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As US wildfires rage, firefighters clean toilets after Trump staff cuts, critics say

As US wildfires rage, firefighters clean toilets after Trump staff cuts, critics say

The Star2 days ago
(Reuters) -The U.S. Forest Service faced criticism from current and former employees who say federal workforce reductions under the Trump administration have left fire teams understaffed, as the country grapples with decade-high U.S. wildfire numbers this year.
The agency, which oversees the nation's largest wildland firefighting force, rejected those claims, saying it has sufficient resources.
However, more than a dozen active and retired U.S. Forest Service employees told Reuters that the agency is struggling to fill critical roles after approximately 5,000 employees - roughly 15% of its workforce - quit in the past five months.
Accounts from firefighters in Oregon and New Mexico, as well as a fire chief recruiting support staff in the Pacific Northwest, said the vacancies have led to personnel held back from supporting frontline firefighting because of administrative duties.
The crew leader on an Oregon blaze said her team went hungry for several days, ran short of medical supplies and had to scrounge for chainsaw fuel after support staff quit the agency during two rounds of "fork in the road" buyouts.
"I had guys who were going to bed hungry after working 16 hours," said the crew leader on the Alder Springs Fire, who asked not to be named for fear of losing her job.
National and local USFS officials say, however, the force is ready for what is expected to be a worse than average fire year in California, the Pacific Northwest and the northern Rockies, according to National Interagency Fire Center forecasts.
"Our fire staff feels very confident in our staffing levels going into this fire season," said USFS Public Affairs Officer Isabella Isaksen, who represents USFS operations in central Oregon.
Isaksen said food problems on the Alder Springs Fire were due to a new caterer and were quickly resolved. She said medical, chainsaw and other supplies were available on the 3,400-acre blaze that triggered evacuations in two counties.
'THEY ARE READY'
The Trump administration pledged not to cut firefighting positions and other public safety jobs in firings, voluntary resignations and early retirements meant to raise efficiency at the USFS which manages 193 million acres of land (78 million hectares), roughly about the size of Texas.
USFS employees that Reuters interviewed for this story said the loss of thousands of foresters, biologists, trail builders and campground managers was having a knock-on effect on firefighters.
Not only are firefighters having to cover empty positions at ranger stations but they also have lost hundreds of peers who each year switched from regular jobs to take on firefighting support roles during the fire season, which typically runs from spring to fall, these people said.
USFS Chief Tom Schultz on Wednesday told agency managers to make all of these fire-qualified, so-called "red-carded" staff available for what he called an "extremely challenging" fire year, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
Year to date, wildland firefighters have been called to nearly 41,000 blazes, by far the highest number in federal data going back to at least 2015.
Last month Schultz told a U.S. Senate committee he was trying to temporarily hire back some 1,400 fire-qualified, "red-carded" support staff who took buyouts.
"I do believe they are ready," Schultz said when asked about preparedness for the 2025 fire year.
FIREFIGHTERS MOW LAWNS
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who oversees the USFS, said in June at a meeting of Western state governors in New Mexico that the agency was on target to hire 11,300 firefighters by mid July, outpacing hiring over the past three years.
As of June 29, 11,236 or 99% of that number had been hired, slightly below last year's level, according to the most recent USDA data.
The USDA disputed claims that staff shortages are endangering communities, forests, and firefighters.
"We are providing the resources needed to ensure the Forest Service has the strongest and most prepared wildland firefighting force in the world," a USDA spokesperson said.
New Mexico U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich has criticized the Trump administration's firing and rehiring of 3,400 USFS probationary staff, three-quarters of whom were red-carded, as well as what he called its indiscriminate, agency-wide staff buyouts.
'Wildfire season is well underway, and thanks to DOGE and Donald Trump, the U.S. Forest Service is being gutted, leaving communities ill equipped to fight deadly wildfires," Heinrich said in a emailed statement on July 11.
The Forest Service says it does not have enough wildland firefighters for the country's "wildfire crisis" and relies on red-carded staff to "boost wildland firefighting capacity."
Yet, not everyone close to the Forest Service sees problems.
Steve Ellis, chairman of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, said his checks with fire staff in Oregon turned up no reports of firefighters going hungry or other support issues.
But Riva Duncan, a fire duty officer on a New Mexico blaze, said even firefighters were being used to plug gaps left by job losses, exacerbating longstanding shortages of personnel to operate fire engines.
"They're answering phones at the front desk, or cleaning toilets at campgrounds or mowing the lawn at administrative sites," said Duncan, a retired USFS fire chief who reenlists during fire season and helps run Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a federal firefighter advocacy group.
The fire staff officerin the Pacific Northwest said support staff had been told by managers they had to meet the Trump administration's increased timber sales and oil and gas production targets, with fewer employees, before helping firefighters.
"They can claim we get all the support we need, but in reality, it isn't even close," said the fire chief, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
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Yen wobbles as traders process trade deal and political uncertainty
Yen wobbles as traders process trade deal and political uncertainty

