Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission Releases Final Report

On September 27, the federal Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, co-chaired by the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, released a final report submitted to Congress that reflects a comprehensive review of the federal wildfire system. The report makes 148 recommendations covering seven key themes:

• Urgent new approaches to address the wildfire crisis
• Supporting collaboration to improve partner involvement
• Shifting from reactive to proactive in planning for, mitigating and recovering from fire
• Enabling beneficial fire to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire
• Supporting and expanding the workforce to hire and retain the wildland firefighting staff needed to address the crisis
• Modernizing tools for informed decision-making to better leverage available technology and information
• Investing in resilience through increased spending now to reduce costs in the long run