Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act of 2025

This bill requires the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to set a standard for how quickly they must respond to wildfires on federal land. It also requires a joint report to Congress on wildfire response coordination, budgeting, and resources.

Sec. 2, Standards for response time to wildfire incidents: The bill defines key terms like 'response time' as the period from a fire's ignition to when a firefighter or aircraft evaluates it for suppression. Within 90 days of enactment, the Secretaries must set a response time standard for fires on their land. The goal is a response time of no more than 30 minutes, including deploying suppression assets within 3 hours, to the extent practicable. Within one year, the Secretaries must jointly report to Congress identifying a single point of contact for federal wildfire response, a unified budget request, key performance indicators for five agencies (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), a description of the current aviation and ground firefighting fleet and an estimate of the fleet needed to meet the 30-minute goal, necessary changes to the dispatch system, ways to streamline federal contracting for firefighting assets to allow contract awards within one year, and all resources and authorities needed to ensure year-round availability of contracted firefighting assets.