The Department of the Interior (DOI) has formally announced the establishment of the U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS), a development that came the same week that the U.S. Congress declined to fund it.
That new agency will be composed of the multiple fire programs within the department, including those of the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. The department said the USWFS will “streamline decision-making, improve operational efficiency and enhance the Department’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to wildfire threats.”
“Wildfire response depends on coordination, clarity and speed,” Brian Fennessy, the agency’s inaugural chief, said in the announcement. “This initial planning effort is about bringing programs together, strengthening cooperation across the Department and building a framework that better supports firefighters and the communities they serve.”
Last summer, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for broader consolidation of the Department of the Interior’s fire programs with that of the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service, the largest employer of federal wildland firefighters, “to the maximum degree practicable.”
Later that fall, both the USDA and DOI released plans to improve collaboration between departments, with the Department of the Interior creating an outline for the new USWFS.
Interior had previously requested $6.5 billion for the Wildland Fire Service. However, those requests were zeroed out by Congress, according to a recent budget document from the Senate Appropriations Committee. Both the House and the Senate recently passed the funding measure for Interior without specific USWFS funding. Trump is expected to sign it, according to High Country News.
“The bill does not endorse the consolidation of federal wildland firefighting into one agency as proposed in President Trump’s budget request,” reads a recent press release from Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat. “Instead, it specifically provides funding to continue wildland firefighting using the longstanding practice of funding both the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to allow Congress to consider legislative proposals for such a major change.”
Asked about Congress’s decision not to fund the USWFS, an Interior spokesperson told the Mountain West News Bureau that “no new funding is being obligated, and no structural changes requiring congressional authorization are being implemented at this stage. The Department will continue to work with Congress and respect congressional direction as this internal planning effort moves forward.”
Looking to avoid negative impacts to “wildland fire operations,” the Jan. 12 order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum establishing the USWFS calls for a “phased approach to elevating, modernizing, and streamlining DOI’s wildland fire management operations activities.”
“Recognizing the complexities inherent in the establishment and integration of the existing Bureau wildland fire programs into USWFS, there will be a transition period in which there may be overlapping authorities and responsibilities with respect to wildland fire management,” the order continued.
The Mountain West News Bureau (MWNB) obtained a Jan. 12 email in which Chief Fennessy told his new staff that the founding of the USWFS “marks a historic milestone for our nation and for each of us - a day we will remember as the beginning of a new era in wildland fire management.”
“The unification of the Department of the Interior's fire programs is a significant step forward, but it is only the start of our journey toward deeper collaboration with state and local partners,” he continued.
An Interior spokesperson declined to comment on the email or confirm its authenticity, though the outlet Government Executive has previously reported on it. Fennessy told staff that he would share “the blueprint for our phased unification in the coming weeks.”
“We are entering a period of intense operational tempo, and I know each of you is committed to the success of our new agency,” he continued. “Mistakes may occur along the way, but I assure you that we will address them openly, learn from them, and move forward together.”
Fennessy’s hiring was welcomed by many in the fire community, including the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, which pointed to his nearly five decades of experience beginning in the late 1970s on elite federal hotshot crews. He eventually served as a crew superintendent before moving in 1990 to the San Diego Fire Department, where he became Chief in 2015. He was then hired by the Orange County Fire Authority as its chief, a position he retired from to take the USWFS job.
“If you haven't walked in those shoes and done those jobs and moved up through those leadership ranks, then I think it becomes very difficult to provide quality leadership or administrative management without a clean picture of the people you're leading,” Grassroots’ President Luke Mayfield previously told the MWNB.
Josh Hicks, conservation campaigns director with the advocacy group The Wilderness Society, called Fennessy’s resume “impressive.”
“He does seem like a very qualified candidate,” he added. “And I hope this administration gives him the space that he needs to be able to make good decisions as opposed to political ones.”
Hicks’ organization is concerned that the USWFS will focus too heavily on wildfire suppression, as opposed to mitigation policies like prescribed fire. Many researchers and officials say that there is an extraordinary deficit of low- and moderate-intensity fires on Western landscapes. More than a century of aggressive fire suppression has allowed for the buildup of fuels, which the Forest Service itself has acknowledged as a contributor “to what is now a full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis.”
“This is going in the opposite direction of getting fire back on the landscape,” Hicks said of the new agency. “And really divorces suppressing fires from natural resource management.”
Asked about Congress’s apparent decision not to fund the USWFS as requested, Hicks said. “It's heartening to see that Congress wants this administration to be thoughtful and measured in how they go about addressing the Wildfire Crisis.”
In his email, Fennessy said the USWFS’s “primary purpose and mission is wildland fire suppression. At the same time. We have a duty to improve fire mitigation strategies and programs across all bureaus.”
“I am excited to work alongside you as we build the nation's first unified wildland fire service,” he told his new staff. “Together, we will make history.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
