On Sunday, Emily Kucharski got news that many working on Idaho’s Payette National Forest were expecting: She had been fired.
The memo that she received – dated Valentine’s Day – said her continued employment would not “be in the public interest.”
“It felt pretty horrible,” she said in downtown McCall, one of Idaho’s premier outdoor recreation communities. “The main part of my job in the winter is safety: I ride out on snowmobiles, I check avalanche reports, I disseminate information to the public. And now I, as a resource to everyone who comes and recreates here, I'm gone.”
She liked her work, as did her supervisors. She shared a recent performance review where she was deemed to be “fully successful.” Developing an organized gear check-out system was one of several accomplishments she was praised for.
On Monday morning, she grabbed signs, posters and other rally materials from her car parked on Lake Street in downtown McCall, and walked back to a nearby cafe where a planning meeting for an upcoming protest was underway.
She also came to look for work.
“I brought my résumé today to go around to businesses to show anybody, any local business owners who come out to support us, that I am a qualified, good worker,” she said. “I was overqualified for my job with the Forest Service and I want to work. I want to work, I want to find a job.”
Legal fight
Brad LaPlante, a union steward with the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) who works on the Payette, estimated that some 50 Forest Service employees had been laid off in recent days, with dozens more in neighboring forests.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the service’s parent agency, did not confirm those local figures, but said that nationwide it has “made the difficult decision to release about 2,000 probationary, non-firefighting employees from the Forest Service,” according to a statement provided to the Mountain West New Bureau. Probationary employees are typically recent hires, or longer-serving workers that move into new roles.
Recently confirmed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins supports the administration’s efforts to “eliminate inefficiencies and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people,” an agency spokesperson said in the statement. “We have a solemn responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar spent goes to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”
Such firings have provoked legal challenges and similar protests across the West. NFFE was part of a labor coalition that recently filed suit challenging the legality of the firings.
“The Executive Branch’s decimation of the federal civilian workforce through these actions, collectively, conflicts with Congress’s constitutional prerogative to create federal agencies, legislate their missions, and fund their work,” the coalition’s motion for a temporary restraining order reads. “The Executive Branch’s actions thus violate separation of powers principles.”
In their response, administration attorneys argued that the request should be denied on multiple grounds, including that the restraining order would “interfere with the President’s ability to manage, shape, and streamline the federal workforce to more closely reflect policy preferences and the needs of the American public.”
Thousands of fired workers across the country have also joined class action lawsuits disputing that poor performance was the reason for their dismissals.
Lost knowledge
As 11 a.m. approached, some 50 people had gathered at a small park near snow-covered Payette Lake. Bryce Spare took the mic.
“In May, I moved across the country and took a large pay cut because I wanted to get back to working for Payette National Forest and return to work directly impacting this land and the visitor's experience,” he told the growing crowd. “They're claiming that based on our performance, that these positions are no longer in the interest of taxpayers. I take a real, great offense to that.”
Spare was a backcountry ranger whose responsibilities included patrolling trails and keeping bathrooms clean. Like many, he started his career doing seasonal work before getting a permanent position.
That transition, according to several workers, can put you into probationary status. Spare said he knows fired workers who had nearly a decade of seasonal experience.
“There's a ton of knowledge that's being lost right now,” he said. “And I think that is really important to share with everybody.”
‘Just start driving’
The mass firings have also left many scrambling for work and housing. McCall has a very expensive rental market, with an average rent of $2,200, 9% higher than Seattle, according to Zillow.
Sidney Noble, who got his biology PhD from Kansas State University last year, called the botany work he did for the forest “a dream job.” But now he and his wife – also a federal employee – will have a single income for their $1,900 rent.
“We can make it for March, but I don't know what's going to happen after March,” he said.
Kelly Grenquist is in an even tighter spot after losing her wildlife technician position last week. She got the job less than a year ago, and lived in federal employee housing. But that housing is going away with her job in early March – or perhaps even sooner.
She has a camper, but not one designed for the area’s frigid winter; in recent weeks, temperatures have plummeted to minus 20.
Asked if she had a plan, she said, “Just start driving until you can be homeless and not freeze to death, and then stop there and see where I can find a job.”
Federal workers, neighbors
By the early afternoon, nearly 150 people lined Lake Street. Call and response chants – like “WE WORK!” “FOR YOU!” – and the honks of supportive motorists filled the air.
“My sign says, ‘Valley County stands with our federal workers,’” local Bethany Thomas explained.
“McCall and the greater Valley County area is based on our lands, federal employees make this area what it is,” she said, adding: “Our neighbors, our friends, our kids' soccer coaches are federal employees. And without their income, our community doesn't have money coming into it.”
Recent data from Valley County, which includes McCall, shows that the Forest Service is the area’s third most important employer – besting the local school district and a major ski resort.
“I think people really need to understand that this is directly going to impact the McCall that they love, and know it's going to have an immediate and longer-lasting impact,” Thomas said. “Our fire season is going to be impacted by this.”
Alongside Forest Service staff, about 1,000 people who work for the National Park Service were fired last week. A few hundred people also gathered Monday at a visitor center outside northern Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park in protest.
Rocky Mountain NP sees more than four million visitors a year, the majority in the summer season. Residents of gateway towns like Estes Park are unsure what staffing levels will look like heading into peak season.
“The unknown is what’s really tricky,” said local Kirby Nelson-Hazelton. “Not knowing how to anticipate what our influx of summer traffic is going to look like and the experiences people will have, as well as the protection of our federal lands.”
Fire effects
While fire personnel are exempt from the layoffs, many non-fire staff play key roles in wildfire response.
“Most of the people that were fired here recently, most of those people do get their red cards,” said LaPlante, the NFFE union steward and Payette silviculture technician. A red card refers to the formal qualifications workers need for fighting wildfires.
LaPlante isn’t a firefighter, but he responded with other non-fire staff to the major 2024 Durkee Fire that shut down Interstate 84. As fires blew up near McCall last summer, he also served as a base camp manager.
“Not only are you working with fire crews, but a lot of us are in support positions,” he explained.
Many non-fire personnel also aid in fuels reduction projects and other wildfire mitigation efforts, like prescribed fires, something the Forest Service has been trying to do more of in recent years.
“But now that our workforce has been debilitated, it's just going to make it even harder,” he said. “They don't want us to really talk about climate change, but with climate change coming and the fact that we can't do what we can to treat (the forest), these fires are going to be even more devastating.”
KUNC’s Mountain West News Bureau reporter Rachel Cohen contributed reporting.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
