FIRE Act
Introduced December 3, 2025 · Last action April 27, 2026
Plain English Summary
This bill amends the Clean Air Act to allow states to exclude air quality monitoring data from areas affected by wildfires and prescribed fire mitigation actions when those events cause air pollution spikes. It expands the definition of 'exceptional events' to include prescribed burns and similar wildfire risk-reduction measures approved by states, and requires the EPA to revise its regulations within 18 months to implement these changes and establish a public tracker for all petitions.
Who benefits
States with significant wildfire activity (particularly in the West) that conduct prescribed burns or similar mitigation activities; state forestry and land management agencies undertaking wildfire risk reduction; utilities and property owners in fire-prone regions who benefit from reduced wildfire severity; counties and air quality districts in states seeking to avoid federal air quality nonattainment designations that would trigger costly regulations; prescribed fire practitioners and forestry contractors.
Who pays / loses
States and regions outside fire-prone areas that depend on strict air quality monitoring to enforce Clean Air Act compliance; communities downwind of prescribed burns and wildfires who experience temporary air quality degradation but may see their complaints excluded from regulatory consideration; EPA staff responsible for administering air quality standards (increased workload); industries in nonattainment areas that would otherwise face stricter emissions controls if wildfire-related air quality data were counted.
Funding & Lobbying Interests
Agricultural and forestry industries, state forestry commissions, and land management agencies with financial interest in conducting prescribed burns without facing air quality violations; timber companies and biomass energy producers who benefit from prescribed burn operations; rural counties and states managing federal and state lands in wildfire-prone regions; utilities operating in western states seeking relief from air quality compliance costs.
Political Impact
Affected Groups
Residents of western and fire-prone states (particularly California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico) experiencing increased prescribed burn smoke; rural communities near prescribed fire operations; indigenous peoples and tribes conducting cultural burns; air quality-sensitive populations (children, elderly, those with asthma and respiratory disease) living near prescribed burn zones and active wildfires; state and local environmental regulators tasked with implementing new petition processes.
Political Subtext
Proponents argue this bill balances environmental protection with practical wildfire management, allowing land managers to conduct necessary prescribed burns without triggering federal air quality penalties that discourage fire risk reduction. They contend that excluding wildfire-related exceedances from compliance determinations reflects reality: these are temporary, uncontrollable events beyond source-control measures. Critics counter that the bill weakens air quality standards by creating a loophole through which any air pollution spike tied to wildfire or prescribed fire can be dismissed, shifting burden from land managers to nearby residents who breathe degraded air. They note the bill does not require states to prove the prescribed burn was necessary or proportionate, only that it was 'state-approved.' Non-partisan evidence shows prescribed burns do temporarily degrade air quality over wide areas; the tradeoff between short-term air quality cost and long-term wildfire severity reduction is real but not quantified in this bill.
Real-World Stakes
If passed, states will be able to ignore air quality violations caused by prescribed burns when seeking federal compliance and designations, reducing regulatory pressure on land management agencies and allowing more aggressive prescribed burning programs. Downwind communities, particularly low-income and communities of color in rural areas, will experience periodic severe air quality degradation without federal remedy or triggering stricter regulations on the burning entities. The bill follows the pattern established by the 2006 EPA Exceptional Events Rule and 2018 revisions (which already allowed certain natural wildfire smoke exclusions), but expands the loophole to include human-initiated burns. California and Oregon have already conducted thousands of prescribed burns; this bill removes a federal air quality compliance barrier they faced. The monthly public petition tracker creates transparency but does not grant EPA authority to deny exclusions based on public health impact. Real-world precedent: When Arizona and New Mexico expanded prescribed burning programs in the 2010s-2020s, nearby communities (including Navajo Nation areas) experienced multiple Code Red air quality days; those events would now be excluded from EPA compliance data under this bill.
Sponsor
Sponsor information not available.
Vote Record
No recorded votes.
Campaign Finance — Primary Sponsor
No campaign finance data available yet.
501(c)(4) disclosure: Contributions from 501(c)(4) "dark money" organizations are not required to be publicly disclosed and are not reflected in the figures above. Data sourced from FEC public disclosure filings.
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