Federal agencies respond to LA fires amid budget crunch

The Biden administration is deploying personnel and resources throughout government to tackle the wildfires devastating much of the Los Angeles area, though frontline federal firefighters are warning they may not have all the support they will need. 

Hundreds of U.S. Forest Service personnel are on the frontlines of the fires, particularly the Eaton fire in Altadena and Pasadena in southern California. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is helping to coordinate the federal response, with President Biden tapping Curtis Brown to serve as the federal coordinating officer. Several fires have broken out in the area and have burned tens of thousands of acres, destroyed at least 2,000 structures and killed at least five people. 

Biden declared a major disaster on Wednesday, making federal funding available for temporary housing grants, repair efforts, low-cost loans and debris removal. He also approved Federal Management Assistance Grants, which reimburse state and local governments for firefighting costs. 

“My team and I are in touch with state and local officials, and I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire,” Biden said Wednesday. “My administration will do everything it can to support the response.”

FEMA currently has 126 personnel on the ground, an agency spokesperson said, a number the agency expects to grow in the coming days. Administrator Deanne Criswell and Lori Moore-Merrell, chief of FEMA’s U.S Fire Administration, are also on site. FEMA currently has $27 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund after Congress just replenished it in December, which the spokesperson said has given the agency the funding and resources it needs to respond to the crisis. 

“FEMA is committed to working alongside the state of California and our federal and nonprofit partners to help the residents affected by the devastating wildfires,” the spokesperson said. “Our thoughts are with the families and communities experiencing loss from these fires and we will be there as long as it takes to help communities recover.”

The president asked the Defense Department to send additional firefighting teams to the incidents, and the Navy and Central Command are deploying firefighting helicopters and planes. The National Weather Service has remained in close communication with local authorities to provide real-time weather updates, including wind patterns that predict fire movement. The Environmental Protection Agency has teams on standby to provide air quality assessments. 

USFS, meanwhile, has deployed five large air tankers, 10 firefighting helicopters and has dozens of fire engines deployed and ready for use. 

The agency is operating under a budget crunch, however, as Congress has failed to meet its funding requests and supplemental spending streams—most notably the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—have run dry. Total Forest Service funding dropped by about 8% in fiscal 2024 and the agency is still operating at that level under the current continuing resolution. That forced USFS to institute a hiring freeze last year, which remains in effect for non-fire seasonal positions. 

In a message to employees this past fall, Forest Service Chief Randy Moore acknowledged to employees that the agency was seeing signs of a worn-out workforce and promised he would not ask them to do more with less.

“It goes without saying that we are not funded to do the level of work that is being asked of us,” Moore said. 

Steve Gutierrez, who fought fires during a 15-year career at USFS and now represents employees there through the National Federation of Federal Employees, said the partial hiring freeze has not impacted the firefighting efforts as of yet. Positions related to logistics, communications, human resources and the moving of heavy equipment are not being backfilled, however, which he said would create strain on firefighting operations. Those staff, in addition to doing seasonal wildfire prevention work, set up safety areas and bring water, food and equipment to the firefighters. 

“Those folks are very important to that organization,” Gutierrez said. 

USFS Deputy Chief John Crockett told employees last month the agency is "working to ensure fiscal responsibility" given its budget reality. It has established a "hiring board" to manage the fire and aviation program workforce in a manner that supports readiness while "being good stewards of the funds appropriated for this work by Congress." 

"While some adjustments in staffing are necessary to remain financially sound, our priorities remain clear: respond effectively to incidents and reduce wildfire risk," Crockett said. 

Government Executive spoke to Gutierrez as he was in Los Angeles assessing the needs of his members. Unlike most fires they fight, he said, those employees were not on the hillside digging lines but instead traveling “point to point, going to homes trying to save lives.” USFS are trained and capable to carry out that mission, he said, and will be prepared to resume their more typical duties when the winds blow the fires away from the urban centers and back into nearby forests. 

“I’ve never seen this type of fire behavior down here before,” Gutierrez said. 

While the patterns of the current fires are distinct, he noted it is not surprising to see a winter outbreak. 

In recent years, he said, the agency has “shifted to a year round fire season. It’s unseasonably dry. We haven’t received our rains yet. This is not just a ‘here’ problem. This is a national issue.”

After Congress approved pay increases of either $20,000 or 50% of base pay for each federal firefighter as part the infrastructure law, employees, the Forest Service and many lawmakers have fought to make the pay increase permanent. Most recently, Congress extended the pay increase into March as part of the stopgap funding bill. Lawmakers and firefighters have suggested USFS will struggle to fill and retain firefighter positions until that pay adjustment becomes permanent. 

The Forest Service currently employs more than 10,000 firefighters, but is looking to grow that cadre to 11,300 by the peak of the upcoming fire season in mid-July.