Unified Wildfire Service Plan Stalls After Congress Demands Answers

The House Appropriations Committee has hit the brakes on creating a new federal wildland fire agency.

In a mark-up session on Tuesday, the committee released its plan for federal 2026 spending in the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Bill. Under “Reorganization Proposals – Wildland Fire Management” it stated “changes in budgetary and management structure spark concerns about impacted agencies’ abilities to consistently meet critical performance Benchmarks.” 

In the bill report released Tuesday, House Appropriations Committee members unrolled a list of questions they wanted resolved before committing to creating a new firefighting agency.

“Specifically, the Committee notes ongoing challenges in achieving timber volume targets, meeting hazardous fuels reduction goals, and maintaining use of an adequately staffed and red card-certified workforce necessary for wildfire response,” the bill report stated. “The Committee is also concerned about how restructuring would influence the fundamental purpose of the Forest Service, shifting from a commodity focus to conservation.”

It then ordered the Government Accountability Office to study the concept of creating a consolidated firefighting service within the Interior Department and report back within six months of the bill’s passage. The House of Representatives adjourned for its August recess on Wednesday to avoid taking votes on deceased sex offender Jeffery Epstein’s investigation files. Budget votes can’t take place until Congress is back in September, meaning the study could take until March 2026 to arrive.

“It’s obvious the committee has seen the same concerns that many of us who’ve spent our careers in fire and land management have seen with it,” said Bill Avey, retired Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest supervisor who also served as Forest Service national fire director in 2021. “It was a poorly thought-out and problematic proposal. What are you trying to fix? It’s a solution looking for a problem.”

The House decision derails plans by the U.S. Interior and Agriculture departments to create a consolidated wildland fire management service by the 2026 fire season. Federal wildfire resources are currently spread across the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Interior Department had published a budget overview of the new service, which anticipated spending $6.5 billion fighting fires on public lands. The Forest Service released its own budget documents anticipating transferring its wildfire programs and budgets to the new Interior service.

Those moves followed an executive order by President Donald Trump on June 12 calling for the unified agency. It gave the secretaries of Interior and Agriculture 90 days to “consolidate their wildland fire programs to achieve the most efficient and effective use of wildland fire offices, coordinating bodies, programs, budgets, procurement processes, and research.” That deadline would land in early September.

Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy introduced a bill in February authorizing the creation of a single wildfire service, but it has not had any review. Sheehy’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Firefighter shortfall

The Forest Service claimed it hit 99 percent of its 11,300-person firefighting force by June 30. However, ProPublica reported that as of July 17, as much as 27 percent of federal firefighting jobs are unfilled. That works out to about 4,500 unfilled positions, ProPublica stated.

Red-card certified federal workers have completed training for basic wildland firefighting. The Forest Service is already showing its dependence on that “militia,” as it’s known inside the agency. The National Interagency Fire Center on July 21 reported “more than 18,000 wildland firefighters and support personnel are assigned to incidents.”

Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz told Congress in June that he was trying to rehire about 1,400 red-carded Forest Service workers, who had taken buyouts or been laid off earlier this spring. The ProPublica report quoted a letter from Schultz to Forest Service staff saying “We know the demand for resources outpaces their availability,” and pledging to use human-resources employees to fight fires. 

Those missing workers matter a lot, according to Colin Hardy, retired director of the Missoula Fire Lab at the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station. While thousands of firefighters work on the “hot line” of a wildfire perimeter, hundreds more are back at the fire camp forecasting the weather, quartermastering supplies, maintaining communication networks and performing other logistical duties. They tend to be more senior office staff, with higher salaries than field employees. And it was that support force that took the bulk of the staff reductions.

“It can take 20 years to become a fire behavior analyst,” Hardy said. “They aren’t professional firefighters — they’re the militia. All that knowledge and skill and ability are in the non-fire positions. And a lot of those got RIF’d [reduction in force] or took the deferred retirement program. That means they got rid of about half the people who actually support the firefighting.”

The Forest Service handles almost three-quarters of the nation’s firefighting resources and responses. Interior Department agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management tackle about 15 percent, with state wildfire forces taking the remainder. The Forest Service is housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a separate Cabinet agency from Interior.

The House Appropriations report questioned “how this new consolidated Service differs from the role the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) already plays to coordinate fire response. Additionally, the study should evaluate the extent to which states, localities, and Tribes were consulted regarding plans for the creation of this new Fire Service and consider what impact this transfer may have on these critical stakeholders.”

It concluded with a warning: “ … continued support for this initiative is contingent upon demonstrable progress toward meeting these performance benchmarks, with clear, measurable outcomes.”

‘What does right look like?’

Grassroots Wildland Firefighters President Luke Mayfield told Mountain Journal his organization supported the unified firefighting service concept. But he added the proposal as presented this summer didn’t appear complete.

“They’re asking for a GAO report,” Mayfield said on Tuesday, referencing the Government Accountability Office. “I don’t know if that’s slamming the brakes or looking for a cost-benefit analysis, but they should have those questions answered. The system was broke before. The system’s broke now. But what does right look like? Who’s responsible for writing those proposals?”

Avey said numerous wildland fire experts have asked Appropriations Committee members to pull back from the consolidated wildfire service idea. On June 10, he joined 31 retired Forest Service officials, including seven former Forest Service chiefs, in signing a letter calling the proposal a “costly mistake.”

“Wildfire management is more than extinguishing fires,” the letter stated. “The critical linkage between fire suppression and forest management, including fuels reduction and prescribed fire, must be maintained. Severing forest management and forest managers from fire suppression will make firefighting less safe and put communities at greater risk.”

In their public statements Tuesday, congressional and Interior officials skipped over the decision to stay with traditional firefighting funding and organization. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum touted increases in oil, gas and coal development, water infrastructure and hydropower. But in his “Forestry and Public Lands” section, Burgum only mentioned expanded BLM timber sales and eliminating discounts for wind and solar projects. The words “wild” “land” or “fire” were not mentioned.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole’s “Key Takeaways” statement noted the funding allocations for Interior and Forest Service wildfire activity, and praised moves to increase firefighter pay. The Republican from Oklahoma made no reference to the committee’s concerns about the unified wildfire service. Democratic Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut skipped it in her comments as well. 

Montana Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke also sits on the Appropriations Committee. He did not return requests for comment on the wildland fire management service decision.