In May of this year, the Salmon-Challis National Forest (SCNF) authorized limited use of gas-powered chainsaws to clear 542 miles of specifically designated trails in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness. Use is limited to the next three years, starting this summer, from January 1 to August 1 of each year, and is limited to users approved by the Forest Service. This work was authorized through a document called the Minimum Requirements Analysis, which you can read about here. Right now, this work is mainly being done by permitted outfitters operating on the Forest.

As a boots-on-the-ground, volunteer-based organization, ITA’s primary focus is on getting trail maintenance done on the ground. When we learned of the chainsaw authorization, our first thought was of our twelve planned projects on the Salmon-Challis National Forest in 2026, and which trails approved for chainsaw use overlapped with our schedule.

This means we need to coordinate closely with outfitters to ensure we know where they are operating saws. Our number one priority is well-organized projects with meaningful, safe, and fun work for volunteers, work that contributes to making trails more accessible for the public. It’s more important than ever to communicate with both SCNF personnel and outfitters as we tackle the projects planned in that area this year. ITA will continue to use non-motorized/non-mechanized tools to accomplish this work in designated wilderness areas.

ITA is focusing on being proactive and communicating up front with the Forest Service and outfitters. Where a trail is planned for clearing by chainsaw, as was the recent case with the Marsh Creek Trail, ITA will assess the site to determine if it is still suitable for a good volunteer project. In the case of our recent Marsh Creek project, the answer was “yes”. The Forest Service trail program lead met our crew on the trail for a weekend of removing large boulders and root wads, brushing and improving tread, all work vital to keeping this trail navigable. We will follow this process for future projects and determine if the work remaining is meaningful and suited to volunteers or if the project is best moved somewhere else.

In the short term, as trail season winds down and after hunting season is over and outfitters are out of the backcountry, we plan to participate in Forest Service and partner meetings to review the first year of this program and identify successes, ask questions, raise concerns and discuss challenges and opportunities to improve coordination between partners and the FS and implementation of the MRA itself with its present requirements and allowances.

Over the longer term- the next three years- ITA will advocate for a long-term solution that recommits to the use of traditional tools as the way to keep trails open in the wilderness.

We will urge Congress to pass adequate funding for both Forest Service staff and partners. The Forest Service needs to restore the right positions in the right places to coordinate and support work by partners like ITA, conservation corps, and outfitters working in their respective areas.

Paid, full-season trail crews are needed. The public land trail system is a national treasure, with tremendous recreational value in today’s times. Recreational value translates to economic value for communities as well. We need trail crews to do all the work – cutting, brushing, tread work, bridges. ITA has proved people value trails; our volunteers worked 16,614 hours on trails in 2025. We are able and willing to learn the wilderness skills to maintain trails. But at the core, we need full-time, skilled Forest Service crews with years of experience to fully utilize volunteers and fully support less experienced paid crews. Over the long term, we need crews on horses and mules or with backpacks, carrying axes and crosscut saws – not chainsaws.

This decision has sparked intense debate. We feel use of mechanized equipment should be the exception to standard wilderness tools and should only be used in emergency situations. Yet, while we look ahead to a future where trails can be maintained using traditional tools, we also must focus on a present where there are hundreds of miles of trails in desperate need of work, from log out to tread repair. We must focus on our role as an on-the-ground organization, dedicated to working with other partners and the Forest Service to get vital work done this season. We care deeply about wilderness and about the traditional tools and skills that have been part of maintaining backcountry trails for decades, and we value our relationships with partners because this will always be a team effort. We will continue to speak for wilderness values while maintaining relationships with our partners, for the good of trails.

Sincerely,  Melanie Vining, ITA Executive Director

Federal land agencies want to know how many people are hiking, camping and sightseeing on public lands — and are testing dozens of pilot projects to get better data.

Traditional methods for tracking recreation numbers include trailhead surveys or vehicle counters. But those techniques don’t capture all visitors, especially in less popular areas.

Last year, Congress passed the EXPLORE Act, a package of measures to boost outdoor recreation access as record numbers participate in outdoor activities. It also directed agencies to study new visitation monitoring methods.

Federal agencies including the Interior Department followed up in late June by announcing dozens of pilot projects to evaluate some of the latest techniques. Some are new projects, while others are studies that have already been completed.

