President Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

Here, newly proposed U.S. Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke. "We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States," says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school. Alvarado is looking at a giant map of the U.S. on his computer. It shows where wildfire smoke is, where it's forecast to drift, as well as the harmful particulates in it. He zooms in on a wildfire burning in New Mexico, where the smoke is dense and might be of concern for any immunocompromised people in the area. Fire ecologist Ernesto Alvarado in his Seattle office at the University of Washington, which is a top recipient of federal research grants. Kirk Siegler/NPR hide caption "If someone is living in Ruidoso, New Mexico, they can go and see where the smoke is going to," Alvarado says, moving his mouse from one monitoring station to the next. Alvarado and U.S. Forest Service colleagues at the nearby Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab created this map. It's updated in real time with the help of a team of grad students and IT staff here at UW. "We need to bring new technology fast," Alvarado says. It's the product, Alvarado says, of institutional knowledge developed through years of Forest Service research into smoke and fires. He says that unlike a university that might get a grant for a few years of study, the USFS work spans decades. "You are integrating the knowledge and the science available for decades by one team, in Seattle," he says. But the Seattle smoke lab is now on a list of 56 out of 90 research stations identified for closure. All of this has Morgan Varner worried. He was a fire behavior scientist at the Seattle smoke lab until 2019. "There's a haphazard to it that I think is troubling from a scientist standpoint," Varner says. Environment 'We're dry:' The new U.S. Wildland Fire Service prepares for extreme fire season Current lab employees did not respond to interview requests. But Varner doubts most of the staff here will be willing to relocate or take other jobs elsewhere in the agency. He says the lab was put in Seattle due to its international airport and major research university. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz is sitting in his airy office in the historic Yates building off the National Mall, soon to be the agency's former headquarters. Schultz appears frustrated with the backlash against the proposed reorganization, which he notes had been considered by previous administrations going back to 2006. U.S. Forest Chief Tom Schultz at U.S. Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. In some cases, he adds, it might just be scientists moving to a nearby state office or to another location within commuting distance. "This administration is trying to be thoughtful as we move forward," Schultz says. "We involve the employees in so much of our discussions. But we've got to get our budget into control. We knew we had a big shortfall coming in." Even as Chief Schultz is adamant that science is still a priority, his boss President Trump's proposed budget for the Forest Service zeros out all research and development funding. "It was zeroed out in the '26 budget and zeroed out in the '27 budget [but] Congress did something different," Schultz says. "We've built an organizational structure based on what Congress has funded us to do. The agency already lost thousands of staff last year to layoffs, buyouts and early retirement due to President Trump's DOGE team. Westerners working at research universities are nervous, as are people in small towns that depend on the USFS for everything from jobs to fighting fires to forecasting smoke. Washington's public lands commissioner, Dave Upthegrove, says the state relies directly on U.S. Forest Service fire and smoke research to coordinate its wildfire suppression response. Upthegrove, a Democrat, says his state was initially optimistic that the Forest Service reorganization might lead to better cooperation on public lands issues, namely the proposal to have an individual state director similar to the structure of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The Washington Department of Natural Resources was also initially briefed often by the Forest Service and assured that critical research would not be affected by the reorganization. "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," Upthegrove says. Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor