LOS ANGELES — The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze has stopped the onboarding of thousands of seasonal federal firefighters, including those who work for agencies called on to help battle the devastating Los Angeles-area fires, creating a potential shortfall of firefighters ahead of the next fire season.
Even though President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order says the freeze does not apply to positions related to “public safety,” federal firefighters are not exempt, according to a person who works in hiring at the Bureau of Land Management.
The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service employ more than 15,000 career and temporary seasonal firefighters who perform fuel management, fight wildland fires and assist other jurisdictions in emergencies as part of the National Incident Management System.
In at least one field office for the Bureau of Land Management, a division of the Interior Department, officials involved in annual hiring were instructed in an email reviewed by NBC News to “hold all offers related to fire positions” because of the freeze.
The agency “was already in the middle of hiring their summer [fire] workforce when the federal hiring freeze came down,” a federal hiring manager in Utah told NBC affiliate KSL in Salt Lake City.
Another BLM official involved in hiring said, “The level of stupidity and negligence here is enraging.”
“What if there’s nobody to show up? How many people died with garden hoses in their hands?” the person said. “The people making these decisions — they’re not the ones whose houses are going to burn down.”
Hiring federal firefighters is a lengthy process because of federal background checks, and any delay in the process raises concerns about an understaffed federal firefighting force, especially in the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires in Los Angeles County, which killed at least 29 people and destroyed or damaged more than 18,000 structures, wiping out entire neighborhoods.
“Federal firefighters are the backbone of protecting public safety and putting fires out in the state of California,” Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said Thursday. “Any lack of hiring puts both federal forested land and California citizens at risk.”
Newsom told NBC News last month that the fires would be the costliest in U.S. history in terms of destruction.
NBC News witnessed U.S. Forest Service firefighters respond to the Palisades Fire, and they also battled the Eaton Fire in Angeles National Forest, where they deployed five large air tankers, 10 firefighting helicopters and dozens of fire engines, according to the publication Government Executive, which covers federal business news.
Federal crews are credited with saving a neighborhood in the Eaton Fire, according to video obtained by KTLA-TV of Los Angeles.
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The Forest Service, the largest of the federal firefighting agencies, is under a departmentwide hiring freeze, according to a Jan. 21 memo from Gary Washington, acting secretary of the Agriculture Department, which oversees the agency.
“At this time, there are no exceptions to the hiring freeze with respect to the Department,” he wrote. “Accordingly, effective immediately, agencies and offices are not authorized to extend an offer of employment to any person. Persons to whom an offer of employment has been extended, but acceptance has not been received, shall be contacted immediately and be informed that the offer has been revoked.”
Steve Gutierrez, a member of the National Federation of Federal Employees, confirmed that offers had been revoked and said the hiring freeze is made more complicated by other efforts to thin the federal workforce when there is already a shortage of federal firefighters.
Gutierrez, a 15-year veteran with the Forest Service on hotshot crews and engines, said thousands of firefighters on probationary status are at risk of termination, as well.
“I was hoping that there would be an exception or exemption to this,” Gutierrez said.
A federal hiring freeze in 2017 exempted firefighters.
The Interior Department said in a statement Thursday that it is “implementing President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order across the federal civilian workforce.”
The Forest Service said in a statement that it is “actively working with OPM on its wildland firefighting positions,” referring to the White House Office of Personnel Management.
The National Park Service, the White House and the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, which coordinates the efforts of federal firefighters, did not respond to requests for comment.
Sergio Gor, the White House director of presidential personnel, told Fox News, referring to the freeze but not firefighters specifically, that “the hiring freeze in place is enabling us to vet new people coming in and to other positions, also, but you have to clean house. Look, it’s one of those things.”
Gutierrez, the union leader, said that in addition to the hiring freeze, a buyout offer letter sent to the federal workforce also went to current federal firefighters.
“I don’t know how this could happen,” he said. “I think it’s a slap in the face to these brave men and women who are out there contributing to the public service and saving communities, only to be on the hillside saying, ‘Hey, here’s your resignation letter — sign by this date.’”
