Playing With Fire: How Doug Burgum Is Leaving Communities Defenseless
Memorandum: Playing With Fire: How Doug Burgum Is Leaving Communities Defenseless
To: Interested Parties
From: Save Our Parks
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Contact:Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks Spokesperson
America is heading into what experts are calling one of the most dangerous wildfire seasons in recent memory, and Doug Burgum has spent the past year systematically dismantling the federal response capacity needed to fight it. The non-transparent and unanswered questions about consolidation, funding, staffing, private contracting, mitigation, and seasonal hiring under Secretary Burgum should be deeply concerning for Congress and state and local officials.
The warning signs are everywhere. With a thin snowpack across Western mountains and a widespread drought gripping much of the country, the nation is essentially a tinderbox heading into summer. Dry conditions and hot temperatures, combined with the severe decline of mitigation under the Trump administration last year, are setting the stage for another dangerous season, with elevated wildfire risk concentrated across much of the American West. In Idaho’s Blaine County, Sawtooth National Forest officials warned local leaders that the 2026 wildfire season has the potential to be exceptionally active. When wildfires do break out, the costs are staggering and growing exponentially as Trump’s Iran war sends jet fuel prices skyrocketing.
The financial pressure is crushing state and local governments too. Western states are running out of money to fight wildfires, routinely spending well over their forecasted budgets as the climate crisis fuels hotter fires year-round. Oregon, for example, spent more than $350 million fighting wildfires in 2024, dwarfing the $10 million it had actually budgeted for the year. Now more than ever, states need a federal partner. Instead, Burgum is making things worse.
Rather than bolstering federal fire preparedness at this critical moment, Burgum has non-transparently gutted and consolidated it, compounding the danger for Americans through a consistent pattern of disregard for basic fire safety. Burgum’s Interior Department slashed staffing, eliminated positions, and, if the park service seasonal workforce hiring is any indication, seasonal wildfire hiring is more than likely a ‘sh**show’ under Burgum as well.
Burgum and the Trump administration’s actions, like the rescission of the Roadless Rule and voiding vehicle use restrictions, are stripping away the protections that keep forests healthy and fire-resistant. Meanwhile,critical wildfire prevention funding is now at risk under the administration’s budget priorities. And whena fire broke out near the Grand Canyon last year year, it offered a preview of what Burgum’s understaffed, underfunded response looks like in a real emergency.
And, Burgum’s non-transparent reorganization of federal firefighting infrastructure has made a bad situation worse. A restructuring, combined with ‘the DOGE’ing of many experienced staff qualified to join the fight, has heightened expert concern about the country’s ability to respond this season.
This is all the direct result of Burgum’s fail-by-design approach to public lands and parks, one that cuts, guts, and deregulates in service of special interests while leaving parks, public lands, communities, and families exposed to the consequences. Americans who love their public lands, from the Sandhills of Nebraska to the forests of the Sierra Nevada, are the ones paying the price.
Minutes and seconds matter in emergency response. An established and functioning change of command and communications system can mean the difference between life and death, yet the reality under Burgum, it’s not just who is on first base, it’s that there might be no one on first base at all. Doug Burgum owns this fire season.
The House Republican Natural Resources Subcommittee hearing titled “The State of Our Nation’s Federal Forests and Outlook for the 2026 Wildfire Year” was rescheduled for Thursday, June 4th at 10:15 am ET.
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