Colorado lawmakers and communities are fighting back against President Donald Trump’s layoffs of at least 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees across the country. Officials have warned that the president’s executive order pushing “large-scale reductions in force” could have dangerous long-term consequences on local economies and forest health. 

“It is reckless. It is shortsighted and ultimately could prove dangerous for our communities in the Western Slope and every corner of our state,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Colorado’s 2nd District.

The cuts to the Forest Service labor force were among broad layoffs ordered of probationary employees. Employees were let go en masse at federal land management agencies including others under the U.S. Department of Agriculture and several under the Department of the Interior. This included at least 2,300 cuts from the Interior’s National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management as well as around 1,200 from the Agriculture Department’s National Resources Conservation Service. 

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Probationary employees can refer to new hires or those who were recently moved or promoted to a new position, according to NPR. These periods typically last one to two years, but can be longer. 

“I think the biggest issue that the new executive orders are bringing is a devaluation of the love and labor that civil servants have brought over many years, reduced to emails where they are told that their work no longer has worth to the current administration, and they’re either directly being laid off or asked to quit (or some awkward combo),” said Laraine Martin, the executive director of Routt County Riders, a trails group based out of Steamboat Springs that works closely with the federal agency. 

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Information has been hard to come by in the days since the initial announcement regarding positions lost and which forests and offices were impacted.

Local Forest Service representatives were instructed to pass along inquiries to the regional and national offices. A federal Department of Agriculture spokesperson responded to one request with a statement applauding Trump’s “directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people.”

The statement reported that the department had “released” around 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the Forest Service. 

“It’s unfortunate that the Biden administration hired thousands of people with no plan in place to pay them long term,” reads the statement. “(USDA) Secretary (Brooke) Rollins is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted.”

On Friday, Feb. 14, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis reported that at least 90 Forest Service employees in Colorado were impacted by the layoffs. Reportedly, the cuts were mostly to the agency’s recreation and timber positions but also hit other positions relating to fuels, public affairs, wildlife and more. 

Neguse said he knows that number has only grown in the week since, but information is still lacking.

“Part of the challenge is that the administration, given the indiscriminate way and the non-transparent way that they’ve gone about these mass terminations, there’s been very little clarity in terms of the precise impacts,” Neguse said on Thursday. “But we know that the impact will be pronounced in our district and in our state by virtue of the large percentage of lands in our state that are federally managed.”

Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet addressed the U.S. Senate on Wednesday to discuss the Forest Service layoffs. 

As part of his 12-minute speech, the Congressman shared the stories of some of the employees his office had heard from following the layoffs. This included a woman who has spent 40 years in civil service including the past 25 years with the Forest Service. According to Bennet, she had recently been promoted and was thus considered a probationary employee. 

“Trump and (Elon) Musk’s actions aren’t about increasing efficiency or repaying American taxpayers. These cuts don’t root out fraud or government waste,” Bennet said. “But these actions do place an immense burden on the citizens of Colorado, on the citizens, on the West.”

What’s the collateral? 

Colorado has nearly 22 million acres of public land. Over two-thirds of the state’s landmass is managed by federal agencies. It is home to 11 National Forests, including the 2.3 million-acre White River National Forest, the busiest in the country, thanks in part to the 11 ski resorts that fall within its borders. 

The loss of employees could have a cascading effect on communities, particularly those on the Western Slope that border public lands and rely on them for recreation and tourism.

The impacts are going to be immediately apparent, said Ernest Saeger, executive director of the Vail Valley Mountain Trails Alliance, a trails group based out of Avon. 

Gary Tennenbaum, director of Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, said the losses were likely to mean “less capacity to clear trails of deadfall, enforce regulations to protect natural resources, manage restrooms and trailhead facilities, and being on the ground to deal with issues like bear encounters, making sure campfires are extinguished, public safety for helping injured or lost trail users, and educating trail users on Leave No Trace.” 

Martin said she is already hearing that the orders have immediately impacted the agency’s ability to hire and staff trail maintenance crews for the year. 

“This will ultimately lead to tangible losses for the upkeep and safety of our local trail system,” Martin said, adding that there are more questions than answers right now.

State Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, whose district is 60% public lands, also fears the cuts could jeopardize language access during emergency responses, efforts that she has long championed both in and outside the legislature. 

Before running for office, Velasco helped firefighters translate and disseminate information in Spanish during the 2020 Grizzly Creek Fire in Garfield County. She went on to work for a year as a White River National Forest public information officer to expand Spanish communication in emergency responses. 

With the Trump administration’s pledge to eradicate federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Velasco said those jobs could also be in jeopardy. 

