Land management agency impact stories...

[BigHornRam]

Yep, more of that to come if there's no timber crews.

Sad deal.

Who is going to bid on this sale with Pyramid gone?

Fuels reduction project planned near Condon

Flathead National Forest is seeking public input on the environmental assessment for the Rumbling Owl Fuels Reduction Project.

bigforkeagle.com

 

[BuzzH]

Who is going to bid on this sale with Pyramid gone?

Fuels reduction project planned near Condon

Flathead National Forest is seeking public input on the environmental assessment for the Rumbling Owl Fuels Reduction Project.

bigforkeagle.com

Don't know, but where I hunted sheep in Montana this fall, they were hauling logs from Gird creek to Grangeville and was a FS sale.

I just hope the FS has enough employees to continue putting sales up for bid.

 

[Beignet]

This article's tagline says the cuts could impede firefighting efforts because personnel have been let go, and then in the third paragraph says firefighting jobs have not been affected...if we're going to post stories lets make sure we post stuff that is factual and not just hyperbolic, hysteria helps nobody and distracts from making a real difference.

All those folks have some cross training. To my knowledge pretty much any field employee of a land management adjacent agency can get “drafted,” or red carded to participate in a fire fighting effort. And it happens often in a bad fire year. Not to mention the other mitigation efforts they participate in outside of fire season, as others have pointed out.

 

[mtmuley]

Guess the Gold Butterfly probly won't happen. mtmuley

 

[stealthy_bowman]

I'm not sure what to really think at this point yet. Sure, I feel very sorry for impacted workers, especially as this comes as a total shock for government employees since restructuring in government never takes place. Having spent my own career, spanning almost 3 decades in large cap publicly traded corporations, restructuring is a way of life and an essential one at that to ensure the long-term viability of a company.

Companies need to adapt in order to survive and thrive in a dynamic business environment. This is just normal and corporate professionals quickly learn to accept that as a fact of life. With every corporate restructuring, many impacted employees will naturally be upset and make statements that the company just will not be able to go on and succeed post restructuring. More often than not however, we see the opposite being true and companies often thrive post such changes and eventually also rebuild their workforces with new staff having the appropriate skillsets to navigate the challenges of the future.

I just wonder if this is what we are seeing in the Federal government. Any restructuring always sucks for those impacted. Probably one of the most stressful things that a person can go through and I feel for everyone impacted. That said, from time to time, governments too need to reevaluate their operations and adjust accordingly, just like businesses do. We can't just keep things the same just because they have always been that way, some degree of adaptation is undoubtedly warranted. The alternative is continuing to grow the national debt and to perpetually raise taxes to fill budget gaps. At some point, this just isn't sustainable and a reality check is needed.

At any rate, I certainly don’t want to see negative impacts to our beloved natural resources as a result of these cuts and I don’t think the outcome is clear yet. Does every agency have some fat that can likely be trimmed? Probably, I just hope they don’t overdo it…

 

[BuzzH]

https://www.kpax.com/news/missoula-county/usfs-cuts-thousands-of-jobs-laid-off-montana-forester-speaks-ou

 

[BuzzH]

I'm not sure what to really think at this point yet. Sure, I feel very sorry for impacted workers, especially as this comes as a total shock for government employees since restructuring in government never takes place. Having spent my own career, spanning almost 3 decades in large cap publicly traded corporations, restructuring is a way of life and an essential one at that to ensure the long-term viability of a company.

Companies need to adapt in order to survive and thrive in a dynamic business environment. This is just normal and corporate professionals quickly learn to accept that as a fact of life. With every corporate restructuring, many impacted employees will naturally be upset and make statements that the company just will not be able to go on and succeed post restructuring. More often than not however, we see the opposite being true and companies often thrive post such changes and eventually also rebuild their workforces with new staff having the appropriate skillsets to navigate the challenges of the future.

I just wonder if this is what we are seeing in the Federal government. Any restructuring always sucks for those impacted. Probably one of the most stressful things that a person can go through and I feel for everyone impacted. That said, from time to time, governments too need to reevaluate their operations and adjust accordingly, just like businesses do. We can't just keep things the same just because they have always been that way, some degree of adaptation is undoubtedly warranted. The alternative is continuing to grow the national debt and to perpetually raise taxes to fill budget gaps. At some point, this just isn't sustainable and a reality check is needed.

At any rate, I certainly don’t want to see negative impacts to our beloved natural resources as a result of these cuts and I don’t think the outcome is clear yet. Does every agency have some fat that can likely be trimmed? Probably, I just hope they don’t overdo it…

Not the right place for this...this is about the stories of the people that are having their lives impacted from being fired. Wrongfully fired I might add.

 

[BuzzH]

Layoffs leave Montana U.S. Forest Service workers devastated

The Trump Administration fired thousands of U.S. Forest and National Park Service employees as part of a larger push to cut government spending.

www.ktvq.com

 

[BuzzH]

‘It Hurts So Much’: Wilderness Workers and Park Employees Reel from Layoffs as Cuts to Federal Workforce Manifest in Montana - Flathead Beacon

When Jack Carroll received an email Friday explaining that his position with the Flathead National Forest was terminated because he “had not demonstrated that further employment at the agency would be in the public interest,” he replayed a greatest-hits list of memories spanning six summers of...

flatheadbeacon.com

 

[BigHornRam]

Don't know, but where I hunted sheep in Montana this fall, they were hauling logs from Gird creek to Grangeville and was a FS sale.

