H.R. 4038 — Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act of 2025

This section directs the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, and the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Secretaries concerned)—with respect to federal lands administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or consultation on wildland-urban interface fires—to establish, not later than 90 days after enactment, standards for wildland fire response time (i.e., from ignition to on-scene evaluation for suppression), with a goal of not more than 30 minutes to the extent practicable, including deployment of suppression assets within 3 hours. This section further requires the Secretaries concerned to jointly submit to specified congressional committees (i.e., Senate Energy and Natural Resources, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; House Natural Resources and Agriculture), not later than 1 year after enactment, a report identifying (1) a single point of contact for federal wildland fire response at the Department of the Interior; (2) a unified budget request for all wildland fire activities; (3) key performance indicators for wildland fire response for the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; (4) the current composition of the aviation and ground firefighting fleet and the estimated size needed nationwide for a 30-minute response time (including 3-hour asset deployment); (5) necessary changes to the federal ordering and dispatch system for faster dispatch; (6) streamlining of federal contracting mechanisms for wildland firefighting assets to enable activation and awards within 1 year; and (7) resources and authorities needed for year-round, nationwide availability of contracted firefighting assets.