Wildfire

Wildfire policy addresses the prevention, management, and response to wildfires — which have grown dramatically in size, frequency, and destructiveness over the past two decades, driven by climate change, decades of fire suppression that have allowed fuel loads to accumulate, and expanding development into fire-prone wildland-urban interface zones. The western United States has been hardest hit: the Camp Fire (2018) killed 85 people and destroyed the town of Paradise, California; the Dixie Fire (2021) burned over 960,000 acres, the largest single wildfire in California history. The January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires — driven by extreme Santa Ana winds during an unusually dry period — destroyed tens of thousands of structures across Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and other communities, with estimated losses exceeding $150 billion, making it the costliest wildfire disaster in U.S. history. The federal government owns roughly one-third of all land in the United States, mostly in the West, and the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are responsible for forest and rangeland management. Congressional debates focus on forest thinning and prescribed burns to reduce fuel loads, funding for federal firefighting and air tankers, coordination between federal, state, and local agencies, and building codes and defensible space requirements. Wildfire smoke has become a major public health issue, with hazardous air quality days multiplying across the U.S. The insurance industry has begun withdrawing from fire-prone markets, creating a coverage crisis in California, Colorado, and other states.