Eyes Wide Shut: How DOGE Cuts to Scientific and Specialized Expertise are Affecting Federal Preparedness for Fire, Insect, Avalanche, and Drought Risks in the West
Federal workforce data for 2025 shows a hemorrhaging of scientific expertise critical to evidence-based wildfire risk reduction, response, and recovery.
Over 300,000 federal employees left the government in 2025. The scale of this change is so large, it is easy to lose sight of the significance of the work that each person was doing on behalf of local communities and natural resources. This article is part of an ongoing exploration into what is behind the numbers with the goal of advancing our understanding of the specific and local impacts of federal cuts on public land stewardship, with a focus on western states.
All data cited in the article was obtained from publicly available sources (http://data.opm.gov) released on February 5, 2026 and March 4, 2026. Together these provide the public’s first window into the depth and pervasiveness of workforce reductions across US federal agencies.
Bernie: In our last conversation, we focused our attention on cuts to the workforce in federal land management agencies. In the eleven western states we reviewed, the total staff reduction across federal land agencies was 18%, ranging from a decline of 11% in Wyoming to 26% in Colorado.
Today, our focus is going to narrow to a smaller set of specialized employees in federal land management agencies who often play indispensable roles in protecting the public from wildfire, drought, avalanches, and other natural disasters: staff with life science, weather, and water expertise. Their headcount dropped in 2025 by over five hundred individuals across federal land agencies in western states.
With the loss of 300,000 workers in 2025 across the entire federal government, why is it important to focus on a narrow subset of job losses?
Figure 1: Change in Federal Headcount in 2025 Across Western States for Seven Biology and Life Science Occupations
Source: US Office of Personnel Management (data.opm.gov) as of 2/5/2026
Andrea: Anyone who has worked with me has heard me say, “Thank you for the visible and invisible work you do.” Every policy decision depends on an ecosystem of support, the behind-the-scenes experts who ensure land managers can make data-informed, science-based decisions. For that, we need the full gamut of technicians and -ologists: fish and wildlife scientists, hydrologists, meteorologists and more. Their work is often invisible, but it is integral and can be life-saving.
When you lose scientific and technical staff, you lose the hands that collect data, the eyes that monitor our ecosystems, and the know-how required to maintain sensitive field equipment.
Bernie: We can start with a look at scientific roles engaged in biology and life science in the federal land agencies in 2025, a loss in western states representing 15% (333) of these specialists.
Figure 2: Change in Federal Land Agency Headcount in 2025 Across All States for Seven Essential Biology and Life Science Occupations
Source: US Office of Personnel Management (data.opm.gov) as of 2/5/2026
What came to mind for you when you saw the overall loss of biology and life sciences expertise in western states across the federal land agencies?
Andrea: The data for 2025 is showing a hemorrhaging of scientific support whose expertise is necessary to inform decision-making. In western states, we have lost people who not only contribute to research, management, and operations in laboratory or field settings, but whose expertise is critical for natural resources management, public health and safety, wildfire risk reduction, response, and recovery.
Bernie: Let’s look at one profession, the loss of 15 entomologists across Western states in 2025. To someone not involved in forest and rangeland health, why would losing this expertise be such a red flag?
Andrea: Red flags can mean different things to different people. In my work at the Forest Service, a red flag is a warning of conditions of a type that align with increased risk of fires: warm temperatures, low humidity, and high winds. But in forest health, 15 fewer entomologists is its own kind of red flag. These experts are our early warning system for the massive bark beetle and spruce beetle outbreaks that have decimated millions of acres across the Rockies and the Sierras, and are exacerbated by drought. Without entomologists, public land managers lose the ability to track potential mortality events and take actions to mitigate the spread through fuels reduction projects. And those dead and dying trees are now fuel that stays on the landscape waiting for a spark to ignite.
