Stop the Restructuring and Fix Federal Wildland Firefighting Now

Congress must act immediately to halt the restructuring of federal firefighting agencies, restore full independent staffing at the Forest Service and Department of the Interior, and end the blanket full-suppression mandate that is getting people killed. This season has already seen 14 on-duty fatalities, a 20-year high in firefighter entrapments, and a spike in burn injuries that fire ecologists directly attribute to crews being pushed into aggressive direct attack when it isn't effective or safe. The $6 billion suppression budget is nearly exhausted with weeks of high fire risk still ahead. The USFS chief told Congress in July that the workforce is "fully staffed and equipped," but five senators wrote last week that teams have worked more fires than is safe using temporary supervisory structures because qualified personnel simply aren't available. Those aren't staffing gaps — they're the conditions that get people killed. Taskforce leaders and division supervisors take decades to develop and cannot be improvised. The 98% of fires that crews already stop aren't the problem. Chasing the last 2% with exhausted, understaffed crews on dangerous terrain is. Firefighters, fire ecologists, and forest managers all agree that allowing some remote fires to burn is both safer and better for long-term land health. The current policy perpetuates the cycle — burning off more vegetation now means worse fires later. Each agency needs a fully staffed, independent firefighting force and the operational flexibility to manage fire intelligently, not just aggressively.