By Matt Counts
Fire season is coming. I can’t sit in silence any longer.
The short-sighted decision to unfairly fire the best employees in the federal land management agencies will have major negative ramifications this upcoming fire season.
I have worked for a federal land management agency for 25 years.
I’m a career Wildland Firefighter.
For almost 10 years I was a fire manager on a remote ranger district in northwest Montana. The district managed over one million acres of federal land. It was one of the Crown Jewels of the agency. We were able to manage this vast landscape with only eight full time firefighters.
How? We had a massive ready reserve, or “militia” firefighting force, made up of highly trained, experienced firefighters ready to step in at a moment’s notice and fill firefighting roles. They were the local trail crews. They were the very best. The hardest working. The toughest. The grittiest. The most knowledgeable of local conditions. They were always willing to sweat and work hard on fires because hard work is all they know. They live it every day.
These trail crews represent the very best of America. They work for minimal pay. They don’t work for a paycheck. They don’t complain. They work with a sense of true passion for the Wilderness and the land. They work for each other and a true belief that their service and sweat goes towards the greater American good. They pull crosscut saws, they dig tread with a pick mattock, they pack mules and care for the stock, they clean campgrounds and patrol rivers. They clean the toilets and empty bear boxes of sun rotten diapers careless campers have left in them. They restore and maintain historic cabins and lookouts. They provide you with a map and solid advice.
These are the people who will come look for you if you fall off your horse 35 miles from a road. They will provide first aid and call out on their radio for help. They are YOUR first responders. They are the very lifeblood of our public lands.
The unjust decision to fire them is misguided in so many ways. Too many to fully even comprehend, much less explain. But let me say this — and this is a fact. This decision will exponentially cost more in the long run. The American people will lose services and access.
Just one example of how these folks are used in Fire. The district had about 20 trail crew members when I worked there. We trained them all in firefighting and they all had “red cards.”
When a fire started in the Wilderness I would often only have to send in a couple people from the fire crew, and then I could send in four to six trail crew folks to help out. I didn’t have to send the whole crew and I didn’t have to call firefighters from adjacent districts to help because I had a FORCE of the very best line diggers I’ve ever seen at my request, just waiting on the radio call to spring into action. In fact, many of them were qualified as fire incident commanders and oftentimes I wouldn’t have to send in any of my people at all. The trail crews would hike to the fire and suppress it themselves. All in-house, and in the course of normal business. Now they will have to call in smokejumpers or helicopter in firefighters, all at great cost to the American taxpayer. Aviation isn’t cheap.
We used these folks all the time in so many different ways in Fire. They helped with prescribed fire to reduce the risk to communities. They responded to hurricanes and floods in North Carolina. They helped look for space shuttle parts in Texas when the Columbia broke apart. They went to New Jersey to use their saw skills to cut trees out of roads after snow storms. They went out on firefighting crews and engines all across the country to combat wildfires. They were not primary firefighters according to their official job descriptions, but we used them as if they were when we needed them. And they always answered the fire call. Always.
These folks who were so rudely fired were the very backbone of ranger districts across America. They were the lowest paid folks in the federal service, but their value was exponentially worth more. Most federal employees are paid on the GS scale. One to 15 entry level trail crew work starts at the GS-2,3,4 level. That’s absolute peanuts and barely more than minimum wage. And the American people are getting the most value for the dollar. Most of the folks that were cruelly fired have worked as temporary employees for at least five years, and proved themselves to be exceptional employees.
Because of their proven superior performance they were offered permanent jobs at the GS-4/5 level. They took those jobs to provide for their families and to finally have health insurance and benefits. They EARNED those jobs with a track record of going above and beyond. But because they were in their first year of those positions, they had to do a probationary period of one year. All federal employees have to complete this mandatory period. But probationary employees are the easiest to fire, and they were — cruelly, rudely, without remorse, and in an unfathomable, mocking fashion.
I just can’t wrap my brain around all the negative consequences of this asinine action.
We have fired the very best of us. The hardest working. And the folks who cost the least.
The best money the federal government could ever spend would be to hire MORE of these folks. It’s unbelievable. The federal land management agencies will never recover from this. And the scary thing is, maybe that’s the administration’s goal.
I’ll be writing my elected representatives to speak out against this, to ask for them to be reinstated and to advocate for our public lands to stay public. Please do the same.
This was originally posted by Matt Counts on Feb. 21, 2025