OPINION: Firing red cards is a red flag

Born and raised in New Mexico, Justin Shatz has loved the forest since he was a kid. He loved it so much that he grew up to be a Forest Service trail technician. Putting in 14-hour days and hiking 20 miles, Justin worked on trails and protected the Gila National Forest for communities like Silver City that rely on the forest as one of their primary economic engines.

It was a career, not a job, and he had every intention of continuing it. But on Feb. 13, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency — “DOGE” — fired him.

When Justin lost his job, we didn’t just lose a talented trails technician. We also lost a wildland firefighter. That’s because Justin is a “red card” holder, which means he is certified to fight wildfires whenever he is mobilized to the fire line. So, when the word comes, Justin trades his hiking boots for over 50 pounds of firefighting equipment. During his time in the Gila, Justin mobilized at least six times to fight fires.

Justin isn’t alone. Around the country, there are some 13,000 red card holders in federal government positions. While their job titles may not say “firefighter” outright, every year Americans rely on these red-card holders to keep their communities safe. And when they aren’t doing the dangerous job of firefighting, those same people are hard at work maintaining our trails and parks.

These are necessary jobs. Across the West, fire season has started, and scientists expect it to be intense. Forecasts predict the entire Southwest will experience elevated fire risk for the entire summer — a season that is now longer and hotter due to climate change. The Southwest has seen 680 fires start already this year, including the Iron Fire currently burning in the Gila National Forest.

The Gila National Forest has only 8% of the snowpack it should have at this time of year. And it is drier everywhere: as of May 1, 96% of New Mexico is experiencing drought. As Justin put it: “Out here, fire is always on everyone’s mind.”

We need dedicated firefighters like Justin now more than ever. But instead of bolstering firefighting resources and supporting folks to protect their communities, President Trump and Elon Musk have eviscerated our firefighting resources.

From issuing a government-wide federal hiring freeze that tossed out job applications from new and aspiring firefighters to illegally firing nearly 3,700 land management staff — three-quarters of whom had red cards — President Trump has shown he does not care about helping Americans. Because it isn’t just the people of New Mexico that will feel the impact in the coming months: Communities across the West, from Utah to Montana to Alaska, will all be in danger.

President Trump and Elon Musk say this is about “government efficiency.” That’s a lie. Our communities will be less safe and less economically stable because of their actions. It’s actually the opposite of efficiency: Wildfires cost the U.S. up to $893 billion every single year.

Without “red card” holders fighting wildfires, we will pay more, in both dollars and lives. In fact, we know it is already having a negative impact: In New Mexico, the Forest Service has only accomplished about 10% of the wildfire mitigation work it would have by this time in an average year.

New Mexicans have seen and felt this devastation up close, with too many still reeling from the impacts. That is why I’ve fought so hard to deliver the resources needed in impacted communities and for our wildland firefighter workforce. I successfully pushed the Biden Administration to increase pay, create new mental health supports, and establish a new wildland fire management job series for federal firefighters. I supported the Biden Administration’s efforts to complete a record-breaking 4.28 million acres of wildfire resilience work last year. And I worked to get the Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act passed to permanently raise pay for wildland firefighters, finally compensating these folks for the demanding and dangerous work they do.

If Trump and Musk want to make sure government delivers results for Americans across the country, they could build off these successes. Instead, they are breaking the systems. As I write this, trash lays in our national parks, instead of being cleaned up by now-fired Park Service workers. Firefighters can’t do their jobs, because they are understaffed and underfunded. And the funds we normally spend on easy fire prevention — like removing brush near our vulnerable communities — remain blocked, frozen or slow-rolled. All of these raise the risk of a spark turning into a fire.

Uncertainty and chaos are key characteristics of DOGE’s actions. For Justin, that meant he was fired and then re-hired, only to still face threats of being re-fired in the coming months. Meanwhile, more than 5,000 of Justin’s colleagues at the Forest Service took the “fork in the road” option to leave the agency and are already gone, with no apparent successors. There’s nothing efficient about that.

When I talked to Justin, I asked him what it means to see firefighting resources being taken away. He said: “We fight hundreds and thousands of fires every year, and we protect the smallest and most rural populations in New Mexico. These are ancestral homes. These are ways of life.”

We cannot let President Trump and Elon Musk put our communities, our forests, or our ways of life at risk. It’s up to all of us to raise our voices, before DOGE’s chaos sparks the next massive wildfire.