Latest news with #U.S.ForestService
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump administration reverses USDA office closures in California
The Trump administration has reversed its decision to shutter eight California outposts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to a letter from agency head Brooke Rollins. The about-face came at the urging of a group of Democratic California lawmakers led by Sen. Adam Schiff, who decried plans from the the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency to close USDA offices in Bakerserfield, Blythe, Los Angeles, Madera, Mt. Shasta, Oxnard, Salinas, Woodland and Yreka. "Closure of these offices would severely hamper USDA's ability to support farmers imperative to California's agricultural success," the lawmakers wrote in a May 14 letter addressed to Rollins and Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration. The original closure plans came amid sweeping layoffs and lease terminations at government agencies across the country led by Elon Musk's DOGE team — including nearly two dozen California offices related to science, agriculture and the environment. Musk has since stepped down. The Trump administration said the terminations would provide considerable cost savings for the American people. The USDA offices slated for closure included outposts of the Farm Services Agency, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Agricultural Marketing Service, and the U.S. Forest Service, which had a combined annual lease cost of $809,000, according to the DOGE database. Read more: Musk team targets nearly two dozen environmental offices for closure in California In their letter, the lawmakers said farmers rely on USDA field offices for loans, grants, technical assistance, and in-person meetings with USDA staff, and that "closing these vital centers will make it more difficult for farmers to access the essential resources farmers must be able to rely on." They noted California is the nation's largest agricultural state, and that its farms received nearly $59.4 billion in cash receipts for their output in 2023 alone. The closures would put additional burdens on farmers "already navigating an uncertain agricultural economy" due to funding freezes, tariffs and other challenges, according to the lawmakers, who also included Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Adam Gray (D-Merced), Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel Valley Village), Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Anglees) and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). In her May 30 response, Rollins said she has directed the GSA to rescind the termination notices for eight of the nine offices, save for the one in Mt. Shasta. According to the DOGE database, that office was a 536-square-foot outpost of the U.S. Forest Service with an annual lease cost of $12,000. "USDA is still in discussions with GSA concerning the viability of continuing that lease or if the services provided out of that office can be performed in a more suitable location," Rollins wrote. She added that the agency "supports optimizing building capacity and consolidating underutilized offices to reduce inefficiencies, while continuing to prioritize frontline services for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities." Schiff cheered the decision. "I would like to thank Secretary Rollins for engaging with us to ensure that Californians have access to these crucial services," he said in a statement. "I will keep pushing the administration to ensure that critical USDA offices in California continue to operate without interruption." This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
9 hours ago
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Trump administration reverses USDA office closures in California
The Trump administration has reversed its decision to shutter eight California outposts of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to a letter from agency head Brooke Rollins. The about-face came at the urging of a group of Democratic California lawmakers led by Sen. Adam Schiff, who decried plans from the the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency to close USDA offices in Bakerserfield, Blythe, Los Angeles, Madera, Mt. Shasta, Oxnard, Salinas, Woodland and Yreka. 'Closure of these offices would severely hamper USDA's ability to support farmers imperative to California's agricultural success,' the lawmakers wrote in a May 14 letter addressed to Rollins and Stephen Ehikian, acting administrator of the U.S. General Services Administration. The original closure plans came amid sweeping layoffs and lease terminations at government agencies across the country led by Elon Musk's DOGE team — including nearly two dozen California offices related to science, agriculture and the environment. Musk has since stepped down. The Trump administration said the terminations would provide considerable cost savings for the American people. The USDA offices slated for closure included outposts of the Farm Services Agency, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Agricultural Marketing Service, and the U.S. Forest Service, which had a combined annual lease cost of $809,000, according to the DOGE database. In their letter, the lawmakers said farmers rely on USDA field offices for loans, grants, technical assistance, and in-person meetings with USDA staff, and that 'closing these vital centers will make it more difficult for farmers to access the essential resources farmers must be able to rely on.' They noted California is the nation's largest agricultural state, and that its farms received nearly $59.4 billion in cash receipts for their output in 2023 alone. The closures would put additional burdens on farmers 'already navigating an uncertain agricultural economy' due to funding freezes, tariffs and other challenges, according to the lawmakers, who also included Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara), Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Adam Gray (D-Merced), Jimmy Panetta (D-Carmel Valley Village), Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Anglees) and Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose). In her May 30 response, Rollins said she has directed the GSA to rescind the termination notices for eight of the nine offices, save for the one in Mt. Shasta. According to the DOGE database, that office was a 536-square-foot outpost of the U.S. Forest Service with an annual lease cost of $12,000. 'USDA is still in discussions with GSA concerning the viability of continuing that lease or if the services provided out of that office can be performed in a more suitable location,' Rollins wrote. She added that the agency 'supports optimizing building capacity and consolidating underutilized offices to reduce inefficiencies, while continuing to prioritize frontline services for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.' Schiff cheered the decision. 'I would like to thank Secretary Rollins for engaging with us to ensure that Californians have access to these crucial services,' he said in a statement. 'I will keep pushing the administration to ensure that critical USDA offices in California continue to operate without interruption.'
