Senate bill would expand federal prescribed burning with funding flexibility, a grant program, and liability protection

The Agriculture Secretary and the Interior Secretary may each use up to 15 percent of their yearly hazardous fuels funds for prescribed fire activities. Covered activities include contracts and grants for prescribed burns, environmental reviews, site preparation, outreach, training, and follow-up monitoring, on federal land and on other land that would benefit federal land. The 15 percent is in addition to any amounts already available for those activities. Projects are prioritized, for example, for large, cross-boundary areas near communities, at high wildfire risk, or important to Tribes. This applies each fiscal year.

The agriculture and interior agencies must conduct prescribed fires on federal land each year on at least 10 percent more acres than the year before. The target covers federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and National Forest System land, and each agency must write an operational strategy describing its fire deficit and staffing and funding needs. It starts with the first fiscal year after enactment and runs for that year plus 9 more.

The agencies would create a Collaborative Prescribed Fire Program to select and fund large prescribed burn projects. Eligible projects follow a landscape plan of at least 50,000 acres with a 10-year burn schedule, protect old growth, build no permanent roads, and come from a collaborative process with state, Tribal, and local input. No more than 20 projects, $20 million total, and $1 million per project may be funded in a year. A project can be funded for up to 10 fiscal years and loses funding if it misses its annual targets for 3 years in a row. The program may use up to $10 million a year from fuels funds for fiscal years 2027 through 2036. Program reports are due 5 years after funding starts, then every 5 years.

The agencies may sign agreements of up to 10 years with states, Tribes, counties, fire districts, nonprofits, and private entities to plan or conduct prescribed burns on federal land, and must take steps to build the burn workforce. Workforce steps include at least 6 multiparty task forces, 5 new training centers and an Indigenous-led burn training center, veterans crews, career pathways for formerly incarcerated people, and sharing resources with non-federal practitioners. Employees who work at a prescribed fire site may be entitled to hazard pay. Training centers are subject to the availability of appropriations. The task forces are due within 180 days of enactment and training centers within 2 years.

Non-federal groups working under federal supervision on covered fire activities would be treated as federal employees for Federal Tort Claims Act purposes, and agencies must take smoke and planning steps. The EPA and the agencies must help states and Tribes show that prescribed fire smoke is an exceptional event, do smoke research, and complete landscape-scale burn plans for national forest units and Bureau of Land Management districts. The agencies must ask Congress each year for money to repay claims paid under the liability rule. The EPA must agree to a state or Tribal smoke demonstration if the burn followed smoke management practices and an ecosystem plan. Plans must be reviewed within 1 year and developed or scheduled for revision within 2 years of enactment.