Recently, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the investment of $100 million in 21 new projects to expand work on the USDA Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy to reduce the threat of wildfire in high-risk areas across the country.
The new projects span 14 states and 18 national forests and are part of the $3.2 billion investment in this comprehensive strategy made possible through President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“The challenging wildfires of this year have underscored the urgent need to continue to protect our communities and infrastructure by restoring forest health across the country,” said Secretary Vilsack. “We have already made incredible progress, but there is still much to be done. Today’s investment represents an important expansion of our Wildfire Crisis Strategy work to new areas and states.”
The Collaborative Wildfire Risk Reduction Program uses hazardous fuels funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to treat additional areas of high wildfire risk where national forests and grasslands meet homes and communities, known as the Wildland-Urban Interface. The program allows national forests, in collaboration with Tribes, communities and partners in qualifying states to build local capacity for projects to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health.
“There are 24 states that meet the criteria for this program, including 13 states in the South, Midwest and East, said Forest Service Chief Randy Moore. “The internal competitive process and collaborative design of these projects allows National Forests and partners to demonstrate their ability to move forward quickly on wildfire risk reduction actions to protect lives and livelihoods across vast, shared landscapes.”
A full list of projects and qualifying states can be found on the program webpage.
This announcement is part of the Investing in America agenda to increase the resilience of lands facing the threat of catastrophic wildland fires and to better support federal wildland firefighters. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $1.4 billion for the USDA Forest Service in wildfire risk reduction funds. The Inflation Reduction Act provided an additional $1.8 billion to reduce the risk of wildfire to neighborhoods, infrastructure, watersheds, and the many other benefits forests provide. Together these investments will help strengthen long-term fire preparedness, reduce catastrophic wildland fire risk across states, and invest in supporting the wildland firefighter workforce.
In January 2022, the Forest Service launched the Wildfire Crisis Strategy with the goal of safeguarding communities and the resources they depend on by increasing hazardous fuels treatments to reduce wildfire risk. This work includes the treatment of more than 1.5 million acres across the 21 Wildfire Crisis Strategy priority landscapes that is beginning to reduce wildfire risk for some 550 communities, 2,500 miles of high-voltage power lines, and 1,800 watersheds that supply drinking water to millions of Americans.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also created the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, charged with making recommendations to improve federal policies related to the mitigation, suppression, and management of wildland fires in the United States. In September 2023, the Commission released a comprehensive report outlining 148 recommendations to improve the nation’s relationship with wildfire. The recent funding advances many of those recommendations.
