A coalition of Democratic senators — including Senators Alex Padilla (CA), Michael Bennet (CO), Ron Wyden (OR), Adam Schiff (CA), and John Hickenlooper (CO) — sounded the alarm in mid-September over what they described as a federal wildland firefighting funding crisis, warning that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Wildland Fire Service had nearly exhausted their entire $6 billion FY2026 fire suppression budget before the traditional close of fire season.

A Historic Spending Year

As of early September 2026, federal agencies had dedicated more than $6 billion in fire suppression budget authority for the fiscal year, with over 70% spent by late August alone. For context, in Fiscal Year 2025, USFS and the Department of the Interior together spent $5.9 billion on suppression — itself a $1.5 billion increase from the prior record year. The 2026 season has surpassed even that staggering total.

Nationally, 2026 has seen 57,339 fires burn approximately 8.56 million acres — 124% of the 10-year average number of fires and 142% of average acreage burned through this date in any given year.

The Structural Problem

The current federal wildfire funding model, critics argue, resembles emergency war authorization more than sound fiscal policy: Congress authorizes additional emergency suppression dollars as needed during the fire season, with limited long-term planning or reserve capacity. This reactive approach, analysts say, consistently drains funds that could otherwise be invested in prevention, prescribed fire, hazardous fuels reduction, and community resilience.

“The Fire Funding Fix isn’t just about fighting fires — it’s about responsible and smart budgeting,” wrote policy analysts at Taxpayers for Common Sense. “We know the fires will return, and we need a rainy day fund for when they do. The only question is whether Congress will have the common sense to reauthorize the Reserve Fund before our wallets get burned.”

What Senators Are Asking For

The senators called on the administration and Congress to act before the 2027 fire season, including:

  • Reauthorizing or expanding the Emergency Wildfire Suppression Reserve Fund
  • Increasing base appropriations for USFS and DOI fire programs
  • Investing in prevention, prescribed fire, and fuel treatments to reduce suppression costs over time
  • Addressing the underlying conditions — drought, overstocked forests, warming temperatures — that drive escalating fire behavior

Oregon Senator Wyden has been particularly vocal, noting that Oregon alone spent an estimated $1.4 billion suppressing fires in 2026, with state costs projected to add hundreds of millions more on top of federal expenditures. With fire seasons now effectively year-round, Wyden and colleagues argue that the existing funding architecture is no longer adequate.