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
As US braces for ‘significant' wildfires, Trump's agriculture secretary addresses Forest Service departures
The Trump administration is prepared for what could be a "significant fire season," despite thousands of Forest Service employees departing under Trump's deferred resignation offer, according to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins. "It did not compromise and will not compromise at all, 1%, what needs to be done to make sure that we are ready," Rollins told Fox News Digital Friday. More than 4,000 U.S. Forest Service employees voluntarily resigned under buyouts offered by the Trump administration, according to a POLITICO report. Wildland firefighters were largely exempt from the buyouts and a federal hiring freeze, but blue state leaders say President Donald Trump's slash-and-burn approach cuts key support staff. Sen. Schiff Urges Trump Admin To Exclude Firefighters From Federal Hiring Freeze "The reality is that Trump has decimated the U.S. Forest Service," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a May press conference. "Nearly every single Forest Service employee supports fire operations in some capacity." Read On The Fox News App Many of the workers who departed held Red Cards, meaning they have special training to either fight fires or "provide essential frontline support to the firefighting crews," Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, said. But Rollins said the Biden administration wasted taxpayer funds on unsustainable and irresponsible hiring of people who "really had no job description." "That was in the — not hundreds — in the thousands of hirings that went on just in the Forest Service in the last administration," she said, adding that the service is becoming "more lean" but no less effective. La Mayor Karen Bass Accused Of Deleting Texts In Wake Of Wildfire Disaster Rollins and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed a memo on May 20 signaling the Trump administration's wildfire response strategy. It calls for the elimination of barriers and "unnecessary procedures" to ensure a rapid response when wildfires threaten life and property. The memo also directs the Forest Service to examine the impact of "voluntary departures" on the firefighting workforce and propose a plan to "remedy critical vacancies." Non-fire staff should also be deployed to support frontline firefighters as wildfire activity increases, allowing for a "more robust and more intentional and more effective force as we move into this season," Rollins said. "But we are not going to waste taxpayer dollars the way that we've seen happen in the past," she said. Wildfires have already scorched more than one million acres across the country so far this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. The center's outlook shows higher temperatures and drier conditions than typical across much of the West this summer. "Our prayer is that it won't actually happen, that it will be lighter than usual, but indicators are showing that it actually may be a heavy fire season," Rollins said. She added she's confident Americans will see "an unprecedented level of coordination" among federal, state and local governments as the summer progresses. "There is zero compromising [on] having the most prepared, most effective [firefighters]," Rollins said. "And we'll do everything possible to ensure that they have every tool they need to be successful this season."Original article source: As US braces for 'significant' wildfires, Trump's agriculture secretary addresses Forest Service departures
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Surviving dogs, a backcountry rescue: Story of deadly plane crash in Idaho retold
For former U.S. Forest Service smokejumper Wayne Williams, the best part of reading an Idaho author's recent book was finding out what happened to the dog at the end. Williams was one of the first responders who helped rescue survivors, recover the deceased and clear the wreckage of the June 1979 plane crash chronicled in the book 'In Selway Shadows: Last Flight of 148Z,' written by Richard Holm, a backcountry pilot based in McCall, and published in March. Williams, a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, spent the first night at the scene of the crash camped beside the dog, Bess, a retriever-German shepherd mix who'd sustained a fractured leg when the plane went down in the Selway River. After the dog was evacuated the next day by plane, Williams never learned what happened to her. Holm tracked down details — like what happened to Bess — by poring over documents and interviewing witnesses, including the two survivors of the crash to create the most complete account of the event, which killed 10 people. Holm's book offers a look at life before the flight, the crash's impact on survivors and the victims' families and the ways a wilderness community rallied to recover the wreckage from a near-impossible crash site. It also details an investigation that shows how this became the deadliest aviation incident in Forest Service history. 