In Case You Missed It: Trump’s Reckless Government Shutdown Leaves Interior Short 500 Firefighters

While Interior Touts Wildlife Prevention, The West Remains Short-Staffed During Peak Fire Season

With the Department of Interior touting a “tireless” effort to prevent this season’s forest fires, it remains true that Western states have been left short hundreds of fire fighting staff because of President Trump’s reckless government shutdown. 

“Interior has no reason to brag about their wildfire plans: The first step in combating wildfires is having a fully-staffed fire fighting crew and they can’t even accomplish that thanks to President Trump’s shutdown. Bernhardt claims to be using everything in his arsenal to prevent forest fires but an arsenal without firefighters won’t be very effective,” said Chris Saeger, Executive Director of the Western Values Project. 

President Trump shut down the government in December of 2018 for the longest duration in U.S. history. The historic shutdown disproportionately affected America’s public lands. The most obvious detriment came when it was revealed that Interior was short some 500 firefighters and fire personnel in anticipation of the upcoming wildfire season. It is still unclear how the shutdown has impacted personnel levels at other firefighting agencies like the U.S. Forest Service. After a disastrous fire season in 2018, the Department of the Interior’s first priority should have been ensuring full staffing to protect communities in the West from ravenous wildfires. Trump’s historic government shutdown also caused the Land and Water Conservation Fund to languish and falter, diverting millions of dollars away from public lands and national parks protections and repairs. The shutdown provided great uncertainty to many public lands projects and left Interior career public servants questioning how wildlife and wilderness would be protected after public lands employees were furloughed, pushing some national parks to the brink.

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