Many of the newer methods fall under the category of “digital mobility data,” said Spencer Wood, who directs the Outdoor Recreation and Data Lab at the University of Washington.

Several of Wood’s studies were included in the list of federal pilot projects, such as ones that analyze aggregated call phone data and public social media.

“They post a photograph that says they are having a great time mountain biking – that’s useful information,” he said. “We can observe that by looking at the content of images that people share publicly on social media platforms, or we can understand people’s activities by looking at the way they write a trip report.”

Another option that Wood has studied involves tracking how many people participate in virtual citizen science projects on public lands. Federal agencies say these innovative approaches are promising but need more studying.

Wood said analyzing all the projects could help inform federal land management decisions.

“That might involve questions about what type of infrastructure do they build, where do they improve roads, or where might they improve parking, or where might they work on trail development?”

The federal government is accepting public comments on the pilot projects through July 29.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

This came from Backcountry Hunters and Anglers.

Friday night, the President signed an executive order that could fundamentally change public lands as we know them.

Decades of underlying policy allowing agencies to govern motorized vehicle use on federal land? Gone. Agencies have been directed to rescind or rewrite policy that has regulated ORV use on public lands for the past 50 years.

We, the BHA community, already know the implications: Unchecked motorized travel on public lands can harm access for everyone in the long run. It changes wildlife behavior, fragments habitat & trades the quiet for the noise.

Access matters & we fight for it every day. But access & motorization are NOT the same thing.
Not every acre of public land should be managed for maximum motorized access. The ability to reach public lands should not come at the expense of the wild qualities that make those places worth visiting in the first place.

We’re dissecting every detail of this order and continuing to advocate for the backcountry in the halls of Congress. More to come.
~~

The draft is to not allow any restrictions on motorized access to national forests, you can’t tell a motorcyclist they can’t ride there or stop ATV or UTV access to anywhere.  They want to “open and improve” airstrips in the backcountry, the Big Creek 4 are right there on top of the list.  They want to rewrite the wilderness act to allow chainsaws across the board, which opens the door for mechanized travel and motorized travel in Wilderness.  That chainsaws in Wilderness push was just the foot in the door for eliminating what we know as big W Wilderness.  Trump is piling this on faster than we can fight it.  I am still involved in fighting the chainsaw thing and a lawsuit is being drafted, those folks that are OK with using chainsaws have just opened the door for the full on removal (or updating as IOGA calls it) of the Wilderness Act. Jeff Halligan

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been bombarded with questions about SBFC’s position on the recent signing of the Minimum Requirements Analysis for chainsaw use on certain trails in the Frank Church- River of No Return Wilderness.

SBFC is a wilderness stewardship organization with “Frank Church” in our name, so people naturally want to know our stance and what “side” we are on. The us-vs.-them narrative on this subject, and so many others in our country, can be incredibly strong.

SBFC has never been about us vs. them. We are a non-advocacy, boots-on-the-ground stewardship organization. We recruit hundreds of volunteers and hire dozens of seasonal staff and interns each year to get an incredible amount of work done in the Selway-Bitterroot, Frank Church, and surrounding wildlands. One of our strengths is that we won’t play into the us-versus-them narrative. It’s not what we do.

But, for those wondering, what is SBFC’s position on this “in the news” topic? Here it is:  SBFC is a wilderness stewardship outfit. We do a ton of work on trails. We estimate that SBFC crews will maintain 600-1000 miles of trail under our current plans this season. It’s a tremendous amount of work.

SBFC crews will use traditional tools while working in the wilderness this season, just as we have for the last twenty years. Our crews are experienced and skilled with crosscuts and axes, and they’ll remove 5,000-10,000+ logs from the trail corridor this season with those tools, skills, and passion.

SBFC wilderness trail crews do more than just remove logs. We forecast that our crews will likely spend 30-40% of their time cutting logs this season. Tread repair and drainage work has become an increasingly large part of what our crews do. This work is not optional; it truly sustains the resource. Brushing (no one’s favorite job) is equally important for the long-term sustainability of the trail. You can be sure we’ll be doing a whole lot of this work, in addition to cutting out thousands of logs.

