The Fix Our Forests Act is a broad, multi-title effort to accelerate forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction across National Forest System lands, public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management, and Tribal lands. It intends to speed up actions by creating a Fireshed Center to coordinate data, technology, and decision-making across many federal agencies and with states, Tribes, and local governments. The Act designates landscape-scale “firesheds” at high wildfire risk and directs expedited management projects in those areas, including a publicly accessible Fireshed Registry to track risks, treatments, permitting timelines, and project effectiveness. It also broadens collaborative tools and authorities—such as Good Neighbor Authority and stewardship contracting—to include more stakeholders (special districts and Indian Tribes) and raises certain treatment acre limits, with a sunset of seven years for the new authorities. In addition to wildfire-focused work, the bill touches on community wildfire risk reduction, electrical rights-of-way vegetation management, biochar, white oak restoration, and firefighter casualty assistance. In practical terms, the bill aims to move faster from planning to on-the-ground work by waiving certain NEPA requirements for fireshed designations and assessments, while creating a centralized, data-driven framework to prioritize and monitor treatments. It emphasizes local and tribal involvement, cross-jurisdictional cooperation, and the use of modern tools (data, modeling, and AI) to forecast risk, plan projects, and measure outcomes. A number of programs across titles also seek to bolster community resilience, technology deployment, transparency, and workforce accountability, with a seven-year time limit on the new authorities.
Key Points
- 1NEPA exemptions for fireshed actions: The designation of fireshed management areas and the related fireshed assessments are not subject to the National Environmental Policy Act, enabling faster designations and planning of wildfire risk-reduction actions in high-risk areas.
- 2Fireshed Center and Fireshed Registry: A joint interagency center (Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey) coordinates technology, data, analysis, and outreach across federal, state, Tribal, and local partners. It maintains a public Fireshed Registry with geospatial data, risk assessments, historical fuels work, and project status, and it disseminates decision-support tools and data.
- 3Shared stewardship and local participation: Governors and Indian Tribes can request joint agreements to reduce wildfire risk across jurisdictional boundaries and to conduct fireshed assessments. Local governments may participate in fireshed assessments upon request, with potential for expanding designated areas under such agreements.
- 4Fireshed assessments and emergency management: Upon agreement, a fireshed assessment must identify at-risk communities, prioritize projects, outline a timeline and long-range goals, ensure consistency with forest plans, and publish its findings publicly. The assessments also require strategies to improve firefighting effectiveness and community resilience, with a plan to regularly update using best available science.
- 5Expanded authorities and sunset: The bill expands Good Neighbor Authority to include special districts and Indian Tribes, broadens eligible activities and road-work provisions, and increases minimum acre thresholds for certain treatments under related HFRA provisions. It also provides for expedited, federally authorized actions and a seven-year sunset for the new authorities, after which they would terminate unless renewed.