By Robert Chaney
Mountain Journal on September 12, 2025
A presidential proposal for consolidating federal wildland firefighting services failed to appear by its September 10 deadline.
How it might combine U.S. Forest Service and Interior Department firefighting resources after Congress rejected Trump administration spending requests remains unclear. But fixing the way the federal government combats wildfire on public land was the topic of several congressional hearings earlier in the week. It also drew anticipation from advocates who have called for the restructuring of wildfire response.
“We’re expecting something, but we don’t know what,” Partners in Wildfire Prevention Communications Director Chet Wade told Mountain Journal on Monday. “It’s a national problem that needs a national solution.”
Partners in Wildfire Prevention formed in February with a coalition of groups ranging from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership to the American Gas Association and Caregiver Action Network. That was shortly after wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed thousands of homes, and Montana Senator Tim Sheehy offered a bill to combine all federal firefighting resources under Interior Department management. President Donald Trump followed with a June 12 executive order, Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response that directed the Interior and Agriculture departments to come up with a plan. “Within 90 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Agriculture shall … consolidate their wildland fire programs to achieve the most efficient and effective use of wildland fire offices,” the executive order read. ….
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