As Appalachia Rebuilds from Hurricane Helene, Trump Administration Guts the Forest Service
The Trump administration's termination of over 3,000 Forest Service employees, including 17 in western North Carolina, undercuts southern Appalachia's recovery from Hurricane Helene.
Two weeks before Hurricane Helene tore through Pisgah National Forest in western North Carolina, Jenifer Bunty took a temporary promotion as a district ranger for Grandfather Mountain. During the immediate aftermath of this once-in-a-century storm, her own family didn’t have power or a way to keep food and medication cold.
Nonetheless, she felt compelled to go beyond the call of duty, working for 19 days straight at one point before someone forced her to take a break. She prides herself on her commitment to the mission of the United States Forest Service (USFS).
“When I first opened my Forest Service uniform,” she wrote in a Facebook post that has since been deleted or restricted viewership. “I held my badge and cried. I was so proud to be part of the agency whose mission is ‘caring for the land and serving people.’ I thought about how proud my dad would be. He instilled in me a sense of duty, patriotism, and a strong desire to do what’s right, especially when people need it most.”
She has spent the past 19 and a half months working in disaster recovery after several major storms and wildfires, including deployments to the western United States.
She is now one among thousands of federal employees who have been terminated in the past few weeks, presumably casualties of President Donald Trump’s chainsaw approach to reducing what he and his cabal consider bureaucratic inefficiencies and waste related to so-called “woke ideologies.”
Bunty was completely sideswiped by the news of her termination.
“I led the district to the best of my ability through something none of us signed up for. People needed us,” she says. “I returned to my normal role on the disaster recovery team in January and started working towards long-term recovery for the Forest and our local communities. On Thursday, I stood on the ruined part of I-40 with a team planning how to stick an interstate back on the side of a mountain. People probably don’t realize that portion sits on National Forest land and cannot be fixed without Forest Service employees.”
Already Understaffed, Over 3,000 U.S. Forest Service Employees Terminated
The Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by billionaire Elon Musk, has initiated sweeping workforce reductions across federal agencies, targeting probationary employees—typically those in their first two years of service in a particular position—and dismantling critical services. It’s unclear, however, how much these Forest Service cuts are directly connected to DOGE.
Regardless, framed as performance-based terminations, these cuts are disproportionately impacting agencies like the USFS and National Park Service (NPS) throughout southern Appalachia, which is still recovering from Hurricane Helene.
Over 3,000 Forest Service employees have been terminated nationwide, including Bunty and 16 of her team members in North Carolina’s National Forests.
These terminations are disrupting environmental stewardship, emergency response capabilities, and community rebuilding efforts, raising concerns about the legality of the cuts and their long-term consequences for public lands and disaster resilience.
DOGE’s directive to shrink the federal workforce aligns with President Trump’s executive orders to eliminate perceived inefficiencies. The department has systematically targeted probationary employees under the guise of “performance issues,” despite many workers receiving positive and even exemplary evaluations.
“The supervisor that called me said I was the best hire they had ever made,” Bunty says. “My performance reviews have always been excellent. I love what I do and, like so many of my colleagues, I care about getting it right to meet our mission.”
She’s quick to note that she packed up two awards the day she was forced to clear out her desk.
These terminations extend beyond administrative roles to field personnel, including trail crews, wildfire responders, and disaster recovery teams.
Long-Term Recovery from Hurricane Helene in Jeopardy
In western North Carolina, where Hurricane Helene damaged roughly 822,000 acres of forestland, now-terminated employees were central to recovery operations.
Teams cleared landslides, restored emergency access routes, and coordinated interstate repairs on National Forest land. The loss of 17 USFS employees in the region—many holding wildfire certifications—jeopardizes long-term recovery and increases wildfire risks.
North Carolina’s Appalachian communities rely on federal agencies to rebuild infrastructure and ecosystems. With USFS staff cuts, projects like stabilizing I-40—a critical artery traversing National Forest land—face indefinite delays. The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), which assists landowners with post-disaster recovery, has also seen reduced capacity, slowing watershed restoration and soil conservation efforts.
Federal layoffs destabilize rural economies dependent on USFS and NPS jobs.
In western North Carolina, terminated employees like Bunty represent not only lost expertise but also reduced spending in local businesses, another blow to a region whose economy was already devastated when Hurricane Helene hit during its peak tourism season.
These massive employment cuts also fuel fears surrounding worsening climate catastrophes, as well.
The USFS’s budget has grown significantly post-2000 to address wildfire crises linked to climate change. However, these cuts reverse this trend, weakening the agency’s ability to conduct reforestation, manage fuels, and respond to disasters.
DOGE’s focus on cost-cutting clashes with the Forest Service’s mandate to balance conservation, recreation, and disaster response. The termination of field staff paid through timber sales and recreation fees—not taxpayer dollars—reveals a disconnect between fiscal rhetoric and operational realities. Critics argue the cuts prioritize ideological goals over functional governance, risking irreversible harm to public lands.
The Trump administration’s workforce reductions, executed through DOGE, represent a seismic shift in federal operations, privileging austerity over mission-critical services.
Continue Being a Voice for Appalachians
For Appalachia and other regions reliant on federal environmental management, the cuts exacerbate existing vulnerabilities, delaying disaster recovery and heightening ecological risks.
The termination of dedicated professionals like Jenifer Bunty—who embody the Forest Service’s ethos—symbolizes a broader erosion of institutional knowledge and public trust. As legal challenges unfold, the long-term costs of these reductions, measured in unmaintained trails, unchecked wildfires, and fractured communities, will reverberate far beyond budgetary spreadsheets.
While Bunty didn’t grow up in Appalachia, she has lived in these mountains for several years and her family retains roots in this region going back centuries, she says. She knows the history of exploitation and marginalization that Appalachians have experienced.
“It's generation after generation of being used and forgotten,” she says. “I can hear the emotion in my voice. To feel like it's happening again is heart-wrenching. These people have been through hell. They deserve the support they were promised.
“If there's one thing that I've always said anytime I'm in a room with any kind of leadership or people that can make decisions, I've always tried to speak with that voice of someone who understands the Appalachians and Appalachian culture. I'll keep doing that for as long as I can.”
Thank you to all you forest rangers for stewarding our forests. These moves are setting our communities back a generation, or more!