As millions of acres burn across the western United States, some wildland fire veterans are fearful that aggressive fire suppression tactics ordered by the Trump administration — coupled with extreme, fast-moving blazes — could put firefighters in danger as conditions escalate this month. 

Those extreme weather conditions fueled disaster in Eastern Washington Saturday when a fast-moving wildfire jumped the Spokane River and swept through neighborhoods of Spokane, destroying more than 600 structures and forcing 60,000 residents to evacuate. Incident Commander Tom Clemo called the blaze “probably the largest, most destructive fire in Washington’s history.” 

No deaths have yet been reported in Spokane, but Mayor Lisa Brown told local journalists the city is “still assessing the potential for lives to be lost.”

Spokane fires destroy hundreds of structures

“There is not a fire department in the U.S. that can handle a wind-driven event this size,” said Spokane Assistant Fire Chief Lance Dahl to the Spokane Spokesman-Review. 

Leading up to this year’s fire season, federal officials with the U.S. Forest Service and the Interior Department directed their wildfire crews to use a “full suppression” strategy and attack wildfires urgently. Following a hot, dry winter that left much of the West parched, federal land managers said it was imperative to contain fires quickly before they get out of control.

But following several dangerous incidents, including the deaths of four federal firefighters in Colorado in June, some longtime wildland fire leaders are questioning that strategy. Many see it as a return to the Forest Service’s decades-old “10 a.m.” policy, which sought to suppress all fires by the morning after they were reported. 

While many states also adhere to “full suppression” policies that aim to keep blazes contained, federal officials have previously had more discretion to let fires burn under supervision if they’re not threatening communities. More concerning, wildfire veterans say, is the possibility that rhetoric from Trump administration officials is putting pressure on fire crews to use aggressive tactics to meet those suppression goals.   

Federal policies that sought to extinguish all fires quickly over much of the past century are now understood by foresters to be a major contributor to the current wildfire crisis. In many places, forests that used to experience fire at regular intervals have grown denser than historical norms, with trees competing for water and thick underbrush covering the forest floor. That gives fuel to the fires and contributes to fast-moving blazes.

“No one in the agencies have said it, but it sure looks like (a return to the 10 a.m. policy) when you read the directions,” said Jane Darnell, who has worked in administrative roles supporting wildfire response and spent more than 30 years with the Forest Service before retiring in 2020. “We lived with the 10 a.m. policy for 100 years, and we got here. This full suppression promise to the public is a promise that can’t be kept.”

Many wildfire leaders say they’ve seen extreme, unprecedented fire behavior this season that only adds to the risk of deploying crews aggressively. 

‘Full suppression’

In April, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum sent directions to agency leaders in preparation for the summer wildfire season. Both called for a “full suppression” strategy.

“Accelerate initial attack and use a full suppression strategy, in coordination with our interagency partners, across all land jurisdictions to suppress fires early and limit growth,” Rollins wrote. 

Burgum called for “prompt, decisive” suppression of fires, adding that decisions should be “balanced with firefighter safety and a clear assessment of probability of success.”

While both letters mention safety, some wildland fire veterans say agency leaders have put a clear emphasis on attacking fires aggressively. Some fear that crew leaders are being pressured to deploy close to the fire line, rather than choosing the safest place to make a stand. 

“I found it disturbing,” said Riva Duncan, a former wildland fire chief who served more than 30 years with the U.S. Forest Service. “You’ve got somebody in a suit in an office who’s never fought fires saying you’ve got to go direct attack.” 

Duncan serves as president of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of wildfire professionals.

In addition to the agency directives, wildfire veterans noted the rhetoric from President Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose tariffs on Canada as retaliation for wildfire smoke. 

“If managers and leaders are hearing from the politicos, ‘put them all out, put them all out,’ are we putting people in where we shouldn’t be?” said Bobbie Scopa, who had a 45-year career as a firefighter and now serves as vice president with Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. “I’m hearing from some young firefighters who feel like they are getting pressure to take actions. It’s stupid and you’re scratching your head and people are getting hurt.”

The Interior Department did not respond to a Stateline interview request. The Forest Service declined to comment, saying its resources are focused on fire response.

Dangerous incidents

Already this year, fire crews across the country have been involved in a number of dangerous incidents, including the tragedy in Colorado that left four firefighters dead after a fast-moving blaze overran their position. 

“We’ve already had nine entrapments (firefighters having their position surrounded by fire) this year. That’s crazy,” Duncan said. “That suggests to me that fires are moving quickly and growing so fast.”

Federal officials have said an investigation team is reviewing the Colorado incident. 

