If he still has a job, Smokey Bear will be heading to Utah.
In a dramatic shakeup, the U.S. Forest Service will see its headquarters move from Washington, D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah, and the closing of 57 research stations nationwide.
The Forest Service will also transform into a “state-based organizational model” with 15 state directors.
For California, the regional headquarters will be in Placerville, 43 miles east of Sacramento. The regional office will oversee national forests in California and Hawaii.
In California, six research stations will be closed in Anderson, Fresno, Chico, Fort Bragg, Mt. Shasta and Hat Creek. Research facilities in Placerville and Riverside will remain open.
William McCullough, a public affairs officer for the Sierra National Forest, which includes large swaths of Mariposa, Madera and Fresno counties, said there will be no changes to forest or district offices or their staff.
“The Sierra National Forest is committed to ensuring that all operations — including wildfire readiness and response — continue without interruption,” McCullough said in a statement.
“The Forest Service’s fire readiness and response remain unchanged, and our operational firefighters and aviation resources continue to support wildfire response,” the statement said.
But the National Federation of Federal Employees warns that the agency’s plan to move its headquarters to Utah and eliminate regional offices will hurt the ability to effectively combat wildfires.
During the Trump Administration, the Forest Service has already lost about 16 percent of its workforce — nearly 5,900 employees — through buyouts, layoffs and early retirements.
The reorganization is expected to impact an additional 6,500 federal employees.
Forestry veterans and conservationists fear valuable research and institutional knowledge will be sacrificed as the forest service is consolidated into regional hubs.
The move of Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City is being framed as a way to be closer to the western states where most of its land is located. But some state and local officials in Utah have also displayed a certain contempt for federal ownership of land.
The transition to a “state-based organizational model” is designed to shift authority closer to the field by organizing leadership around state level accountability.
Under the new organizational model, the 15 state directors will serve as “national leaders with primary oversight of forest supervisors, operational priorities, and relationships with states, tribes and other partners.”
The Forest Service says the approach is intended to “simplify the chain of command and give field leaders greater ability to respond to conditions on the ground.”
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