Preventing Catastrophic Wildfire Under Climate Change
Summary
Wildfires, damages, and deaths are increasing because of unnatural accumulations of wood from outdated forest policies and intensifying heat from human-caused climate change. Preventing catastrophic wildfires requires improved, science-based policies that will shift the government from after-the-fact firefighting to proactive controlled burning. This would improve the lives of Americans and the health of our ecosystems by reducing deaths and damage due to wildfire, restoring damaged forests that naturally require fire, and decreasing the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
This memorandum outlines a policy approach to achieve these outcomes. Executive action will establish a national strategy for proactive fire management. Legislation will ensure revenue neutral implementation by reallocating funds currently used for firefighting to less expensive and more effective fire prevention. Finally, fire managers will increase prescribed burning and use of natural fires, relying on scientific analyses to target areas at greatest risk under climate change.
The Federation of American Scientists strongly supports the Modernizing Wildfire Safety and Prevention Act of 2025.
The Federation of American Scientists strongly supports the Regional Leadership in Wildland Fire Research Act of 2025.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 471, the re-introduction of the Fix Our Forests Act.
The Wildfire Intelligence Center would bring together expertise at all levels of government to give our firefighters and first responders access to cutting-edge tools and the decision support they need to confront this growing crisis.