Current status (as of July 2026): H.R. 6387, the FIRE Act, passed the House on April 26, 2026 by a vote of 220–198, largely along party lines, with 3 co-sponsors. It awaits Senate action.
H.R. 6387, introduced by Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO-8), would require the EPA to revise its Clean Air Act exceptional events rules to create faster, more accessible processes for excluding wildfire smoke data from National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) calculations, and would extend those pathways to prescribed burns as a recognized fire management tool. Sponsors argue that communities in wildfire-prone regions are being penalized under Clean Air Act enforcement for air-quality exceedances driven by wildfire smoke — pollution they say is outside local control. Opponents, including most House Democrats and groups such as Earthjustice, argue the bill would weaken the NAAQS program and broaden the definition of an "exceptional event" enough to let other sources of pollution escape scrutiny.
The NAAQS and Exceptional Events
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards for six major pollutants including particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and ozone. States must demonstrate "attainment" with these standards — maintaining air quality at or below the NAAQS thresholds. Monitoring data showing exceedances can trigger requirements for states to develop or tighten their State Implementation Plans, potentially forcing costly regulatory changes on local governments and industry.
The "exceptional events" rule (40 CFR Part 50, Appendix A) provides a pathway for states to exclude air quality data from attainment calculations when the exceedance was caused by an "exceptional event" — including wildfires — that was not reasonably controllable or preventable, and that caused an exceedance that would not otherwise have occurred. If the exclusion is accepted, the monitoring data for those days doesn't count against the state's attainment record.
What Sponsors Say Is Wrong With the Current Process
The existing exceptional events demonstration process is time-intensive and complex. States must submit detailed documentation — meteorological data, fire location data, dispersion modeling, and statistical analysis — demonstrating that the fire caused the exceedance and that the exceedance would not have occurred absent the fire. EPA review can take one to two years, and the bar for acceptance is high.
Supporters of the bill say that as western wildfires have grown in scale and frequency, the exceptional events process has become a recurring administrative burden for western states: each significant wildfire season can generate many exceedance events requiring individual state demonstrations. They point to communities that had previously been in attainment later being designated as non-attainment areas — a designation with significant regulatory and funding consequences — after wildfire smoke pushed their PM2.5 readings above NAAQS thresholds on specific days.
What the FIRE Act Would Change
The bill requires EPA to revise the exceptional events rule to:
- Create expedited review pathways for wildfires that meet defined criteria — allowing faster exclusion determinations without the full documentation burden currently required
- Recognize prescribed burns as exceptional events eligible for the same exclusion pathway, when those burns are conducted as part of an approved fire management plan. Under current rules, prescribed burns occupy an uncertain status — they're human-caused, which creates ambiguity about whether they qualify as "exceptional events."
- Establish clear timelines for EPA review of state exceptional events submissions, replacing the currently open-ended review period
The Prescribed Burn Problem
Land managers — the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, state forestry agencies — use prescribed burns to reduce fuel loads and lower the risk of catastrophic wildfires. A controlled burn of a few hundred acres conducted under safe conditions produces localized, short-duration air quality impacts. Under the current rule, prescribed burns occupy an uncertain status because they are human-caused. Proponents of the bill argue that this regulatory risk discourages prescribed burning, which they say increases fuel loads and, in turn, the risk of the large uncontrolled wildfires that produce far worse air quality impacts over far larger areas.
The FIRE Act's recognition of prescribed burns as exceptional events is intended to remove this regulatory disincentive: under the bill, states that use prescribed burning as wildfire mitigation would not face Clean Air Act non-attainment consequences for short-term air quality impacts from burns conducted within approved management frameworks. Opponents counter that broadening the exceptional-events categories — the bill would also cover meteorological conditions such as high heat or drought — could let avoidable pollution go uncounted and weaken the health protections the NAAQS program is designed to enforce.