Modernizing Wildfire Safety and Prevention Act of 2025

This bill aims to make communities safer before, during, and after wildfires. It speeds up disaster aid, improves smoke warnings and air quality information, builds up-to-date fire risk maps, and supports firefighters and their families.

• Who is affected: people in wildfire-prone areas who need timely smoke alerts ; local, state, and Tribal governments seeking grants or aid ; owners of fire-damaged forest land and small businesses applying for recovery help ; wildland firefighters and their families ; and workers exposed to wildfire smoke on the job.
• What changes: faster help—certain wildfire-related grants, loans, and debris-removal aid must be paid within 90 days ; broader disaster coverage—a wildfire declaration can also cover later hazards like landslides or floods for up to three years after the fire ; cleaner air info—a national smoke monitoring and county-level alert system (including Wireless Emergency Alerts) with more sensors and better use of satellites and existing tools ; people and training—new college/training grants and a fire leaders academy, plus flexibility for firefighters to keep retirement benefits when changing jobs or job-sharing with Tribal governments, and a casualty assistance program for families after critical injury or death (notifications, travel reimbursement, case management, and help finding benefits) ; easier community grants—agencies must simplify applications and offer more help to applicants ; better maps and data—agencies will build dynamic, regularly updated fire risk maps and stand up a joint office and public data center to share tools and information .
• When: within 90 days of enactment, agencies must start simplifying wildfire grant programs ; within 1 year, the public smoke alert system and key FEMA updates are due ; within 2 years, a worker health risk assessment on wildfire smoke must be completed ; within 3 years, new fire risk maps must be ready ; and certain wildfire aid and loans must be paid within 90 days once approved or when a fire ends, as specified.