All of this is to say, SBFC is laser-focused on wilderness stewardship. For us, wilderness stewardship means we’ll be using traditional non-motorized / non-mechanized tools when working in the wilderness, whether removing logs from the 8 ft wide trail corridor, removing brush, kicking rocks off the tread, or repairing the tread itself, which is a highly technical, skilled task where there are no shortcuts to doing good work.

No matter the tool or task, it takes an incredible amount of human time, effort, and skill to accomplish wilderness and trail stewardship goals across this landscape. It takes more humans than we have had out there in recent years (or decades). So, we will focus on bringing more humans into the fold and out on the ground. In 2026, we have our largest ever cohort of seasonal staff and interns (34!), and not by a small margin. We’ll engage with the most adult and youth volunteers in our history, and again, not by a small margin. We can see the energy, the excitement, and the momentum. It is real. Those are the things that we need, and those are the things that stand the test of time as we look ahead, not just for the next few years, but for decades to come.

SBFC exists because people love wilderness, and people care about these places a whole lot. We can say with confidence that many people will continue to love and care about these places far into the future.

Our mission is to open pathways for all to discover and steward wilderness. Stewarding wilderness is hard. It’s especially hard in the largest wilderness in the lower 48. What a privilege it is to play our role in this endeavor and to do it well. You can find us out there this season, from Missoula to Boise, and all points between, working to keep the wildest place accessible.

As always, feel free to reach out with thoughts, questions, or comments!

Wilderness Forever & For Everyone,

For more than a decade, Perpetua Resources—the junior gold mining company behind the controversial Stibnite Gold Project—has peddled a shifting set of narratives to “sell” their project to Idahoans, investors, and the U.S. Government. As Perpetua moves toward a final investment decision on the project, it’s worth examining how well those narratives have really held up.

The original narrative Perpetua put forth was that their massive new mine was counterintuitively necessary to clean up historic mining issues at the site. However, the U.S. Forest Service concluded in their Final Record of Decision that taking no action at all to address the existing contamination at the site would be less harmful to the environment than proceeding with the Stibnite Gold Project, even assuming that the company’s mining and proposed cleanup work goes perfectly according to plan (which never happens). Perpetua also inaccurately claimed that restoration was only possible through the proposed mine; the Nez Perce Tribe in particular has invested millions of dollars to restore the surrounding watershed and clean up contamination from earlier mining operations at Stibnite.

Perpetua’s second narrative was that the antimony mined at Stibnite would help advance a broader transition to clean energy by supplying a key ingredient for a new type of liquid-metal battery. However, the company designing those batteries (Ambri) filed for bankruptcy in 2024, and you’d be hard pressed to hear Perpetua make any mention of clean energy since President Trump’s reelection.

More recently, Perpetua has leaned heavily on a third—and more politically potent—narrative: that the Stibnite Mine is essential to U.S. national security because it would provide antimony for military uses. At first glance, this claim is compelling. Antimony is used in a range of military applications, and reducing reliance on foreign supply chains for our national defense is a worthwhile goal. But a closer look reveals this argument for what it is: a convenient facade.

In a recent appearance on the mining investor podcast Mining Stock Daily, Perpetua CEO Jon Cherry said the quiet part out loud: “Antimony is the enabler because of the government’s support. The economics are driven all by the gold. Our mine plan is based on gold.” The message could not be more clear: Stibnite is not about antimony, it’s about the gold (and it always was).

Even on its own terms, the antimony narrative is full of holes. Perpetua has acknowledged that a mere 10% of Stibnite’s mined antimony ore will actually be routed to the military. And as it turns out, Stibnite’s antimony might not actually be high enough grade to meet the military’s standards. Recent reporting by Bloomberg highlighted that industry experts and some military officials don’t see Stibnite as the best domestic source of antimony, in part because of the high cost associated with refining their lower grade ore. Multiple projects being pursued elsewhere in the West contain notably higher grade antimony than Stibnite.

