‘Like Trying to Fly a Plane While You’re Building It’
by Timothy Ingalsbee
The airplane metaphor has become a common theme in conversations among wildland firefighters discussing the U.S. Wildland Fire Service (WFS). President Trump issued Executive Order 14308 mandating consolidation of federal wildfire programs, and the new agency is the product of that executive order, which seeks to combine fire programs of five different federal agencies across two Cabinet-level departments. The order set a deadline of 90 days for the agencies to complete consolidation. A year later, during a record-setting wildfire year, federal fire consolidation is far from complete.
So far, only firefighters from the Department of Interior have been pulled into the WFS. The much larger Forest Service Fire Program has managed to avoid integration into the WFS after the administration begrudgingly acknowledged that it will require Congressional action to transfer the program and its personnel out of the Ag Department’s Forest Service into the Interior Department’s WFS. But with 70% or more of federal firefighting personnel and resources, the Forest Service still leads the field in fire management.
The consolidation order, issued during peak wildfire season, was at first dismissed as a public relations stunt, the wildfire version of Trump’s Space Force — “Fire Force.” But in the context of the administration’s open hostility toward federal employees, it quickly became apparent that fire consolidation was a potential means of defunding agencies and downsizing the federal workforce. This was made especially clear on the heels of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operation, which forced out thousands of Forest Service employees, many with wildland firefighting credentials.
Creating the WFS has been a top-down, highly centralized “black box” operation at the highest levels of the Interior Secretary’s Office. Independent experts and key stakeholders — states, tribes, nongovernmental organizations — have not been allowed to provide input. Even Congress has received very little information. As a result, Congress refused Trump’s funding request for the new agency, which would have handed over all funding for the Forest Service’s Wildland Fire Program (in the Department of Agriculture) to the WFS (in the Interior Department).
Congress did approve funding for an independent study of the effects of transferring the Forest Service Wildfire Program into Interior. At the time of this writing, the study had not even started. The lack of a study has not deterred the Trump administration from hiring a WFS executive officer, transferring thousands of government employees, launching a branding campaign, and otherwise spending tax dollars despite congressional apprehension.
The Forest Service remains the big prize and real target of fire consolidation. Once again, the administration’s current draft of the 2027 Appropriations Bill proposes defunding the Forest Service Fire Program and giving that money to the WFS. Taken in context, consolidation must be seen as yet another punitive measure specifically targeting the Forest Service. Nothing will hurt the Forest Service more than taking away its fire program, which currently comprises approximately half of the agency’s staffing and funding. Removing all fire-related programs and personnel from the Forest Service could very well demolish the agency.
Even the agency’s critics view fire consolidation and Forest Service reorganization as sabotaging effective management of public lands. Conservationists have long complained about the way the Forest Service links timber and fire programs by labeling timber sales as “pre-fire thinning,” “post-fire salvage logging,” or “hazardous fuels reduction.” Yet even conservationists oppose consolidation, seeing it as an effort to gut the Forest Service and privatize or transfer its functions by eliminating the government’s largest professional firefighting workforce.
Even with limited WFS implementation, there are legitimate concerns about an agency not only disconnected from local landscapes and community values, but also devoid of an explicit conservation mission. Severing fire management from land management represents half of the threat. The real danger comes from limiting fire management to wildfire suppression in fire-evolved ecosystems. The contradictions are inherent: short-sighted wildfire suppression and exclusion vs. ecological fire management for ecosystem restoration and long-term sustainability.
The WFS has yet to articulate its mission, but there are significant differences in the missions of the four Interior agencies that now comprise the WFS. The BLM conducts aggressive initial fire suppression on nearly all wildfires while the Park Service opts to manage wildfires for ecosystem benefits whenever possible. Adding in the Forest Service’s “multiple fire use” practices — full suppression vs. prescribed burning vs. managed natural fires — across its widely divergent landscapes adds further complexity to the question: Whose fire management philosophy will govern the new agency?
Currently, the question is moot because both the Agriculture and Interior secretaries have issued directives requiring full suppression on every wildfire on federal lands for the entirety of 2026. It remains to be seen whether this attack-all-fires policy continues for the duration of the Trump administration. But given that this retrogressive fire policy prevails during the birth and infancy of the WFS, total fire suppression could come to define the new agency’s mission, culture, and identity, much like policies adopted in the wake of The Big Blowup of 1910.
