Caroline Becker was speaking with her mother when she got another call from her supervisor. The news was unexpected—she was among the probationary employees losing their jobs with the U.S. Forest Service.
Becker, 23, worked as a GIS specialist at the agency’s Asheville headquarters and was just days away from her first anniversary as a full-time employee on Feb. 25.
Her probationary period would have officially ended then, but instead, she received a letter from Deedra Fogle, the U.S. Forest Service’s human resources director, notifying her of her termination on Feb. 14. Like many other federal employees fired over Presidents’ Day weekend, the reason given was her performance.
“The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest,” Fogle wrote in a letter reviewed by the Citizen-Times.
Becker is just one of an estimated 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees terminated as part of the Trump administration’s effort to cut down the federal workforce. The initiative, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under billionaire Elon Musk, began shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, starting with a hiring freeze and buyout offers to over 2 million federal employees. Now, almost a month later, thousands of probationary employees are being dismissed.
“I knew it was coming at some point,” Becker said. “I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
The Asheville headquarters oversees North Carolina’s four national forests—Nantahala, Pisgah, Uwharrie, and Croatan. The Nantahala and Pisgah forests, covering 1.1 million acres combined, are among the busiest national forests in the country, attracting around 5 million visitors yearly. They feature major attractions like Bent Creek, Shining Rock Wilderness, Looking Glass Falls, and Max Patch along the Appalachian Trail.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, stated in a Feb. 14 email that the terminations were part of a “solemn responsibility to be good stewards of Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars and to ensure that every dollar is being spent as effectively as possible to serve the people, not the bureaucracy.”
These job cuts may only be the beginning, as Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 11 directing agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force.” Already, the U.S. Forest Service has lost about 10% of its 35,000-person workforce.
For Western North Carolina, these layoffs come at a difficult time. Just five months ago, Tropical Storm Helene devastated the region, damaging over 185,000 acres of national forest—about 20% of the total area.
Pisgah National Forest was hit particularly hard, suffering damage to roads, facilities, and infrastructure, as well as downed trees that increased the risk of wildfires. In December, a wildfire burned over 500 acres in a section of Pisgah National Forest in McDowell County.
A U.S. Forest Service program manager, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, said these cuts place significant strain on an already understaffed agency and could seriously affect Helene’s recovery efforts and wildfire response.
“It’s more than just the workload, we’re losing the future of the agency,” she said. “These are talented, bright young people who joined public service not for the paycheck but because they want to do good for the world.”
Many employees she supervised were terminated in this wave of firings. Termination letters cited performance issues, though she believes this is false, as she conducted their evaluations and saw no such problems.
“We’re grieving for our lost colleagues,” she said. “I wept through the weekend just thinking about returning to work and seeing them pack up their desks on Tuesday.”
Multiple U.S. Forest Service employees told the Citizen-Times they received good performance evaluations despite being fired. Sources familiar with the situation estimate nearly 20 people in the region were affected.
Most former employees spoke anonymously out of concern that speaking publicly might hurt their chances of finding future employment. Several were unsure about their next steps, uncertain if they qualified for unemployment benefits, and worried about losing health insurance coverage this week. Some believe the terminations were unlawful and hope to regain their jobs either through court rulings or under a future administration.
The effects of Helene have already impacted Buncombe County’s economy, with an unemployment rate of 6% in December, the second highest in North Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Commerce.
On Feb. 12, the National Federation of Federal Employees and other labour unions sued the Trump administration, challenging the firings of probationary employees, buyout offers, and the mass workforce reductions ordered by Trump’s executive action.
“The Trump Administration’s executive actions to gut the federal workforce are not only illegal, but will also have damaging consequences for federal employees and the public services they provide,” said NFFE National President Randy Erwin in a Feb. 13 statement. “The courts must intervene and hold this Administration accountable for violating federal laws before it is too late.”
One former employee was in her car with her two young children when she received a call from her supervisor on Feb. 16 informing her of her termination.
“I’m still hoping that someone’s gonna say, ‘Oh that was a mistake. We recognize we really do need these people, especially for Helene recovery,’” she said.
Becker, like many others, had been working on storm response. Before being fired, she had been compiling data and mapping for engineers working to rebuild roads destroyed by Helene.
“It just makes me so angry that these people are losing their jobs through no fault of their own,” Becker said. “I was doing a fine job.”
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