On May 21, 2026, the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Interior, Environment, And Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. The bill does not create a new, consolidated wildfire agency, as was proposed in the President’s FY2026 and FY2027 budget requests. Instead, it continues funding federal wildfire responsibilities through the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Department of the Interior (DOI).

Federal spending on wildfire is spread throughout the federal government. The USFS Wildland Fire Management (WFM) account oversees the majority of expenditures for wildfire response activities on federal lands, including firefighter salaries and equipment. DOI also has a WFM account, although it is significantly smaller.

In both FY2026 and FY2027, the president’s budget request called for the creation of a U.S. Wildland Fire Service to be housed within DOI. The proposed agency would largely mirror the current structure of the DOI WFM, with a couple of new line items, Intelligence and Technology and Grants and Partnerships.

In FY2026, Congress continued to fund wildfire under both USFS and DOI and requested a comprehensive study on the impacts of consolidation. USDA issued a request for information regarding the study last month and USFS Chief Tom Schultz told the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last week that the agency plans to submit a formal request soon.

The Subcommittee’s bill would continue to fund wildfire under both USFS and DOI. The bill renames the DOI wildfire program as the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, but explicitly states that appropriations are for “the existing United States Wildland Fire Service,” not a new consolidated agency that encompasses the USFS’s existing responsibilities. This language is markedly different from past years, which provided “for necessary expenses for fire preparedness, fire suppression operations, fire science and research, emergency rehabilitation, fuels management activities, and rural fire assistance by the Department of the Interior.”

The bill would increase funding for the USFS WFM account by 8%, from $2.4 to $2.6 billion, and funding for DOI by 1%, from $1.1 to $1.2 billion. The bill would also continue funding the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund at its maximum level of $2.95 billion. The fund can be tapped by either agency if existing suppression funding runs dry.