“I do trace the tragedy in Colorado to that policy that compelled them to go out and aggressively attack the fires even when conditions did not favor safety or success,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, a former wildland firefighter who now serves as executive director for Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics & Ecology, a group that advocates for ecological fire management. 

“This policy that compels crews to blindly rush out and attack all fires is just not smart and it’s very unsafe,” Ingalsbee said. “They’re throwing back to the policy of the 1930s, ignoring everything we’ve learned about fire ecology and fire behavior”

Other wildland fire veterans say they need to see more details before blaming the deaths in Colorado on federal strategy.

“It’s just really hard to connect that at this time,” Duncan said. “I have faith that the investigation team is looking at that.”

But many former firefighters decried the feds’ abandonment of “managed fire” as a tool. Under that approach, federal land managers in previous years have been given the discretion to let some fires burn under supervision, so long as they didn’t threaten homes or infrastructure. In those cases, advocates say, agency leaders recognized the ecological benefits of fire, along with the potential to reduce the risk of catastrophic blazes in the future. 

“The problem is not fire itself, it’s our relationship with it,” said Darnell, the retired Forest Service administrator. “We can work with these fires that are highly unlikely to have catastrophic effects on infrastructure, keep them on there until the weather puts them out.”

Ingalsbee, with the firefighter safety group, shared a similar sentiment. 

“Excluding fire from the landscape and attacking all fires, that policy ended in the ’70s because it was failing,” he said. “It’s performative firefighting, it’s failing to accomplish tangible goals and it’s putting lives in danger. Fire is nature’s recycling.”

State leaders respond

At the state level, foresters in the Pacific Northwest — the region hardest hit by fires this year — say they have not yet seen evidence that federal agency directives are causing firefighters to take more risks. 

Most state agencies are required by state law to suppress, rather than manage, fires. Oregon state forester Kacey KC said the state’s landscape is too parched this year to safely manage fires for ecological benefits. 

“Every fire we can keep small is good,” she said. “Especially in conditions like this, there is not good fire right now on this landscape.”

In Washington, state forester George Geissler said he had not heard of federal crews taking extra risks. But he cautioned that federal leaders should be careful of their rhetoric.

“If you set goals, but you don’t set a good leadership tone related to safety, you can have those type of decisions being made,” he said.

Geissler said the bigger concern this year has been chaos within the leadership of the federal agencies. Under Trump, the Forest Service and Department of the Interior have been hit with severe staff reductions. The Forest Service is in the midst of a major reorganization. And firefighting operations from multiple agencies within the Interior Department have been consolidated into the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, established by Trump this year without congressional approval. 

“In the past, you knew who to go to, you knew which position had what,” Geissler said. “Now with the rapid changes, the loss of personnel, it’s a little bit scattered.”

Federal crews aren’t the only ones that have been involved in dangerous wildfire situations this year. Two separate incidents in Washington state left firefighters injured as a fire overran their position. One of those incidents, the Lyons Ferry Fire, involved a Washington Department of Natural Resources helicopter crew. Geissler said that was a wakeup call for the agency that fire conditions are extreme this year. 

“When the weather is this bad, all of those (safety protocols) become more and more critical,” he said. “We did a full safety standdown over it, because that was an extremely close call for those firefighters.” 

Darnell, the retired Forest Service administrator, said she would not be surprised to hear of more incidents in which firefighters deploy their individual emergency shelters — last-resort devices that can save lives but do not offer full protection in extreme scenarios. 

“We’ve got conditions on the ground that are so explosive, it really begs us to be really careful about where we put people,” Darnell said. “I hope we don’t see any significant loss of life for firefighters.”

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

The Trump administration is removing protections from the key places where endangered species live, saying states can keep the areas safe. 

But experts say states aren’t equipped for the task.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration finalized a major change to the Endangered Species Act, rolling back protections for the forests, wetlands, deserts and other critical habitats that many plants and animals rely on.

The new rule will open many landscapes to development, logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. Wildlife officials — in both conservative and liberal states — had expressed strong concerns about the proposal, saying it would threaten their plans to safeguard endangered species. 

But federal officials framed the decision as a move to give “freedom” to state leaders to manage wildlife without burdensome federal regulations. 

States that wish to continue protecting habitats can do so under state law, the Interior Department and other federal agencies wrote in their lengthy new regulations. 

But legal experts and wildlife veterans say that almost no states have endangered species laws on the books that allow state officials to prevent habitat destruction in the name of saving wildlife. 

While many states have laws to stop poaching and direct killing of wildlife, the protection of nesting trees, spawning streams and other resources has long fallen to the federal Endangered Species Act and the agencies that enforce it. 

