans to remedy the current state of affairs.
Since assuming office, Donald Trump has cut the Forest Service's workforce by 10%; an agency where roughly 75% of the staff are trained in wildland firefighting. These terminations, coupled with an increased number of firefighters getting sick from smoke exposure while fighting wildfires, are straining the agency's workforce and weakening the nation's federal disaster response and emergency operations.
"We are writing to express extreme concern about recent reports of inadequate working conditions for wildland firefighters employed by the United States Forest Service (USFS) and understaffing across the agency. Given the increasing severity and frequency of wildfires across the country, especially in the Western United States, it is critical to ensure that our federal firefighting workforce is sufficiently staffed, trained, fed, and ready to respond to wildfire emergencies," wrote Ranking Member Huffman and colleagues.
The questions Huffman and colleagues requested a response to include:
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How many federal wildland firefighters are currently employed by USFS?
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How many employees are currently employed by USFS who are red-card certified?
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What steps has USFS taken, and plans to take, to ensure there is always adequate food, fuel, and other basic supplies provided for wildland firefighters without any lapse?
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Going forward, will protective equipment such as N95 masks be free and easily available to USFS firefighters? Will this equipment be part of the cache automatically sent to all large fires moving forward?
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Has the USFS conferred with or received any guidance from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration regarding the wearing of N95s on firelines and/or holding firelines?
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What steps is USFS taking to support wildland firefighters in response to the health risks associated with wildland fire response?
"This has been a brutal fire season. Prolonged drought is fueling fierce wildfires that endanger the health and safety of federal wildland firefighters," said Randy Erwin, National President, National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE-IAM). "Making matters worse, the Trump Administration chose to eliminate seasoned firefighters through DOGE and other misguided schemes-compounding long-standing recruitment and retention challenges tied to low pay and poor working conditions. Unsurprisingly, the Forest Service and USDA have remained tight-lipped about the crisis and any plan to address it."
Full text of the letter available HERE.
It was co-signed by Representatives Brownley, Carbajal, Costa, Dexter, Dingell, Elfreth, Gray, Harder, Hoyle, Lee, Leger Fernández, Min, S. Peters, Salinas, Schrier, M.D., and Whitesides.
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