Perpetua’s evolving narratives to justify this mine have proved to be misleading at best and downright false at worst. Strip away the mining company rhetoric and what remains is an irresponsible, taxpayer-subsidized open-pit gold mine designed primarily to maximize returns for wealthy shareholders. Perpetua will essentially be using $80 million of government subsidies intended to support antimony production to take $18 billion worth of gold out of the ground. And unlike oil and gas companies that must pay a royalty back to the public for the resources they extract from public lands, Perpetua would pay no such royalties to exploit our public lands thanks to the antiquated Mining Law of 1872.

We need some mines in some places for some reasons. But a massive open-pit gold mine in the headwaters of the South Fork Salmon River—one of Idaho’s most ecologically important watersheds—simply to line investor pockets and stockpile gold bars in faraway vaults? No thanks.

READ:  BLM -All in on resource extraction

Interior Dept blazes ahead on unified wildland firefighting agency, without Congress endorsing plans

The Wildland Fire Service also stops short of folding in wildland fire personnel or programs from the USDA’s Forest Service.
The Interior Department is blazing ahead with a reorganization plan that will bring all of its wildland firefighting operations into a single agency.

Starting next week, the department’s wildland fire employees and programs will be moved into a new Wildland Fire Service.

Congress did not approve funds for the consolidation of federal firefighting programs into a single agency. The Wildland Fire Service also stops short of merging wildland fire personnel or programs from the USDA’s Forest Service with those same resources at the Interior Department.

An internal memo sent to staff on Monday states the Wildland Fire Service “will unify wildland fire management within DOI only.”

According to the memo, obtained by Federal News Network, the Wildland Fire Service will “align operations” with USDA through shared procurement, predictive services, research, and policy reforms.

“The success of these efforts will rely on ongoing support from Congress to secure the necessary funding and authorities needed to implement and sustain these important reforms,” the memo states.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last summer requiring the Interior Department and USDA to consolidate their wildland fire programs “to the maximum degree practicable and consistent with applicable law.” The Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request noted that wildland fire response has been split across five agencies in two departments.

A comprehensive spending deal to fund the Interior Department through the end of fiscal 2026 did not endorse the Trump administration’s plans to consolidate federal wildland firefighting operations into a single agency.

Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a summary of the Interior spending bill last month that the spending package “specifically provides funding to continue wildland firefighting using the longstanding practice of funding both the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to allow Congress to consider legislative proposals for such a major change.”

Most of Interior’s wildland fire personnel will move over to the Wildland Fire Service starting Feb. 8. Last month, Brian Fennessy, former chief of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department and former fire chief of the Orange County Fire Authority, was tapped to serve as the new chief of the Wildland Fire Service.

The Wildland Fire Service will merge the wildland fire operations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Office of Aviation Services and the Office of Wildland Fire.
By unifying wildland fire programs spread across four DOI bureaus and two offices, the Interior Department expects to “eliminate redundancies and build a more cohesive workforce.”

“This integration paves the way for streamlined training, stronger recruitment, and greater career growth for Interior wildland fire personnel,” the memo states.

Last fall, an employee group called Grassroots Wildland Firefighters applauded greater coordination between the Interior Department and the Forest Service but said these actions “do not yet go far enough.”

“We know the limits of what can be done through executive action alone. At the same time, we know the limits of what can be done through executive action alone. Lasting reform — true consolidation of our nation’s wildfire workforce under experienced fire leaders in a single, mission-driven organization — will ultimately require congressional action,” the group said in a press release.

Interior said the next steps to stand up the Wildland Fire Service will “occur in deliberative phases to ensure continuity of operations and readiness for wildfire activity in 2026.”

Interior Secretary Burgum issued a departmentwide order last month calling for the unification of the disparate wildland fire operations and activities.

An earlier order from Burgum specified that the Wildland Fire Service would function more as a “strategic alignment of resources” between Interior and the Forest Service, including early fire detection technology, planes and vehicles and modernized communication tools, to ensure “cross-team coordination when jointly fighting wildland fires.”

Wildfires cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, posing a risk to national security, public health, energy infrastructure and water sources.

Monday’s memo states that the Wildland Fire Service “positions DOI to harness cutting-edge technology more efficiently,” and invest in advanced wildland firefighting tools.

“By streamlining the chain of command from the firefighter on the ground straight up to the chief, the USWFS will eliminate bureaucratic hurdles and ensure decisive, timely action during wildfire incidents. This clarity in decision-making will strengthen coordination and accelerate response efforts when every second counts,” the memo states.

