119-hr178

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 178 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 178

 To require the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out activities to 
 suppress wildfires, and for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 January 3, 2025

 Mr. McClintock (for himself, Mr. Calvert, Mr. LaMalfa, Mr. Biggs of 
 Arizona, Mr. Stauber, and Mr. Issa) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to 
 the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently 
 determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
 provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

 To require the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out activities to 
 suppress wildfires, and for other purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SUPPRESSION OF WILDFIRES.

    (a) In General.--With respect to covered National Forest System 
lands, the Secretary of Agriculture, acting through the Chief of the 
Forest Service--

    (1) shall--
        (A) use all available resources to carry out 
 wildfire suppression with the purpose of extinguishing 
 wildfires detected on such lands not later than 24 
 hours after such a wildfire is detected; and
        (B) immediately suppress any prescribed fire that 
 exceeds prescription;

    (2) shall not inhibit the suppression efforts of State or 
 local firefighting agencies that are authorized to respond to 
 wildfire on such lands;

    (3) may only use fire as a resource management tool if the 
 fire is a prescribed fire that complies with applicable law and 
 regulations;

    (4) may only initiate a backfire or burnout during a 
 wildfire--
        (A) by order of the responsible incident commander; 
 or
        (B) in instances that are necessary to protect the 
 health and safety of firefighting personnel; and

    (5) shall use all available resources to control any such 
 initiated backfire or burnout until extinguished.

    (b) Covered National Forest System Lands Defined.--In this section, 
the term ``covered National Forest System lands'' means any area--

    (1) located within National Forest System lands; and

    (2) that--
        (A) the U.S. Drought Monitor has rated as having a 
 D2 (severe drought) intensity, D3 (extreme drought) 
 intensity, or D4 (exceptional drought) intensity;
        (B) the National Interagency Fire Center declares 
 has a National Wildland Fire Preparedness level of 5; 
 or
            (C) the Forest Service has identified as being 
 located in a fireshed ranked in the top 10 percent of 
 wildfire exposure (as determined using the most 
 recently published models of fireshed risk exposure 
 published by the Forest Service).
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