Firefighter hiring hang-ups
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The Trump administration’s federal hiring freeze has stopped the onboarding of thousands of seasonal federal firefighters, including those who work for agencies called on to help battle the devastating Los Angeles-area fires, creating a potential shortfall of firefighters ahead of the next fire season.
Even though President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order says the freeze does not apply to positions related to “public safety,” federal firefighters are not exempt, according to a person who works in hiring at the Bureau of Land Management.
The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service employ more than 15,000 career and temporary seasonal firefighters who perform fuel management, fight wildland fires and assist other jurisdictions in emergencies as part of the National Incident Management System.
In at least one field office for the Bureau of Land Management, a division of the Interior Department, officials involved in annual hiring were instructed in an email reviewed by NBC News to “hold all offers related to fire positions” because of the freeze.
The agency “was already in the middle of hiring their summer [fire] workforce when the federal hiring freeze came down,” a federal hiring manager in Utah told NBC affiliate KSL in Salt Lake City.
Another BLM official involved in hiring said, “The level of stupidity and negligence here is enraging.”
“What if there’s nobody to show up? How many people died with garden hoses in their hands?” the person said. “The people making these decisions — they’re not the ones whose houses are going to burn down.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trumps-freeze-stalls-federal-firefighter-hiring-rcna191001
