As the 2026 wildfire season burns its way into the record books, lawmakers in Washington D.C. are facing intensifying pressure to address the structural gaps in how the federal government funds, staffs, and prepares for wildland fire. Two competing narratives are playing out simultaneously: the push to pass the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act, and the fallout from budget and staffing cuts that fire management professionals say have left agencies underprepared for exactly the kind of catastrophic season now unfolding.

Fix Our Forests Act: Bipartisan Support Building

The Fix Our Forests Act, a bipartisan bill with White House backing, has gained significant momentum in Congress as the severity of the 2026 fire season has become undeniable. The legislation would:

  • Expand forest management and hazardous fuels reduction projects on federal lands
  • Streamline environmental review processes for prescribed fire and mechanical thinning projects
  • Increase funding for prescribed burn programs and community wildfire preparedness initiatives
  • Strengthen collaboration between federal agencies, states, tribes, and private landowners on landscape-scale fire risk reduction

Supporters argue that decades of fire suppression have created a fuel debt across Western forests that can only be repaid through dramatically expanded prescribed fire and mechanical treatment programs. The 2026 season, they say, is a vivid demonstration of what happens when that debt comes due all at once.

Federal Budget Cuts Face Scrutiny

At the same time, fire management professionals and advocates have raised sharp concerns about federal workforce and budget reductions that have affected agency capacity. Reports from multiple states document the loss of experienced Forest Service employees and delays in grant funding for wildfire mitigation work — in some cases, tens of millions of dollars in already-awarded grants have been paused or rescinded.

State foresters, speaking through the National Association of State Foresters, have noted that even the substantial wildfire funding provided under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act during the previous administration was insufficient to fully address hazardous fuels backlogs, workforce training needs, and community education programs. The loss of additional federal capacity in 2025 and 2026 has compounded those shortfalls.

Funding Structure: The Suppression Account

Under current law, the wildfire suppression funding cap adjustment provides USDA and the Department of the Interior with up to $2.75 billion in emergency suppression funds for fiscal year 2026, with that cap set to reach $2.95 billion in FY2027 before the current statutory framework expires. The FY2027 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill, currently in Congress, includes approximately $6.42 billion in total wildland fire management funding across the Forest Service and Interior agencies.

Whether that funding — combined with whatever emerges from the Fix Our Forests Act — will be sufficient to turn the tide on a problem decades in the making remains an open question. What is not in question is that the 2026 fire season has given that policy debate a new and urgent weight.