To amend title 5, United States Code, to provide for special base rates of pay for wildland firefighters, and for other purposes.
Analysis under review: This bill has generated analysis that may be too generic or incomplete. Clause-level evidence remains available below.
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act of 2023 permanently increases base pay for all federal wildland firefighters employed by the Forest Service and Department of the Interior, with raises ranging from 42% for GS-1 to 1.5% for GS-15, most benefiting the lowest-paid workers. It also creates a new incident response premium pay system (450% of hourly rate per day deployed, capped at $9,000/year) and mandates paid rest and recuperation leave after qualifying fire incidents.
Who Benefits and How
Federal wildland firefighters receive substantial permanent pay increases that become part of their basic pay for retirement, locality pay, and other benefit calculations. Lower-graded firefighters benefit most from the progressive pay structure. Prevailing rate (wage grade) wildland firefighters also receive comparable increases. The bill supersedes the temporary salary supplement from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act with a permanent solution.
Who Bears the Burden and How
The Forest Service and Department of the Interior bear increased personnel costs across thousands of wildland firefighter positions. Federal taxpayers ultimately fund the pay increases. The agencies also face administrative burden of implementing new pay systems, premium pay calculations, and rest/recuperation leave policies.
Key Provisions
- Special base rates: GS-1 gets 42% increase, scaling down to 1.5% for GS-15
- Special base rates count as basic pay for all purposes (retirement, locality, etc.)
- Incident response premium pay at 450% of hourly rate per deployment day
- Premium pay capped at $9,000 per calendar year
- Mandatory paid rest and recuperation leave after qualifying incidents
- Applies to both General Schedule and prevailing rate (wage grade) firefighters
- Supersedes temporary IIJA salary supplement (Section 40803)
- Authorizes transfer of up to $5M from Forest Service to Interior for continuity
- Effective first pay period on or after October 1, 2023
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Establishes permanent special base pay rates for federal wildland firefighters at GS-1 through GS-15 with graduated increases up to 42%, creates incident response premium pay for wildfire deployments, and provides mandatory rest and recuperation leave after qualifying incidents.
Key Policy Areas
Workforce, Government Operations, Environment
Primary Purpose
Establishes permanent special base pay rates for federal wildland firefighters at GS-1 through GS-15 with graduated increases up to 42%, creates incident response premium pay for wildfire deployments, and provides mandatory rest and recuperation leave after qualifying incidents.
Policy Domains
Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act of 2023
Identified Gains
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- Federal wildland firefighters (GS and wage grade)
- Forest Service workforce
- Department of the Interior workforce
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Identified Costs
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation- Forest Service (increased personnel costs)
- Department of the Interior (increased personnel costs)
- Federal taxpayers
Contextual inference, no direct clause citation
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
ReportedReported by Mr. Peters, with an amendment
Ms. Sinema (for herself, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Manchin, Mr. Daines, …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Department of the Interior, Federal wildland firefighters, Forest Service
Positive-direction: Federal wildland firefighters, Intermittent wildland firefighters, Lower-graded firefighters (GS-1 to GS-5), Prevailing rate wildland firefighters, Wildland firefighters, Wildland firefighters deployed to incidents
Negative-direction: Department of the Interior, Forest Service
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "OPM"
- → Office of Personnel Management
- "secretary_of_interior"
- → Secretary of the Interior
- "secretary_of_agriculture"
- → Secretary of Agriculture
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
A firefighter employed by the Forest Service or Department of the Interior whose duties primarily relate to fires in forests, rangelands, or other wildlands (as opposed to structural fires)
A wildfire, prescribed fire, or severity incident (or similar), excluding initial response incidents contained within 36 hours
An annual rate of basic pay replacing the General Schedule base rate for wildland firefighters, administered in the same manner as a GS base rate
Premium pay at 450% of hourly basic pay rate per day for covered employees deployed to qualifying incidents
An incident where a covered employee is pre-positioned in a high wildfire risk area
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology