Bills to learn, recover from 2024 wildfires headed for Senate floor

Via Wyoming News Exchange

SHERIDAN — The Wyoming Legislature is looking to help the state learn and recover from a historic 2024 wildfire season.

According to the Wyoming State Forestry Division, 2,167 fires burned more than 850,000 acres in 2024. State costs to suppress those fires have totaled more than $56 million, depleting all funds from the state’s Emergency Fire Suppression Account, Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and the governor’s office’s contingency accounts.

The Remington Fire and Elk Fire both began in Sheridan County over the summer. The Remington Fire quickly moved into Montana and burned for nearly a month, scorching a total of 196,368 acres, a majority of which occurred in Montana. The Elk Fire burned 98,352 acres largely in the Bighorn National Forest.

‘Lessons to be learned’

Senate File 152, “Wildfire management-task force and state forester,” would replenish the state’s wildfire recovery accounts, amend the duties of the state forester and create a task force.

“Obviously it was unprecedented, the fire season we had… but there are lessons to be learned when you deal with some of these things,” the bill’s primary sponsor Sen. Eric Barlow, R-Gillette, said.

In creating a task force, the bill would require a body of roughly 16 people — currently comprising eight lawmakers and eight members from various industries and other governmental entities — to study the wildfire impacts and evaluate wildland fire response systems.

“I tried to leave them as wide as I could. But, what could we do better, what lessons are there, what can we learn from other places? Make recommendations,” Barlow said.

The task force would have the 2025 and 2026 interim sessions to complete its work and offer recommendations to the governor, as well as the legislature’s Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee and the Joint Appropriations Committee.

To replenish the various recovery accounts, the bill includes a total of just more than $42.25 million, including $20 million for the EFSA.

State Forester Kelly Norris estimated an average fire year requires just $7 million from the EFSA; according to a memorandum from the Wyoming State Forestry Division, the state obligated $54.4 million from the EFSA to 2024 fires.

The bill would also increase the governor’s borrowing authority from the Legislative Stabilization Reserve Account to $40 million for firefighting purposes.

The fires in 2024 depleted the governor’s $20 million borrowing authority.

Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said the additional borrowing authority is crucial as fire emergencies become more common and more expensive.

The bill would give the state forester rule-making authority to fulfill the position’s duties, require the forester to work with all political subdivisions and maintain wildland and forestry fire control programs.

Many of those responsibilities are already part of the state forester’s regular practices.

“The proposed duties in Senate File 152 are duties the state forester is actually already being expected to do,” Norris said. “So, this bill from my personal opinion is really meant to confirm that these duties will rest with the duties already rested with the state forester.”

’Fix some of those issues’

Fires across Wyoming ran a high bill and caused extensive damage on private and public lands alike; 1,823 of Wyoming’s 2,167 fires in 2024 burned on private lands, burning a total of 529,925 acres.

“This bill intends to fix some of those issues,” Sen. Barry Crago, R-Buffalo, said of his bill, Senate File 148.

SF148, “Fire suppression and restoration funding,” is similar to Gov. Mark Gordon’s original supplemental budget request.

Gordon asked for $130 million for wildlife relief and recovery grants in his 2025 supplemental budget request. The Wyoming Legislature’s Joint Appropriations Committee reduced that funding to $100 million last week and transformed it into a loan program.

Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, voted in favor of reducing the available funding and changing it to a loan program. He said offering a grant program could open the door to private citizens abusing government grant programs.

“If you’re talking about private individuals, everybody that is in business bears a certain responsibility. That’s why we have insurance,” Pendergraft told The Sheridan Press last week.

Crago’s bill includes $100 million for grants to restore grass and vegetation on private and public lands, $10 million for watershed health and $30 million for the EFSA, among other fund allocations. Crago’s bill would also create a nine-member steering committee to oversee the grant application process.

Crago and Barlow’s bills are set for the Senate floor after the Senate Travel, Recreation, Wildlife and Cultural Resources Committee voted unanimously to back them.

This story was published on January 28, 2025.