New burn bans and Trump's battle with immigration and DEI are impacting forest fires
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Source: NPR
May 17, 2026 5:00 AM ET
It was a rare windless April day in southern Washington and Adam Lieberg was stuck in front of his computer. He was supposed to be burning acres of twigs and pine needles in the forests between the Columbia River and the Yakama Nation nearby — the sort of controlled burn of ground fuel that is one of the most effective ways to minimize future wildfires.
Lieberg, a land manager for the conservation nonprofit Columbia Land Trust, was desperate to do his job. The country was already setting records for high temperatures and widespread drought, which meant wildfire season could be unusually devastating. Lieberg was burning some land, but not as much as he would have liked. That's because he had a money problem. Last August, the U.S. Forest Service promised the Columbia Land Trust a grant of more than $9 million to carry out that work over the next five years.
Lieberg had intended to burn 500 acres this spring to protect the surrounding communities and keep the forest healthy. But as of April, Lieberg hadn't received a cent from the federal grant, called the Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program. It is delayed because of a new federal policy requiring partners to adhere to a host of requirements that have little to do with wildfires, including restrictions related to immigration, diversity hiring and other "America First" initiatives of the Trump administration. Other federal policies announced in 2026 further limit burning on public lands.
Lieberg said without the funding, they're missing the small window they have to protect people by setting fires before it gets hotter. "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," Lieberg said. "The fires continue to get larger and more catastrophic."
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/17/nx-s1-5777660/forest-service-wildfire-safety-prevention-trump-administration
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