A coalition of U.S. senators from Western states is raising urgent alarms about the federal government's capacity to continue fighting wildfires for the remainder of the 2026 fire season, warning that the nation's firefighting budget is nearly exhausted while peak fire conditions are expected to persist for months.

The Letter and Its Signatories

Senators Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff of California, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado, and Ron Wyden of Oregon signed a letter on September 11, 2026 to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Bergum and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, expressing serious concerns about agency preparedness and capacity to respond to the remainder of the 2026 fire season.

The letter warns that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Wildland Fire Service have already dedicated over $6 billion in fire suppression budget authority in 2026, spending nearly the entire fire suppression budget as of September 2 — with the Pacific Northwest and other western regions expected to remain in peak fire season conditions for at least two more months.

A Record-Breaking, Deadly Season

The senators described 2026 as a catastrophic season, noting that record-breaking high temperatures and historic drought have fueled fires that have:

  • Burned more than 310,000 acres in California alone
  • Destroyed thousands of homes across the West
  • Devastated the economies of rural communities
  • Strained local government budgets
  • Killed four wildland firefighters and two pilots

Between July 18 and September 4, the national firefighting force operated at National Preparedness Level 5 — the maximum level, at which all federal firefighting resources are considered committed and unavailable for reassignment. That 47-day stretch at PL 5 is among the longest on record and reflects just how fully extended the federal firefighting apparatus was at the peak of the season.

Staffing and Supervisory Concerns

Beyond the budget, the senators flagged serious concerns about staffing and qualified personnel. According to their letter, congressional offices received reports that:

  • Incident Management Teams have worked more fires than is considered safe under established rotation standards
  • Temporary supervisory structures have been used because fully qualified personnel were not available
  • Locally-led initial attack capabilities were negatively affected by national mobilization demands, reducing the capacity to catch small fires before they grow large

These staffing concerns are particularly troubling for the Pacific Northwest, where several fires in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho grew to historic sizes this summer, in part because initial attack resources were committed elsewhere when new fires started.

What's Next

The senators urged the departments to provide detailed information about remaining suppression funds, personnel availability, and contingency plans if the budget is exhausted before the season ends. Emergency supplemental appropriations from Congress may be required to sustain operations through the fall.

The wildfire budget crisis reflects a long-term structural problem: suppression costs have risen from an average of roughly $450 million per year in the 1990s to multi-billion-dollar annual expenditures in recent years. Firefighters and forestry advocates have long argued that more investment in fuels management and prescribed fire — reducing the amount of flammable material on the landscape — is the only sustainable path to reducing suppression costs over the long term. For now, however, the immediate concern is ensuring that resources are available to respond to fires threatening communities across the West.