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  • Free Malaysia Today

Yen wobbles as traders process trade deal and political uncertainty

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News Analysis - Philippines gets minor US tariff cut, but defence ties remain intact
News Analysis - Philippines gets minor US tariff cut, but defence ties remain intact

The Star

time2 hours ago

  • The Star

News Analysis - Philippines gets minor US tariff cut, but defence ties remain intact

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Chile's government to expropriate land tied to Pinochet-era torture
Chile's government to expropriate land tied to Pinochet-era torture

The Star

time2 hours ago

  • The Star

Chile's government to expropriate land tied to Pinochet-era torture

VILLA BAVIERA (Reuters) -Chile plans to expropriate a settlement founded by a German cult leader where torture took place during former dictator Augusto Pinochet's military regime as the government takes another step to shine a light on a dark period of the past. The enclave, originally called Colonia Dignidad and renamed Villa Baviera, was founded in 1961 by Paul Schafer, a former Nazi medic turned evangelical preacher who kept the isolated community under tight control and was later jailed for sexually abusing children. During Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, Colonia Dignidad also bore witness to another kind of abuse: the torture of political prisoners by military forces in a secret prison at the site. Schafer collaborated with Pinochet's secret police and in exchange was shielded for years from prosecution for his own crimes. The dictatorship viewed the secretive, fortified and remote community as an ideal site to detain and torture dissidents away from public view. The government now wants to turn the 290-acre (117-hectare) community into a memorial, Justice Minister Jaime Gajardo said at an event this month. The aim is to make it "a place that allows all Chileans to enter freely to learn about what happened there," Gajardo said. "Nothing justifies violating human rights as they were violated during the military dictatorship." Schafer died in prison in 2010. Several hundred families once lived at the settlement about 350 kilometers (217 mi) south of Santiago. Today the population numbers closer to 100, many of whom are descendants of the original German settlers. Businesses at Villa Baviera, or Bavarian Village, have tried in recent years to attract visitors to the area's picturesque green fields and views of snow-capped mountains. In the expropriation, property owners will be compensated under terms still to be determined by experts, Gajardo said. The government aims to complete the expropriation before President Gabriel Boric leaves office in March. The justice minister said the community consists of about 90 land parcels but did not specify the number of businesses or residents. PAINFUL PAST Dozens of physically and mentally traumatizedmembers of Colonia Dignidad eventuallyrelocatedto Germany, and the site's history drew international attention in the 2015 film "Colonia." Plans for the expropriation underscore the challenges for governments in coming to terms with complicated histories in places that have overlapping layers of rights abuses. Chile's National Institute of Human Rights in a recent report said those who were tortured by Pinochet's forces as well as the people who suffered under Schaefer's control were equally victims of Colonia Dignidad. Jose Patricio Schmidt, who grew up in Colonia Dignidad and still lives there, said residents had existed in a bubble, unaware of the dictatorship's abuses. "Schaefer would gather us together to read the Bible in a place about a kilometer from where people were tortured, and we knew nothing," he said in an interview at a memorial site in the community that pays tribute to the torture victims. Tens of thousands of people were arrested and tortured throughout Chile during Pinochet's rule, and 1,469 people were victims of forced disappearance. Some have criticized the government's move to take away property from current Villa Baviera community members, especially those who were themselves victims of abuse. Juergen Szurgeleis in an interview said he tried as a boy to escape forced labor and abuse at Colonia Dignidad. "Is it my fault for being born here?" he said. "And now they want to take away my land and leave me in the street?" Yet a former political prisoner at Colonia Dignidad, Luis Jaque, said he struggles to see how the community, which includes a German restaurant and a hotel catering to tourists, can carry on without recognizing the horrors of the past. "It's not reconcilable, at least not for me," he said. (Reporting by Nicolás Cortés in Villa Baviera and Santiago; Writing by Leila Miller and Fabián Cambero; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Cynthia Osterman)

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