The Wildland Fire Service Can Work—But Not Without the Forest Service: Post by Eric Horne of Megafire Action

Many thanks to the Megafire Action folks for digging into this- I was confused about the Senate bill vs. the budget justification and so on.  Just to get this on the table: Megafire Action is not associated with this Admin, in fact the CEO has a D California legislative background. So here’s one issue that hasn’t been partisanized, thank Gaia!

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The Wildland Fire Service can work—but not without the Forest Service

New Details on the Wildland Fire Service: budget, land management, and what’s left behind

By Eric Horne, National Policy Director, Megafire Action

The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget formally proposes consolidating wildland fire programs across the Departments of Interior and Agriculture into a unified U.S. Wildland Fire Service housed within DOI. While we still await further details, the newly released FY26 Interior Budget in Brief and Forest Service Congressional Justification—published June 8th—provide sufficient detail to broadly assess what the proposed consolidation looks like: what is the rough budget, what programs would move from USDA to DOI, and what would remain behind. As the President’s Budget acknowledges, the proposed reorganization is “contingent upon the enactment of legislation,” placing the responsibility squarely with Congress. In February, Senators Padilla and Sheehy introduced a bill requesting a plan to establish a National Wildland Firefighting Service, but beyond that there are few indicators about how Congress will respond to the Administration’s proposal, offering the wildland fire and forestry community the opportunity to present its view(s). In our February piece on One Department for Wildfire Management, we argued that unifying wildland fire and land management under one department—specifically, moving the entire Forest Service to Interior—could streamline preparedness, mitigation, and suppression, improve transparency, strengthen Tribal partnerships, and deliver better value to taxpayers. In short: if the Wildland Fire Service is going to work, it needs the whole Forest Service, not just parts of it. As Congress takes up this proposal in budget hearings this month, here are some considerations:

U.S. Wildland Fire Service overview: The Fire Service has a proposed FY26 budget of $6.55 billion—$3.70 billion for operations and $2.85 billion for the reserve fund. This is relatively flat with the combined FY25 fire budgets for USDA and DOI, which together totaled over $6.3 billion—$2.43 billion in operations and $2.39 billion in reserve funding for the Forest Service, and $1.15 billion in operations and $350 million in reserve funding for Interior. The Fire Service would oversee wildfire suppression, fuels management, preparedness, post-fire recovery, intelligence and technology, and fire-related research across more than 693 million acres of federal land, while also funding Tribal firefighting personnel. By centralizing command, appropriations, and other key functions, the Administration aims to improve efficiency, enhance initial attack success, and reduce long-term wildfire risk through a more integrated approach. The proposal’s effectiveness will ultimately depend on careful operational integration—as Bob B. noted in his Smokey Wire piece last month—and how well remaining land management functions are aligned.

Fuels management: The transfer of fuels management to the new Fire Service is a critical step toward more effective wildfire mitigation—one Megafire Action has been advocating for. The FY26 budget funds this work at $770 million, which is roughly flat with the combined FY25 fuels management budgets of Interior ($228 million) and Forest Service ($175 million plus an estimated $393 million in salaries and expenses for FY25). Note: the salaries and expenses estimate is based on the historical share of National Forest System (NFS) staff working on fuels, since the Forest Service hasn’t reported FTEs for this program since FY20 (this shift may also account for a significant share of the NFS budget drop from $1.86 billion in FY25 to $1.3 billion in FY26.) While unified fuels management under one department promises better integration of mitigation and suppression, its success depends on aligning land management authorities as well. Putting the Wildland Fire Service in Interior in charge of fuels management, while keeping responsibility for 193 million acres of Forest Service land under a separate secretary at USDA, risks repeating the same fragmentation that has long undermined effective wildfire prevention.

What is left behind at USDA: While it is promising that suppression and fuels management will stay linked under the new Fire Service, key wildfire mitigation programs and expertise will be left behind at the Forest Service—undermining the proposal’s overall efficiency. The Vegetation and Watershed Management Program, cut from $30 million to $21.3 million, supports prescribed fire, invasive species control, and post-fire restoration. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program—also cut by a third down to $21.5 million—provides vital data on pre- and post-fire conditions. Land Management Planning is left behind at the Forest Service and drops from $14.5 million to $10 million, raising questions about how the Fire Service will accomplish its stated objective of “integration of fire into land-use planning.” Meanwhile, the Forest Products Program—flat-funded at $39 million—is tasked with increasing timber production on high-risk fire lands in accordance with the President’s Executive Order. The $283 million State, Private, and Tribal Forestry account and $300 million Forest and Rangeland Research account—both of which have major wildfire and fuels management functions—are planned for complete elimination in the FY26 budget. All of these underfunded functions—and there are many more—are critical to fuels management but have been left out of the proposed consolidation, raising the specter of a significantly divided and weakened wildfire mitigation system. Other functions like law enforcement, recreation, and minerals management also have clear synergies with Interior agencies, prompting a critical question: if the goal is an “integrated, cost-efficient, and operationally more effective organization”, why not move the entire Forest Service to DOI?

Moving the entire Forest Service to DOI: the Administration appears to be keeping this possibility open, stating in the FY26 budget that “additional operational capacity will be transferred from USDA FS to Interior in the future to ensure effective USWFS mission implementation.” This could eventually include relocating the entire Forest Service to the Department of the Interior, but we believe this should be done in conjunction with the creation of the Wildland Fire Service.  The Administration’s proposal—particularly the inclusion of fuels management within the new Fire Service—is a promising step toward a more integrated wildfire response system. However, by leaving key land management functions underfunded and siloed at USDA, the proposal risks recreating the very fragmentation it seeks to solve. By going half-way, we would forgo cost and performance synergies with DOI’s land management agencies and worsen the challenges facing an already overstretched land management workforce. Based on our research, we remain convinced that a truly effective, coordinated, and fiscally responsible Wildland Fire Service requires relocating the entire Forest Service to the Department of the Interior. Keep the green patches and distinct Forest Service identity, but rationalize and unify land management under a single, responsible Secretary.

As we have noted previously, structural reform on this scale comes with real risks and significant opportunities. Success will require the entire land management and wildfire community to engage Congress and ensure reforms strengthen responsible land management alongside suppression. Megafire Action is eager to continue to partner with other leaders and organizations on this initiative.

Megafire Action is a non-profit dedicated to ending the crisis of destructive wildfires by promoting a holistic approach to natural lands management, wildfire response, and community resilience to ensure that fire-dependent ecosystems and fire-affected communities thrive.