“It’s not going to be a situation where the states can easily just jump in here and fill the void,” said Robert Anderson, who served as solicitor for the Department of the Interior during the Biden administration. “It’s not going to help states, and it’s going to make it worse for the species.”

Many wildlife experts also noted that state wildlife agencies are already underfunded as it is. Taking on the massive regulatory system that prevents developers and extractive industries from destroying critical habitat would require far more resources than those agencies have available.

A coalition of environmental groups and tribal nations have filed lawsuits challenging the federal rollback. 

The ‘harm’ rule

On July 10, the federal departments of Interior and Commerce announced they had finalized a rule rescinding the longstanding definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act. 

For decades, federal officials have scrutinized logging projects that would cut old-growth trees where owls build their nests, and agriculture operations that diverted water from streams where salmon return to spawn. 

But now, the feds are pivoting to a much more limited definition of “harm.” Only actions that directly injure or kill the animals themselves will be considered a violation of endangered species law.

“You can destroy the resources a species requires as long as you don’t do it when the species is at home,” said Karrigan Börk, a law professor and director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the UC Davis Institute of the Environment. “If you drain a salmon river during the summer when the salmon aren’t in it, ultimately it has the same impact of killing off that whole species.”

In its announcement, the Trump administration framed the move as restoring the “original intent” of the Endangered Species Act and reducing regulations that punished people for “indirect or speculative impacts” to wildlife.

The Interior Department did not respond to a Stateline interview request. 

A 2019 study published in Conservation Science and Practice of species added to the list of endangered species from 1975 to 2017 found that only 17% of them faced threats from direct killing, while 81% faced habitat loss. 

“It’s common sense that we can’t save a species unless we save the places that they live,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit conservation group that is planning to sue the federal government over the change. “This is an attempted death blow to the Endangered Species Act.”

Some industry groups praised the move. The American Petroleum Institute and other oil and gas groups said in public comments that they supported the effort to limit habitat protections, but expressed concern that the Trump administration’s move to rescind the “harm” definition without issuing a new interpretation could allow a future president or the courts to issue a more expansive reading of the law. 

The groups cited Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion in a landmark 1995 case that upheld habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act. 

“‘Harm’ must involve a direct injury to a particular animal,” the groups wrote, arguing that it “cannot result indirectly from habitat modification nor can the term apply to a population of animals.”

States’ role

In public comments after the rule was initially proposed, wildlife agency leaders from both liberal and conservative states said the change would be a blow to their conservation efforts.

The proposed rule would have “dire consequences,” wrote Bruce Kreft, chief of the conservation and communications division with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department. “Eliminating habitat protection will lead to further population declines and, ultimately, an increase in the number of species needing (Endangered Species Act) protection.”

Wildlife officials in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, New Jersey, Vermont and Wyoming also expressed concern about the loss of habitat protections, as did the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, a nonprofit that represents state wildlife managers. 

Of the public comments reviewed by Stateline, only Alaska’s wildlife agency leader offered wholehearted support for the change. 

In response to those concerns, federal officials wrote in their rulemaking decision that the change “does not alter the ability of States to implement their own conservation programs or to regulate habitat impacts under State law.”

But wildlife experts say states cannot replicate the habitat protections that federal law provided. Although most states have their own state-level endangered species laws, they’re largely focused on poaching or direct killing of animals. 

“The state-level endangered species acts are wildly variable in what they’re supposed to cover and are uniformly under-resourced and under-enforced, because the federal Endangered Species Act has been the real baseline since the 1970s,” said Börk, the UC Davis professor.

Chris Servheen, who served as grizzly bear recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for 35 years, worked closely with state wildlife agencies in that position.

“It’s really disingenuous to say if states want to protect habitat, they can do so,” he said. “That’s not their role, that’s not what they do. States manage the take (killing) of the animals directly related to hunting or trapping or something like that. The federal agencies manage the land base.”

According to a 2024 analysis from the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, only eight states plus Puerto Rico require the designation of critical habitats under their laws to protect endangered species. 

California appears to be the only state with a process under state law to account for damage to wildlife habitat and require developers to offset those impacts, such as funding a restoration project nearby, said Becca Madsen, restoration economy director with the Environmental Policy Innovation Center. 

“(States) don’t have this layer of federal regulations and staff and the consistency of how it’s been regulated for decades,” she said. “Now they’ve got to create their own processes and permitting and data and guidance. It’s a lot.”