Tribal wildland fire programs will also be included in the new Wildland Fire Service.  The memo states the Interior Department will continue to “honor and administer” current contracts and agreements with tribal wildland fire authorities, and that its Bureau of Indian Affairs will help transfer existing contracts and agreements over to the Wildland Fire Service.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is preparing to issue a new directive that would make hunting and fishing the default use across most Interior-managed public lands unless specific closures are justified.

What’s new: Under this framework, federal lands would be considered open to hunting and fishing unless a closure is required by law, public safety concerns, or documented resource protection needs. Closures will require clear er justification, higher-level approval, and better documentation.

This does not create new hunting or fishing rights or eliminate conservation safeguards. It does, however, flip the starting assumption. Hunting and fishing would be treated as a default use of federal lands, not an exception.

What land does it a pply to? The order would apply to areas controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Reclamation. Some units within the National Park Service that already permit hunting would also fall under the framework.

What land is excluded? Areas closed to hunting by statute would remain closed. Lands managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs would not be affected. READ MORE

BOISE, Idaho — Winter riders looking to hit the snow at Pilot Peak and Mores Creek Summit in Boise County should avoid the area due to poor snow conditions and downed trees.

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• Streamlined Permitting: Makes it easier for outfitters, guides, and nonprofits to operate on public lands.
• Improved Access: Creates new bike trails, modernizes campgrounds, and helps underserved communities get parks and green spaces.
• Economic Support: Benefits local economies, especially in rural areas, by supporting recreation businesses and infrastructure.
• Modernization: Updates technology and processes for visitor experiences, like online passes and better data.
• Inclusivity: Includes provisions for adaptive trails for veterans and people with disabilities (like the Military & Veterans in Parks Act).
• Expanded Opportunities: Supports activities like shooting ranges, climbing, and camping. 

• Comprehensive: A package of multiple recreation-focused bills rolled into one.
• Bipartisan: Passed with broad support in Congress.
• Sustainable: Aims to grow the outdoor economy without harming natural resources, preventing degradation at busy sites. 

Bipartisan legislators in the House this week co-authored a bill to outlaw the intentional use of snowmobiles and other motorized vehicles to ram and crush coyotes, wolves, and other animals on federal land.

The Snowmobiles Aren’t Weapons (SAW) Act would “close a glaring gap in federal wildlife protections,” according to the conservation group, Animal Wellness Action.

While several states prohibit hunting wildlife “from motor vehicles,” most states, not including Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado, do not explicitly outlaw ramming or running over animals with a motorized vehicle on federal land.

“At a time when the House is taking up problematic legislation to remove federal protections for gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act, it’s more important than ever to stand up for responsible stewardship of our public lands and wildlife,” said Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Ore. “This bipartisan legislation shows we can work through thoughtful policy debates on conservation and wildlife management without condoning cruel and dangerous practices that threaten animals and public safety.”

The bill was co-sponsored by Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

saw_act_full_bill_text

After receiving a lot of flak

Hey Folks,
I’m reaching out to highlight our appreciation for your time and energy in working with the Boise National Forest and our north zone (Cascade, Emmett and Lowman District) trails program.
I’m currently applying for trail grant funding to pay for crews to do work on motorized and non-motorized trials in 2027 and 2028. The reason for this timeline is that I learn whether we are awarded the grant in early summer 2026 and can’t receive funding until the fall of 2026, therefore I use that funding to pay for crew time the following year.

I have attached a draft of our current trail grant; I also send a draft of the grant to the IDPR committee that oversees the awarding of RTP grants.

What I need from your organization if you haven’t already submitted it: Volunteer hours for the 2025 field season. I have attached a volunteer report form, but you can also use a different format, number of volunteers number of hours (8 is the minimum for a day) and where are really helpful. What I need if your group would like to support the Boise NF in it’s grant request for 2026. A letter of support.

I use volunteer hours to make up the %5 non-federal match. Currently IDPR lists that value at $7.25 an hour for the RTP grant. I have made a request to update that amount to match the actual value that volunteers contribute, so hopefully that will change at some point. The letter of support needs to list the number of volunteer hours a group is willing to support us doing trail work during the years we will have the grant. The letter must explicitly state the number of hours, as per IDPR policy. I generally use the previous year’s volunteer hours or take an average. I am happy to help sort out hours and draft a letter or provide examples if needed. If you don’t want to state you will help with hours, just a note that you support the grant is also helpful.

