Wildfire season is fast approaching, and with low snowpack, dry conditions, and soaring temperatures across the U.S., experts are warning that 2026 may be one of the worst on record. Combine those extreme conditions with massive restructuring at the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), and the result is a powder keg for federal wildland firefighters. “We have a wildfire crisis on our hands right now,” said Riva Duncan, an ex-fire chief who spent 32 years fighting wildfires for the USFS and Bureau of Land Management. Today, she’s the president of the advocacy organization Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. “We used to call it a fire season, now it’s a fire year,” Duncan told Outside. “Our fires are larger, more destructive, last longer, and are more difficult to suppress.” The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), which tracks wildfires across the country, issued its 2026 season outlook on May 1. To date, more than 1.8 million acres have burned across the U.S.—that’s 194 percent above the t...