H.R. 1943 — Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act of 2025

This section establishes special base rates of pay for wildland firefighters—defined as Forest Service or Department of the Interior employees (including certain supervisors) whose duties relate primarily to wildland fires—by increasing General Schedule base rates by tiered percentages from 42% (GS-1) to 1.5% (GS-15) and directing comparable increases (at agency discretion) for prevailing rate employees, not to exceed Executive Level IV. These special rates replace standard base pay, serve as basic pay for all purposes (including locality pay), and take effect on the first day of the first pay period after temporary wildland firefighter pay increases expire, as extended through FY2025 under prior law.

This section establishes a new entitlement to incident response premium pay in 5 U.S.C. §5545c for covered employees of the Forest Service and Department of the Interior—defined as wildland firefighters (per 5 U.S.C. §5332a(a)) or agency-certified personnel performing related duties—who are deployed outside their duty station (or to an incident-adjacent fire camp within it) to a qualifying incident, which includes wildfires, prescribed fires, severity assignments, or similar events (excluding initial attacks contained within 36 hours). Covered employees receive premium pay at a daily rate of 450% of their hourly basic pay (or the GS-10 step 10 rate in the applicable locality if higher), not to exceed $9,000 in any calendar year. The Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior must assess average FY2023–2024 compensation by grade, report results within 18 months of enactment, and may jointly adjust the premium pay (after consulting the Office of Personnel Management) to align with FY2023 levels, with notification to specified congressional committees within three days of any change. (Thus, the premium pay is excluded from basic pay calculations, annual leave lump sums, workers' compensation, paid leave, minimum wage, and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act.)

This section establishes paid rest and recuperation leave under new 5 U.S.C. §6329e for covered employees of the Forest Service (Department of Agriculture) or Department of the Interior who qualify as wildland firefighters or are certified to perform wildland fire incident-related duties during deployment to a qualifying incident (i.e., as defined in 5 U.S.C. §5545c(a)). The Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior must jointly prescribe uniform policies for the leave, which may include (1) a maximum number of deployment days (from departure to return to official duty station) followed by a minimum number of rest days or (2) a prohibition on averaging more than 16 hours of work per day over a 14-day deployment period. The leave must be used immediately after the incident during scheduled tour-of-duty hours, is paid in the same manner as annual leave, may not be accumulated for later use or converted to lump-sum payment upon separation, and—for employees on intermittent work schedules—excuses them from duty with equivalent pay during the rest period.

This section authorizes the transfer of up to $5,000,000 of unobligated balances from the Forest Service "Wildland Fire Management" account to the Department of the Interior "Wildland Fire Management" (Department-wide programs) account under title VI of division J of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58), notwithstanding restrictions in 16 U.S.C. 6592(c)(2). The transfer ensures continuation of the Federal wildland firefighter base salary increase under 16 U.S.C. 6592(d)(4)(B), which is funded by $600 million overall ($120 million for Interior; $480 million for Agriculture) for FY2022-FY2026.