Governor orders post-mortem on Forestry Department after questions about asset deployment during recent wildfires

The governor said the Forestry Department accounts for about one-third of the Department of Agriculture's budget — roughly $75,000,000 a year — and announced he has ordered a review after questions about where assets were during recent wildfires.

"We can't we still haven't been able to figure out where they were during that during that thing," the governor said, referring to requests for resources in Stillwater and other locations. He said the state should be able to account for deployments and that the apparent lack of clarity indicates "a deep seated bureaucracy" that needs scrutiny.

The governor said he had removed the State Forester and would convene a task force including Secretary Everest and Secretary Arthur to perform a post-mortem on the agency's response and report back with recommendations for future events. He proposed exploring whether some of the department's funding should be redirected to local and volunteer fire departments, saying, "let's take 50,000,000 of that and let's give it to our local firefighters."

He acknowledged multiple fires statewide could stretch resources but said he was not satisfied with explanations about asset locations and that accountability was required. The governor framed the review as part of broader efforts to ensure state resources are deployed during emergencies and to consider changes in funding structure based on findings from the task force.