Can a leaner Forest Service handle a hotter fire season?

The U.S. Forest Service is poised for one of the most sweeping overhauls in its history. The agency says over the coming months it will undergo major changes that include moving its headquarters from D.C. to Utah, eliminating all regional offices, and shuttering dozens of research facilities across 31 states.

It’s a dramatic reshaping of the agency, with wildfire season right around the corner.

To understand what these changes might mean for the work the service does, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour spoke to Morgan Varner, director of research and senior scientist at Tall Timbers, a research station and land conservancy in Tallahassee, Florida, that focuses on fire ecology. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Sabri Ben-Achour: The Forest Service has said that the idea behind these changes is to be more efficient, so they move leadership closer to the forests they manage, get rid of regional offices, have more decision-making made at the state and local level. Does that make sense to you?

Morgan Varner: In some ways. I mean, I think a general shift to the West, as far as having boots on the ground closer to where fires are happening and where forests are being managed, makes some sense. But you know, for me, the real difficulty is the sort of dissolving research and really reducing that research emphasis that they've been so strong at for so long.

Ben-Achour: The service plans to close 57 of its 77 research facilities. What kinds of data are we going to lose with that?

Varner: The one that hits me the most is the Seattle lab. Seattle has been the home of fire research for decades. That's where all the smoke forecasting takes place for every wildfire that's happening across the country. Smoke generated in a fire in western Montana could be putting smoke into downtown Chicago or in Atlanta, disrupting school practices, airline travel, etc.

Ben-Achour: Does this consolidation at the Forest Service affect our ability to fight wildfires?

Varner: It's indirect. Fire is relatively unique in that we use a lot of technology for fire suppression. It is also boots on the ground, and I think both of those are affected. Technology in fire — or anything else right now — is moving really quickly, and so research's ability to be tightly coupled with fire suppression is important. And I think moving people around, you start to sever relationships, or you strain relationships between fire suppression personnel and researchers.

Ben-Achour: Going back decades, there have been tensions between the Forest Service and farmers and ranchers, basically over the use of public lands, but other issues too. Could state and local decision-making help with that?

Varner: One of the arguments that's been made from how Forest Service lands are managed, of late has been, you know, something's clearly not working. And so trying a different approach is warranted. I think that could be made for a lot of areas in the country. I don't think there's anyone that's arguing that, that national forests are all managed perfectly and they're maximizing biodiversity, etc. And so I think some tilt toward more local control, using local expertise, and also valuing the community is warranted.