Sandee Nezhad spent the last nine years as a U.S. Forest Service employee preparing Boundary Waters paddlers for launch into the wilderness. She went through safety tips and signed off on permits.

“It’s crazy,” she said.

“My supervisor never documented any poor performance.”

Nezhad started as a temporary seasonal worker in the Superior National Forest (SNF) in 2016, and was promoted to a permanent seasonal job last year at the Gunflint Ranger District office in Grand Marais. She also helped at the Tofte office.

Considered a probationary employee, Nezhad is among an unknown number of Forest Service workers who’ve been fired or have resigned in recent days — part of the Trump administration‘s effort to reduce the federal workforce through Elon Musk’s team, which calls itself the Department of Government Efficiency.

The Forest Service, which is within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is firing 3,400 employees, about a 10% reduction of the agency’s workforce, according to a Reuters report.

Her immediate supervisor abruptly retired, too, and now, Nezhad said, the Gunflint office that already dealt with staffing deficits has no employees. The office used to have seven or eight people.