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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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.

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u/BakedBones1207 May 02 '25

Why go through all that work when you can privatize?

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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.