Igniting Innovation: Progress and a Path Forward for Wildfire Policy

One year after the catastrophic wildfires that blazed through southern California, the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) held a briefing on emerging solutions to tackle the wildfire crisis, and the federal policy strategies for getting these solutions into the field. Communities nationwide are experiencing longer wildfire seasons and more intense, destructive wildfires. Hotter and drier weather, decades of fire over-suppression leading to the buildup of flammable materials, and increasing development in and around fire-prone areas have transformed wildfire—once a natural and sustainable part of American landscapes—into a major threat. From California to New Jersey, wildfires are taking a toll—costing the United States up to $424 billion annually and displacing tens of thousands of people.

This briefing highlighted efforts to address this crisis, including wildfire preparedness, response, and recovery policies and innovations in the United States. Panelists identified evidence-backed approaches—from smart zoning and upgraded building codes to fuels management and early detection—and the role of federal policy in supporting the rapid development and cost-effective implementation of these tactics at scale. Attendees left this briefing with an understanding of how to strengthen wildfire mitigation efforts, bolster community wildfire resilience, ease the strain on emergency services, and save taxpayer dollars.

Highlights

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The federal government has spent more than $1 billion annually since 2011 on wildfire suppression, and the estimated long-term cost for communities damaged by wildfires is even higher.
Communities cannot solely rely on fire suppression to combat wildfires. Solutions such as vegetation management, improved early detection, and upgraded building codes offer tools to safely coexist with wildfires.
Wildland fires and urban fires are distinct from each other and require different approaches and solutions.
Technology is being developed to aid in fire response and mitigation, but the adoption of this technology has not kept pace with wildfire impacts.
The federal government plays a critical role in fostering effective, proactive solutions—ones that are informed by the needs of communities at risk and by the unique relationships of different ecosystems to wildfire.

Jessica Blackband, Senior Manager, Environmental and Climate Policy, Federation of American Scientists

Wildfires have played a key role in ecosystem health for millions of years, and Indigenous people worldwide have managed wildfires to steward natural and cultural resources for thousands of years. Public policy and land management for the last century have focused on putting out wildfires, resulting in forests that burn more intensely when fires do occur.
The direct threats of wildfires to humans and ecosystems are growing as more communities and infrastructure are built in areas vulnerable to wildfire damage and as climate change drives extreme, unpredictable fire behavior.
The federal government has spent more than $1 billion annually since 2011 on wildfire suppression, and the estimated long-term cost for communities damaged by wildfires is even higher.
Wildfires can impact human health in many ways, including short-term smoke exposure, degrading water quality, and worsening soil health.
Science, data, and technology management—along with wildfires themselves—will be key to achieving wildfire resilience. Solutions such as vegetation management, improved early detection, and upgraded building codes offer tools to safely coexist with wildfires.
The federal government plays a critical role in fostering effective, proactive solutions—ones that are informed by the needs of communities at risk and by the unique relationships of different ecosystems to wildfire.

Kelly Martin, Wildland Fire Advisor, Megafire Action

During the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025, the City of White Bird, Idaho, deployed their volunteer fire department to help fight the fires through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
From being on the ground in Los Angeles immediately after the disaster, these firefighters observed how certain buildings and homes may have been spared from the destructive, widespread fires.
Home hardening is a critical step that homeowners can take to protect their homes from wildfires. Using fire-resistant building materials like stucco siding and double pane windows makes it more difficult for fires to burn homes. Federal or state tax relief and low-interest loans can increase incentives for homeowners to take this proactive yet expensive step.
Creating defensive space (e.g., clearing volatile vegetation, removing wooden decks, and reducing privacy hedges around a home) can also decrease wildfire impacts.
Fire suppression and timber harvesting are not enough to reduce the threat of wildfires. Funding policies with incentives to create the will and the desire for individuals and communities to implement home hardening and defensive space strategies can reduce risk.
In the long run, it is critical that the United States transitions the country’s wildfire strategy from a pattern of destruction and rebuilding to one of living with fire and creating resilient landscapes.

Annie Schmidt, Co-founder and Managing Director of Partnerships, Alliance for Wildfire Resilience

In urban conflagrations, houses—rather than trees—burn and become the fuel that perpetuates disaster and makes these wildfires extremely hard to stop.
Urban conflagrations are not new. The London Fire of 1666 and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 led to changes in building regulations and zoning as well as strategies for fire suppression.
Urban conflagrations are becoming more frequent and destructive. The proportion of buildings that are exposed to wildfire and that were ultimately destroyed more than tripled since 2002.
Home damage is driven by a number of factors like structure composition, surrounding vegetation, proximity to other structures, position on the landscape, and fire behavior and intensity. Some of these factors are not in the direct control of the building owner.
The Fix Our Forests Act (H.R.471/S.1462) would address conflagrations by creating a community wildfire risk reduction program. It would also extend the Community Wildfire Defense Grants–one of the most accessible tools for community wildfire resilience—to include home hardening and would promote fire intelligence technologies that work for both built and natural environments.
More research is still needed in areas like modeling conflagration risk in the built environment, water availability, and public health.
Wildfire solutions must be cross-cutting and include a diverse array of actors such as the public health community, insurance industry, non-forested landscape interests, and mitigation and recovery workforces.
Wildfire solutions are not a binary choice. Solutions must both protect communities and support resilient landscapes.

Sara Clark, Partner, Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger

California used to burn frequently from lightning-ignited fires and Indigenous burning. Estimates show that, hundreds of years ago, between 4.5 and 6 million acres used to burn annually. In comparison, in 2020, when California experienced the worst wildfire season in modern history, wildfires burned one million acres.
Beneficial fires—which include prescribed or controlled fires, cultural burning, and wildfires managed for resource benefit—are necessary for wildfire resilience, especially in wildland ecosystems.
Prescribed fire is the intentional application of fire to land for wildland management goals, and it is regulated by state and federal law.
Cultural burning is a practice that Indigenous people have used across North America for generations. Tribes engage in cultural burning for many reasons such as driving out game, returning meadow ecosystems, or cultivating a particular plant.
Wildfire managed for resource benefit, or managed fires, refers to the concept of strategically choosing to manage unplanned ignitions to achieve management objectives like ecosystem restoration or hazard reduction. In other words, some wildfires should be allowed to continue, but others that threaten ecosystems should be suppressed.
Mechanical thinning has its place and can serve as a fire surrogate to help reduce fuels, but it alone will not lead to ecosystem resilience.
While liability is a big concern for prescribed fires, numerous studies have shown that less than 1% of fires escape—and an even smaller percentage of escaped fires cause damage.
Western states such as California, Oregon, and Washington—as well as some states in the Midwest—have prescribed fire claims funds that create a state-backed insurance pool that moves potential financial damage from the individual to the state. Federal involvement can also create incentives for more states to establish these kinds of financial insurance programs.
The federal government has a role in defining the liability standard of beneficial fires. If they go awry, there needs to be a set standard for who is responsible in what cases.
The federal government engages with contractors to work on public lands. Rather than treating contractors’ work as a public service, the federal government requires them to bring their own insurance, which creates unfair risks. Adjustments are needed to the Federal Tort Claims Act (P.L.79–601), which allows individuals to sue for personal injury, death, or property damage.
Tribes prefer engaging in cultural burning as sovereign entities; however, the U.S. legal system is currently designed in a way that often prevents cultural burnings from happening in a timely fashion.
California has worked on a sovereign-to-sovereign agreement through SB 310. Since the passage of this bill two years ago, California has had multiple tribes enter into agreements with the state government to conduct cultural burns that are critical to improving the safety of homes and communities.
Work needs to be done to bedrock environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act (P.L. 91-604), National Environmental Policy Act (P.L. 91-190), and the Endangered Species Act (P.L. 93-205) in order for beneficial fire practices to be permitted, processed, and implemented quicker.

Michael Falkowski, Lead Scientist, Earth Fire Alliance

Wildfires are becoming more frequent in the United States, and technology is being developed to aid in response and mitigation, but the adoption of this technology and advances in operational fire management has not kept pace. This is due to disconnects between operational fire management agencies and technology innovators.
Earth Fire Alliance (EFA) aims to use a network of satellites called FireSat to observe wildfires across the planet and transmit real-time occurrence information to inform wildfire mitigation, response, and resilience efforts.
Cooperation across sectors, companies, and agencies is required to solve the wildfire crisis. EFA is a microcosm of this ecosystem, with experts bringing experience from across the wildfire management, technology, government, and philanthropic sectors to advance and transfer useful data to decision makers and scientists.
EFA’s first satellite was launched into orbit one year after the founding of EFA in collaboration with Muon Space—a significantly shorter timeline than comparable government programs. The instrument has begun orbit testing and demonstrations before the launch of three more satellites planned for summer 2026.
When fully operational, the FireSat system will be able to track fires as small as five by five meters (about 269 square feet) with a 20-minute revisit rate across the globe, which is unprecedented. The satellites will transmit short-term data to first responders and store long-term data for scientists (who may use the data for predictive modeling based on artificial intelligence). Ultimately, this system will support the development of improved wildfire resilience and mitigation strategies.
The initial satellite has detected small fires in Arizona, Oregon, and Canada. It can capture different intensity levels of the fire and burn scars using infrared waves, showing that FireSat’s capabilities extend beyond fire detection and into burn severity mapping, pre-fire ecosystem conditions, and post-fire ecosystem recovery mapping.
Data accessibility is key to EFA’s mission, so data is provided through simple infrastructure. A mobile device alert system is in development for first responders to improve situational awareness and wildfire response.
The goal is to have a fully operational global constellation by 2030.

Q&A

Q: How can the government better support or lead wildfire resilience efforts?

Martin

The federal government can coordinate resources through the National Interagency Fire Center at a moment’s notice. There needs to be a more equitable allocation of resources between “bad” fire suppression and “good” fire encouragement. Additional efforts towards removing dead vegetation and overly dense stocked stands are needed as well.

