Two Democrats in Oregon’s congressional delegation heard questions from concerned constituents at town hall in Sisters Saturday evening, promising stiff resistance to recent actions of the Trump Administration cast as threats to federal public lands, public education, due process for immigrants and more.

The stop in Sisters was the first of 10 town halls in the coming weeks for U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum, who joined U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley’s event on the senator’s own tour through Central Oregon. It was the second town hall in two months hosted in the Sisters High School gymnasium following Sen. Ron Wyden’s March visit.

The events have drawn large, frustrated crowds — more than 1,300 people in March and about 750 on Saturday — looking for answers to a host of sweeping executive actions.

“The alarm bells have been pitched to a higher level,” Merkley told reporters before the event. “People are very motivated to come and tell us we need to fix things.”

Perhaps the most acute issue for Central Oregonians is the coming wildfire season, which Gov. Tina Kotek recently described as likely to be “more aggressive and increasingly difficult” than in past years due to hotter and drier-than-normal weather later this summer.

Merkley said “There’s a lot that’s still in good shape” when it comes to wildfire preparedness in Oregon, including firefighting funding and readiness of the Oregon National Guard. According to Merkley, the administration restored funding for thinning, brush trimming and prescribed fires that was frozen earlier this year, but that did cause a several-week delay in wildfire preparations, he said.

And there are 7,400 Forest Service employees who are no longer on the job after a mass dismissal earlier this year. Those do not include firefighters themselves. But many of the jobs helped support firefighting efforts, like coordination and planning. Many of the employees were certified in wildland firefighting and could be called in as reinforcements.

It’s not certain how this will impact Oregon’s wildfire season this year.

“This has been very concerning,” Merkley said. “We may see some deficiencies in the supply chain of work that takes on fires.”

Bynum said she viewed the town hall as a good opportunity to ask “how bad of a shape are we in…how do we close that gap, and do we need to make very specific asks in a timely fashion to get the resources that we need.” Bynum represents District 5, which stretches from Bend to the suburbs southeast of Portland.

In attendance Saturday was Liz Crandall, a Forest Service field ranger in the Bend-Fort Rock District who was laid off in February during a purge of the federal workforce led by the Department of Government Efficiency. Bynum took Crandall as a guest to Washington D.C. for Trump’s first address to congress in March.

When the government offered to reinstate Crandall to her position, she declined. She had already taken another job with a nonprofit in Sisters and had little assurance that the Forest Service job wouldn’t be cut later on.

Crandall voiced her concern that the cuts were degrading the government’s ability to properly take care of federal public lands. Trump has vowed to increase logging and drilling on public lands, while the Department of the Interior is exploring how public lands could be used for housing. House Republicans have proposed selling federal public lands as part of a package that includes sweeping tax cuts.

“They don’t see it as a mecca of beauty and American history. They see it as money signs,” Crandall said Saturday. “To me that is so worrisome.”

Bynum said she believes house Democrats are willing to “fight to the death” to protect public lands.

Merkley added: “Hell no — we’re not going to sell off our public lands.”

Merkley said he would work to kill the reconciliation bill that includes deep cuts to federal spending to offset the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

That could mean a proposed $12 million cut from the Department of Education, including K-12 and higher education program.

“We are going to fight fiercely to stop those cuts,” Merkley said when asked about the issue by a Bend teacher. “We want to see education improve.”

In attendance was Austin Vicedomini, a 21-year-old studying game development online at Mt. Hood Community College.

“I’m just worried what will happen to our colleges and students like me,” Vicedomini said. “I go to a public college. I don’t want my program to be defunded.”

Merkley and Bynum both urged political engagement from constituents in the form of calling elected officials and joining affinity groups. Christiane Mcauliffe, a 64-year-old Bend resident, said Saturday’s town hall was the first she had attended in several years.

“The world is in a really bad place and we need to be very engaged in our democracy, and this is part of it,” she said.

Mcauliffe said she feels Democrats “still suffer from not wanting to go down the road of asking the hard questions” and should be more forceful in questioning political appointees.

Merkley cited on Saturday night his recent line of questioning with FBI Director Kash Patel, who the senator urged to launch an investigation into the use of due process in deportations of undocumented immigrants. Trump has clashed as he carries out wide-reaching deportation policies that have in several cases resulted in wrongful removals from the country.

Merkley emphasized the importance of giving due process to undocumented immigrants, a right that’s detailed in the constitution and has been upheld by the Supreme Court, he said.

“We do not have an executive team, who understand and honor these core protections of our freedom,” he said. “We have to be fierce in pointing out what they’re doing. The courts have to be fierce.”