Up until recently, Greg Bofanto worked as a wilderness ranger in Natchez, Washington.

He was there last July when a propane tank exploded nearby and a fire broke out.

It was a 90-degree day and it just took off and the winds were really shifting and bouncing and the fire was jumping back

and forth across the valley and across the river and the fire went from an acre to a thousand acres

and 30 minutes an hour something like that it just blew up and we were able to get trucks ahead of the fire and use terrain features and tie that

fire in before it burned the town of Natchez, Washington. Greg doesn't work for the fire department,

but he does have basic wilderness firefighting training.

He was one of many workers in the U.S. Forest Service

who helped on the front lines during fire season.

Wilderness rangers, biologists, people who lead their recreational activities at the parks,

they all step up to contain the flames.

But a couple of weeks ago, many of them were laid off via email.

Two sentences. It's from my deputy forest supervisor, and it's titled Notification of Termination

during probationary Period. And then there's no, no no dear Greg, none of that stuff.

It just says, an orderly offboarding process is critical to successfully closing out your

employment.

Please work with your district ranger or supervisor for offboarding.

And then he provides some links to my offboarding checklist and, you know,

what's going to happen to my health insurance, which I'm losing. That's it.

This month, tens of thousands of federal workers received an email along these lines.

They were probationary employees, those generally on the job for less than a year.

And even though Greg had worked for over a decade as a Ranger, he'd accepted a promotion the year before.

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