The federal wildland firefighting force is currently split between five land management agencies – the Forest Service (under the U.S. Department of Agriculture), the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (under the Department of the Interior).
But a recently introduced bipartisan bill could lead to the creation of a single wildland fire service.
The Fit for Purpose Wildfire Readiness Act was introduced by new Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy, and is co-sponsored by California Democrat Sen. Alex Padilla.
If passed, it would give the secretaries of the interior and agriculture 180 days to develop a plan for what it calls the National Wildland Firefighting Service, which would be housed within Interior.
“For too long, layers of senseless bureaucracy and red tape have splintered our wildfire management system, failed our brave firefighters on the ground, and let entire communities be wiped off the map by wildfire,” Sheehy said in a release. “The time is now to reshape our approach to American wildfire management and start fighting fires better, stronger, and faster.”
“Reorganizing our federal wildland firefighting forces into one centralized firefighting force would streamline our wildfire response,” Padilla said in the same release.
Riva Duncan, with the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, agrees that the current system is in need of change.
“Wildfire is one of the greatest threats to the U.S. right now,” she said.
And that’s why she thinks any federal fire service ought to be within the Department of Homeland Security, not Interior. That’s one of the recommendations from a recent Grassroots white paper, which also insists that the service be “managed by people with extensive wildfire experience.”
Duncan is also concerned that the Sheehy bill calls for the President to appoint the service’s head.
“You can't build a new organization with a political appointee who's going to turn over every three to four years,” she said.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
