A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
After a slower start than predicted, the summer wildfire season is starting to get a lot more active. It was a dry winter in western states. Also significant this year have been President Trump's efforts to downsize and remake the Forest Service. It's the country's lead agency for fighting wildfires. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports on this part of a bigger federal shakeup that has agency veterans worried.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: This wildfire year started ominously on January 7 when a windstorm turned into an inferno in Los Angeles.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLANE WHOOSHING)
SIEGLER: Planes scooping water out of the ocean to pour on urban wildfires racing through multiple jurisdictions. Local, state and federal agencies trying to contain fires amid the confusion and chaos of evacuations and searching for survivors. Now, this kind of multi-agency response has been in place for decades, so it was familiar to see county, state and FEMA officials standing by LA Mayor Karen Bass at briefings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAREN BASS: I think it is a perfect example of how we are speaking with one voice. We will unify our city.
SIEGLER: But for years now, there have been calls to consolidate the country's federal wildfire agencies under one, a single U.S. fire service. In 2009, a Government Accountability Office report said that doing so could reduce duplication and improve efficiency. The idea is to better coordinate response and modernize decades-old protocols that were designed for a time when just fires in forests were the concern.
MATT WEINER: I don't think anyone is looking at our current system for managing fire and thinking that we're getting it done.
SIEGLER: Matt Weiner runs Megafire Action, an organization set up to lobby Congress on wildfire reform. He's a former staffer for California Democrats. In February, California Senator Alex Padilla introduced a bill with Montana Republican Tim Sheehy to establish a national wildland firefighting service.
WEINER: What we need is a federal wildland fire approach that looks like what we've seen from the Army Corps of Engineers on flood.
SIEGLER: The bill hasn't been considered. But in June, President Trump signed an executive order that the five federal agencies with firefighting operations should consolidate in 90 days. With about 30 days left, sources say there's no transparency about who's working on it or whether progress is even being made. An emailed response from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, didn't provide further information about it.
RICH FAIRBANKS: I'm very suspicious of these reorganization proposals.
SIEGLER: Rich Fairbanks is a retired federal firefighter in Oregon. Now, Trump's executive order does come as the administration is trying to consolidate and downsize USDA and its Forest Service, while closing most of its regional offices in the West. Fairbanks isn't buying that Trump wants to reform federal wildfire response, especially since he's pushing these changes in the middle of summer fire season.
FAIRBANKS: This administration wants to create chaos and to break federal agencies. I'm sorry. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
SIEGLER: More than two dozen former U.S. Forest Service managers also blasted the consolidation in a letter to congressional leaders, arguing it would not have prevented the deadly LA fires. Cheryl Probert retired last year as supervisor of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest in Idaho.
CHERYL PROBERT: I have trouble looking at any big incident and seeing how this is going to be more efficient.
SIEGLER: Probert says a national fire service would take wildland firefighters off their day jobs in local forests and into a bureaucracy focused on fighting fires after they ignite, instead of doing more on the front end to manage the land and prevent fires.
PROBERT: That suppression-only mindset is ultimately why we're here in the situation we are now.
SIEGLER: Congress recently moved to delay President Trump's executive order, calling for another GAO study to determine if a national fire service today would actually save money.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Boise.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW BIRD'S "HOVER I") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
