Wildfire Issues: Policy Goals for 2025

The International Association of Fire Chiefs is a leader in the development of policies and programs to help the nation meet the challenge of wildland fires. The nation continues to struggle with the problem of wildland fires, especially those in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). The 10-year average for acres burned by wildland fires is at least 7 million acres per year. This problem is even more clear when one considers that the federal government spent $239.9 million on wildland fire suppression costs in 1985, which skyrocketed to $3.166 billion in 2023.

The IAFC is committed to the National Wildland Fire Cohesive Strategy as a framework in which collaborative work among federal, state, tribal, territorial, and local agencies can be effective. In addition, we supported the recommendations of the 2023 Congressionally- created Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. The IAFC applauds efforts to utilize local government resources for wildland fires and WUI fires. In addition, we support collaborative efforts to reduce community risk in the WUI.

The IAFC’s “Ready, Set, Go!” program is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the IAFC to help fire departments teach property owners to best prepare themselves, their families, and their properties from the threat of wildland fires. The program supported fire department educational programs in 20 states. It also funded 6 projects in Fiscal Year 2024 to remove 2,312 cubic yards of vegetation, treat 236 acres, treat 21 structures, which impacted more than 100 properties and improved community evacuation routes.

With the USFS’s support, the IAFC hosts the Fire Department Exchange, which facilitates in-person exchanges between fire departments facing the threat of fires in the WUI. The program helps fire departments broaden their knowledge of effective strategies to mitigate, suppress, and respond to WUI fires as well as develop groundbreaking public education and outreach programs. The IAFC also supports a pilot program to mentor fire chiefs in WUI to protect their communities using the WUI Chief’s Guide. In addition, the IAFC’s Wildfire Policy Committee provides experienced guidance to both the IAFC Board of Directors and the USFS to help local fire chiefs prepare for the WUI fires.

The IAFC recommends that President Trump and the 119th Congress work expeditiously to address the following policy areas:

1. Safe and effective wildland response – All jurisdictions should participate in making and implementing risk-based wildfire decisions. Understanding this tenet, there are a few priorities for improvement.
• Work towards a standardized national agreement. Essential to any agreement is the understanding that local governments should be reimbursed for all reasonable expenses and actual costs.
• Create a single inventory of all-hazard resources and a shared real-time deployment process so that closest appropriate resource utilization is possible. This should also be used for prescribed fire.
• Increase the range of local roles to include access to training and equipment, and resource use in all phases of preparedness, response, and recovery, and in planning processes.
• Participate in a comprehensive and inclusive workforce recruitment, development, and retention strategy, as well as a collaborative focus on workforce health and wellness.
• Address issues relating to the federal wildland firefighting workforce, including pay, to ensure that there are enough federal wildland firefighters for the year-long fire season.
2. Promote fire-adapted communities – Human populations, communities, and infrastructure should be prepared to be exposed to, respond to, and recover from wildland fire and its effects.
• Focus on individual and community level actions that are integrated with landscape plans.
• Focus on mitigation, education, and action supported by intergovernmental resources.
• Create community resilience by preparing for and mitigating post-fire impacts through mitigation, evacuation, and recovery planning, and greater investments in recovery.
• Continue a focus on the effects of smoke on communities and its components.
3. Restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes – Landscapes should be resilient to fire, other natural elements, and the effects of climate change. The greatest impact that our constituents can have occurs when local government fire organizations are invited to be part of the planning and prioritization processes.
   • Improve proactive use of fire such as prescribed and managed fire to meet management objectives when it can be done safely.
   • Use non-fire treatments, especially when it can be done in support of forest products, industry goals, and within environmentally-friendly means.
   • Resources applied at the local level serve the greatest need and lead to the greatest effects.
4. Science and Technology – Groundbreaking research should be funded to use science to complement traditional, place-based ecological knowledge and to inform actions.
• Use predicted future conditions to impact decisions.
• Promote integrated data collection and analysis that meets the needs of local responders.
5. Consistent and Timely Communications – Whole community futures are created when the community is engaged in local solutions and decision-making. From this base, consistent and timely communications should be a hallmark of effective collaboration.

It will require federal leadership and collaboration among all levels of government to address the challenge of wildland and WUI fires. As the leaders of America’s local fire and EMS departments, the IAFC looks forward to facilitating a nationwide effort to help communities to better prepare for the threat of wildland fires.