Scott Fitzwilliams

As millions of acres burn across Colorado and the American West, thousands of families flee their homes, entire communities are blanketed in smoke and firefighters continue to risk — and in too many cases lose — their lives, one would expect the federal government to be singularly focused on confronting one of the greatest natural resource crises of our time. Instead, the Trump administration is reorganizing federal agencies, eliminating experienced public servants and insisting it has wildfire under control. It doesn’t. …I spent 34 years with the U.S. Forest Service, including nearly 16 years as forest supervisor of the White River National Forest in Colorado. …But never in my career have I witnessed an administration dismantle the very institutions responsible for managing our forests while those forests were facing unprecedented threats. …Healthy forests are not managed by organizational charts. They are managed by experienced people.