I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 178
To require the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out activities to suppress
wildfires, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JANUARY3, 2025
Mr. M
CCLINTOCK(for himself, Mr. CALVERT, Mr. LAMALFA, Mr. BIGGSof
Arizona, Mr. S
TAUBER, and Mr. ISSA) introduced the following bill; which
was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the
Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently deter-
mined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions
as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out activities
to suppress wildfires, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SUPPRESSION OF WILDFIRES. 3
(a) I
NGENERAL.—With respect to covered National 4
Forest System lands, the Secretary of Agriculture, acting 5
through the Chief of the Forest Service— 6
(1) shall— 7
VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:31 Jan 30, 2025 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H178.IH H178
ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 2
•HR 178 IH
(A) use all available resources to carry out 1
wildfire suppression with the purpose of extin-2
guishing wildfires detected on such lands not 3
later than 24 hours after such a wildfire is de-4
tected; and 5
(B) immediately suppress any prescribed 6
fire that exceeds prescription; 7
(2) shall not inhibit the suppression efforts of 8
State or local firefighting agencies that are author-9
ized to respond to wildfire on such lands; 10
(3) may only use fire as a resource manage-11
ment tool if the fire is a prescribed fire that com-12
plies with applicable law and regulations; 13
(4) may only initiate a backfire or burnout dur-14
ing a wildfire— 15
(A) by order of the responsible incident 16
commander; or 17
(B) in instances that are necessary to pro-18
tect the health and safety of firefighting per-19
sonnel; and 20
(5) shall use all available resources to control 21
any such initiated backfire or burnout until extin-22
guished. 23
VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:31 Jan 30, 2025 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H178.IH H178
ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS 3
•HR 178 IH
(b) COVEREDNATIONALFORESTSYSTEMLANDS 1
D
EFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘covered National 2
Forest System lands’’ means any area— 3
(1) located within National Forest System 4
lands; and 5
(2) that— 6
(A) the U.S. Drought Monitor has rated as 7
having a D2 (severe drought) intensity, D3 (ex-8
treme drought) intensity, or D4 (exceptional 9
drought) intensity; 10
(B) the National Interagency Fire Center 11
declares has a National Wildland Fire Pre-12
paredness level of 5; or 13
(C) the Forest Service has identified as 14
being located in a fireshed ranked in the top 10 15
percent of wildfire exposure (as determined 16
using the most recently published models of 17
fireshed risk exposure published by the Forest 18
Service). 19
Æ
VerDate Sep 11 2014 02:31 Jan 30, 2025 Jkt 059200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H178.IH H178
ssavage on LAPJG3WLY3PROD with BILLS