Above, local Minneapolis TV report on the continuing fires in Northern Minnesota, includes an appearance by friend-of-the-blog John Abraham, of St. Thomas University.
Below, new reporting from The Washington Post puts a finger on some specific DOGE cuts that crippled the very forest management practices that climate denying congress people have been arm waving about and blaming for the fires.
Last year, the Trump administration delayed a $10 million grant that was supposed to help Minnesota thin out about 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest at high risk of burning. Most of that work never got started, according to five people familiar with the situation and a document reviewed by The Washington Post. And now, some of those areas are on fire.
In 2024, as part of a $100 million initiative to tackle the nation’s wildfires, the Biden administration awarded the Superior National Forest — where about two dozen lightning-sparked fires have been burning since early July — $10 million for projects that would have removed decades of dead trees and undergrowth, creating breaks in potential fire fuel around critical corridors and remote homes. The funding would have also paid for fire prevention efforts along a key 36-mile gravel road known as the Echo Trail — months before the ongoing Sioux Fire jumped it, threatening residences.
“We were shovel-ready,” said Aaron Kania, who was a U.S. Forest Service district ranger with the Superior National Forest for six years and a law enforcement ranger with the Bureau of Land Management for two decades before retiring last December. “Had that work been implemented, it would have been effective in stopping or slowing down these fires.”
But at the beginning of 2025, the U.S. DOGE Service paused or canceled federal grants and spending to review whether they were connected to diversity or climate initiatives. That affected nearly all of the Forest Service’s grant projects and funds, according to two USFS officials familiar with the situation, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation. One official said DOGE’s involvement also delayed a regional support fund that moved crews across the country for fire prevention work. That was a “big part of the reason why our large-scale [prescribed burn and hazardous fuel treatment] accomplishments went down so much last year,” the official said.
In the following months, the agency would lose about one-third of its employees, including those who managed timber reviews and grant administration programs — critical components in getting wildfire mitigation projects like the Superior National Forest’s up and running.
A year ago, ABC News spoke to a number of Forest Service employees, whose roles are critical for fire preparedness and prevention, who were being terminated.
