As President Donald Trump's administration fired roughly 1,000 newly hired National Park Service workers over the Presidents' Day holiday weekend, several said it was devastating to have their dream jobs ripped from their grasp.

Since Feb. 13, between 1,000 and 3,000 newly hired employees were laid off across the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service following a Trump administration order to fire most trial and probationary staff across the federal government, several outlets reported.

"Together, these agencies oversee 278 million acres of land, roughly the size of Texas and Montana combined," The New York Times reported. "With whole teams slashed and fewer staff to provide basic functions like cleaning up trails, emptying pit toilets, carrying out trash and staffing visitors centers, employees say these vast public lands are in danger of falling into disarray."

The agencies did not respond to McClatchy News' request for comment Feb. 19.

A park service spokesperson told The Washington Post in an email: "The National Park Service is working closely with the Office of Personnel Management to ensure we are prioritizing fiscal responsibility for the American people. As always, NPS will continue to provide critical services and deliver excellent customer service."

"It's chaos everywhere," a former seasonal park ranger at Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve told the outlet. "I don't know what the next couple of months are going to bring."

A protector of Iowa's American Indian burial mounds

"I am absolutely heartbroken and completely devastated to have lost my dream job of an Education Park Ranger with the National Park Service this Valentine's Day," Brian Gibbs said in a Feb. 14 post on Facebook. "Access to my government email was denied mid-afternoon and my position was ripped out from under my feet after my shift was over at 3:45 p.m. on a cold snowy Friday."

Gibbs shared several photos of himself posing with his family while in his ranger uniform, including one at an entrance to Iowa's Effigy Mounds National Monument where he worked.

Gibbs reflected on his time as a park ranger by sharing several aspects of his identity, including:

"But mostly I'm just tired," Gibbs wrote in the post, describing the pressure of reassuring his wife "that things will be ok" for them and their "growing little family that she's carrying" now that he is without the job he worked toward for years.

"Things are not ok. I am not ok," he said, adding that this is the second time in less than five years that a dream job he has worked had been eliminated. "Now I may need to uproot my FAMILY again."

Yosemite National Park's only EMT

A ranger who appears to have worked at Yosemite National Park in California shared a similar sentiment on Instagram, adding that he believes the unprecedented move was "flat-out reckless."

"Today I lost my dream job as a permanent park ranger in the NPS," Alex Wild said in the Feb. 16 post on Instagram. "I'm still in shock, and completely devastated. I have dedicated my life to being a public servant, teacher, and advocate for places that we ALL cherish."

Wild described how he has "saved lives" as the "only EMT at (the) park and the first responder for any emergency" and has put his own life at risk in the name of serving his community -- only to receive a termination email "without any warning," he said.

Wild says the email stated he "failed to demonstrate fitness or qualifications for continued employment" because his "subject matter knowledge, skills and abilities" don't meet the park service's "current needs."

"This is the biggest slap in the face imaginable," Wild said in the post's caption. "This decision has nothing to do with performance or the needs of the department. My supervisors and park leadership have made it clear that I am a valued and essential part of the team. This decision came from the top, DOGE and the new federal administration."

Wild said there were about 800 more park service employees that he knew of who unexpectedly lost their jobs the same day -- which for some also meant losing housing, he said.

"These are U.S. citizens, with background checks and college degrees. These are the people who teach your (Junior) Rangers, build your trails, clean your restrooms, rescue injured visitors, and keep the parks operating. We are not the excess. We are essential to maintain access to parks," he said. "My heart is broken for all of the other people who lost their jobs and their housing. My heart is broken for the parks and landscapes that will be damaged. And my heart is broken for my country."

One of South Florida's few NPS archaeologists

Eden Brazill is a newer hire who said she was "heartbroken" to lose her job as an archaeologist with the park service's southeast region, according to a post she shared on Instagram Feb. 18.

"I moved cross country for this position in November and have been elated, feeling like I had finally 'made it' after 8 years in the shovel bum/intern/grad student meat grinder," she said, adding that she recently had a professional dream of hers come true when she was "elected to the underwater archaeology dive team."

"The fallout from this decision will have massive impacts that most would never imagine," she said, adding that she fears "for the future of our national parks -- the cultural heritage, wildlife, and fragile ecosystems within them."