The U.S. Wildland Fire Service has officially launched; but Congress has decided not to fund it

Hicks’ organization is concerned that the USWFS will focus too heavily on wildfire suppression, as opposed to mitigation policies like prescribed fire. Many researchers and officials say that there is an extraordinary deficit of low- and moderate-intensity fires on Western landscapes. More than a century of aggressive fire suppression has allowed for the buildup of fuels, which the Forest Service itself has acknowledged as a contributor “to what is now a full-blown wildfire and forest health crisis.”

“This is going in the opposite direction of getting fire back on the landscape,” Hicks said of the new agency. “And really divorces suppressing fires from natural resource management.”