Washington-based U.S. Forest Service rangers reinstated — for now

Many workers still in their probationary period received notice on Feb. 13 that they were fired by the Trump administration. But this week, those workers got word they have been temporarily reinstated for 45 days by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board on March 5. But Forest Service rangers like Kyle Warden, Xander Demetrios and Jaelle Downs say they know very little beyond that, and haven’t been notified on the local level about when their work will resume, just weeks away from the beginning of the 2025 season. There’s no information yet to indicate whether the positions might be eliminated again after the 45-day period, and the workers worry about what impact a potential mid-season disruption might have on recreation and public safety.

For 10 years Warden, 39, had been the lead wilderness ranger at the Wenatchee River Ranger District in Leavenworth, tasked with patrolling and monitoring the nearly 400,000 acres of pristine alpine back-country in the Enchantments wilderness area. He said the Enchantments alone see 100,000 visitors annually, and as of last month, all but a handful of the trail crew, rangers, front desk staff and developed front country rangers were fired as part of the Feb 13 announcement. Those positions are seasonal, and some would have already begun work, while others would have started in the coming weeks. Warden says he would have worked the past few weeks overseeing the permit lottery for the Enchantments and running training webinars.

While the layoffs affected only employees still in their probationary period, in the case of U.S. Forest Service workers, Warden said they actually meant laying off veteran employees. Because the positions are almost all seasonal, he and many others who had been in these roles for many years had technically not worked more than two years in aggregate.

“We were all probationary employees still,” he said. “Because we’re seasonal as well so they only count the amount of time spent working so we’d be probationary status for quite a while.”

In addition to patrolling the wilderness and performing basic wildland education, rangers also assist search and rescue operations, clear trails and pack out trash and human excrement from trail toilets, which are little more than boxes placed overtop hand-dug latrines. Warden said they packed out 600 pounds of trash from the Enchantments last year.

Should these positions get cut again after the 45-day reinstatement, it’s the loss of those services that will probably get noticed first, they say.

“You’re going to find that there are a lot more overflowing toilets at our campgrounds and trailheads,” Demetrios said. “There’s a lot more trash, litter.”

Warden agreed, and added that public safety would also be affected.

“Trails – they’re not going to be logged out,” Warden said, noting the disruption could have a long tail. “It’s probably going to be years before they can catch up with the load of log-out.”

That means more debris on the trails for visitors to trip and fall over, and more obstacles for search and rescue teams to contend with when they are packing people out.

“The search and rescue teams, if they need to litter somebody out, they need a clear trail. They can’t be climbing over a hundred trees,” he said.

Downs, 32, has worked out of the Cle Elum Ranger District as a wilderness ranger since 2018. At a protest in Wenatchee on Feb. 17, she said they were illegally fired and they’re not giving up their jobs without a fight.

“Most of us care so much about this work, we’re all going to fight for jobs. That’s why we’re out here,” she said. “We don’t want to leave. We don’t want to find other jobs. We got into this because it’s what we love to do. We love the lands that belong to all of us.”

Downs, Demetrios and Warden all agreed they didn’t become rangers for the money – an entry-level position pays about $22,500 in a six-month season. They say they joined the Forest Service because they love the outdoors and feel strongly about stewarding these shared resources.  

“We are not the deep state. We’re not bureaucrats. We’re out there doing manual labor in the woods just trying to make a living doing something we love,” Downs said.

They also said that terminating them doesn’t even save the federal government much money, since most of their programs are paid for through state grants and recreation fees. According to the National Park Service, national parks brought in $55.6 billion in 2023.

“We’re basically funding ourselves,” she said. “And so the federal money, there’s very little of it that goes directly to on-the-ground work.”

Owen Wickenheiser, 29, had been a climbing wilderness ranger with the Wenatchee River Ranger District for the past four years. He said their ranger district still had about $130,000 in grant funding from the state Recreation and Conservation Office to spend, as well as funding from local nonprofits like the Leavenworth Mountain Association, to help supplement seasonal rangers’ salaries this season. 

“But now that RCO grant just needs to be returned, and all of a sudden this other money just can’t be used because there’s no one to manage it,” he said before news of the reinstatement came this week. 

Seasonal rangers’ impact on fire prevention and management is also something that should be taken into account, Wickenheiser, Warden and the others said. Many seasonal probationary rangers like them have their “red card,” or wildland firefighting certifications. Like a militia, they can be called up to serve on firelines or in support roles on active fires to free full-time wildland firefighters, for example hotshots, to go where they are most needed. 

“So [if the Forest Service employees are fired], the support for these front-line firefighters is going away,” Wickenheiser said. “This knowledge that people have is going away as well.” 

They also play an important role in prevention, Warden said. When interacting with the recreating public they do a lot of wildfire risk education, but they also come across fires when they are out patrolling. 

“We’re usually the ones coming across those abandoned campfires and putting those out,” he said. “That’s my big concern is that there’s going to be nobody there to do that anymore, and a fire that close to town would be really bad.” 

Many of the trailheads into the Alpine Lakes wilderness area, which include The Enchantments, are less than 10 miles from the heart of the faux-Bavarian town of Leavenworth so popular with tourists from across the nation and globe. 

The reason Warden, Downs and the others were given for their terminations was because of their “performance,” yet no examples of how that performance was deficient was provided. All of them say they never received any complaints about their work from supervisors – in fact quite the opposite. Downs said it was like they had received a form letter and the only thing that differed from letter to letter was their names.

They say that makes these terminations illegal, and they may have a point. 

On March 5, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board ordered that the USDA rescind for 45 days the terminations of the more than 5,000 probationary employees fired on Feb. 13, in the face of an ongoing investigation of the legality of those actions. 

In a March 5 press release, U.S. Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger applauded the stay. 

“I want to thank the MSPB for granting this important stay," Dellinger said. “Agencies are best positioned to determine the employees impacted by these mass terminations. That’s why I am calling on all federal agencies to voluntarily and immediately rescind any unlawful terminations of probationary employees.”

But, as with many other actions by the Trump administration being challenged in court, verifiable information is scarce and speculation abounds. As of March 6, neither Downs nor Warden had heard from agency leadership about being reinstated. They also don’t know what will happen after 45 days if they are reinstated. 

Warden said he’d take his job back, even for that short a period, just to get his ducks in a row. “I’d plan on working to tie up loose ends before getting re-fired through another route,” he wrote in a text. 

So those who have not already found other employment for the summer sit and wait, in limbo, with no official information on what is going on. 

Downs said that’s no way to treat honest Americans who work to steward our national resources not for love of money, power or influence but because they love our shared lands. 

“These are your community members. These are people like me who have grown up here. We’re not just fighting for our jobs, we’re fighting for these places,” she said. 

Correction: A previous version of this article used the incorrect title of "climate ranger" for some of the subjects in this piece. The story has been updated to use the correct title: "climbing ranger."