October 23, 2025
The Honorable Doug Burgum
Secretary
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington D.C., 20240
Dear Secretary Burgum:
We write to you with great alarm after dangerous and life-threatening incidents at national parks and urge you once again to close all national parks until the government re-opens.
As you have likely seen, there have been high-profile incidents such as a wildfire that started near an unstaffed campground in Joshua Tree National Park and illegal BASE jumping and squatters at Yosemite National Park. These clearly demonstrate the problems with keeping parks open with minimal or no staff.
In addition, there have been less high-profile reports of bathrooms overflowing, trash that is not being picked up, and trails that are not being safely maintained or monitored, which add urgency to our ask.
Our parks don’t run by themselves. The dedicated staff of the National Park Service (NPS) keep them clean, safe, and functioning. And as these latest, and sadly predictable, incidents clearly demonstrate, our parks cannot operate without them.
Before the shutdown more than 40 former national park superintendents sent you a letter warning of this very type of situation. It was ignored. And now we see the results.
This summer, well before this shutdown, our parks were already being pushed to the brink by funding and staffing cuts. A recent New York Times report found that at least 90 parks have been seriously strained in an effort to comply with Secretarial Order 3426 that parks remain open and accessible to the public, despite huge reductions in the workforce.
The shutdown has made this bad situation far worse.
Fundamentally, keeping parks open without adequate staff is in violation of the National Park Service’s founding mission and inconsistent with the laws passed by Congress. Specifically, the department is in violation of the Organic Act, which states that the National Park Service will protect and conserve the natural and cultural resources and the wild life therein to leave them unimpaired for future generations, and the Redwood Act that says nothing should be allowed in derogation of park values unless specifically provided by the Congress.
We recognize that closing parks is not an easy decision, but it’s the responsible one. Protecting our parks now ensures that future generations can enjoy them as we do today.
And we fear, as former National Park Service employees with thousands of years of collective service in our national parks, that if you fail to act – and soon – the incidents at Joshua Tree and Yosemite will not be the last.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned Former and Retired National Park Service Employees
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