(SRN NEWS/AP) – The termination letters that ended the careers of thousands of U.S. Forest Service (USFS) employees a week ago mean fewer people and less resources will be available to help prevent and fight wildfires, raising the specter of even more destructive blazes across the American West, fired workers and officials said.
Workers who maintained trails, removed combustible debris from forests, supported firefighters and secured funds for wildfire mitigation say staffing cuts threaten public safety.
Meantime, how the layoffs might impact that kind of work in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest is unclear. Earlier this week, 97.5 Glory FM contacted the USFS office in Gainesville to ask just that question and was referred to a national spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the Forest Service.
That official wrote in an email: “While we don’t have unit-specific (local) details to share at this time, we can offer the following statement from USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins: …USDA has made the difficult decision to release about 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the Forest Service. To be clear, none of these individuals were operational firefighters. Released employees were probationary (and) Secretary Rollins is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.”
(AP file photo)