Report Card
Policy Report Card
Graded on whether current policy addresses the threats identified by the data. Updated April 7, 2026. Grades reflect editorial assessment of policy severity relative to data-identified threats — not standardized ratings.
Federal Fuels Treatment
Target was 4M acres in 2025; only 1.7M achieved — less than half. FY2026 budget cuts USFS by 65% and transfers fuels program to DOI. Treatment costs $500-$1,000/acre. Suppression costs $5,000-$50,000. 5,000 fewer USFS employees to do the work.
Federal Research Capacity
FY2026 budget cuts USFS by 65%. $300M Forest & Rangeland Research and $283M State/Tribal Forestry eliminated (presidential proposal; Congress has moved to reject). This funded every fire laboratory, research station, and experimental forest. ~3,400 employees lost, ~1,400 red-card holders.
Water Allocation & Drought
39 reservoirs across 11 states at 45% capacity. Projected to hit 26% by September — a 12.1M acre-foot inflow deficit. 73 million people in states hitting critical storage. Nevada projected to hit 0%. Lake Powell at 24% (3,528 ft), approaching 3,525 ft emergency threshold that triggers drought response. WA Yakima at 44% allocation. Zero states require fire-impact assessment for water permits.
State Treatment Pace
Treatment capacity across the corridor is orders of magnitude below need. WA: 9,300 acres/year vs 1.25M need (134 years). CA: massive treatment backlog post-Paradise and Dixie. OR, ID, MT face similar gaps. Workforce pipeline takes 2-3 years from entry to qualification.
Insurance Market Stability
Non-renewals surging across the western corridor. CA FAIR Plan now covers 668,000+ properties — the largest fire insurance crisis in the nation, seeking a 36% rate hike. WA non-renewals doubled since 2021. WA SB 5928 requires insurer disclosure of wildfire risk scores (passed Senate 48-1, pending House action). Proprietary models from Verisk/CoreLogic/Zesty.ai still drop homeowners with no transparency in most states.
Industrial Water Demand
Data centers, agriculture, and industrial users drawing from overallocated basins during unprecedented drought. No fire-impact assessment required for new water permits. Every gallon drawn reduces the hydrological resilience that buffers fire risk.
Tribal Co-Management
Tribal Forest Protection Act (2004) empowers tribes to execute fuels management on adjacent federal lands, bypassing NEPA delays. BIL authorized funding. But direct state-to-tribal prescribed fire grants remain almost entirely unfunded. Tribes steward 4.5M acres in the PNW.
Emergency Preparedness
BRIC program court-restored by Judge Stearns ($1B available). 120-day application window closing July 23, 2026. States mobilizing but funding volatile — administration has demonstrated hostility toward the program.
Smoke & Air Quality Preparedness
Wildfire smoke kills 1,500-2,500 westerners per year — more than flames. Only CA and WA have enforceable outdoor worker smoke protections. Most rural fire-prone counties have zero public clean air shelters. No state integrates smoke forecasting into emergency management. Insurance doesn't cover chronic smoke health costs.
Cross-Border Coordination
No integrated US-Canada fire prediction system. BC burned 2.8M hectares in 2023 — worst in Canadian history. WA/BC share fire weather corridors. Fire doesn't recognize the 49th parallel.
Data & Monitoring
1,830 SNOTEL stations across 11 western states, gridMET climate, MTBS severity, NFDB (Canada), 700+ EPA air quality monitors, 11,000+ PurpleAir sensors. Coverage spans 32-49°N. Firewatch demonstrates the data CAN be fused — 91% predictive accuracy from public sources alone.
What the Data Shows
130 years of NOAA climate records show western corridor summer temperatures have risen 3.2°F from the 1895-1950 average to the 2015-2025 decade (linear trend: +2.2°F/century across 11 states). The 2020s are the hottest decade in the instrumental record.
The fire prediction model, trained on 37 million observations across the western corridor and validated at 91% predictive accuracy, identifies specific grid cells where large-fire risk concentrates. This information can directly inform treatment prioritization, BRIC grant applications, resource pre-positioning, and insurance risk assessment.
The model's top predictor is fuel moisture, not snowpack. Snowpack sets the stage; summer climate determines the outcome. But the stage is already set: western snowpack is 65% below the 1991-2020 normal — the lowest on record. Seven of 11 states are at zero or near-zero April 1 SWE. A potential super El Niño developing for 2026-2027 (NOAA CPC: 62% by summer) threatens to amplify conditions further.
What Needs to Happen
- Emergency prescribed burn campaign — 50,000+ acres in Oregon's Southern Cascades and Rogue/Klamath corridor before fire season. The window is closing.
- BRIC applications — Counties must submit before July 23. This model's risk data can support applications with evidence.
- Fund tribal co-management — Direct state-to-tribal prescribed fire grants via TFPA. Fastest path to scaling treatment capacity.
- Close the exempt well loophole — Meter and allocate groundwater in overallocated basins. Every gallon drawn drains riparian fire defenses.
- Assess industrial water impact on fire — Require fire-impact evaluation for large water permits in drought-affected basins.
- Establish state wildfire insurance pools — Without a backstop, the insurance collapse erodes the tax base funding local fire districts.
- Decouple forest health funding from timber revenue — DNR's fiscal model is broken. Stable general fund appropriations or carbon market revenue needed.
- Restore federal fire research — The $300M elimination destroys institutional capacity that took decades to build and cannot be reconstituted quickly.
Assessment based on publicly available federal and state data, budget documents, and legislative records through April 2026.