Federal workers in the Pacific Northwest who protect water and air quality and keep public lands open and clean are among the thousands fired without cause as President Donald Trump slashes jobs across the country.
Many more remain on edge. The Trump administration is targeting probationary employees who have yet to qualify for civil service protections, which includes some longtime employees who recently received a promotion. Many were let go on Friday or over the weekend by email.
These layoffs touched many parts of the federal government and in Washington some of the earliest impacts involved public lands and environmental programs. Some federal agencies are bracing for even deeper cuts that cover a wide range of services. These agencies keep public lands clean, find lost hikers, help fight wildfires and pick up debris once the blazes tear through towns, regulate toxic industries, and sell and distribute vast quantities of electricity to serve the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
Signs of the Trump administration’s firings and funding freezes are popping up across the region, sometimes literally. The Mountains to Sound Greenway posted a photo of a sign affixed to a barricade that read, “Due to the large scale termination of Forest Service employees, Franklin Falls and the Denny Creek Trailhead are CLOSED. This site will reopen when we return to appropriate staffing levels.”
The Franklin Falls Sno-Park is closed indefinitely.
It is not yet clear how many federal workers have been terminated or how many live in Washington state. Lawsuits have been filed in an attempt to pause the layoffs. And members of Congress from Washington are fuming.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called it “the Trump hack job.”
Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Sammamish, said on X, “The Forest Service layoffs are already hurting our community, with dozens of local employees out of jobs and sites like the Denny Creek Trailhead closing down due to staffing shortages. And it is only going to get worse. Fire season is coming.”
Trump and his allies say these cuts are meant to save money, make the government run more efficiently and weed out those with whom the president disagrees politically. The layoffs are unlikely to yield significant deficit savings, though. Even if the government cut all the staffers in its most expensive departments, it would still run a deficit of over $1 trillion, according to The Associated Press.
Here is a look at some of the effects of Trump’s widespread cuts on the Pacific Northwest:
Environment
The Environment Protection Agency’s Pacific Northwest region — including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska — has seen two waves of terminations in recent weeks, said Helen Bottcher, a union leader who retired in 2023.
First, nine employees who work on environmental justice issues were put on administrative leave. Then, an unknown number of probationary employees were fired by email on Valentine’s Day and told to hand in their badge and equipment and to leave the office.
Given warning and more time, these agencies could more effectively cut staffing levels, Bottcher said. But they have neither.
“This is just a wrecking ball,” she said.
These terminations don’t count the employees who took Trump’s “Fork in the Road” offer and voluntarily resigned, with the promise to stay on the federal payroll through September, Bottcher said.
The employees who have left or are on their way out the door worked in multiple agency programs including emergency oil and chemical spill response, toxic waste site cleanups including Hanford, and air and water programs.
The staff who were placed on administrative leave manage grants that support communities across the region, and they also coordinate with state environmental agencies including the Washington Department of Ecology.
“I worry that the public doesn’t know everything the government does for them, and they’re going to learn the hard way,” Bottcher said.
Federal partners
Not only will these layoffs hurt the federal agencies themselves but also the people who depend upon them.
Scientists at the University of Washington rely on datasets, satellite imagery, forecasting, weather predictions and more from federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey.
These critical pieces of information help prepare people for severe weather, set fisheries quotas, guard against pollution and protect endangered species. They’re also crucial for scientists such as Beth Gardner, a professor at UW’s College of the Environment, who analyze the data and use their findings to protect our natural resources, animals and safeguard against future disasters.
“We’re looking at direct attacks on scientists,” Gardner said.
And the attacks are coming at the worst time, Gardner said. The ongoing burning of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and diesel is warming our atmosphere and making disastrous events from hurricanes to wildfires worse.
Historically work between these federal agencies and public institutions has been fairly collaborative, Gardner said. Staffers on both sides conduct a lot of research together, research that has real-world applications. But now that balance is shifting as the federal side loses people and funding.
Cuts to places like the Forest and National Park services can heighten risk during the upcoming wildfire season and even mean fewer protective measures for hikers who get lost, she said.
In addition, the Bonneville Power Administration, which transmits and markets electricity from hydroelectric dams and transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest, has lost hundreds of employees through buyouts, early retirements, rescinded job offers or terminations under the Trump administration, the Washington State Standard reported.
Bonneville is funded by ratepayers, not taxpayers.
