SEATTLE — Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington.
So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense.
The anxiety is even trickling down to lower profile places once considered safe from White House politics, like UW's School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Here, newly proposed U.S. Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke.
"We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States," says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school.
Alvarado is looking at a giant map of the U.S. on his computer. It shows where wildfire smoke is, where it's forecast to drift, as well as the harmful particulates in it. He zooms in on a wildfire burning in New Mexico, where the smoke is dense and might be of concern for any immunocompromised people in the area.
"If someone is living in Ruidoso, New Mexico, they can go and see where the smoke is going to," Alvarado says, moving his mouse from one monitoring station to the next.
Alvarado and U.S. Forest Service colleagues at the nearby Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab created this map. It's updated in real time with the help of a team of grad students and IT staff here at UW.
"We need to bring new technology fast," Alvarado says.
This taxpayer funded tech is now widely used by governments, elite firefighting teams and popular commercial apps that people rely on when the smoke gets bad. It's the product, Alvarado says, of institutional knowledge developed through years of Forest Service research into smoke and fires. He says that unlike a university that might get a grant for a few years of study, the USFS work spans decades.
"You are integrating the knowledge and the science available for decades by one team, in Seattle," he says.
Fire scientists worry critical research is being gutted
But the Seattle smoke lab is now on a list of 56 out of 90 research stations identified for closure. It's part of the Trump administration's controversial Forest Service reorganization which includes the relocation of its headquarters from Washington D.C. to Utah and the consolidation of regional offices into individual state facilities.
All of this has Morgan Varner worried. He was a fire behavior scientist at the Seattle smoke lab until 2019.
"There's a haphazard to it that I think is troubling from a scientist standpoint," Varner says.
Current lab employees did not respond to interview requests. But Varner doubts most of the staff here will be willing to relocate or take other jobs elsewhere in the agency. He says the lab was put in Seattle due to its international airport and major research university.
"Seattle is a technology hub and so the Forest Service lab - people may think they're sort of backwoods out measuring some trees - but this is a lab working with the brightest minds that are based in Seattle," Varner says.
Forest Service Chief is defending the reorganization
2,700 miles to the east, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz is sitting in his airy office in the historic Yates building off the National Mall, soon to be the agency's former headquarters.
Schultz appears frustrated with the backlash against the proposed reorganization, which he notes had been considered by previous administrations going back to 2006.
"Okay so I need you to help me change the narrative, we aren't closing research," Schultz says. "Research is important, science is extremely important in this organization."
But Schultz also says the Forest Service has a $3 billion deferred maintenance backlog, and closing or consolidating buildings that house some research stations will save money. In some cases, he adds, it might just be scientists moving to a nearby state office or to another location within commuting distance.
"This administration is trying to be thoughtful as we move forward," Schultz says. "We involve the employees in so much of our discussions. But we've got to get our budget into control. We knew we had a big shortfall coming in."
Even as Chief Schultz is adamant that science is still a priority, his boss President Trump's proposed budget for the Forest Service zeros out all research and development funding. Congress ultimately sets the agency's budget and recent Capitol Hill hearings showed there's bi-partisan opposition to the President's plan.
"It was zeroed out in the '26 budget and zeroed out in the '27 budget [but] Congress did something different," Schultz says. "We've built an organizational structure based on what Congress has funded us to do. And if Congress were to adopt the president's budget then we will pivot accordingly."
Some state officials in the West say the Trump administration's plans are secretive
If Congress were to approve President Trump's proposed budget for the agency, the U.S. Forest Service would be a skeleton of its former self just as climate change is accelerating the frequency and severity of wildfires in the U.S. The agency already lost thousands of staff last year to layoffs, buyouts and early retirement due to President Trump's DOGE team.
Westerners working at research universities are nervous, as are people in small towns that depend on the USFS for everything from jobs to fighting fires to forecasting smoke.
One recent morning in Washington state, Dave Upthegrove, the elected public lands commissioner, was at a ceremony to mark the reopening of a popular trailhead near the Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the mountains east of Seattle.
"The research that's being done at these labs in Washington state helps inform our wildfire response and contributes to improving public safety for people throughout the state of Washington particularly in rural areas," Upthegrove says.
Upthegrove, a Democrat, says his state was initially optimistic that the Forest Service reorganization might lead to better cooperation on public lands issues, namely the proposal to have an individual state director similar to the structure of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The Washington Department of Natural Resources was also initially briefed often by the Forest Service and assured that critical research would not be affected by the reorganization.
"But recently the Forest Service has gone radio silent, and we've not been able to get updates on the progress and the status and the outcome of this work, so we are nervous," Upthegrove says.
Nervous, he says, as these lush Pacific Northwest woods - once thought immune from major fires - could be flammable or at least choked in smoke in a matter of weeks.
Copyright 2026 NPR
