Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act of 2025

This legislation, titled the Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act of 2025, requires the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to establish a standard for the response time to wildland fire incidents on federal lands. The bill defines "response time" as the period between ignition and evaluation for suppression by public safety personnel or volunteers. To the extent practicable, this standard aims for an initial evaluation within 30 minutes and the deployment of fire suppression assets within 3 hours.

Within one year of enactment, the Secretaries must jointly submit a report to Congress outlining several key areas. This report will include identifying a single point of contact for federal wildland fire response, a unified budget request for all wildland fire activities, and descriptions of key performance indicators for various federal agencies. Furthermore, it requires an assessment of the current firefighting fleet, an estimation of the fleet size needed to meet the 30-minute response goal, and proposed changes to dispatch systems and contracting mechanisms to enhance efficiency and ensure year-round availability of firefighting assets.