The working relationship between the WFS and federal land-management agencies is another big question. General wisdom suggests that the WFS should function according to a “contractor” model, providing fire-management services under the authority of the land-management agency, e.g., the National Park Service. But a recent internal document titled “Transition Guidance” reveals that the WFS will operate as the dominant “partner” — the WFS will act as agency administrator, making all operational decisions for both wildfires and prescribed fires on federal lands. Land-management officials will be relegated to submissive advisory roles.
In essence, the WFS can usurp the authority of agency officials and use or ignore existing land management plans as it wishes. The Trump administration has established this hierarchical relationship among agencies within the Interior Department, but questions remain about the relations and authority between the WFS and the Forest Service, which continues to command the majority of wildfire-prone lands and fire-management resources.
Consolidating all federal fire management within a narrowly structured firefighting agency will adversely impact all federal agencies and public lands. Forget managing wildfires for resource benefits, wilderness ethics, forest resilience, wildlife habitat, or other common-sense fire management goals. The WFS will become an instrument for the Trump administration’s efforts to restore resource extraction as the dominant use of national forests and bolster the supremacy of obsolescent fire-suppression policy as the dominant form of fire management.
These concerns and criticisms merit thoughtful analysis, open discussion, and respectful debate among all fire- and land-management stakeholders. Charging forward with an unfunded restructuring mandate seems a lot like a skirmish designed to distract from more strategic battles. In fact, the wildland fire community has been talking strategically about a consolidated federal fire-management agency for some time. Fire professionals suffering under the thumbs of risk-averse, fire-antagonistic line officers have pondered creating a separate fire management agency.
Their ideal fire agency would utilize the best available ecological science and advanced technology to work with fire instead of constantly fighting against it. This new agency would have a stewardship ethos that supports a conservation mission and nurtures a workforce of high-value, high-skill, high-status public servants. With this vision, consolidation would accompany a larger transformation in society’s relationship with the land as well as the fire that sustains the land. Since the Forest Service holds the majority of fire-management resources, its ability to weather the headwinds of consolidation will impact the success or failure of all other agencies’ fire programs.
Plenty of members of the wildland fire community have been frustrated for years by the inability of the Forest Service to reform itself. Given their frustration, it should come as no surprise that they see the potential for a positive outcome of the WFS consolidation as a blunt instrument of institutional change — a change empowered by a future conservation-minded administration that respects science and democracy in government policy. The WFS could live up to this ideal, but its current attack-all-fires mandate rejects fire ecology and could be catastrophic.
Launched by a flawed administration with highly questionable intentions, this new fire agency is here. Despite misgivings about its origins, two facts must be recognized:
- There are thousands of courageous WFS firefighters toiling on the fire lines doing their very best to succeed.
- The Trump administration uncharacteristically appointed someone skilled, experienced, competent, and caring to lead the agency.
Acknowledging these two facts brings a sense of hope and highlights the necessity of supporting the women and men of the WFS.
WFS Chief Brian Fennessy has demonstrated an earnest desire to lead the agency to success and enjoys widespread respect among firefighters. There are serious questions about how much leeway the administration will allow him, but he seems to be doing his best with the decision space he’s been given. So, despite all of the justified concerns about the intent and outcome of fire consolidation, supporters of public lands must support the WFS workforce, especially with this year’s dangerous conditions.
It’s likely too late to ground this half-built plane as it careens down the runway, but for the sake of its crew of dedicated firefighters and its passenger manifest of local community members, we must do whatever we can to prevent it from crashing and then steer it in a safer direction, navigating by conservation values. The best approach for those who care about the fate of national forests is to slow-walk further consolidation efforts while demanding that the congressionally funded study be completed.
Bottom line: there should be no consolidation without transformation of fire programs and policies across the federal government toward a mission of working with, rather than against, fire ecology.
Timothy Ingalsbee, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology, or FUSEE. He began his fire career as a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service. He is now a certified senior wildland fire ecologist. He earned his Ph.D. in environmental sociology from the University of Oregon, where he serves as an adjunct instructor and faculty research associate. He was named Oregon’s Conservationist of the Year in 1993.