Even if states were to pass laws and invest in programs to protect wildlife habitat, they would be unable to enforce those measures on federal land. Across the West, federal public lands cover vast swaths of many states and provide critical habitat for many species. If the U.S. Forest Service were to permit a logging operation on old-growth forest under the new “harm” definition, state wildlife officials could do nothing to stop it. 

Meanwhile, some advocates are doubtful that state lawmakers have an appetite to take on the regulatory role once handled by the feds. 

“Most state legislatures are pretty strongly captured by development and real estate interests,” said Kate Groetzinger, communications director with the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group. “The political bar to putting something like this in place at the state level is a lot higher than it was when the Endangered Species Act was passed.”

Going to court

Last week, a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit challenging the “harm” rule. A pair of tribes in Washington state filed their own lawsuit, asserting that the decision will infringe on tribal fisheries that the federal government is obligated to protect under treaty agreements. 

Some legal experts expect a flood of lawsuits over specific proposed projects.

“Courts are going to have to figure out on a case-by-case basis what’s covered and what’s not covered,” said Börk, the UC Davis professor. “It’s going to lead to widespread confusion over the next decades over what’s illegal or legal, and it’s going to make it harder for developers and landowners to know whether they have liability or not.”

Some advocates expressed concern that the lawsuits challenging the Trump administration could make it to the conservative Supreme Court, which could then permanently enshrine an interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that fails to protect habitat. That would leave a future administration powerless to undo the change, unless Congress were to rewrite the law. 

But some see no real alternatives. 

“I’d be worried if it got to the Supreme Court, but the alternative is just acquiescence, which I don’t think is a good idea,” said Anderson, the former Interior solicitor.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Chris Servheen’s name. Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, issued an executive order Tuesday that puts a moratorium on the construction of large-scale data centers.

The pause, which will last up to a year, is the nation’s first statewide ban on data centers, which have drawn increasing concern from lawmakers and citizens based on their impact on electricity prices and the energy grid.

“As data center development threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers, it’s my responsibility to take action and lead,” Hochul said in a statement.

Technology companies have invested billions of dollars to build data centers all across the country, driven in part by the computing demands from artificial intelligence.

In her executive order, Hochul directed the state Department of Public Service to issue no new permits for large-scale data centers for a  year. During that period, the agency will conduct an environmental analysis on the impacts of data centers, along with a proceeding to “require data centers to either pay more for their energy or supply their own.”

New York lawmakers passed a more extensive data center moratorium last month, but Hochul has not said whether she will sign the bill.

Maine Gov. Janet Mills, also a Democrat, vetoed a measure earlier this year that would have been the first statewide data center ban.

In a news release, Hochul also directed the state’s economic development agency to develop a framework that local communities can use to negotiate with tech companies that seek to construct data centers. That framework will focus on infrastructure improvements, child care investments, direct financial support and labor and wage standards.

She also announced plans for a fund that would require data centers to invest in New York’s grid infrastructure and clean energy supply. And she called on lawmakers to repeal the state’s sales tax exemptions for large data centers.

Across the country, data centers have drawn vocal opposition at local public meetings and in state capitols. Several cities and counties will vote on ballot measures this year to restrict the development of new data centers.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org. 

President Donald Trump has shown the immense power of the executive branch to stymie offshore wind development, as nearly all projects are in waters where federal agencies operate as the landlord.

Now, as the feds block new permits and dangle billion-dollar buyout offers to convince developers to walk away from their projects, state leaders are hoping some companies share their conviction that the industry can be revived after Trump leaves office.

“Any honest assessment of where we need to be to meet our climate goals depends on a thriving offshore wind sector,” said New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat.

New York and many other East Coast states have set aggressive targets for offshore wind power, both to meet rising energy demands and transition to clean energy sources. But Trump’s attacks on the industry threaten to scare off companies from making the massive long-term investments required to pursue offshore wind projects.

“If there’s no business opportunity here, then they’re not going to stay here and invest here,” Gounardes said. “They’re not going to lay around with good intentions doing nothing, and we’re going to lose out because of that.”

Federal opposition

Last week, Trump’s Department of the Interior announced a $129 million deal with Duke Energy to relinquish its lease to build an offshore wind farm off the coast of North Carolina. The company pledged to reinvest the money into other forms of energy.

Since March, Trump officials have struck four such agreements totaling more than $2.5 billion to get developers to give up on their offshore wind plans. Some analysts say the federal government’s ability to blockade pending projects has caused some companies to reconsider their investments.

“If you have a lease that appears to be going nowhere for at least the next three years, you want to pivot to other options,” said Timothy Fox, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, an independent research firm. “There’s still a lot of leases out there, but the Trump administration has made this aggressive push, and we think there could be future similar announcements.”

