By Carli Johnson, SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR
A month into President Trump’s administration, thousands of federal employees across the country lost their jobs as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s initiative for large-scale reduction and grant freezing.
In Montana, hundreds of U.S. Forest Service employees were affected by this cut, leaving the tens of millions of acres of forest service land under sparse management. Layoffs included essential employees whose responsibilities were to respond to wildfires, provide wildland fire safety education and conduct research to better understand wildfires.
Dustin Tetrault, Big Sky Fire Department’s fire chief, spoke with EBS to discuss the potential impacts of the recent layoffs on the surrounding region.
No matter what happens—some employees were reinstated in mid-March—Tetrault emphasized that major changes will be made this year. But to ease people’s fears of this upcoming fire season, Tetrault noted that the state is well-equipped at the local government level and BSFD has been gradually filling more roles to have large-scale incident response.
“There are going to be firefighters,” Tetrault emphasized.
The Big Sky Fire Department responds to two forest areas: the Custer Gallatin National Forest and Madison Ranger District. Tetrault emphasized that the BSFD is “staffed and ready to handle summer. It’s more of a matter of dealing with the changes to come.”
Tetrault’s main concern with the federal firings is the change in management. Many tenured forest service employees are being fired or accepting a leave with promised pay because the state of the forest service remains so uncertain. This takes away years of knowledge of the land and relationships built with local services like BSFD, making future collaboration more difficult.
Previously, local fire departments in Montana have worked in partnership with the forest service, often providing additional support in emergency situations or vice versa. Now, with dramatic changes in staffing at the forest service, BSFD is left with unanswered questions.
“It’s been hard for a while because there’s a lot of turnover anyway, but it’s definitely accelerated that process,” Tetrault said, noting the frequent turnover in seasonal employees with the forest service.
Despite uncertainty, there are two potential bills in the Montana legislature that, if passed, could have a major effect on the reorganization of how the U.S. deals with emergency fire services, Tetrault explained.
Senate Bill 441 pushes to consolidate the forest service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service and other firefighter services into one agency. Tetrault noted that in theory, this could have positive effects across the nation by consolidating services, resources and people to all respond on one protocol.
House Bill 130 opens up 5 miles outside the local firefighter’s district. Currently, if BSFD responds to a fire on federal grounds, they are required to wait until the forest service arrives. Under HB 130, BSFD would make the decision on how to respond, which Tetrault noted would put a big strain on their district and resources because of the added responsibility.
Overall, the Big Sky Fire Department isn’t sounding the alarm quite yet.
“We are staffed and can handle summer, it’s more of a matter of dealing with the changes to come,” Tetrault said. He is cautiously optimistic about these bills, noting that the current wildfire response system has not changed in over 100 years, so reform might be overdue.
“We’ve seen the large-scale destruction, and we need to be able to update and modernize how we respond. We see this as an opportunity to do something like that.”
