SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Forest Service announced it will relocate its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and shut down its regional offices as part of a reorganization planned by the Trump administration. The restructuring will also consolidate research facilities into a single location at Fort Collins, Colorado, and replace the current regional structure with 15 state-based directors overseeing one or more states.

According to the Trump administration, moving the headquarters to Utah and shutting down 31 research stations will streamline operations and bring leaders closer to western forests. Agriculture department officials said the relocation will place Forest Service administration closer to its federally managed lands concentrated in western states. The administration said the reorganization will not cause any interruption or change to the agency's firefighting force. Administration officials have planned the reorganization since last year.

Forest Service chief Tom Schultz said: "This is about building a Forest Service that is nimble, efficient, effective – and closer to the forests and communities it serves." Schultz added: "Effective stewardship and active management are achieved on the ground, where forests and communities are found – not just behind a desk in the capital."

The Forest Service manages nearly 200 million acres of federal land, and about 90% of its workforce already works outside Washington. Separately, Forest Service firefighters are being integrated into a new U.S. Wildland Fire Service within the Department of the Interior.

Republican governor of Utah Spencer Cox said: "With nearly 90% of Forest Service lands west of the Mississippi, moving the US Forest Service headquarters to Salt Lake City will put leadership closer to the lands, communities, and challenges they manage. It also means hundreds of jobs coming to Utah and better, faster decisions on the ground for the people who rely on our public lands, from ranchers and timber producers to families who work and recreate there."

Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director for the Wilderness Society, said: "This administration's plan to dismantle a 120-year-old agency will mean less access to the public forests people rely on, less capacity to reduce intensifying wildfire risk, and more threats to clean air, clean water and wildlife habitat." Hicks added: "At a time when wildfires are getting worse, and access to public lands is already under strain, the last thing we need is an unnecessary reorganization that creates chaos and confusion for the land managers, researchers and wildland firefighters who help keep our forests healthy now and for future generations."

In 2019, the Bureau of Land Management announced it would move its headquarters from Washington to Colorado. The bureau lost nearly 90% of its Washington-based staff after the announcement and returned its headquarters to Washington after Joe Biden took office.