The U.S. Forest Service announced on April 1 that it is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities across 31 states. It is also shuttering all nine regional offices and moving its headquarters out of Washington, DC. The reorganization eliminates 74 percent of the agency's research capacity.[1]

It was announced on April 1. Wildfire season begins in May.

The closures are not evenly distributed. California loses six research stations — the state with the most destructive wildfire history in the country. Mississippi loses five. Michigan loses four. Utah loses three. These are not random cuts. They are cuts to the states that depend most on Forest Service research for fire prediction, forest health monitoring and ecosystem management.[2]

The Scale

The Forest Service has 77 research and development stations. After the closures, 20 will remain. The agency employs roughly 5,000 research scientists, technicians and support staff. The number of positions that will be eliminated has not been disclosed, but the scale of the facility closures suggests a reduction of at least 60 percent.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins described the closures as a "streamlining" effort. The interactive map at MoreThanJustParks.com tells a different story — a systematic dismantling of the agency's research infrastructure, with facilities closed or "gutted" across every region.[6]

The Timing

April 1 is not a coincidence. It is the beginning of the federal fiscal year's second quarter, the period when wildfire preparedness funding is allocated. By closing research stations before the allocation, the USDA ensures that the remaining 20 stations will receive the entire research budget — a budget that was designed for 77.

The result is not streamlining. It is starvation.[3]

The Impact

Forest Service research stations do not just study trees. They study wildfire behavior, predict fire risk, develop fire-resistant building materials, monitor air quality during fire season, and provide data that local fire departments use to plan evacuations. The closure of these stations means less data, fewer predictions and more communities flying blind into fire season.[4]

California's six lost stations include facilities that study chaparral fire behavior, post-fire erosion and the impact of drought on forest health. Mississippi's five stations study longleaf pine restoration and prescribed fire management. Michigan's four stations study boreal forest ecology and the impact of climate change on northern forests.[5]

None of this research will be replicated by the remaining 20 stations. It will simply stop.

The Politics

The Forest Service is part of the USDA, which is part of the Trump administration. The closures are not an act of nature. They are a policy choice. And the policy choice is to reduce the federal government's capacity to study, predict and respond to environmental threats.

The same administration that is fighting a war abroad is dismantling the science that protects Americans at home. The connection is not direct. But the pattern is clear: institutions that study, predict and protect are being replaced by institutions that react, respond and recover.

Prevention is being replaced by response. Research is being replaced by reaction. And wildfire season is coming.

-- SAMUEL CRANE, Washington