II
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION S. 902
To require the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior
to establish a standard for the response time to wildfire incidents, and
for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
MARCH6, 2025
Mr. S
HEEHY(for himself and Mr. KIM) introduced the following bill; which
was read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources
A BILL
To require the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary
of the Interior to establish a standard for the response
time to wildfire incidents, 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. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Wildfire Response and 4
Preparedness Act of 2025’’. 5
SEC. 2. STANDARDS FOR RESPONSE TIME TO WILDFIRE IN-6
CIDENTS. 7
(a) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 8
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(1) RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL COMMIT -1
TEES.—The term ‘‘relevant congressional commit-2
tees’’ means— 3
(A) the Committee on Energy and Natural 4
Resources of the Senate; 5
(B) the Committee on Agriculture, Nutri-6
tion, and Forestry of the Senate; 7
(C) the Committee on Natural Resources 8
of the House of Representatives; and 9
(D) the Committee on Agriculture of the 10
House of Representatives. 11
(2) R
ESPONSE TIME.—The term ‘‘response 12
time’’, with respect to a wildland fire incident, 13
means the period of time between ignition of the 14
wildland fire and evaluation for purposes of suppres-15
sion of that wildland fire, on the ground or in an 16
aircraft, by— 17
(A) a Federal, State, or local public safety 18
officer; or 19
(B) a public safety volunteer. 20
(3) S
ECRETARY CONCERNED .—The term ‘‘Sec-21
retary concerned’’ means— 22
(A) the Secretary of Agriculture, with re-23
spect to Federal land administered by the For-24
est Service; 25
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(B) the Secretary of the Interior, with re-1
spect to Federal land administered by the Bu-2
reau of Land Management, the Bureau of In-3
dian Affairs, the National Park Service, or the 4
United States Fish and Wildlife Service; and 5
(C) the Administrator of the Federal 6
Emergency Management Agency, with respect 7
to consultation with the United States Fire Ad-8
ministration relating to wildland fires in the 9
wildland-urban interface. 10
(b) S
TANDARDS.— 11
(1) I
N GENERAL.—Not later than 90 days after 12
the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary con-13
cerned shall establish a standard for the response 14
time to any wildland fire incident occurring on Fed-15
eral land administered by the Secretary concerned. 16
(2) G
OAL.—To the extent practicable, the re-17
sponse time established by the Secretary concerned 18
for a wildland fire incident under paragraph (1) 19
shall— 20
(A) be not more than 30 minutes; and 21
(B) include the deployment of fire suppres-22
sion assets in a response time of not more than 23
3 hours. 24
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(c) REPORT TOCONGRESS.—Not later than 1 year 1
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretaries 2
concerned shall jointly submit to the relevant congres-3
sional committees a report that includes— 4
(1) identification of a single point of contact for 5
Federal wildland fire response at the Department of 6
the Interior; 7
(2) a unified budget request that covers all 8
wildland fire activities of the Secretaries concerned; 9
(3) a description of key performance indicators 10
for wildland fire response for each of— 11
(A) the Forest Service; 12
(B) the Bureau of Land Management; 13
(C) the Bureau of Indian Affairs; 14
(D) the National Park Service; and 15
(E) the United States Fish and Wildlife 16
Service; 17
(4)(A) a description of the composition of the 18
aviation and ground wildland firefighting fleet as of 19
the date on which the report is submitted; and 20
(B) an estimation of the size of that fleet re-21
quired to provide a response time of not more than 22
30 minutes for wildland fires occurring in the 23
United States, including the deployment of fire sup-24
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pression assets in a response time of not more than 1
3 hours; 2
(5) a description of necessary changes to the 3
Federal ordering and dispatch system to enable Fed-4
eral wildland firefighting assets to be dispatched 5
faster; 6
(6) a description of Federal contracting mecha-7
nisms relating to wildland firefighting assets that 8
may be streamlined to ensure that contract activa-9
tion and awards may be provided within a 1-year pe-10
riod; and 11
(7) a description of all resources and authorities 12
needed to ensure that wildland firefighting assets 13
under Federal contracts are available year-round 14
and nationwide. 15
Æ
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