Bernie: Can I get your perspective on a second area of scientific and technical expertise? These are the employees who monitor weather, groundwater, and snow levels. This second cohort fell in western states by 14% in 2025. What are some of the real-world consequences of the contraction in this workforce across western landscapes?
Andrea: Federal agencies manage millions of acres of public lands. Accurate and timely information about weather and water is essential in managing water supply throughout the West. We also use that data and analysis to evaluate the chance of wildland fire and drought and to predict how a natural or manmade disaster, like a fire or heavy snowfall, may unfold once it has begun. Whether you live in a rural or urban community, in the West, nine out of ten people turn on their taps and drink water that originated from national forests and grasslands. Our public lands are the primary green infrastructure for water capture and filtration. Maintaining this system requires specialized weather and hydrology expertise.
Bernie: How do all these professions tie in with wildfire mitigation and management?
Andrea: It’s all interconnected. If you want to target an area for hazardous fuels reduction, you need someone to tell you whether the area is also a critical habitat for fish and wildlife so you don’t inadvertently harm the ecosystems you want to protect.
Figure 3: Percent Change in Federal Headcount in 2025 Across Western States for Seven Positions Responsible for Collection and Analysis of Weather, Groundwater, and Snow Levels – Including Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
Source: US Office of Personnel Management (data.opm.gov) as of 2/5/2026
For watershed protection or post-fire recovery, you rely on individuals with technical expertise to monitor soil stability and water quality, in general and particularly following wildfires or natural disasters. Their expertise can inform the local land managers so they can take action to mitigate or prevent debris flows that can overwhelm municipal water treatment plants with sediment.
The same applies to meteorology experts. Losing even a handful of employees is a loss of weather intelligence needed to predict conditions that could put our wildland firefighters at risk or threaten communities and critical infrastructure from life-threatening flash floods and other hazards. Federal scientists and technicians are providers of information that influence life or death decisions on the ground.
Bernie: Although we’ve focused on staffing losses across the land management agencies, are there other agencies that play an important role in helping communities with a connection to public lands?
Andrea: Absolutely. Top of mind is the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), an agency that we haven’t talked about yet, but is responsible for monitoring snow and water levels across millions of federal lands. NRCS is better known for its work with farmers on soil conservation and with forest land-owners, as well. After a wildfire, NRCS helps land owners rebuild essential infrastructure like fences and take actions to reduce the risk of floods by stabilizing the soil with new plantings.
Figure 4: Change in Federal Headcount in 2025 Across All States for Seven Positions Responsible for Collection and Analysis of Weather, Groundwater, and Snow Levels – Including Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
Source: US Office of Personnel Management (data.opm.gov) as of 2/5/2026
Bernie: I was fascinated to learn that NRCS also has a central role in monitoring snowpack across the western mountains in partnership with federal and state land management agencies.
Andrea: Indeed. NRCS hydrologists and electronics engineers maintain Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) monitoring sites across the West. These consist of precipitation monitoring equipment placed in mountains to provide critical information about snowpack. Federal teams out West maintain the equipment and collect the data, which their colleagues across the scientific community use to forecast water levels for irrigation, industry, and people, as well as avalanche risk and forest susceptibility to wildfires.
Figure 5: Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Snow Telemetry Locations
Source: Natural Resources Conservation Service (https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/) as of March 6, 2026.
Bernie: How do we summarize what’s truly at stake here, whether you’re turning on a tap in a high-rise, running a ranch, or just out for a weekend of hiking or skiing?
Andrea: For some, mountain snowpack and remote public lands may feel like a world away. Ultimately, water is life-giving, to humans, fish, and wildlife alike. Whether you are a recreationist, a hunter or angler, a farmer or rancher reliant on irrigation, or a forest landowner, we all share a stake in these watersheds. Protecting our water is intrinsically linked to preserving the people and expertise necessary to manage them. Without our federal science and technical staff, the entire West is at greater risk.
Additional findings from this study available through this download link. We welcome inquiries about this study and questions about our work at info@prospectdc.com or here.
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