Fanning the flames
The West is on fire as Washington guts land agencies

This summer, millions of Americans are hiking, camping, fishing and making lifelong memories in our national parks, forests and other public lands. But something troubling is taking place behind the beautiful views: The federal agencies that safeguard these places for us are being hollowed out. 

Staffing and budget cuts at the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. They are empty ranger stations during peak season, trail crews that never arrive and wildfire teams stretched so thin they can’t keep up. 

During the four years I led the BLM, from 2021-25, I saw what it takes to care for hundreds of millions of acres of public lands. It takes committed, dedicated people – wildfire crews, wildlife biologists, planners, law enforcement rangers – and it takes funding. Today, both are being stripped away at historic rates. 

We can already see the consequences. As I write, flames tear through the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, burning down the historic lodge and scarring over 100,000 acres. The fire has raged for weeks since a lightning strike started it July 4, and it may continue for weeks more. 

Fire is part of the West’s natural cycle, but climate change and decades of suppression have made today’s fires hotter and more destructive. It just doesn’t make sense that the Trump administration is gutting the agencies responsible for managing fire risk when we need these experienced and dedicated people most.

More than 1,600 wildfire-qualified staff have been driven out of the Forest Service in recent months, and as many as one in four firefighting jobs remain vacant. To make it worse, firefighters are being pulled from the fire lines to tend to logistics for some forests, even in one of the most dangerous wildfire seasons in memory.  

The administration has even proposed removing firefighting from the Forest Service entirely, a dangerous move that separates the rangers who know the land best from those dousing the flames. 

People of all backgrounds celebrated when we collectively stopped Congress from selling off our public lands earlier this summer. But now, a clear and dangerous pattern is emerging: Shrink these agencies until they break, then claim that selling off or industrializing our public lands is the only fix. 

This should alarm anyone who values the freedom these lands provide. Public lands are a great equalizer –places where all Americans have the same right to hike, hunt, fish or camp. And to unplug and touch nature. If we lose the people who manage these lands, our access will shrink under wildfire closures, roads will be gated and campgrounds will close. We’ll lose our freedom to wander. 

It’s also a direct threat to conservation. Our public lands deliver clean water, clean air and wildlife habitat. Cutting conservation programs and abandoning fire-smart management will leave forests overgrown and ready to burn, with wildfires too big and too hot.  

Worse still, future generations are going to inherit the choices made today. When the administration guts our parks and public lands to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, they saddle the future with parks and trails that are closed, crumbling roads and buildings, forests prone to even worse fire, smoky skies and “No Trespassing” signs. The cherished traditions we pass down – teaching a child to fish or hunt, camping under a night sky, chasing butterflies – will no longer be available to all.

Westerners know what’s at stake. Poll after poll shows that people across the political spectrum want to keep our public lands public, healthy and accessible. That consensus is powerful, but only if we use it now. Either we protect the agencies that protect our public lands, or we watch the slow-motion sell-off unfold.

We must demand full staffing and funding for the agencies that manage our lands, and we must all stand together hunters and hikers, ranchers and rafters, anglers and climbers – in defense of the places that belong to us all, and to future generations.

Tracy Stone-Manning is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is president of The Wilderness Society and a former director of the BLM. Like millions of Americans, she is spending her summer vacation on public lands.