On a rare windless April day in southern Washington, Adam Lieberg, a land manager with the Columbia Land Trust, sat frustrated in front of his computer. He had planned to light controlled burns across hundreds of acres of brush and fallen needles — low-intensity fires that remove fuel and dramatically reduce the risk of larger wildfires. But a promised federal grant that would have paid for crews and supplies had not arrived, and time for safe spring burns was slipping away.
Last August the U.S. Forest Service awarded the Columbia Land Trust a Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) worth more than $9 million to be spent over five years. That money, part of a $1 billion program created by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2022, has been delayed because the USDA added new conditions to partnership agreements in late 2025. The directive, signed on the final day of the year by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, requires recipients to affirm terms that include restrictions on references to climate change, limits on DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts and other requirements framed as “America First” stewardship and national security priorities.
Washington state officials say those new conditions conflict with state law, so the state cannot sign the revised terms and accept the money. George Geissler, Washington’s state forester, told local partners and reporters that roughly $20 million in Forest Service grants to Washington groups is being held up. Washington is hardly alone: NPR reporting found that 22 states and two Tribes were promised about $200 million through this program and that groups in multiple states — including Hawaii and Wisconsin — had not yet received funds. On March 23, 2026, 20 states and the District of Columbia filed suit against the USDA asking a court to block the new grant terms, calling them coercive.
For field crews, the timing matters. Spring brings milder temperatures and lower fire danger in many regions, a window when prescribed burns are easiest to control. Lieberg said the delay has meant fewer acres burned, staff positions left vacant and missed opportunities to reduce fuel before hotter, drier months arrive. “If we don’t have both steady streams of state and federal funds for our forest health crisis, then the work doesn’t get done,” he said. “The fires continue to get larger and more catastrophic.”
The grant changes are only one part of a broader policy shift that is reducing prescribed burning and encouraging aggressive suppression. In April 2026 Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued a memo instructing the agency to “enter this season with the presumption of a full suppression strategy applied to every wildfire” on federal land. The memo also directed that prescribed fires not be allowed after a certain point in wildfire season and that any prescribed burns already underway by that cutoff be extinguished unless specifically approved.
Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz echoed a similar stance during an April budget hearing, calling for a full suppression strategy for all fires. Those directives run counter to years of fire ecology research and longstanding land management practices that use controlled fire to reduce fuels and restore ecological balance.
The practical effect is visible in recent data: NPR’s analysis showed the Forest Service burned only about half the acreage in 2025 that it had in 2023 and 2024. As of spring 2026 the Forest Service had burned just over one million acres of the nearly 200 million acres it manages — a pace that experts worry will leave too much fuel in forests and near communities.
Current and former firefighters and forestry professionals interviewed by NPR argued that a policy of putting out every fire increases long-term risk. “By putting fires out and not letting them burn, you actually create more fuel for a worse situation down the road,” said Bill Avey, a 40-year Forest Service veteran. Carson States, who now leads a nonprofit that conducts prescribed burns, called suppression-only policies “very regressive.”
Staffing shortages compound the problem. The Forest Service lost more than 5,000 employees in the last year to layoffs, resignations and early retirements; some estimates show as many as 1,400 of those departed had the wildfire-certified training required for frontline firefighting. Liz Crandall, a former field ranger who helped run prescribed burns and patrol forests in Oregon, said the agency’s shifting priorities and instability drove her away. She welcomed a recent federal announcement of a 25% pay boost for personnel working on prescribed burns but said the change was not enough to draw many people back.
Research and traditional ecological knowledge bolster the argument for prescribed fire. A 2025 study cited by experts found that in California’s severe 2020 season, areas previously treated with fire experienced about 16% less severe outcomes. Indigenous fire stewardship — intentional, small-scale burns timed to local conditions — is similarly credited by practitioners and researchers with reducing fuels and protecting landscapes.
Those findings clash with the new memos favoring blanket suppression. Fire practitioners warn that insisting on extinguishing all fires, including those in remote areas that pose little immediate risk to people, will both degrade landscapes and overwork the already-thinned firefighting workforce. “You are putting your firefighters more at risk,” Crandall said.
Back in White Salmon, Lieberg walked through a neighborhood rimmed by dense understory and tall Douglas firs and pointed to places where a controlled burn could have reduced the chance of a catastrophic blaze reaching homes. He worries that if funding and policy barriers keep preventive work from happening, a wildfire could arrive before they can act. “If all of our stuff burns down before we could do our preventative beneficial fire, this is going to really take on a new level of frustration,” he said.
In short: a combination of new grant conditions tied to broader political priorities, memos directing agencies toward full suppression, staffing losses and delayed payments is reducing the capacity for prescribed burning at a time when climate-driven drought and high temperatures are increasing wildfire risk. Fire managers and scientists warn those moves could raise the likelihood of more severe, harder-to-control fires in the years ahead.