U.S. Forest Service

Massive federal layoffs are hitting communities across the West, including rural, recreation hotspots like McCall, Idaho. Here's how that town is responding.

The Forest Corps, a new collaboration between AmeriCorps and the U.S. Forest Service, just inaugurated its first cohort of nearly 90 members. They’ll be sent out into priority landscapes across the West to do fuels reduction, prescribed burn and tree reseeding projects, all intended to support the USFS’ broader Wildfire Crisis and Reforestation strategies.

In the wake of the devastating Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire in 2022, the U.S. Forest Service paused prescribed fires – which started the infernos – to review the agency’s program. A newly released Government Accountability Office report looks into how well the agency has implemented changes since then. While acknowledging that changes necessary to resume burning have been made, the government watchdog says more work remains.

The cost of housing has long been an issue for wildland firefighters, many of whom end up living in vehicles or camping on days off to avoid those expenses.

The Forest Service has put out a draft environmental impact statement on its proposed national old growth forest plan amendment, starting a 90-day public comment period.

The owners of a Sawtooth valley ranch have reached the end of the appeals process for a case about a conservation easement on their property.

Three private property rights groups have filed amicus briefs, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lawsuit regarding a public access trail that crosses a Sawtooth Valley ranch.

The White River National Forest in western Colorado uses a variety of methods to manage its 2.3 million acres, whether that's pickup trucks, all-terrain vehicles, or drones, but there's one tried and true method of getting around the wilderness that the forest service still relies on - horses and mules. Recently, workers got some training in the saddle.

The 4.5-mile-long trail connects Stanley to Redfish Lake within the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. It opened last summer after nearly a decade of planning.

The Forest Service’s recently released “Strategy to Expand Prescribed Fire Training in the West” document is blunt: “The prescribed fire implementation environment continues to grow in complexity, IT READS, whereas the ability of practitioners to practice and hone their expertise has lagged, particularly in the Western United States.” The newly established Western Prescribed Fire Training Center is a major effort to address that workforce issue.