Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto speaking with a Forest Service employee after the Davis Fire in Washoe County in 2024. (Cortez Masto Senate office photo)
When Linda Wadleigh was a forestry major at Utah State University she came upon her first summer job as a firefighter, a role that led to a 30-year career in wildland fire management with the U.S. Forest Service.
After years in the field, she and a handful of other women firefighters decided to create a boot camp to recruit and prepare other women to become firefighters through hands-on training and classroom learning opportunities.
“I didn’t see many other women, and I just wanted them to have the same chance that I did, to see what a great career this is,” Wadleigh said.
The Women in Wildfire Boot Camp program was established in 2011 and continued for more than a decade before it was terminated in February because of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government.
As part of Trump’s sweeping plan to eliminate all DEI programs from the federal government, his administration has issued dozens of orders cutting support from government initiatives to promote more diversity.
At a July 10 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, U.S. Forest Service Acting Chief Tom Schultz was asked to explain why the boot camp program was eliminated. He responded, “there are still ample opportunities for all firefighters to be trained without singling out solely women.”
About 84% of federal wildland firefighters are men, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. Forest Service boot camp was launched to bring new firefighters, especially women, into a field that has historically struggled with worker retention.
The boot camp provides a structured path to becoming a wildland firefighter, but graduates still need to apply and once hired all new recruits receive the same fire training and must meet the same physical standards.
After the program’s success in Arizona and New Mexico it expanded into 14 national forests across several western states. It was also adopted by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. At the program’s height, it trained and recruited over 200 people a year.
“We’ve recruited hundreds of applicants, that’s a great number to work with. We don’t want to lose that when we have trouble filling all our jobs,” said Wadleigh, who hired firefighters in her position as a district ranger at the Coconino National Forest in northern Arizona before retiring last year.
Those recruits went on to fight wildfires in surrounding states, including Nevada, as U.S. wildfires have grown more severe in recent years.
Linda Chappell, another firefighter who helped run boot camp’s, said she knew the program had legs by the third year when it started regularly receiving more applicants than available slots.
“Women don’t know they can have this job, or women are hesitant to jump in for an entire fire season. After getting them in for a week of training they knew if they loved it or didn’t,” Chappell said, who retired in 2021 as an intermountain regional fuels program manager.
Both women are working with several members of Congress to urge the Trump administration to reinstate the program, saying its elimination will exacerbate the shortage of federal firefighters.
The Forest Service has lost more than 1,400 fire-certified federal workers since February as part of the Trump administration’s work to reduce the size of government. The agency has also recently asked firefighters to work more hours amid the staffing cuts.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and six other Senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee sent a letter to the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior Friday requesting an explanation for the elimination of the boot camp program and its immediate reinstatement.
“Thousands of firings at land management agencies across the country have already left land managers understaffed for upcoming fire seasons. We are concerned the elimination of this program will exacerbate this issue,” reads the letter.
The National Intraagency Fire Center reports the U.S. has experienced more than 48,000 wildfires that have burned through more than four million acres across dozens of states this year.
“Eliminating a successful outreach program such as the [Women in Wildfire Boot Camp] unnecessarily limits recruitment to a smaller pool of potential trainees when there is already a shortage of skilled and willing potential workers,” the letter continues.
Chappell, the firefighter who helped run boot camps, said she believes the program was caught up in a sweeping DEI ban without reason.
“We think it may be just an unintended consequence. We’re not convinced that’s what they intended when the executive order was signed. So let’s go ask, is that really what was intended?” Chappell said.
However, announcements about the boot camp that are still online warn “any previously issued diversity, equity, inclusion or gender-related guidance on this webpage should be considered rescinded.”
The letter requesting an explanation for the elimination of the boot camp was also signed by U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR.), and Angus King (I-Maine).