Direct Hire To Fight Fires

Direct Hire To Fight Fires would create a special, expedited way to hire federal wildland firefighters and their support staff within the Forest Service and other interior agencies by using direct hire authority. The bill authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to appoint qualified candidates directly to specific firefighting positions without following certain standard civil service hiring rules. It also directs agencies to streamline their hiring processes, improve retention, and increase transparency by reporting annually to Congress on hiring progress, vacancies, and the use of the new direct hire authority. The goal is to speed up recruitment and staffing for federal wildfire response while providing a formal reporting framework to track progress. The act applies to a defined set of firefighting-related job series (and any future series developed for wildland firefighting) and requires a public, annual disclosure of hiring needs, vacancies, barriers, and the implementation of the new hiring authority and streamlined processes.