r/Wildfire • u/Flat-Suggestion-8373 • May 02 '25

News (General) FY26 Trump Budget Request Details Released - New Wildfire Agency and Huge Cuts Outside WFM

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Here are some of the wildfire-related items in the FY26 budget blueprint that the White House released today (link below). Chiefly, it proposes a “new Federal Wildland Fire Service” under DOI. But also note significant changes in related areas, like the draconian cuts to the “non-fire” side of Forest Service (e.g., almost complete elimination of FS R&D, significant cut to already underfunded NFS activities, etc.).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Fiscal-Year-2026-Discretionary-Budget-Request.pdf

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26

u/Shoddy_Pay5822 May 02 '25

Best of luck teaching all the FS folks how to do their own times in QuickTime let alone getting them all onboarded, PIV card issued. physical and medically cleared, background investigated. DOI is already a small support org. Overloaded with work. Cant imagine them taking on the FS firefighter workforce all at once.

16

u/BakedBones1207 May 02 '25

Why go through all that work when you can privatize?

17

u/Ok-Measurement-8537 May 02 '25

Seems to be the plan: 1) Create unsustainable conditions within the agencies that are then viewed by the public as a failure 2) Privatize

14

u/BakedBones1207 May 02 '25 edited May 02 '25

This is what I've been saying all year. If we do great the answer is "see you're fine you don't need more" and if we do awful due to lack of logistics and staffing then "see they can't hack it we need to unleash private industry".

edit: typo

0

u/Past-Garlic-519 May 03 '25

They will just blame these out of control fires on "climate change". Which is the same PIOs tell the people when we lose RXs and incidents. 

1

u/ProfessionalPoet1029 May 06 '25

This has been my suspicion for the last couple of years, that there seems to be an effort to privatize more sectors. Then I worked for a year for a contracting firm and realized... Yup, that's exactly what is happening. The private industry will be put in a position to be our nation's saving grace.

9

u/ZonaDesertRat May 02 '25

Most of the overhead have DRPed or will be on the RIF list, so it will be even worse than recent fire hires!

-3

u/YOLO_Bundy May 03 '25

Fire positions are ineligible for DRP or VERA.

Do you even read the emails that have been coming out, or are you just here to REEEEE every chance you get?

5

u/ZonaDesertRat May 03 '25

Over GS10 ARE eligible. Do YOU read the emails, bagger?

3

u/hartfordsucks Rage Against the (Green) Machine May 02 '25

Not to mention they want to gut most of and then combine the remnants of all DOI support functions. You guys thought ASC was a hot dysfunctional mess...

-4

u/Shoddy_Pay5822 May 03 '25

ASC is still a hot lunch. Not sure how they had that many people employed in New Mexico that only wanted to do the minimum and make maximum excuses….oh yeah. I remember, it was remote work. I could hear their kids in the background and their dogs barking when we were at work.

2

u/hartfordsucks Rage Against the (Green) Machine May 03 '25

Yeah it's totally WFH and not the fact that NM is dead last in the US in education. Not exactly the best and brightest pool of potential employees. The frontline staff might as well be paid in sunsets too. It's almost like when an employer doesn't pay competitive wages they have to hire anyone with a pulse instead of people that can actually excel at the job. Not to mention they also work for the same incompetent WO that we all do.

But yeah, WFH that was the problem.

1

u/Shoddy_Pay5822 May 03 '25

More downvotes please! It only Proves that this sub is taken over by people who didn’t work at a station through furloughs and covid. I don’t know one person I fought fire with who was sympathetic to work from home people going to work or ASC for that matter.

1

u/YOLO_Bundy May 03 '25

DOI is its own worst enemy with excessive redundant admin. Leaving was the best thing I ever did.

Clean up the unneeded bureaucratic bullshit and move everyone over.

It’s not that hard, but people here look for any reason to maintain the status quo regardless how fucked up things are currently. 

This is a good thing.

-10

u/Amateur-Pro278 May 02 '25

Who cares???? I thrive in the grey areas!!!! When everything is a shitshow and there are no rules I will FINALLY get to do what makes sense!!!!!