The U.S. Forest Service lost 39% of its wildland firefighting workforce in 2025 due to federal layoffs while wildfire activity was 31% above average

Federal wildland firefighters employed by the U.S. Forest Service are leaving the workforce faster than they can be replaced because of a combination of mass layoffs, deferred resignations, low base pay, and seasonal employment instability, leaving the agency critically understaffed during the busiest fire years on record. In 2025, USFS staffing reports from July 17 showed a 39% vacancy rate across the agency's firefighting positions during a year with 31% more wildfire activity than the 10-year average. Why it matters: Thousands of firefighting positions go unfilled during peak fire season, so initial attack crews are stretched thin and cannot respond to new ignitions within the critical first hours, so fires that could have been contained at small acreages escape and grow into campaign-level incidents, so suppression costs multiply (the federal government spent over $4 billion annually on wildfire suppression in recent years), so communities in the wildland-urban interface face longer evacuation timelines and greater property destruction. The structural root cause is that the Forest Service classifies the majority of its firefighting workforce as temporary seasonal employees capped at 1,039 hours per year with no benefits continuity, creating a revolving door where experienced firefighters leave for stable municipal fire department jobs or other careers, and 2025 federal workforce reductions eliminated at least 1,800 fire-qualified ('red-carded') employees through layoffs and deferred resignations while the agency simultaneously lost nearly half its permanent employees between 2021 and 2024.