“BPA is such a huge part of what enables public power in this region to deliver affordable, reliable energy,” said Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association. “The real concern from public power utilities is if BPA will be able to function at lower levels of staffing.”
Public lands
For the Forest Service, the terminations have included members of the militia fire crews who deploy when resources are spread thin along with a forester who collaborates with tribal nations, state and local governments to ensure wildfire prevention work spans land ownership boundaries. It includes the people clearing trails, cleaning up human waste and providing snacks and other help to unprepared hikers in the Enchantments.
Kate White, a wilderness ranger serving 340,000 acres in the Wenatchee River District, which includes the Enchantments, said she and all but one of her colleagues were terminated.
She’s been with the district since 2017 serving in temporary and seasonal roles, as many others do before they earn a permanent position. She’s been in a permanent position since September 2023.
Each year her team removes thousands of piles of human waste and flies out on average 8,000 pounds more from their bulk toilets in the Enchantments.
“Aside from being unsightly, the public having to deal with that, it’s terrible for the ecosystem as well,” White said.
All of that human waste is normally near a water source, White said, some of which drains into municipal watersheds.
On any given Saturday in the busy season, these rangers will talk with more than a thousand people, making sure they’re prepared for the conditions and they’ve stored their food properly to prevent wildlife conflicts.
And these rangers are there to step up when fire crews are spread thin.
“We’re wildland-fire qualified to assist with fire operations and different roles. I’ve helped out and assisted on our hand crew, our engine, in resource advising and public information,” she said. “We like to say we’re the jack-of-all-trades.”
A lot of the people who support the fire program are not fire employees, said Matthew Brossard, national business representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees. “The true effects of what’s going on are going to be very broad and, to be honest, pretty expensive.”
Region 6, which spans much of the Pacific Northwest, doesn’t have a very large fire program, Brossard said. Instead, staff from other areas are qualified to step up and help with fires.
Without a robust federal firefighting force, state and local agencies may have to step up and essentially fill the void, he said.
“The Forest Service alone just lost 10% of their personnel and these are all the people who supported in wildland fire,” said Tom Carvajal, a lead river ranger in the Payette River Corridor in Idaho whose position was terminated.
Carvajal typically patrols the river, rescuing struggling swimmers, or boaters, among other things. During the 2024 fire season, he worked 300 hours of overtime to help fight fires in his district. He has previous experience as a hotshot, and helped crews cut fire breaks with a chain saw and ignite controlled burns.
“What I see coming is you’re going to have a massive shortage of personnel on the fire lines putting out wildfires,” he said.
Claire Thompson clears and helps maintain hundreds of miles of trails from Mission Ridge to Glacier Peak.
They spend a lot of their time logging out fallen trees, sometimes hundreds on a single trail, Thompson said, to ensure they’re passable for hikers, livestock and first responders.
“It’s just a huge kick in the face to have devoted your life to civil service and worked so hard for something you care about so much, and to never once in your career have received a negative performance review,” Thompson said, “and then to get this letter that says, based on your performance, we’ve determined that your service is no longer in the public interest.”
Recreation closures
Winter hikers and snowshoers who want to access the now-closed Franklin Falls and the Denny Creek Trailhead will have to add an additional 5 miles round-trip along Forest Road 58. Parking is more limited at the new trailhead and there are no toilets.
Franklin Falls and Denny Creek are located in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. According to retired Snoqualmie District Ranger Martie Schramm, 36 employees, or about 30% of the forest’s workforce, were let go.
Similar firings took place in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, which has halted grooming of cross-country ski trails at the Salmon La Sac Sno-Park. The forest is home to a number of popular Sno-Parks like Gold Creek, Cabin Creek and Blewett Pass, which will likely see fewer patrols to check for Sno-Park permits during the remainder of the winter season (through April 30).
According to Susan Jane Brown, co-chair of the Northwest Forest Plan Federal Advisory Committee, 260 employees were fired between Washington and Oregon. The U.S. Forest Service did not respond to a request for comment.
The number of National Park Service employees in Washington who were fired is not yet known. According to Roger Oakes, with the Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club, a longtime Olympic National Park employee was fired who typically drove a sand truck that prepares the road up to the ski area at the park’s highest road-accessible point. Hurricane Ridge had a delayed opening Sunday due to the employee’s absence, but Oakes says the park is working to backfill the role.
The National Park Service did not respond to a request for comment.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this reporting. Seattle Times data journalist Manuel Villa contributed reporting.
