Trump Cuts Forest and Wildfire Research as West Faces Severe Fire Season

As the Western United States enters what experts predict will be a devastating wildfire season, the Trump administration is moving to dramatically restructure the U.S. Forest Service — closing 57 of 77 research facilities, zeroing out research and development funding, and relocating the agency’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City. Scientists, state officials, and fire experts warn the cuts could have deadly consequences, compromising the nation’s ability to predict, track, and respond to wildfires at a time when climate change is making fire seasons longer and more intense, NPR reports.

The Scope of the Cuts

The proposed changes are sweeping. President Trump’s budget zeros out all research and development funding for the Forest Service, though Congress — which has shown bipartisan opposition to the plan — ultimately sets the agency’s budget. The Forest Service plans to close 57 of its 77 research facilities across 31 states, consolidate five regional research stations into a single hub in Fort Collins, Colorado, and move approximately 260 jobs from the nation’s capital to Utah.

Among the facilities slated for closure is the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab in Seattle, which developed the widely-used real-time wildfire smoke mapping technology that governments, firefighting teams, and commercial apps rely on when smoke conditions become hazardous. Six of eight Forest Service research facilities in California are also targeted for closure, as KUNC reported.

These cuts follow a wave of staffing losses from 2025, when the administration’s DOGE team conducted layoffs, buyouts, and early retirements that saw approximately 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees fired from the agency.

‘Reorganization’ or ‘Dismantling’?

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz defends the restructuring as a necessary response to budget constraints and a $3 billion deferred maintenance backlog. “OK, so I need you to help me change the narrative, we aren’t closing research,” Schultz told NPR. “Research is important — science is extremely important — in this organization.”

But critics point to a fundamental contradiction: while Schultz insists science remains a priority, the president’s proposed budget eliminates all Forest Service R&D funding. Schultz acknowledges this tension, telling NPR that the agency builds its structure based on what Congress actually funds. “It was zeroed out in the ‘26 budget and zeroed out in the ‘27 budget [but] Congress did something different,” he said.

Dave Calkin, a former wildfire risk researcher at the Missoula Fire Science Lab, described the approach as deeply damaging. “They’re creating trauma in the federal workforce. People are leaving, and with that we’re losing massive amounts of institutional knowledge and science capacity that will never come back,” he told KUNC.

Place-Based Science Cannot Be Relocated

A central concern raised by scientists is that much Forest Service research is inherently tied to specific locations. Long-term watershed studies, old-growth monitoring programs spanning decades, and partnerships with local land managers cannot simply be moved to a centralized office in Fort Collins.

Morgan Varner, a former fire behavior scientist at the Seattle smoke lab, criticized what he called a “haphazard” approach. “Seattle is a technology hub and so the Forest Service lab — people may think they’re sort of backwoods out measuring some trees — but this is a lab working with the brightest minds that are based in Seattle,” he told NPR.

Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist at the University of Washington who helped create the real-time smoke mapping technology now threatened by the closures, put it bluntly: “We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States. We need to bring new technology fast.” He emphasized that the Forest Service’s research spans decades — unlike university grants that typically fund only a few years of study.

A Broader Pattern

The Forest Service cuts are part of a wider administration effort to reshape federal science funding. President Trump has already canceled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. The White House Office of Management and Budget has proposed a rule change that would give political appointees more decision-making power over research grants, as NPR documented. The administration has also fired all 24 members of the National Science Board and moved to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

This pattern echoes the first Trump term, when the USDA’s Economic Research Service and the Bureau of Land Management headquarters were relocated — moves that, according to the Government Accountability Office, led to nearly half of staff declining reassignment and “did not yield effective reforms.”

State Officials Left in the Dark

State officials in the West say they are increasingly concerned — and frustrated — by the lack of communication from the Forest Service. Dave Upthegrove, Washington’s public lands commissioner, told NPR that his state was initially optimistic the reorganization might lead to better cooperation. “But recently the Forest Service has gone radio silent, and we’ve not been able to get updates on the progress and the status and the outcome of this work, so we are nervous,” he said.

Julian Reyes, chief of staff at the Union of Concerned Scientists, described the restructuring as “irreversibly destructive to the federal scientific enterprise” that “leaves the nation to face growing climate threats with fewer experts predicting and managing wildfires,” as he wrote in a blog post.

What Happens Next

The fate of the Forest Service’s research programs ultimately rests with Congress, which has shown bipartisan resistance to the president’s budget proposal. But with the Western U.S. poised for what experts describe as an “epic summer of wildfires and smoke,” the timing of the cuts has raised alarms even among some of the administration’s usual allies.

As climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of wildfires — now burning at higher elevations, over longer seasons, and with greater intensity than 30 years ago — the question is whether the nation can afford to lose its leading wildland fire research organization at the very moment it is needed most.

For scientists like Alvarado, the answer is clear. “You are integrating the knowledge and the science available for decades by one team, in Seattle,” he said. “We need to bring new technology fast.”