National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024
A BILL
To direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to encourage and expand the use of prescribed fire on land managed by the Department of the Interior or the Forest Service, with an emphasis on units of the National Forest System in the western United States, to acknowledge and support the long-standing use of cultural burning by Tribes and Indigenous practitioners, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Findings
Congress finds that—
in 2018, the Forest Service Fire Modeling Institute determined that 63,070,000 acres of National Forest System land and 171,200,000 acres of other forest land were at high or very high risk of experiencing a wildfire that would be difficult to suppress;
according to the National Interagency Coordination Center, between 2010 and 2019, in the United States, on average—
64,000 wildfires burned 6,847,000 acres annually; and
100,000 prescribed fires burned only 3,672,000 acres annually;
indigenous communities have used cultural burning to manage landscapes since time immemorial;
according to the National Interagency Coordination Center, the annual cost of suppressing wildfires in a State with an active prescribed burning program is less than 1 percent of the annual cost of suppressing wildfires in a State without an active prescribed burning program, despite each State having the same number of wildfires;
according to a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency report assessing the air quality and health impacts of prescribed fire compared to wildfire, smoke impacts from prescribed fire were found to be smaller in magnitude and shorter in duration;
according to a 2019 study conducted by Stanford University, smoke from prescribed fires exposes children to fewer negative health effects than the detrimental smoke generated by wildfires;
according to a 2015 study published in Ecology, trees that have not been burnt by a low-intensity fire are unusually prone to bark beetle attacks, and between 2000 and 2010, bark beetles killed the majority of trees on 32,000,000 acres of the 193,000,000 acres of National Forest System land;
as of March 1, 2023, there were—
38 prescribed fire councils in 34 States; and
113 prescribed burn associations in 19 States;
according to the 2021 National Prescribed Fire Use Survey Report—
41 States regulate prescribed fires by issuing burn permits;
23 States offer prescribed burn manager certification courses to facilitate responsible burning on private land;
only 5 States (Vermont, Massachusetts, Missouri, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) lack laws to reduce liability associated with the responsible use of prescribed fire; and
only 8 States (Florida, Montana, Nevada, Colorado, Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina, and Washington) have laws that use a standard of gross negligence for determining liabilities for the responsible use of prescribed fire; and
as of September 30, 2019, 31 States have a formal process to track the number of acres treated for forestry purposes using prescribed fire.
Sec. 3 Definitions
In this Act:
Federal land— The term “Federal land” means—
public lands (as defined in section 103 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1702));
units of the National Park System;
units of the National Wildlife Refuge System;
land held in trust by the United States for the benefit of Indian Tribes or members of an Indian Tribe; and
National Forest System land.
Landscape-scale prescribed fire plan— The term “landscape-scale prescribed fire plan” means a decision document prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) that—
covers a unit of the National Forest System, a Bureau of Land Management district, or a subunit thereof;
analyzes the site-specific environmental consequences of prescribed fire on the land described in subparagraph (A); and
obviates the need for subsequent decisions pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) with respect to the unit, district, or subunit described in subparagraph (A).
National forest system—
In general— The term “National Forest System” has the meaning given the term in section 11(a) of the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 (16 U.S.C. 1609(a)).
Exclusion— The term “National Forest System” does not include the national grasslands and land utilization projects administered under title III of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (7 U.S.C. 1010 et seq.).
Prescribed fire— The term “prescribed fire” means a fire deliberately ignited to burn wildland fuels in a natural or modified state—
under specified environmental conditions that are intended to allow the fire to be confined to a predetermined area and produce the fireline intensity and rate of spread required to attain planned resource management objectives;
that does not include pile burning; and
in accordance with applicable law, including applicable regulations.
Secretaries— The term “Secretaries” means—
the Secretary; and
the Secretary of Agriculture.
Secretary— The term “Secretary” means the Secretary of the Interior.