WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) introduced legislation to dramatically reduce destructive wildfire risk and improve forest health.

Around 63 million of the 193 million acres of the National Forest System are at severe risk of catastrophic wildfires due to the lack of proper forest restoration management and poor forest health. The Wildfire Prevention Act will direct the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to utilize existing resources to increase wildfire mitigation projects on National Forest and public lands.

“Over one-third of the country’s National Forest lands are at risk of destruction and devastation due to catastrophic wildfires. As long as we lack proper forest management, we will continue to see costly tragedies like we’ve seen in California and Wyoming,” said Senator Barrasso. “Our nation’s wildland firefighting workforce put their lives on the line to protect our forests and our communities from these fires. It is critical we provide wildland firefighters with the resources and tools they need to expedite fire mitigation projects. The Wildfire Prevention Act will reduce the risk of wildfires for our communities while restoring the health of public lands in Wyoming and across the west.”

The Wildfire Prevention Act will require the agencies to remove red tape hindering forest management projects and increase the use of other projects and resources, like grazing, as wildfire mitigation tools. It also requires transparency about limitations and challenges on the progress with these projects.

This bill is supported by the Wyoming State Forestry Division and the Federal Forest Resource Coalition.

“This bill highlights the importance of tracking metrics and the progress of the significant work being implemented to help ensure forests continue to be proactively managed for forest health. Thank you to Senator Barrasso for his ongoing commitment to prioritizing active management within our Nation’s forests.” – Kelly Norris, Wyoming State Forester

“We strongly support the Wildfire Prevention Act and urge Congress to take it up quickly. Congress has provided numerous new authorities and billions of additional dollars to thin forests and reduce fuel loads on our National Forests. Now is the time to mandate that the Forest Service use those authorities as broadly as possible.” – Bill Imbergamo, Executive Director, Federal Forest Resource Coalition

Co-sponsors of this legislation include U.S. Senators Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.).

Full text of the legislation can be found here.

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