WASHINGTON — The Forest Service is not selling campgrounds or trailheads in national forests — at least not yet.

But the cash-strapped agency is looking to close some recreation sites and sell unused ranger stations and offices, even as it moves to make permanent user fees for people who picnic, hike or canoe on national forest and other public lands.

It's part of a budget squeeze driven by record deficits, the decline of the timber industry, and the new "healthy forests'' law aimed at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

While President Bush has proposed a $56 million increase for projects to curb fire risks, the overall Forest Service budget would be cut by 5.8 percent, to $4.07 billion, in the fiscal year that begins this fall. Chief among the proposed cuts are $40 million for state and private forestry programs, $81 million for maintenance of facilities and $20 million in land acquisition.

The moves underline the hard choices facing the Forest Service in its centennial year.

"This budget is a tight budget, and our priority is healthy forests and reducing the risk of catastrophic fire, so trade-offs have to be made,'' said Hank Kashdan, the agency's budget chief.

But some Western lawmakers and environmental groups call the proposed cutbacks shortsighted and say they could severely limit the ability of local communities to fight wildfires — even as officials prepare for what many expect to be one of the worst wildfire seasons in memory.

"Communities out here are bracing for a tough wildfire season,'' said Bend City Councilman John Hummel. "We need all the help we can get. This is no time for the administration to cut the funding that allows us to do the work we need to do to protect lives and property.''

He and other critics are especially concerned about cuts for state and local wildfire assistance, noting that 85 percent of lands at risk from wildfire are nonfederal.

Since 2001, state and local assistance programs have been cut by $91 million, or 57 percent, according to a study by The Wilderness Society. An average of just 7.8 percent of total spending under the National Fire Plan has gone to state and community programs in that time — a number that would be cut to under 4 percent in 2006 under the president's budget, the group said.

Kashdan and other officials dispute those figures but concede that funds for state and private programs have been cut. Still, they say they will have enough money to maintain a 99 percent success rate in the initial attack in putting out wildfires on federal lands — a goal they met last year.

They also point to a $500 million supplemental budget approved last year that can be used if fire suppression funds are depleted, as expected.

"Congress has provided us the cushion we need so we don't have to dip into operating funds when we provide firefighting services. That also helps us on the prevention side,'' said Dave Tenney, deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The Forest Service, an element of the USDA, is again emphasizing programs to reduce hazardous fuels such as small trees and underbrush that can feed large wildfires, Tenney said.

The agency treated more than 4.2 million acres last year, through thinning or controlled burns, and expects to exceed that total this year, Tenney said.

The emphasis on fire suppression — while attractive to a public rightly concerned about the dangers of wildfire — can be counterproductive, said Lisa Gregory, a natural resource policy fellow at The Wilderness Society.

"The system is set up so essentially there's a bottomless pit of money available for fire suppression,'' she said. "So when there is a big fire event, without limits the government will allocate money to that fire,'' borrowing money from other accounts if necessary.

In five of the past six years, the Forest Service has exceeded its suppression budget and borrowed from other programs — including many designed to prevent fires from occurring, such as fuels reduction and local assistance. While many programs are reimbursed, not all are repaid in full and payments often are delayed for a year or more.

The end result, Gregory and other critics say, is a cycle of failure in which the Forest Service continually responds to fire instead of preparing for it over the long term.

"The pattern we go through is to cut back on firefighting in the regular (budget) bills and then when fires occur, we put up all the money and somehow kid ourselves into believing this is budget discipline,'' said Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah.

He and other Western lawmakers are furious over Bush's proposal to cut $283 million in fire management programs, including a 41 percent cut for maintenance of Forest Service facilities, to $118 million. Senators warn such deficit-reducing moves may end up costing taxpayers more in the long run.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., said the Bush administration has never come close to requesting the full $760 million per year authorized under the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Nor has Congress come close to fully funding it, he added.

"In all probability we need (to spend) closer to $1 billion a year to adequately reduce fuel loads,'' he said — more than double the $462 million appropriated for hazardous fuels reduction last year.

Such an increase is unlikely, DeFazio and others said. Indeed, to save money, the Forest Service is now marking some recreation sites such as campgrounds and trailheads for possible closure, because it can no longer afford to maintain them. Oregon's Deschutes and Winema national forests are among the first nationwide to undertake the reviews.

The Forest Service also is attempting to sell offices and ranger stations that bustled during the logging heyday decades ago but now sit idle.

Officials hope cash from the sales will generate up to $175 million over 10 years, while reducing maintenance costs for unneeded buildings by as much as $90 million. Most buildings to be sold — including ranger housing, offices and warehouses around the West — are not located on national forests, or are on sites contiguous to private property, officials said.

"We're not going to sell a chunk of land in the middle of a national forest just because there is an unused facility on it. That's not what this is about, Kashdan said.

Among sites being considered are a blighted building in downtown Los Angeles and a 35-acre ranger district complex in the Okanogan and Wenatchee national forests in Washington state, he said. The site was emptied by consolidations as federal logging declined over the past two decades.

Meanwhile, all 155 national forests have been directed to rank recreation sites by 2007 under a system that will assess costs, popularity and how closely sites match what each forest designates as its "niche'' audience.

Low-ranking sites may be shut, have their seasons trimmed or have services, such as garbage collection, cut back to meet spending cuts totaling tens of millions of dollars.

Some critics see darker motives. Starving the agency of cash forces it to keep only the most lucrative sites and run public lands like a commercial enterprise, said Scott Silver of the Oregon group Wild Wilderness.

"It's the complete perversion of the meaning of public lands,'' he said.

Few forests have completed the review, so it's unclear how many of the 16,000 campgrounds, boat ramps, picnic areas and other recreation sites nationwide will be affected.

The erosion of money comes despite temporary user fees imposed since 1996 and extended for another 10 years under a law approved last year. The fees — typically $5 for use of marked trails and restrooms or $10 for a campsite — are expected to bring in nearly $49 million to the Forest Service this year, Kashdan said.

On the Net:

Forest Service: http://www.fs.fed.us/

Wilderness Society: http://www.wilderness.org/