Fix Our Forests Act Gains Bipartisan Push as Congress Eyes End-of-Year Wildfire Legislation

With the 2026 wildfire season cementing itself as one of the worst in American history, Congress is under renewed pressure to pass significant wildfire legislation before the end of the current session. The Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), a bipartisan bill that would reshape federal forest management and wildfire prevention, is gaining momentum — and advocates are pushing to attach it to the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as a vehicle for passage.

A Bipartisan Push

On October 23, 2026, 14 Republican and 17 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and House Armed Services Committee leadership urging the inclusion of the Fix Our Forests Act in the FY2027 NDAA. The letter described the scale and cost of the wildfire crisis and noted that wildfire mitigation can help protect military installations, training lands, and national security infrastructure.

The push frames wildfire prevention as a national security issue — a framing that has found receptive ears on both sides of the aisle and has historically proven effective in moving legislation through Congress.

What the Fix Our Forests Act Would Do

The Fix Our Forests Act (S.1462) includes several major provisions:

$1.14 billion in additional funding for forest restoration and watershed protection programs
Expedited environmental review for forest management projects aimed at reducing wildfire risk
Incentives for long-term stewardship and coordinated management across jurisdictional boundaries
Provisions to connect disparate federal projects into more cohesive landscape-scale treatment programs

Senator Alex Padilla of California has been a leading champion of the legislation in the Senate. The American Farm Bureau Federation has urged farmers and ranchers to contact their senators in support of the bill, citing the economic devastation wildfires cause for agricultural operations.

A Spending Imbalance

Proponents of FOFA point to a stark imbalance in how wildfire dollars have been spent. Over the past 10 years, Congress appropriated $64.7 billion in wildfire-specific funds — but more than half went toward suppression and response, with only 17 percent directed toward mitigation and prevention.

That imbalance has drawn criticism from fire scientists, forest managers, and rural community advocates who argue that spending more on preventing and reducing future fires would yield far better outcomes than simply fighting fires after they start.

Companion Legislation: Healthy Forests Incentives Act

Representative Michael Baumgartner of Washington state introduced the Healthy Forests Incentives Act on November 2, targeting a complementary angle: connecting long-term private and public land stewardship through incentive structures rather than relying solely on federal project spending.

Baumgartner's office noted that isolated federal projects often fail to deliver landscape-scale benefits, and that engaging private landowners through incentives is essential to meaningful fuel reduction at scale.

What's Next

The window for end-of-session action is narrowing. With Congress approaching the end of the 2026 legislative calendar, advocates say the NDAA vehicle represents one of the best remaining opportunities to pass meaningful wildfire reform this year. If FOFA is not included in the NDAA, it would likely need to be reintroduced in the next session of Congress.