Schmidt

The Fix Our Forests Act has passed the House and now needs Senate approval.
The Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission came up with 167 recommendations for ways to improve wildfire mitigation and management systems. One-third of these recommendations are in the Fix Our Forests Act.
In the long term, the only way to spend less on fire response and recovery is to spend more on proactive mitigation.

Clark

The federal government owns and manages many landscapes that are in dire need of “good” fire, so they need to encourage active stewardship on those lands. This effort requires staff, so land management agencies cannot afford to cut any more staff. It requires funding, which can come from timber and commercial thinning revenue but needs additional stable and sustainable sources. It also requires a change in culture, seeing that there is often a mismatch between Congress and federal agencies in terms of how they think about wildfire recovery and resources.
Federal regulations are important to ensuring that any action taken is consistent with environmental benefits. If federal public lands will be managed by local tribes, contracting processes need to be made easier to respect tribal sovereignty and allow for quick responses.

Falkowski

The federal government is good at managing land and fire: 85% of wildland fires are managed and extinguished according to plan. The issue lies in coordination, not in technology or data, so the federal government needs to organize public and private sector solutions and expertise into one integrated system.

Q: How commonly are home hardening materials used, and what are the barriers to installation?

Schmidt

Making homes more resistant to ignition requires a transition away from wood and towards Class A fire-rated roofs with asphalt shingles and cementitious siding, features that reduce pathways for wind-blown amber to enter homes. Some features are easier to find in California, but a majority of fire-resistant home installations are available easily nationwide.
Programmatic barriers need to be addressed. Retrofits, especially roofs, are expensive and there is a lack of programs that cover home-hardening work. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program has been difficult to access. The U.S. Forest Service’s Community Wildfire Defense Grant Program is helpful, but this program does not cover home hardening.
More direct conversations need to be had with landowners and homeowners in high-risk areas.

Martin

It would be beneficial to convince hardware stores to create aisles dedicated to home hardening materials.
Federal and state governments should incentivize home hardening through providing tax deductions up to $2,000 for home hardening material purchases.

Q: To what degree are “green tape” obstacles caused by laws and permitting processes, versus staffing shortages?

Clark

It is a bit of both. It is hard to get people good at biological assessments and archeological surveys, which are two of the most time-consuming parts of the review process, but delays also happen because of concerns about litigation. Creating very tight, risk-proof documents takes time.
Environmental review is critical when a project has the potential to have environmental harm, but many beneficial fire projects are already designed to not harm the environment and are still put through redundant environmental review.

Q: Given the scale of the need for mitigation and risk-reduction investments, there is not enough funding to deploy every necessary project immediately, so how should Congress prioritize what projects get funding?

Martin

Communities can work with state foresters and governors to outline highest priority areas. Many projects are currently funded in a silo, so there is no collaboration between local communities and governments at all levels. Community, especially rural community, support is crucial to ensuring that resources are conserved.

Schmidt

The Wildland Fire Intelligence Center included in the Fix Our Forests Act is a step in the right direction to allow community leaders to make decisions on suppression and mitigation project priorities.
States need to set themselves up to prioritize mitigation in both landscapes and communities, and the federal government can use the Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment tool to identify what watersheds can benefit from or be harmed by fire.
Local codes and ordinances affect buildings, but they are made from data collected at large scales. There needs to be collaboration across different scales of data to make mitigation prioritization decisions.

Clark

In California, utilities are a big ignition source for unintended wildfires and face strict liability, so they are investing in reducing ignition sources and removing vegetation along utility lines. Utilities spend more than states, but the wildfire risk is reduced only in specific areas instead of at large.
California passed a law in 2024 that requires the creation of “Potential Operational Delineations” to outline where it would make sense to stop wildfires. Shoring up these areas would reduce wildfire risk through increased collaboration between stakeholders.

Q: How can FireSat technology integrate with existing federal frameworks?

Falkowski

FireSat has an early adopters program where government agencies and communities from around the world can get a first look at data and learn how to work with it, then provide feedback that is used to refine the system. Data is fully open-source to all communities.

Clark

Much of the risk with prescribed fire is after most of it has been extinguished, if a small portion slips through the cracks. FireSat can help alert to the need for suppression in those cases.

Q: How can technology help close the gap between risk zones and technology adoption? What opportunities exist for technology serving as a tool to bring multiple actors together?

Falkowski

While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has developed excellent technologies for understanding the Earth through satellite data, land management and firefighting agencies are not aware of or cannot use these datasets. People need to talk with each other collaboratively to pre-define problems and co-develop solutions. Technologies should be integrated across both developers and users from conception.

Q: What do people commonly get wrong about the wildfire problem, and how can the issues be reframed?

Falkowski

The general population sees all fire as bad, but that is not the case—some fire is good, and ecosystems need it to function.

Clark

There is a problem of conflating what is happening in wildland spaces with urban spaces, which is perpetuated by the “forest” part of the Fix Our Forests Act name.
Urban conflagration focuses on home hardening and defensive spaces, while beneficial fire is a completely different type of fire. Advocates and policymakers need to do more to differentiate the two.

Schmidt

There is no single solution to this problem. It needs to be tackled at multiple levels, from multiple angles, with cross-collaboration across sectors to create holistic solutions.

Martin