Sponsors (3)
The bill increases capacity for landscape‑scale prescribed burns—potentially reducing catastrophic wildfire risk and building local workforce and coordination—but does so with limited funding, new fiscal and administrative exposures, and measurable short‑term smoke and equity risks that could leave some communities and small landowners underserved.
Rural communities, tribes, and local governments will see more acres treated and reduced catastrophic wildfire risk because the bill funds grants/contracts and allows multi-year federal contracting to expand landscape-scale prescribed burning.
State, Tribal, and local partners (including NGOs) get training, standards, task forces, and new training centers to build durable local capacity for safe prescribed fire and cross‑boundary coordination.
Non‑Federal practitioners and partner organizations can participate with reduced private liability because the bill provides FTCA/liability protections when acting under federal supervision.
People living near burn areas—especially low‑income residents, the elderly, and those with respiratory conditions—face increased short‑term smoke exposure and related health risks as prescribed burning expands.
The program's funding limits (e.g., $20M/year, $1M/project, 20 projects) and allowing up to 15% of hazardous fuels funds for prescribed fire may constrain scale and divert money from other fuels treatments or firefighting priorities.
Federal assumption of FTCA liability for non‑Federal partners plus personnel cost increases (hazard pay, converting seasonal staff to permanent roles) create fiscal exposure for taxpayers and higher program costs.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes funding, grants, workforce incentives, multi‑year agreements, task forces, and reporting to expand coordinated prescribed fire across federal and nonfederal lands.
Official title: To direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage and expand the use of prescribed fire on land managed by the Department of the Interior or the Forest Service, with an emphasis on units of the National Forest System in the western and southeastern United States, to acknowledge and support the long-standing use of cultural burning by Indian Tribes and Indigenous practitioners, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 10, 2025 by Kim Schrier · Last progress June 10, 2025
Expands federal support and authorities to increase the use of prescribed fire across Federal and non‑Federal lands by providing flexible funding, grants, technical assistance, training, workforce incentives, cooperative agreements, and reporting requirements. It directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to set regional targets and strategies, create landscape‑scale task forces, permit multi‑year contracts, and improve data collection to scale up safe, cross‑boundary prescribed burning that reduces hazardous fuels and protects communities and ecological values. The bill also creates workforce and pay incentives, allows conversion of seasonal firefighters to permanent positions, authorizes cooperative agreements with States, Tribes, local governments and NGOs, funds training and post‑burn monitoring, and conditions certain funding on state reporting of prescribed‑fire accomplishments.