Federal death pay added for wildland fire workers who die
S. 5624 — Honoring Fallen Wildland Firefighters Act of 2026 · Filed by Jeff Merkley (D-OR) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Sep 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates federal death pay for wildland fire workers. They must die from injuries while fighting wildfires. The pay goes to the worker's family or named survivor. It covers workers at the Forest Service, Interior Department, state agencies, and local agencies. It also covers contract workers. The pay is extra money beyond workers' pay if hurt or killed on the job.
Who it affects
Wildland fire workers and their relatives get federal death pay. The federal government pays for it. Workers at the Forest Service, Interior Department, state agencies, local agencies, and contract workers are covered.
One thing to notice
The bill covers contract workers, not only government workers. The bill starts January 1, 2026. Relatives of workers who died before the bill passed may be able to file claims.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Sep 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 30, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (6,589 characters) on Oct 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal death pay added for wildland fire workers who die” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s5624/simple Report an error
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