A federal fire captain told NBC News that recruitment and onboarding of thousands of federal firefighters could have fatal consequences as national wildfire responses “decreases”, freezing recruitment and onboarding, freezing cards Mania County.

The federal recruitment freeze ordered by Donald Trump last month will hinder the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to “provide the life-saving services Americans deserve.”

The U.S. Forest Service, Land Administration and the National Park Service have hired more than 15,000 professional and temporary seasonal firefighters who do fuel management, put out wild fires and assist other agencies in emergency situations under the National Incident Management System. .

Hiring federal firefighters is a long process because federal background checks are required, which raises concerns among McLan and other senior firefighters that federal forces will be understaffed during the 2025 fire season, which is technically The year has begun, but it has actually begun - round.

"I have the firefighters I should bring, and I can't do that because our HR practice has stopped until the recruitment is frozen, or they are allowed to continue," McLane said in an interview last week. 2023 Tunnel 5 Fire ruins, the fire burned 500 acres. “That’s simple.”

McLane took NBC News to visit the area, with winter storms covering the Columbia River Canyon and snow falling on the remains of the house destroyed by the fire.

“It’s the time of year when we’re training, we’re preparing, and we’re qualifying for the service that needs answers when summer comes,” McLean said, a nonprofit grassroots field firefighter, advocacy organization.

From the time when snowflakes covered his hair and jacket, his hair and jacket worked as an elite “Hotshot” firefighter in Lake County, California, McLane refuted the idea of ​​putting out a fire and preparing to defeat it.

“The only fire season still exists in our administrative practice,” he said.

McLane said his work as a senior hot guy brought him to the fires throughout the United States, "from Alabama to New Hampshire to California, Alaska, in between." He's the Forest The Services Agency's "original attack response" to the 2018 camp fire in California Paradise, the deadliest in state history.

Officials at the USDA for Forest Services did not respond to Tuesday’s request for comment.

But the newly confirmed USDA Secretary, who oversees the Department of Forest Services, thanked firefighters for their mutual aid response to last month’s deadly Los Angeles wildfires in a video released Friday.

"The USDA has the largest and most complex field fire workforce in the world, and I am committed to ensuring you have the tools and resources you need to perform your mission safely and effectively."

She has not addressed the recruitment freeze and has no impact on the firefighters she talks to.

A seasonal firefighter has worked with the federal government for six years and told NBC News for four popular staff that while he completed drug testing and background checks and received a letter from the federal government that he would be rehired, The official proposal has not arrived yet.

“There are a lot of talented people saying, ‘Tighten, I’m going to work in a county or state job.’ The task of government efficiency is to reduce the size of the federal government.

“My deeper focus on the recruitment freeze is if it’s not resolved during shooting season, will it leave our place?” he said. “I spent 400 days on the baseball field fighting wildfires. We are wildfire experts. That’s what we do, we’re good at.

“If our workforce continues to be phased out, the experience that will be lost is irreplaceable.”

More than a dozen Democratic senators have called for firefighters to be spared from freezing.

"The recruitment and induction of federal seasonal firefighters has been suspended - while the historic wildfires have destroyed communities and subversive livelihoods in the West -" they wrote last week in a letter to the Trump administration last week. wrote in a letter to the Trump administration last week.

With more than 3,000 forest service colleagues fired last week, McLean said it was important that he shouted: “Our country’s wildfire response system goes beyond politics because wildfires go beyond politics, it’s the right thing to do, and it’s the right thing to do and ensure that the public receives the services they deserve and the services they pay for. "