WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus, and Senators John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) introduced the Fix Our Forests Act, bipartisan legislation to combat catastrophic wildfires, restore forest ecosystems, and make federal forest management more efficient and responsive. The comprehensive bill reflects months of bipartisan negotiations to find consensus on how to best accelerate and improve forest management practices, streamline environmental reviews, and strengthen partnerships between federal agencies, states, tribes, and private stakeholders.

The American West has long been prone to wildfires, but climate change, prolonged drought, and the buildup of dry fuels have increasingly intensified these fires and extended fire seasons. Wildfires today are more catastrophic — growing larger, spreading faster, and burning more land than ever before. Nationwide, total acres burned rose from 2.7 million in 2023 to nearly 9 million in 2024, a 231 percent increase.

“Extreme risk of catastrophic wildfires across the West demands urgent action,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “In California, we’re fast-tracking projects by streamlining state requirements and using more fuel breaks and prescribed fire. The Fix Our Forests Act is a step forward that will build on this progress — enabling good projects to happen faster on federal lands. I’m appreciative of Senator Padilla and the bipartisan team of Senators who crafted a balanced solution that will both protect communities and improve the health of our forests.”

California averages more than 7,500 wildfires a year. Not including the recent Los Angeles fires, six of the top 10 most destructive fires, three of the top five deadliest fires, and all of the state’s nine largest fires have burned since 2017. The status quo is unsustainable, and responding to the scale and magnitude of the crisis on the ground is essential to keeping California communities safe.

Additionally, wildfires release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that accelerate climate change. California’s 2020 fire season, the worst on record, emitted enough greenhouse gases to erase nearly two decades of progress on emissions reductions in California. Addressing this wildfire emergency is critical to ensuring that our climate progress is not undermined by the devastating impacts of these fires.

“As increasingly frequent and catastrophic wildfires in California make clear, we need durable solutions to confront the growing impacts of the wildfire crisis,” said Senator Padilla. “This bill represents a strong, bipartisan step forward, not just in reducing wildfire risk in and around our national forests, but in protecting urban areas and our efforts to reduce climate emissions. It prioritizes building fire-resilient communities, accelerating the removal of hazardous fuels, and strengthening coordination across federal, state, and tribal agencies, including through the creation of the first-ever National Wildfire Intelligence Center. I look forward to continuing to advance forward-thinking, practical solutions to protect our communities from devastating wildfires — and that includes pushing for sustained funding and staffing for our federal land management agencies to ensure they have the tools to get this critical work done.”

The frequency and severity of California wildfires have surged over the past several years, with recent wildfires taking a devastating toll on California communities. Fueled by wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour, the Los Angeles County fires earlier this year burned more than 40,000 acres — an area almost three times the size of Manhattan. The fires destroyed over 16,000 structures, forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate, and took at least 30 lives.

“The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) provides much-needed tools that will move the needle and improve our work to mitigate wildfires,” said CAL FIRE Director and Fire Chief Joe Tyler. “This bill will bring California’s use of cutting-edge technology to the rest of the country. The proposed Wildfire Intelligence Center will advance the kind of predictive services, monitoring, and early detection work already happening at California’s Wildfire Forecast and Threat Intelligence Integration Center.”

Forest health challenges are also increasing in frequency and severity due to climate stressors like drought and fire, and biological threats like invasive species — all of which the West is particularly vulnerable to. From 2001 to 2019, total forest area declined by 2.3 percent, while interior forest area decreased by up to 9.5 percent. The Intermountain region had the largest area losses, and the Pacific Southwest had the highest annual loss rates.

“About half of our lands in California are publicly owned and managed by the federal government,” explained California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. “So, reducing catastrophic wildfire risk clearly relies on helping our federal lands become healthier and more resilient to fire. This bipartisan Fix our Forests Act does just this, removing barriers to get more good work done across our federal lands more quickly. This act represents an opportunity for an all-lands, all-hands approach that is urgently needed at this moment.”

To address these challenges, the Fix Our Forests Act would:

• Establish new and updated programs to reduce wildfire risks across large, high-priority “firesheds,” with an emphasis on cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

• Streamline and expand tools for forest health projects (e.g., stewardship contracting, Good Neighbor Agreements) and provide faster processes for certain hazardous fuels treatments.

• Create a single interagency program to help communities in the wildland-urban interface build and retrofit with wildfire-resistant measures, while simplifying and consolidating grant applications.

• Expand research and demonstration initiatives — including biochar projects and the Community Wildfire Defense Research Program — to test and deploy cutting-edge wildfire prevention, detection, and mitigation technologies.

• Strengthen coordination efforts across agencies through a new Wildfire Intelligence Center which would streamline the federal response and create a whole-of-government approach to combating wildfires.

• Improve reforestation, seedling supply, and nursery capacity; establish new programs for white oak restoration; and clarify policies to reduce wildfire-related litigation and expedite forest health treatments.

A list of Fix Our Forests Act provisions particularly impactful for California is available here.

Source: Senator Padilla’s Office