Fix Our Forests Act Gains Momentum as Fire Budget Strains and Staff Cuts Hobble Federal Response

The 2026 wildfire season — which has seen 8.1 million acres burned nationwide, record fire counts in the Pacific Northwest, and communities from Spokane to the Columbia Gorge facing devastating fires — is accelerating a long-simmering policy debate about how the federal government manages forests, funds firefighting, and deploys resources to protect communities.

Fix Our Forests Act: Bipartisan Momentum, But Stalled Action

The "Fix Our Forests Act" — a bipartisan measure backed by Western lawmakers from both parties and the White House — has gained renewed attention this summer as smoke from active fires has drifted over Washington, D.C. The legislation would expand forest management authorities, accelerate prescribed burn programs, and streamline the approval of wildfire mitigation projects on federal lands.

The bill has not seen congressional action since October 2025, when a version passed one chamber. The insurance industry, through the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), has been among the most vocal advocates for passage, arguing that unmanaged federal forests pose an existential risk to the insurance market in fire-prone communities. Utah Senator John Curtis and other Western lawmakers have pressed colleagues for a floor vote as this summer's fires have dominated news cycles.

Fire rescue and forestry groups have also rallied behind the bill, with a bipartisan coalition arguing it represents one of the few politically achievable tools to reduce conditions that fuel catastrophic wildfires before they start.

USFS Budget: More Than Half Now Goes to Fire

A structural budget problem has been quietly worsening for years within the U.S. Forest Service. According to the National Association of State Foresters, the portion of the USFS total budget dedicated to fire has grown from under 20% just a few decades ago to more than 50% today — a phenomenon known as "fire transfer" that effectively cannibilizes funding for recreation, trail maintenance, wildlife habitat, and — critically — the fuel reduction and forest health work that might reduce future fire severity.

Critics argue that this budget dynamic has created a vicious cycle: as fire suppression consumes more funding, less money is available for the prescribed burns and forest thinning that could reduce the scale of future fires, which in turn drives up suppression costs in subsequent years.

Trump Administration Cuts Add Stress to Fire Response

The Trump administration's cuts to federal agency staffing and budgets have added a new layer of complexity to federal fire response. In Minnesota, the U.S. Forest Service lost more than 100 employees and saw $10 million in wildfire mitigation grant funding for the Superior National Forest delayed during the administration's federal workforce reduction effort — before fires erupted in the Northland region. Similar concerns have been raised about the Pacific Northwest, where USFS staffing reductions have reduced the agency's capacity for early-season prescribed burns and pre-suppression activities.

A California-focused analysis from CalMatters found that four firefighters, two helicopter pilots, and a contractor bulldozing a fireline have died in Colorado, Utah, and Oregon this year — losses that fire safety advocates attribute in part to the increasing complexity and pace of fire operations under severe conditions. California, experiencing an unusually quiet fire summer, has deployed engines and crews to fight fires in Colorado and the Pacific Northwest.

Roadless Rule Under Review

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has taken initial steps to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule — a quarter-century-old policy banning road construction and development on about 45 million acres of national forestland. Proponents of repeal argue it would make it easier to conduct logging, forest thinning, and fire mitigation work in currently roadless areas. Conservationists and many fire ecologists counter that roadless areas often represent some of the most fire-resilient old-growth forest ecosystems, and that road construction in wilderness zones can introduce invasive species that increase fire risk.

Feasibility Study Ordered by Congress

Separately, Congress directed USDA Secretary Rollins and Interior Secretary Burgess Owens to commission a feasibility study examining the proposed realignment of federal wildfire response — potentially consolidating multiple agencies' firefighting operations under a more unified command structure. The Forest Service has contracted for that study, with results expected to inform future legislative discussions about how the federal government structures its wildland fire response apparatus.