Ground Truth Blog
Forest Service Reorganization: The Bigger Picture
[7/10/26: added update noting OPM Director's comments that further reclassifications of civil servants are likely.] [6/8/26: added update to include 6/3/26 Executive Order reclassifying positions to Schedule Policy/Career] When assessing the Forest Service...
Wildfire Research and Response Face Uncertain Future
As communities across the western United States endure a severe wildfire season following an unusually dry winter, the research that supports wildfire response is being threatened. Over the past several decades, federally funded scientists have developed tools that...
Canadian Town Grants Legal Rights to Trees
In June, Terrasse-Vaudreuil, a town in Quebec, Canada, became the first municipality in the world to sign on to the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree, which was drafted in 2018 and revised in 2019. The Declaration proclaims three fundamental principles:...
BLM Moves to Frack Ohio’s Only National Forest
The Bureau of Land Management announced Friday that it will auction 41 oil and gas parcels totaling 2,840 acres in the Wayne National Forest on September 15. This lease sale would bring modern hydraulic fracturing to Ohio's only national forest for the first time,...
Trump Cuts the Labs That Study Wildfire Smoke
In Ely, Minnesota, last week, the Air Quality Index (AQI) hit 797.5, nearly triple the threshold for "hazardous," and the highest reading the state has ever recorded. State climatologists are calling it the most intense wildfire smoke event Minnesota has seen in at...
Olympic National Forest
Located on the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of Washington, Olympic National Forest encompasses more than 2 million acres and surrounds much of Olympic National Park. Within the national forest’s borders lies a striking diversity of landscapes, ranging...
Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante Slashed Again
Trump cuts the two national monuments by 90%. On Monday, July 13, President Trump signed a pair of executive orders cutting nearly 3 million acres out of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in southern Utah. That is roughly 90 percent of the...
FSEEE cited in Report on Wildfire Management Strategies
CQ Researcher just published a report titled "Wildfire Management: Are new strategies needed as fire risks grow?" that takes a wide-angle look at how Canada and the U.S. are (and aren't) adapting their wildfire strategies as fire seasons grow longer, hotter, and more...
The New Wildland Fire Service Employs Old Strategies
In the mountains near the Colorado/Utah border, five federal firefighters deployed emergency fire shelters as flames overran their position. Three did not survive. Their deaths have pulled back the curtain on a set of sweeping changes to how the U.S. fights wildfire —...
Oregon Lawsuit Argues Decades of BLM Land Plans Were Never Valid
A single logging project in western Oregon has become the test case for a legal theory that, if it holds up in court, could put the management of hundreds of millions of acres of federal public land in question. Cascadia Wildlands, a Eugene-based grassroots...
‘Eos’ Article Highlights FSEEE Concerns About Forest Service Research Cuts
An article by Emily Gardner published by the American Geophysical Union in Eos highlights FSEEE Executive Director Kevin Hood's concerns about recent changes to the U.S. Forest Service. The article reports that historic drought, record-low snowpack, and extreme heat...
$10 Billion FEMA Backlog Delaying Disaster Preparedness Nationally
Across the United States, communities are working to prepare for a future shaped by more frequent floods, wildfires, droughts, and extreme weather events. From wildfire-prone neighborhoods in Colorado to flood-vulnerable towns in Mississippi, many communities rely on...