Rocky Mountain FIRES Act

The Rocky Mountain FIRES Act (H.R. 4875) was designed to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires in the Rocky Mountain region by prioritizing funding for forest management near residential areas and municipal water supplies. The bill would have required that at least 70% of hazardous fuel reduction funds in the region be used for projects in the "wildland-urban interface"—the areas where homes and undeveloped wildlands meet—and near critical water sources.

For residents, the bill aimed to increase safety by providing federal grants to help local communities create or update wildfire protection plans and by allowing the government to designate "insect-emergency areas" to address tree die-offs caused by pests. Additionally, it would have allowed private landowners with property bordering federal lands to enter into agreements to perform fire-prevention work on those federal lands, helping to create wider buffer zones against approaching fires. While the bill was introduced in 2006, it did not advance past the committee stage and never became law.