“Mortal Danger”: Interview with French Firefighter and Trade Unionist Sébastien Delavoux

Joe Allen

 August 27, 2026

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Joe Allen: Can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers? How long have you been a firefighter? What were the working conditions like with your colleagues over the last two months?

Sébastien Delavoux: I am Sébastien Delavoux, a trade unionist with the CGT (the second largest trade union in the country, and the second largest among firefighters) defending the interests of fire and rescue service personnel (including firefighters). I am 48 years old. I have been a firefighter for 32 years, and it has been my profession for 27 years.

For some time now I have been confined to representing my colleagues in the union, but I have field agents on the phone every day and I work in a rescue center, since July 13 it has been very intense: every day contacts with journalists, to answer their questions or find them an interlocutor to give testimony.

JA: The fires in Europe received extensive media coverage in the United States, but without in-depth analysis or historical context. Can you describe how terrible this situation was for civilians and firefighters? This was not a sudden event.

SD: Indeed, this is not a sudden or unforeseen phenomenon; scientists have been warning us for decades. As of August 22nd, 160,000 hectares have burned, 450 houses have been destroyed, 4 firefighters have died in the line of duty, and firefighters have lost 30 vehicles destroyed by fire or accident. At the height of the fires in late July, 72 fire brigades (more than 7,200 personnel) were deployed, which is unprecedented, as the target of 51 reinforcement brigades in 2022 seemed a distant prospect. Even so, this was insufficient, as urban vehicles were ill-suited to fighting forest fires in the middle of the forest!

Hundreds of thousands of people, residents and tourists alike, have been evacuated.

Since 1973, 17 forest fires that have exceeded 5,000 hectares, including 6 since 2021, this is the reality of the global warming we were told about, and we are not ready.

JA: How have French firefighters’ and public sector unions reacted to the fire crisis? Some media outlets are reporting a planned national strike to demand more resources and concrete measures from the Macron government.

SD: Before the fires, in an inter-union group (comprising the 9 representative trade union organizations), we challenged the Prime Minister (in April) and met with members of his cabinet on May 27 to tell him that the Civil Security service is completely inadequate!!! The fires have had a magnifying effect on a system that has become too short.

We need to increase the budgets of fire and rescue services, increase the number of professionals, increase the number of vehicles, rethink the organization of Civil Security, and establish a real strategy for this public service.

JA: What was the physical and mental impact of the fire crisis on French firefighters?

Fatigue and fear, facing 40-meter flames in unbearable temperatures is not done without fear, and that’s natural. Forest fire operations are very physically demanding, we sleep little, we work day and night.

JA: The European and international scale of the fire crisis requires better coordination between firefighters’ unions. Have any political initiatives been taken in this regard?

SD: This year in particular, many countries have been affected, France, Portugal, Spain, Greece, thousands of hectares burned, many houses destroyed, deaths including firefighters.

Each country needs to increase its human and material resources because we need to prepare for major fires occurring simultaneously in several European countries; we must have the means in this situation to protect the inhabitants without exposing firefighters to mortal danger to extinguish forest fires.

JA: Are there any upcoming actions by your union?

SD: To force the government to find funding solutions for our services, we are organizing an occupation of the Place de la République in Paris from September 26 to 29, and a large demonstration in Paris on September 29; other professions want to carry out actions in support of our movement. There will be further actions after September 29th, and at the moment there are many actions being taken towards local and national elected officials to plead our cause.

Joe Allen is the author of Teamsterland: Reports on America’s Most Iconic Union and The Package King: A Rank and File History of UPS. He lives in Chicago.

Five Horsemen of the Environmental Apocalypse

Mike Bader

 August 27, 2026

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Log loading site, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington Cascades. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The Trump Administration has released five horsemen to run roughshod over America the Beautiful, playing out their version of Manifest Destiny 2.0 at the expense of all that is good and whole.

In seemingly separate but connected actions, the very agencies entrusted with protecting our national heritage seek to drive threatened and endangered wildlife off the landscape like the native Americans before them. Under a cloak of “efficiency” and “local control,” they are wreaking havoc leading to plunder, despoilation and lawlessness, clearing the way for bulldozers and industrial anarchy.

First, the Department of the Interior redefined “harm” under the Endangered Species Act so that habitat destruction is no longer considered harmful to threatened and endangered species. That’s like saying we could take away food, shelter, heat, water and clothing from people and it would have no effect on their well-being. No harm, no foul.

Second, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to remove Endangered Species Act protection for grizzly bears less than 2 years after concluding that a host of cumulative threats puts the species at increased risk of extinction throughout their range in the lower 48.

Third, the Fish & Wildlife Service proposed an expanded “4(d) rule” that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says turns grizzly bear management over to the states that want trophy hunting and to kill them whenever near livestock, even on public lands. Like failed state management of wolves, the proposed rule creates expanded exemptions for killing grizzly bears and would give out kill permits like Halloween candy.

Fourth, the Department of Agriculture proposed canceling the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Tens of millions of acres of the wildest National Forests would be opened to new roads, logging, motorized use and other development. This despite that 99% of the comments from the American people oppose this industrial land grab. Say goodbye to connecting isolated grizzly bear populations and say hello to dramatic reductions in elk, Montana’s five-week general hunting season, bull trout, salmon, old-growth forests and clean water supplies for humans.

Fifth, the Department of Agriculture has proposed to shred National Travel Management Planning on National Forests, opening the way to off-trail cross-country travel by ATVs, snowmobiles and four-by-fours. Management of motorized access to seasonally protect sensitive wildlife and fish habitat would go out the window, replaced with a system of motorized mayhem.