'It's a tragic story, but it's also one of a lot of heroism,' Holm told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview. 'The larger story is made up of all these incredible smaller stories that are just truly unbelievable.' Holm first heard about Flight 148Z while working on a book about the history of Idaho's backcountry airstrips. But the topic 'kind of fell in my lap again,' he said, through a friend he'd met in his research — Cindy Bartholf, a former archaeologist with the Nez Perce National Forest near Grangeville in North Idaho. Bartholf contacted Holm in 2016 about an airplane data tag that a Florida man had 'returned' to the forest. He said he found it in the Selway River in the fall of 1979 during a rafting trip and believed it to be from Flight 148Z. Bartholf was puzzled with the data tag, which was stamped with information that identified the plane as a U.S. Army Air Forces and Douglas Aircraft C-47A. Flight 148Z was a different type of aircraft, a Douglas Aircraft DC-3. Holm suspects the artifact is authentic. The two aircraft were similar — the C-47A was used in World War II as a military plane, while the DC-3 was considered its civilian equivalent. In his book, Holm said Flight 148Z could have been built as a C-47A during the war and converted to a non-military plane used by the Forest Service. Regardless, the aluminum tag sparked his interest in the crash. And Bartholf was the perfect contact. Her father, Art Seamans, led the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness's Moose Creek Ranger District in 1979. He had ordered the ill-fated aircraft for a training that was planned at the remote ranger station. Bartholf and her mother and sister were slated to be on Flight 148Z. 'Fortunately, we flew in on an earlier flight, on a Cessna 206, with a local air service,' Bartholf told the Statesman in an email. 'Knowing that we could have been on the plane has and will forever haunt me. God had a different plan for us.' When the DC-3 took off from Grangeville on June 11, 1979, it carried 10 passengers, two pilots and two dogs. All the passengers sat along the lefthand side of the plane, while cargo was arranged on the right. One of the survivors, then-17-year-old Moose Creek assistant station guard Bryant Stringham, later told Holm he recalled watching the scenery of the Idaho wilderness from the windows across the aircraft as his beagle, Beetle, seemed agitated and cocked his head back and forth at the engine across the aisle. Holm said halfway into the 30-minute flight, the pilots noticed an issue with the engine on the left side of the plane, which had overheated. The pilots turned it off, he said, knowing the airplane was certified to fly on a single engine if it had to. Within about a minute, the right engine exploded in front of the passengers' eyes and fell away from the plane. The pilots fought to land the plane in the Selway as rafters and hikers — including a Spokesman-Review photographer who snapped a famous photo — watched its descent. Only three people made it out of the plane: Stringham; helitack firefighter Charlie Dietz, 26; and Nez Perce National Forest engineer Andy Taylor, 59. Taylor died of injuries from the crash as Williams' smokejumper team administered first aid at the scene. Both dogs, Bess and Beetle, also survived. Beetle was found by a hiker and returned to Stringham, who, after helping the other two surviving passengers, went for help. He rode on horseback to the Moose Creek Ranger Station before being put on another plane back to Grangeville with Beetle. The Army National Guard airlifted Dietz, who was badly injured in the crash, by helicopter to Spokane. The smokejumper team had settled down to camp for the night, and some of them sheltered Bess and built a fire to keep her comfortable. A helicopter took Bess back to Grangeville the next day. It was the last Williams heard of the dog until he read Holm's book. Bess had belonged to Catherine 'Tykie' Hodgin, who was flying out to staff the fire lookout at Shissler Peak. Hodgin died in the crash. Bess was treated for a fractured leg and adopted by Hodgin's friend and ex-husband, Dan Hodgin, Holm said in the book. That day, Williams' smokejumper team was told to return to base in Missoula, Montana. But Williams and four others asked to stay. 