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“… Asheville is headquarters to the U.S. Forest Service's four national forests in North Carolina — Nantahala, Pisgah, Uwharrie and Croatan. The Nantahala and Pisgah, which cover the rugged, mountainous region of Western North Carolina, are the largest at 1.1 million acres combined, with some 5 million visitors a year. They are considered two of the busiest national forests in the country, with hot spots such as Bent Creek, Shining Rock Wilderness, Looking Glass Falls and Max Patch along the Appalachian Trail.
… But the job losses within the U.S. Forest Service already amount to about 10% of its 35,000-person workforce.
For Western North Carolina, the terminations come less than five months after Tropical Storm ripped through the region, damaging more than 185,000 acres of national forest, about 20% of the total acreage. The storm, which the agency expects will take years to recover from, hit Pisgah National Forest particularly hard, damaging facilities and infrastructure like roadways, as well as downing trees throughout its 500,000 acres, increasing wildfire risk.
… A program manager with the U.S. Forest Service who spoke to the Citizen Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from her employer, said the recent firings are a huge strain on the already understaffed agency and pose a major threat to the Helene recovery effort and future wildfire response.
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“It’s more than just the workload, we’re losing the future of the agency,” she said. “These are bright, talented, young folks who have gone into public service, not for the paycheck but because they want to do good for the world.”
Multiple employees she supervised were terminated in the recent purge, she said. Termination letters, she was told, cited performance as the basis for the firings — falsely she believes, given she conducted the employees' evaluations and no performance issues were noted.
… Many U.S. Forest Service employees fired over the weekend told the Citizen Times that performance was cited in the letters they received, even though they all received good evaluations, they said. Sources familiar with the terminations said nearly 20 people working in the region had been affected so far.
… Due largely to the impacts from Helene, Buncombe County's unemployment rate in December was 6%, the second highest in the state, according to data released by the North Carolina Department of Commerce on Feb. 5. …”
