Bipartisan legislation introduced by freshman Sens. Tim Sheehy (R-Mt.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) would establish a nationwide response time standard for wildfires affecting public lands.
Under the bill, the Wildfire Response and Preparedness Act, all wildfires on Interior Department- or Agriculture Department-administered lands would be subject to a half-hour response standard.
In a statement, Sheehy and Kim noted that the National Fire Protection Association currently has a five-minute, twenty-second response time standard in place for structural fires, which has been credited with reducing civilian deaths 70 percent. No such standard currently exists for wildfires.
“The WRAP Act will help our brave firefighters put out wildfires while they are small and dramatically reduce catastrophic wildfire damage. This bill will save lives and prevent hundreds of billions of dollars in future property damage,” Sheehy, a onetime aerial firefighter, said in a statement.
“As New Jerseyans and people across our country experience worsening devastation from wildfires due to climate change, a more aggressive response time can be a lifesaving tool for them and our first responders,” Kim said. “With this bill, we are able to expand on the success of standards for structure fires and put our best foot forward in protecting communities from the threat of wildfires.”
Sheehy, a high-profile Trump endorsee, unseated Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mt.), one of the Democratic party’s last holdouts in a red state that voted for Trump three times. Nonetheless, since Sheehy took office in January, he has collaborated on 10 fire prevention-related bills.
The bill comes in the wake of the wildfires that devastated much of the Los Angeles area at the beginning of 2025, as well as more recent fires that have racked parts of South Carolina, central Texas and Georgia. A downed power line also started New Jersey’s first fire of the year in early March, weeks before the Garden State’s fire season is typically said to begin.
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