Support our Firefighters Act

This bill would let federal wildland firefighters at the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior receive paid rest and recuperation leave after being deployed to a qualifying wildfire incident. The Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior would jointly set the rules, which may include required leave such as 3 days after a 14-day deployment or 4 days after a 21-day deployment. The leave must be used right after the deployment, cannot be saved for later, and cannot be cashed out; intermittent workers would be excused from duty and paid for the same period. The bill would also allow up to $5 million in unused Forest Service wildfire funds to be moved to the Interior Department to keep the firefighter base pay increase going, and would extend the waiver of overtime pay caps for wildland firefighters to every year after 2024.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• Alex Padilla Democrat sponsor
• 4 cosponsors