Workers at Yosemite National Park in California unfurled a large, upside-down U.S. flag at a popular summit in the park on Saturday to protest the Trump administration’s firing of around 1,000 National Park Service (NPS) employees last week.
The inverted flag — generally recognized to be a symbol of “dire distress” — was hung on a 3,000-foot tall summit called El Capitan. The protest was timed to reach the maximum number of onlookers: Each February, thousands of visitors travel to the summit to witness a natural phenomenon known as the “firefall” — when the angle of the setting sun causes the waterfall on the cliff of the summit to resemble glowing orange lava.
“We’re bringing attention to what’s happening to the parks, which are every American’s properties,” said Gavin Carpenter, a maintenance mechanic at Yosemite who spoke to The San Francisco Chronicle about the protest. “It’s super important we take care of them, and we’re losing people here, and it’s not sustainable if we want to keep the parks open.”
At least a dozen Yosemite employees were terminated in the mass firings. Among them was Olek Chmura, a former custodian who left his home in Ohio last year to work at the park in California.
According to Chmura, he and another employee who was fired were the only two workers doing cleanup in one section of Yosemite. Without them, Chmura worries that trash will pile up, endangering the park’s wildlife.
“You’d be amazed with how many diapers I pick up off the side of the road. Beer bottles, toilet paper, all the stuff so you don’t have to see. You get to see the park in its true natural beauty,” Chmura told The Associated Press.
“Our national monuments and parks are just our greatest treasure, and it just ruined my dream, you know?” Chmura added, speaking about his own termination.
Andria Townsend, another worker who was fired, had been employed at Yosemite since 2023 but was relisted as a “probationary employee” when she took a promotion last year, making her eligible for termination. Like Chmura, Townsend also worries about the consequences of the mass firings.
“What does this mean for the state of national parks? What does this mean for wildlife conservation? It’s really scary. It’s a really uncertain time for those of us who care about conservation and public lands, so I am definitely worried for the future,” Townsend said.
The firings also resulted in the downsizing of some of Yosemite’s search and rescue teams, sparking safety concerns for some of the park’s visitors.
More than 325 million people visited U.S. national parks in 2023, according to figures collected by NPS. Yosemite was the sixth-most traveled to park in the NPS system, with nearly 4 million visitors in 2023 alone.
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