According to Fox, developers hold leases for roughly two dozen other offshore wind areas, agreements that could be targeted for similar buyout deals.

While developers consider buyout offers from the federal government, state leaders say such deals are illegal. Seven states filed a lawsuit earlier this month saying the administration lacks the authority to cancel the leases and pay out funds, focused on a March deal with TotalEnergies to block a project off of New York.

The lawsuit challenges the administration’s use of a federal fund set aside to pay court judgments and settlements of lawsuits against the government. The deal, state attorneys general argue, “is not the result of a compromise settlement between adverse parties, but rather an agreement resulting from [federal officials’] pretextual national security concerns and TotalEnergies’ desire to receive unauthorized compensation for an expensive offshore wind lease.”

The state of California has also announced that it intends to file a lawsuit over another buyout targeting a lease area off the state’s Pacific coast.

Since taking office, Trump has halted permits and leases for other planned offshore wind projects, canceled hundreds of millions in funding to support manufacturing and ports and ended clean energy tax credits. His administration also issued stop-work orders for five offshore wind projects that were already under construction, but courts have overturned those orders and allowed work to resume.

Aside from the five wind farms currently being built, progress on dozens of other pending projects has ground to a halt.

“There’s little to be done if the federal government still controls the permits, leases and pace of development,” said Fox, the researcher.

State goals

The clash comes as many East Coast states have been counting heavily on the maturation of the offshore wind industry to meet their energy needs. Eight Atlantic states have committed to building more than 45 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040 — enough to power more than 30 million homes. They’ve made major investments in ports, manufacturing facilities, transmission infrastructure and workforce training.

In addition to their climate goals, many states are facing surging energy demands, largely driven by data centers and artificial intelligence.

State leaders say that offshore wind farms can harness massive amounts of electricity, especially during nighttime and winter periods when solar power is in short supply. For heavily populated East Coast states, with limited areas to put sprawling energy projects on land, tapping into strong winds over the ocean has become a major part of their strategy.

“Offshore wind is key to a future that allows us to move off of fossil fuels,” said Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who has been a strong backer of offshore wind. “Every time the (Trump administration) makes these moves, it reminds me that their numbers show how much offshore (wind) would allow us to retire fossil fuel plants.”

Trump has long opposed offshore wind, falsely asserting that it harms whales, is unreliable and drives up energy costs. While offshore wind generation is intermittent, it has a much higher capacity factor than onshore renewables, meaning that it operates for longer periods at its maximum output level. New offshore wind projects have capacity factors that match some gas and coal-fired power plants, according to the International Energy Agency.

While still more expensive than onshore renewables, offshore wind projects globally produce electricity at a rate cheaper than natural gas and coal plants, according to Energy Solutions Intelligence, a digital consulting platform.

Backers and energy analysts say offshore wind in the U.S. should become cheaper over time as supply chains mature and investments in ports and other infrastructure pay off.

The Department of the Interior did not grant a Stateline interview request about its buyout deals for offshore wind projects, but the agency has claimed in statements that the deals will lower energy prices.

Changing plans

Many state leaders acknowledge that the delays caused by Trump’s opposition will cause them to miss their targets for building new projects over the next 5 to 10 years. But they say the industry is still essential for meeting their long-term climate goals and energy needs.

“I don’t think anyone is at the point of saying no offshore wind ever again,” said Gounardes, the New York lawmaker. “It might not be part of the alchemy in the near future, but it certainly must be part of the alchemy to meet our overall goals.”

For now, state leaders are hoping their ongoing commitments to offshore wind will convince developers to wait out the remainder of Trump’s term and stay in the U.S. market.

“[The buyouts] are a blow to the industry, but it’s not a death knell but there are other projects out there that are still in some stage of development,” said Sam Schacht, project director for offshore wind with the Clean Energy States Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of state energy agencies.

“There’s this bad news story happening about the attempts to erode these future projects, while at the same time there’s a very positive story about the projects that are under construction and producing power now and their ability to capably meet states’ power demands.”

While states play the waiting game with offshore wind, they’re making new plans to meet their energy needs in the near term. Lawmakers in Maryland have invested in battery storage, which Charkoudian described as a “no-regrets” option that can help meet energy needs today while complementing offshore wind once it comes online.

Other states, including New York and New Jersey, have looked at increasing subsidies for nuclear power.

“I wouldn’t say that they’re giving up on offshore wind, but states are pivoting to other carbon-free resources that  are favored by this administration, namely nuclear power,” said Fox, the energy researcher.

Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org.