US wildland fire agencies would be required to respond to wildfires within 30 minutes and deploy within three hours if the Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act is signed into law.
The mandated response time was described as a “commonsense” measure by Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany from Wisconsin, who is also the Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources, at the committee’s hearing on the act on Wednesday afternoon.
“Many would be shocked to learn that no such standardized response time exists across federal agencies right now,” Tiffany said. “Instead, decisions about initial attack are left up to subjective factors that vary across agencies, regions, and individuals. Aggressive initial attacks are critical to preventing fires from developing into large, uncontrollable blazes that spread devastation.”
United States Forest Service Deputy Chief John Crockett said the Service supports the intent of the law and shares the goal of improving federal response to wildfires as a witness at Wednesday’s hearing. He also said the Service plans to have 11,300 firefighters for the 2026 wildfire season, which some lawmakers worry would be extreme due to low amounts of snowpack across the West.
But the nation’s current wildland fire workforce isn’t strong enough to meet the new 30-minute response standard, according to wildland firefighter advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. The group said multiple systemic issues need to first be addressed before Congress sets sweeping response-time mandates.
“Response standards must be grounded in reality—and paired with investments in a sustainable wildfire workforce,” the group said in a social media post. “The biggest constraint in federal wildfire response today isn’t policy—it’s people. Chronic staffing shortages, high vacancy rates, and retention challenges already strain resources during peak fire season. Terrain, remoteness, detection delays, and aviation limitations further complicate rapid response, especially in remote federal lands.”
Click here to read the group’s full response to the proposed legislation.
10 Comments
Be an interesting test to gauge how the new Wildland Fire Service will operate, in terms of collecting input on such a proposal and arriving at a position on it from across what are essentially still four agency fire staffs. Since by policy all wildfires are already suppressed, it remains to be seen if DOI direction will be added that that means “aggressively” in every instance, regardless of remoteness and elevation.
I would have to disagree with your statement that all wildfires are suppressed; that just isn’t correct.
All wildfires are managed. That management strategy may be full suppression, it may be to let it burn for resource benefit (with no human input whatsoever), or it could be anywhere between those two ends of the spectrum.
I do agree that it will be interesting to see what kind of guidance we get related to different management strategies from the overhead of our new agency. I’m sure all human caused fires will still be treated as full suppression, but hopefully there is thought put into natural fires we can keep on the landscape. Not everything requires aggressive suppression tactics – that’s been a huge part of the problem.
Semantics…can’t say “let burn” with FS, but there is the management equivalent….terminology and philosophy across agencies would need meaningful revision and agreement. A great concept but would require professionalized standards, sufficient investment and commitment. Luck to the concept. It will be expensive.
Is this just at federal level, or state level to, and what’s the response time for contractors?
Contractors work for the Feds, unless it’s a state agency.
There are many areas of the country wild fires are so remote and cabin or allotment or private property protection is not needed. I’m thinking of Alaska where I used to live.
If everybody’s worried about 30 minutes, I could tell you right now that besides just calling agencies, they can start calling the contractors out. and a lot of of them are within 30 minutes of the fires that have been happening lately I’ve could’ve been on a fire helping them out. There was less than 15 minutes from my house last year but now that they want 30 minutes, they need to look into the contractors to be able to respond to. Agency you’re calling cooperators what about the contractors that are literally it’s right in their backyard and can deploy in within the 30 minute to 3 hour
Great another 10 AM rule. It worked so well the first time…
Before too many commenters jump down a rabbit hole about using contractors, “let it burn” or “managed,” what about state land, and other nuances, look at what the bill text states. The definitions and language need to be examined and understood and obviously if the fire isn’t detected it is hard to meet the “means the period of time between ignition of the wildland fire and evaluation ” Lots of work needs to be completed prior to reasonably making this work.
SEC. 2. Standards for response time to wildfire incidents.
(a) Definitions.—In this section:
(2) RESPONSE TIME.—The term “response time”, with respect to a wildland fire incident, means the period of time between ignition of the wildland fire and evaluation for purposes of suppression of that wildland fire, on the ground or in an aircraft, by—
(A) a Federal, State, or local public safety officer; or
(B) a public safety volunteer.
(b) Standards.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary concerned shall establish a standard for the response time to any wildland fire incident occurring on Federal land administered by the Secretary concerned.
(2) GOAL.—To the extent practicable, the response time established by the Secretary concerned for a wildland fire incident under paragraph (1) shall—
(A) be not more than 30 minutes; and
(B) include the deployment of fire suppression assets in a response time of not more than 3 hours.
Will Congress fund the increased number of helicopters and Smokejumper necessary to do this? What about building and staffing more backcountry fire stations that get 3-4 responses in a typical summer? Or 24/7 staffing on all crews because some fires start at night?
The response time is gonna be impossible to meet even if they change fire start to fire detection