Second, please let me know if there is a time when I could attend a club meeting in January, February or March and what date, time and location the meeting would occur and I can give an update on 2025 trail work and future planning.

Again, thank you so much for the support and help, we covered a lot of ground in 2025 and addressed lots of post fire impacts with help from so many partners. We certainly couldn’t do the work without you.

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/11/19/balance-of-idahos-state-wildfire-suppression-fund-drops-to-15-million-after-2025-season/

While the state continues navigating budget holdbacks and revenue shortfalls, the balance of Idaho’s wildfire suppression fund is expected to drop to $15 million after closing the books on the 2025 wildfire season, state officials said Tuesday.  Idaho’s expenses for the 2025 wildfire season netted about $40.6 million, Idaho Department of Lands Director Dustin Miller said during Tuesday’s meeting of the Idaho State Board of Land Commissioners, which is frequently referred to as simply the Land Board. Miller told the Land Board that Idaho incurred about $59.3 million in expenses as of Nov. 3, but the state expects to recoup about $18.6 million through reimbursement agreements and partnerships – resulting in a net total of about $40.6 million.

Miller estimated that leaves the state’s wildfire suppression fund with a balance of about $15 million heading into the 2026 wildfire season.

That amount of money is likely not enough to pay wildfire bills in 2026. Miller estimated that the state will be on the hook for almost $5 million next year in fixed costs at the beginning of the season before the first fire even starts.  Idaho Gov. Brad Little said costs could be well over $10 million when the cost of contracting for helicopters, crews and other equipment are added – all before fighting a single wildfire.

That means state officials could have to find additional money to fight wildfires at a time when all state agencies – other than the K-12 public school system – are navigating mandatory budget holdbacks of 3% and the state budget is projected to end the current fiscal year with a budget deficit estimated at $58.3 million, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. As state revenues come in below projections, the Idaho Legislature’s powerful budget-setting committee, the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, or JFAC, has signaled that next year’s budgets will be tight, and legislators will generally focus more on trimming budgets rather than approving new budget expenses to avoid running a budget deficit, the Sun previously reported.

Idaho governor said he doesn’t want state going into debt fighting wildfires

Little has favored pre-funding the state’s wildfire suppression fund to make sure money is available upfront, ensure firefighting operations are not shortchanged or interrupted and to avoid going into debt fighting wildfires.

“Backing the Fire Suppression Deficiency Fund means Idaho’s wildland firefighters can focus on aggressively protecting timber, lands, property and people without funding delays, and lawmakers can enter next year’s budgeting cycle without a deficit due to wildfire suppression,” Little and the Land Board members wrote in a Feb. 18 letter to JFAC.  At the beginning of the 2025 legislative session, Little requested $60 million to build up the wildfire suppression fund, but the Idaho Legislature agreed to provide $40 million.  With the balance of the wildfire fund now dropping to $15 million, Little said Tuesday he is trying to decide how much funding he needs to request to be prepared to fight wildfires in 2026 so the state does not have to use deficiency warrants to pay the bills. Little and other state officials have compared the deficiency warrant process to running up credit card debit to pay for essential state services.

“By the time you contract for helicopters and the airplanes and the crews and everything, it’s well over $10 million,” Little said Tuesday. “I’m just trying to figure out what the budget request needs to be so we don’t have to do deficiency warrants.”

Compared to the more severe 2024 wildfire season, Idaho’s wildfire costs were lower this year at an estimated $40.6 million. In 2024, Idaho’s wildfire costs were about $58 million, the Sun previously reported.

The Land Board is made up of Little, Secretary of State Phil McGrane, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf and Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Debbie Critchfield.  The Land Board provides direction to the Idaho Department of Lands, which is responsible for fighting wildfires on state land.

The Idaho Legislature will set the fiscal year 2027 budget for the Idaho Department of Lands during the 2026 legislative session, which begins Jan. 12  at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise.

READ FULL STORY:  Nov 2026 – Save Our Forest Bill