Taken in sum, these five horsemen would unleash an environmental apocalypse.

Other actions have already eroded the National Environmental Policy Act, limited public comment and other mechanisms meant to maintain checks and balances. They are dismantling a system of land and wildlife management years in the making that has sustained ecosystems, restored elk populations and brought wildlife back from the brink of extinction. These connected actions also undermine the public’s right to have a say over management of its own lands.

Many organizations are fighting the good fight but they need your help. Please get informed and involved. These connections actions must be stopped before the soul of America is permanently wounded.

Mike Bader is an independent consultant in Missoula, Montana with nearly 40 years of experience in land management and species protection. In his early career he was a seasonal ranger in Yellowstone involved in grizzly bear management and research. He has published several papers on grizzly bears and is the co-author of a recent paper on grizzly bear denning and demographic connectivity that has been accepted for publication in a scientific journal.

Trump’s Move to Rescind Roadless Rule Rewards Logging and Mining Interests

Matt Sedlar

 August 28, 2026

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Industrial clearcutting in the Oregon Coast Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Last week, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brook L. Rollins moved forward on the agency’s promise to revoke the 2001 Roadless Rule, opening a public comment period on the proposal and a draft environmental statement on its impact. If this sounds familiar, that’s because we covered this almost a year ago during the scoping process.

So what’s changed, and what hasn’t?

First, it’s important to understand what the Roadless Rule does. Enacted at the end of the Clinton administration, the rule prohibits road construction, road reconstruction, and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of roadless areas within the National Forests. The environmental impact statement at the time argued that protecting these areas would maintain sources of clean drinking water for nearby communities, support habitats for native plant and animal species, and conserve biological diversity.

Since its passage, the rule has faced legal pushback from states and corporations, including mining and logging interests. And since 2001, some states have established their own regulations. More than 9 million acres in Idaho and over 4 million acres in Colorado are exempt from the rule because the states have passed specific legislation that supersedes the federal regulations. The state rules, however, protect some areas while opening up others to expanding recreation, like skiing, and logging and mining activities.

In June 2025, the USDA announced it would begin the process of revoking the rule. The administration claims roadless areas contribute to deadly wildfires. According to a statement from US Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, “More than 40 percent of inventoried roadless areas, primarily in the West, have high or very high wildfire hazard potential. And only 5 percent of those areas have received hazardous fuels reduction treatments since 2014.” According to USDA, state-specific rules would not be affected by USDA’s decision.

But in an earlier memo from the US Forest Service, Acting Associate Chief Christopher French said the quiet part out loud. French echoed Trump’s call for the immediate expansion of timber production in these areas. By August, the agency had released rulemaking on the management of roadless areas on National Forest System lands, with public comments due by September 19 — a mere 21 days. Despite the short comment period, or perhaps because of it, the agency had received over 220,000 comments.

The agency released its draft environmental impact statement last week, which looked at three options: maintaining the existing Roadless Rule, rescinding the rule, or removing restrictions in roaded areas and the wildland-urban interface (WUI) while continuing to manage inventoried roadless areas outside those areas. That last option would remove prohibitions on 31 million acres, including 17.9 million acres that are within half a mile of existing roads or communities in the WUI, while continuing management of 13 million acres protected under the Roadless Rule.  You can already guess which option the federal government is endorsing. Again, the public has less than a month to submit comments, which are due on September 21.

If that seems like a short amount of time to collect comments, it is. The time required to collect comments can vary, of course. According to the federal eRulemaking Program Management Office, “In a typical case, an agency will allow 60 days for public comment.” The Federal Register states that complex rulemaking processes — such as a decision that affects millions of acres across the US — may take more than 180 days. Shorter comment periods may be implemented if adequate justification exists. The administration hasn’t provided a justification.

The quick turnaround — less than a year — from the scoping process to the draft impact statement was also unusual. In theory, an environmental impact statement should take at least two years, as stipulated by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969. The Council on Environmental Quality found in 2024 that the median time from notice of intent to final impact statement was 2.2 years. And as we noted last August, this is an incredibly complex issue that affects tens of millions of acres of forestland and watersheds across the US.

And then there are the issues with the Forest Service’s claims about wildfires. Schultz’s comment that only 5 percent of inventoried roadless areas have received fuels reduction treatment has less to do with access and more to do with funding. The US Forest Service has been chronically underfunded for decades, and Trump’s attempts to dismantle it through staffing and further budget cuts have not helped. Also, researchers have found that from 1992 to 2012, 84 percent of all wildfires were caused by people and that building roads in roadless areas is likely to increase the risk of fires.

Last week, the Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology released statements from experts who argue that smokejumpers, heli-rappelers, and helitack crews can manage fires in roadless areas and that the absence of communities or infrastructure in roadless wildlands actually provides more opportunities to safely manage fire, especially when it can be beneficial to the forest.

Rather than listening to experts on the matter, the administration appears focused on its corporate donors who will profit from this decision. Hopefully, at some point, states can implement their own roadless area regulations, making it harder for future administrations to give away the land to companies.  In the meantime, we’ll probably see this battle play out in the courts. States can sue if federal mandates harm residents or infringe upon distinct state authorities. Under USDA’s proposal, industrial expansion could threaten clean air, water, and soil, while inadequate oversight of commercial forestry projects could increase wildfire risk. And with the rescission of the Roadless Rule, that’s a likely scenario.

First published by CEPR.