“These cuts make us less safe,” Velasco said. 

Both federal and state lawmakers have warned that the loss of many of these employees will have an outsized impact on wildfire mitigation work and wildfire risk. 

“It would delay our fire mitigation projects, it would delay our conservancy projects, so it is definitely pretty concerning,” Velasco said. 

Bennet warned of the financial consequences of letting wildfire mitigation work fall behind. 

“One of the reasons why we have fought to put more money in the budget for fighting fires themselves is because waiting until the fire happens is the most expensive way you could possibly deal with wildfires,” Bennet said. “The second most expensive way would be to lay off the very people that help prevent the conditions from arising that are going to lead to those fires, which by the way, cost $50,000 an acre to fight.”

According to the Forest Service, it spends $2.9 billion to put out wildfires every year. Costs are expected to rise to $3.9 billion by 2050. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that, over the past five years, the U.S. spent nearly $48 billion on wildfires.

With less staff for essential trail maintenance, wildfire prevention and general forest management, Velasco worries that the state may need to eventually foot the bill to ensure those projects can continue — a tall order this legislative session given Colorado’s nearly $1 billion budget deficit. 

Neguse also warned of collateral consequences for local and county governments who will have to pick up a larger share of these essential projects with fewer resources from the Forest Service — something many communities were already doing. 

“These are federal lands that are meant under federal law to be protected and maintained by the federal government, not by our local governments or by the state,” Neguse said. “So it is incumbent upon the federal government to rise to the occasion. And certainly, mass terminations and indiscriminate firings of forest rangers and folks within the Forest Service, BLM and DOI is not the way to do so.”

A compounding issue

State Sen. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose, said the Forest Service is already understaffed at a time when public lands visitation is at record levels. Officials for the White River National Forest — the most popular in the country — saw visitation rise from 12.5 million in 2017 to 18.4 million in 2022, representing a roughly 50% increase. 

“We’re public land heavy, so I don’t want to see us get cut back to the point where we’re not able to take care of the local community and all different forms of our economy,” Catlin said. “The pressures are getting bigger, so I’m worried about being understaffed.” 

Bennet raised a similar alarm, reporting that the Forest Service already had 30% less workforce than it did 30 years ago.

“While the stresses and strains have grown, while the effect of that 1,200-year drought and climate change has grown, now we find ourselves in a place where the Forest Service is getting whacked by the administration,” Bennet said. 

Already, the burden of staffing and financial issues at the federal agency was coming back to local communities. 

“We were already making moves to be flexible and adaptable, collaborating on various grants with our USFS partners to fund staff roles and materials and supplies for larger trail construction and maintenance projects,” Martin said. “The recent orders will exacerbate these staffing issues and make it harder for us to find the solutions we need to keep our trail system maintained.”

In Pitkin County, previous staffing cuts and lack of resources led to the county funding Forest Service positions itself, Tennenbaum said. One of these positions, funded by the county and a partnership with other local entities, was among those lost in the last week. 

“This new round of staffing cuts will cause havoc at places like the Maroon Bells,” Tennenbaum said.

By any means necessary

Neguse described the current situation as “very traumatic for these civil servants and very stressful for our local governments and law enforcement and all of the partners working really hard to protect these public lands and protect our communities.”

In the face of this, Neguse said he — as well as Bennet and Sen. John Hickenlooper — were committed to “using every legislative tool that’s available” to reverse what he called “draconian actions.”

“I intend to make this a central issue as we move forward during the appropriations process in the coming weeks,” Neguse said. 

On Thursday, Bennet introduced a budget amendment that would reinstate not only the recently laid off Forest Service employees but also those from the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management. 

Local communities are also preparing to jump into action. 

In Grand County, community members held a rally on Monday, Feb. 18 to show their support for public land employees. 

Martin said Routt County Riders was continuing its work “cobbling together grants and funding sources to try and help hire trail crew members in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service.” 

Saeger reported similar work being done by the Eagle County trails group, adding that recreators have a role to play. 

“I hope people, when they’re getting outside and doing all these things, that they are a little bit more aware and they’re recreating responsibly and being good stewards of the lands to help minimize the impact because there’s going to be less people out there, boots on the ground helping mitigate what happens,” he said. “It’s going to take a community.”

Tennenbaum encouraged individuals to reach out to elected officials to advocate against further staffing cuts. 

“Our economy, wildlife and way of life depend on well-managed public lands for all forms of recreation including skiing, hiking, biking, motorized and equestrian,” he said. 

Regional Politics Reporter Robert Tann also contributed to this report.