Anonymousabout 3 hours ago
The newly formed U.S. Wildland Fire Service enters its first operational season with roughly 5,700 Interior Department personnel and a $6.55 billion budget request — but without the Forest Service's 11,000+ firefighters, who remain under a separate agency pending Congressional approval. With 61% of the Lower 48 in drought, nearly 1.8 million acres already burned by early May, and forecasts projecting up to 8 million acres could burn by year's end, career firefighters and critics warn that the consolidation has introduced new coordination gaps at the worst possible time.