ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — “Terminated, Effective Immediately.”
It’s those harsh, clinical words that opened Jenifer Bunty’s announcement that she had been fired from her job as a Public Affairs Specialist for the USDA Forest Service in North Carolina.
Bunty is one of 17 Forest Service employees in North Carolina that have been terminated from their positions over the last week.
“There was a first round that went through on Friday and then I was fired in sort of the second round,” Bunty said. “Each agency was supposed to send a list of people who were on probation. We heard about that a few weeks before. I knew I was on that list, as well as a lot of other folks in our forest. I just tried to keep working until I couldn’t anymore.”
Probation is a regular practice in the Forest Service. Depending on the position, the status can last anywhere from one year to three. Probation doesn’t just apply to new employees, either. Whenever a Forest Service worker switches from one “series,” or job classification, to another, they return to probation. Likewise, if an employee goes from a non-supervisory role to a supervisory position, probation.
“I have a friend who worked for the Forest Service for almost 30 years,” Bunty said. “She actually just started filing her retirement paperwork, and because she took a supervisory position last year, she was in probation and she was fired.”
Bunty started with the Forest Service in July 2023. In addition to her public affairs job, she worked a temporary detail as a district ranger in the Grandfather Ranger District beginning in September 2024 before returning to public affairs in January 2025. Her probationary period was due to end in July 2025.
The terminations come at an uncertain time for the Forest Service in North Carolina. The impact Hurricane Helene had on western North Carolina was cataclysmic and included two of the state’s National Forests: Nantahala and Pisgah.
According to a Forest Service assessment, more than 187,000 acres between the two forests endured “moderate to catastrophic damage,” including 117,000 acres of vegetation loss.
While the 17 terminations were split across all four N.C. National Forests, Croatan, Nantahala, Pisgah and Uwharrie, that does not necessarily mean that there was an equal split across locations.
“It’s 17 across our four forests. I should also add that just because someone necessarily is stationed along the coast, they would still be supporting things in the western part,” Bunty explained. “We had a GIS specialist who was fired in the first round and she was actively serving for all the Helene recovery efforts in the west.”
From Bunty’s perspective, the layoffs came as a surprise when disaster recovery appeared to be e a government priority just months ago.
“In December, Congress gave the Forest Service upwards of $6 billion for disaster recovery, and we expected a lot of that to come to North Carolina because our forests are so integrated into our communities,” Bunty said. “You know, so many people live in the forest and use Forest Service roads every day and need the outdoor economy to run their businesses, all of those impacts. So, we expected a substantial amount of funding to support that recovery, and, yeah, I’m not sure how that will happen.”
Bunty references the American Relief Act, 2025, which the U.S. House of Representatives passed on Dec. 20, 2024.
According to a press release from the House Committee on Appropriations, the “$6 billion for repairing national forest roads and facilities” is part of “$110 billion in disaster assistance for relief efforts in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Oklahoma, and Western regions, among others.”
Without a full staff at the Forest Service, the necessary work to restore the Forest Service becomes much more difficult, Bunty intimated.
Typically, there are around 300 positions between all four forests. At the time Bunty was terminated, only around 240 of those spots were filled.
“We were understaffed to begin with, honestly,” Bunty admitted. “If we were able to hire, we probably could have hired 100 people to work on this disaster recovery, and instead, we lost people.”
The fired Forest Service employees were dedicated to, passionate about and committed toward their work. That includes Bunty herself. Her termination letter cited her “performance” as a rationale for her dismissal.
Other fired Forest Service employees shared on social media that they had received the same citation.
“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,” quoted Mike Knoerr, a wildlife biologist at Pisgah National Forest. Knoerr was fired in the first wave of terminations on Friday, Feb. 14.
However, by all accounts, Bunty’s performance record was excellent.
“I packed up my desk yesterday and as I packed up, I put two awards in a box that I had won for my performance. Every performance evaluation I had was excellent,” Bunty shared. “I was pulled into areas that honestly were probably outside of the job that I was hired to do because I have a pretty wide background. I think I was a good employee. I tried really hard to be. It’s something that really mattered to me.”
Bunty was brought to tears the first time she opened her Forest Service uniform and again when she reflected to us about what the job meant to her.
“We have to balance so many values the American people hold dear and I think that mission has always been something that speaks to me,” Bunty said. “I worked with other people who were just as passionate. I don’t know, there were some days you feel like you’re, like, saving the world because you’re talking about things that will impact the next 100 years on this piece of land that means so many things to so many people.”
It’s the people Bunty is thinking about now.
“I was a public affairs specialist. My job is always to kind of think about the people,” Bunty laughed, then sighed. “I do that naturally. I worry about our communities and our partners. I just worry about getting this work done. There’s so much work that needs to be done.”
Even though Bunty is no longer with the Forest Service, part of her is still hoping to return. It’s as though she’s an ex-girlfriend of the Forest Service, she joked.
“I’m like, they’re gonna call me any day now, I’m gonna go back,” Bunty chuckled. “I’ve actually gotten a few job offers already and I asked them to give me a week to think about it. At least, because I just keep hoping someone will say, oh, we forgot, there’s important work to do.”
Learn more about the USAD Forest Service in North Carolina at www.fs.usda.gov.