'We didn't have any idea what we would be up against, most of us,' Williams told the Statesman in a phone interview. He remained in Moose Creek for a week, initially recovering aircraft debris but soon recovering the bodies of the victims. He worked alongside employees from other Forest Service districts, including Moose Creek, where many of the victims were already well-known. The remote area was one of few wilderness districts in the Forest Service at the time, and the primitive requirements there forced employees to work closely and forged a deep sense of pride in their work, Williams said. The wilderness proved especially challenging when it came to removing the remaining wreckage of the airplane from the fast-moving Selway River. Officials leaned on two Moose Creek employees who had built many of the primitive-style bridges in the wilderness area, for a solution. Holm said the pair crafted 'block and tackle' pulley systems that helped lift both aircraft engines, the tail and the wing from the river. Holm's book delves into the Forest Service investigation that identified what went wrong with both engines — a series of 'very poor maintenance' and other repair and inspection errors for which no individual or agency ever took responsibility, Holm said. He wove the technical aviation story alongside the stories of the people who were lost, those who survived and the dozens more who were impacted by the crash. Williams and Bartholf said they were taken back to June 1979 as they spoke with Holm, and again when they read 'In Selway Shadows' and saw the incident from other perspectives. For Bartholf, it was an emotional journey that reminded her of summers spent on the Moose Creek Ranger District with her family. She shared documents with Holm that her parents had saved, including funeral programs, letters to victims' families and her father's handwritten manifest for the flight. She said it was 'surreal' to read about her family's experiences but applauded Holm's ability to bring Moose Creek to life and show the human element of a story that, until now, had only been told in bits and pieces. Williams said he recently met with another smokejumper from the crew that responded on the day of the crash to discuss the book. The men talked about how the book brought back details they'd forgotten in the decades since the crash, and taught them things they never knew — like what happened to Bess. 'It was in some sense sort of enlightening in one way and sort of sad in another,' Williams said. 'I know more now about the people who died on that aircraft than I did on the day the rescue took place. The book introduced me to those individuals who I'd never known.'
Hindustan Times
4 days ago
- Climate
- Hindustan Times
Frazier Park fire: Map, location, and evacuation updates as blaze grows to 150 acres in Kern County, California
A fast-moving brush fire erupted near Frazier Park on Thursday afternoon, prompting a swift joint response from the Kern County Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service. Fueled by dry conditions and strong winds, the blaze posed an immediate threat to nearby homes and vegetation, drawing multiple firefighting units to the scene. See the Frazier Prak fire map here. Also Read: Yellowstone to Yosemite: 10 epic national parks to explore in June 2025 The Frazier Park fire ignited in the mountainous region of Frazier Park, California, triggering a rapid emergency response. First reported just before 2 p.m. on May 29, 2025, the fire began near 1442 Frazier Mountain Park Road, close to the intersection with Cuddy Canyon Road—an area situated just east of the heart of the Frazier Park community, as reported by Bakersfield The fire quickly spread across rugged terrain, raising concerns for nearby residents and prompting swift action from both the Kern County Fire Department and the U.S. Forest Service. Also Read: Nathan Vilas Laatsch: US govt employee arrested for attempting to leak classified info to a foreign government As the Frazier Fire continues to grow, evacuation warnings have been issued for nearby communities due to its proximity to residential areas. According to The Signal Santa Clarita Valley, while no mandatory evacuations or designated shelters have been officially confirmed at this time, authorities continue to monitor the situation closely and are urging residents in the affected and surrounding areas to stay vigilant. The fast-moving nature of the Frazier Fire and its proximity to homes have prompted precautionary evacuation warnings. The evacuation warnings are still in place at this time amid the growing blaze, says the KFCD.
