The U.S. Senate unanimously passed legislation Wednesday introduced by Senator Ruben Gallego that would study how federal rules help or hinder wildfire prevention across jurisdictional boundaries — sending the bill to President Trump’s desk.
The Cross-Boundary Wildfire Solutions Act directs the Government Accountability Office to examine existing federal programs and authorities that enable or block wildfire mitigation when fires cross between federal, state, tribal and private lands. The GAO would have two years to deliver findings and recommendations to Congress.
The House passed the bill June 3.
“Like many Western states, my home state of Arizona is a patchwork of federal, state, Tribal, and private land. And fires do not stop at those property lines,” Gallego said on the Senate floor. “When fires move faster than governments can coordinate, the fire has the advantage.”
Gallego pointed to Arizona’s 2025 fire season as evidence of the need for better coordination. The Dragon Bravo Fire burned more than 200,000 acres across the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and Kaibab National Forest, he said, devastating local tourism-dependent businesses.
The bill is part of a broader wildfire package Gallego introduced last year with Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse. Two companion bills — the Wildfire Coordination Act, which would establish a federal-state-tribal advisory board on wildfire research, and the Wildfire Risk Evaluation Act, which would require a national wildfire landscape review every four years — have not yet passed.
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