Colorado Outdoor Groups Warn of Increased Wildfire, Avalanche Risks Due to Federal Layoffs

Members of the outdoor recreation industry are sounding the alarm as federal layoffs continue to impact public lands management throughout the nation.

More than 110 outdoor organizations and businesses sent a letter to Congress last week, urging legislators to do everything in their power to restore lost jobs and "intervene with the [Trump] administration as necessary" to ensure adequate staffing of public lands agencies. Over a dozen Colorado groups signed on to the effort.

Thousands of public lands employees were fired in February as part of President Donald Trump's effort to decrease government spending. That included around 3,400 workers from the U.S. Forest Service, 1,000 from the National Park Service and 800 from the Bureau of Land Management. A federal board ordered many of the employees to be reinstated this month, but Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has since directed the agencies to submit plans for layoffs.

"The outdoor recreation community and outdoor industry businesses are deeply alarmed," reads the letter sent on March 14. "These cuts will negatively affect the recreation experience on public lands and waters, harm local economies, and endanger public lands communities."

According to the letter, the layoffs have cut staff at some land management units by up to 30 percent. Many of the impacted workers are on-the-ground employees who maintain trails, campgrounds and recreation infrastructure. Without them, access to and quality of public lands could quickly diminish, experts say.

Beyond that, the outdoor organizations warn that specific layoffs increase risks of natural disasters, including wildfires and avalanches. The letter claims the "overwhelming majority" of employees fired from the Forest Service were trained to work on wildfire response.

"We are also highly concerned that wildfire risk reduction projects will be delayed or canceled as a result of staffing losses," the letter reads. "With wildfire seasons growing longer and more intense, cutting these positions now will only exacerbate the challenges our public lands face and further strain agency capacity."

This comes as Colorado has suffered increasingly frequent and severe wildfires; the state saw around 7,200 fires annually from 2020 to 2023, compared to around 3,400 per year between 2000 and 2003. The twenty largest wildfires in Colorado have all occurred after 2001, including the state's largest wildfire (Cameron Peak in 2020) and its most destructive wildfire (Marshall in 2021).

In addition, the letter says staffing losses at the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Lakewood have left the agency unable to maintain weather stations across the West.

"Not only does SNOTEL data inform avalanche forecasts, the snowpack information collected through the SNOTEL network is critical to informing the National Interagency Fire Center’s predictive services season outlook," the letter reads.

Last month, Colorado recorded more than 500 avalanches in just ten days, trapping fourteen people and killing two.

The mass firing of federal employees impacted more than 150 Forest Service workers and fifty Park Service workers in Colorado. More layoffs are expected for Colorado employees, as the Trump administration plans to terminate the National Park Service's office leases in Fort Collins and Lakewood.

The outdoor recreation organizations that signed the letter to Congress include the following Colorado-based groups: Conservation Lands Foundation, Continental Divide Trail Coalition, Friends of the Routt Backcountry, International Mountain Bicycling Association, Outdoor Industry Association, Protect Our Winters, Silverton Singletrack Society, Summit County Mountain Bike Alliance, Tenth Mountain Division Hut Association, The American Alpine Club, The Conservation Alliance, Trails Magazine and WildKind Inc.