I just hope the FS has enough employees to continue putting sales up for bid.

That's a long haul. What were they hauling? P pine?

 

[BuzzH]

That's a long haul. What were they hauling? P pine?

Mostly, some Doug-fir as well.

 

[mtmuley]

That's a long haul. What were they hauling? P pine?

I see tandems with small logs headed North every morning when I head up the West Fork. mtmuley

 

[INMT]

Who is going to bid on this sale with Pyramid gone?

Fuels reduction project planned near Condon

Flathead National Forest is seeking public input on the environmental assessment for the Rumbling Owl Fuels Reduction Project.

bigforkeagle.com

Stoltze might. There is a lot of logging happening around West Glacier by a family operation out of Eureka. They’re willing to travel.

 

[LuketheDog]

It is factual. Most all field going staff are red carded, including many in the group I work with.

In the past we/they were called pick up crews or district crews. Also, many would be on the fire lists as a single resource (sawyers, safety officers, spotters, etc. etc.). Even further, many district folks are fire camp support, distributing tools, taking care of fire tools, time keepers, and all other sorts of logistics duties. Lots of moving parts with fighting wildland fire, in particular during fire busts or project fires.

Now they call those district crews "militia".

I can post a few hundred pictures of times I spent as both officially on fire crews, helitack crews, and also district/milita crews. In all of those situations we were used for initial attack on fires on district, on forest, and nation wide.

Make no mistake that a lot of wildland fire fighting is done by trail crews, by timber crews, BD crews, even office staff. I've worked on districts where even the office secretaries were digging fire-line right along side the fire crew. Some of them were tougher than woodpecker lips too. I even fought fire beside a district ranger or two in my day as well.

So, don't try to bullshit me and everyone else, because I lived it from 1987-1994 and sucked more smoke and dirt and fought more fire than you'll ever see. Unlike you, I'm not forced to guess.

Now, back to the stories about those that are being impacted by the latest firing...

Then post the article with better info! It ain't that hard right? Half the battle here is sorting through the biased BS...

 

[BuzzH]

Then post the article with better info! It ain't that hard right? Half the battle here is sorting through the biased BS...

Personal stories are theirs, if you don't like it then move along.

 

[MarvB]

https://www.ijpr.org/business-and-l...alifornia-as-part-of-trump-efficiency-efforts

 

[elkduds]

National park closure....

Saguaro National Park visitor centers to close on Mondays

The park didn't give a reason for the closure but it comes after 1,000 National Park employees were laid off by the Trump administration.

www.12news.com

 

[INMT]

I'm not sure what to really think at this point yet. Sure, I feel very sorry for impacted workers, especially as this comes as a total shock for government employees since restructuring in government never takes place. Having spent my own career, spanning almost 3 decades in large cap publicly traded corporations, restructuring is a way of life and an essential one at that to ensure the long-term viability of a company.

Companies need to adapt in order to survive and thrive in a dynamic business environment. This is just normal and corporate professionals quickly learn to accept that as a fact of life. With every corporate restructuring, many impacted employees will naturally be upset and make statements that the company just will not be able to go on and succeed post restructuring. More often than not however, we see the opposite being true and companies often thrive post such changes and eventually also rebuild their workforces with new staff having the appropriate skillsets to navigate the challenges of the future.

I just wonder if this is what we are seeing in the Federal government. Any restructuring always sucks for those impacted. Probably one of the most stressful things that a person can go through and I feel for everyone impacted. That said, from time to time, governments too need to reevaluate their operations and adjust accordingly, just like businesses do. We can't just keep things the same just because they have always been that way, some degree of adaptation is undoubtedly warranted. The alternative is continuing to grow the national debt and to perpetually raise taxes to fill budget gaps. At some point, this just isn't sustainable and a reality check is needed.

At any rate, I certainly don’t want to see negative impacts to our beloved natural resources as a result of these cuts and I don’t think the outcome is clear yet. Does every agency have some fat that can likely be trimmed? Probably, I just hope they don’t overdo it…

The main difference between what you’re referring to in the private sector and what is happening in the government right now is strategy.

Im guessing when a corporation lays people off, it’s more researched and thought out. They don’t bring in outside consultants with zero working knowledge of that business and their teenage minions to haphazardly terminate probationary employees because they have less protections. I’m assuming the cuts have been thought out against how it will prop up their bottom line. None of that is being considered here.

When you have the director of OMB, Russell Vought saying: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected, When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.”

There is something fundamentally wrong with that way of thinking. And it’s not to trim the fat. It’s not going to fix the deficit. They definitely over did it with the cuts to land management agencies.

 

[bullbugle307]

Then post the article with better info! It ain't that hard right? Half the battle here is sorting through the biased BS...

Honestly this just goes to show how little people know about what agency folks actually do. It's fairly common knowledge to anyone doing natural resource work in the west that all kinds of agency folks work fires in a significant capacity.

They can say whatever they want to try and CYA, firefighting will absolutely be negatively impacted this year.

 

[Bambistew]

The government may seem dysfunctional, but generally, IMO its understaffed. I just can't figure out how firing people, destroying moral, and slashing shit is going to be good for anyone.

Going to be hard to drill, baby, drill when there is no one to issue permits and manage the mountains of paperwork.