Fire Season Triggers a Predictable Wave of New Aviation Task Orders
Summary
The Interior and Agriculture Departments obligated $21.5 million to wildland-fire contracts in fiscal-year 2026's third quarter (April–June 2026) — nearly triple the $7.4 million of the prior quarter and up 72% year-over-year — while issuing 94 brand-new task orders, the most of any quarter but FY2025's $56.1 million fire-season peak. The surge is seasonal and predictable: standing exclusive-use aircraft contracts with operators like Aero Spray, Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression, and Bridger Aerospace get renewed and obligated each spring for the summer fire season.
View data as table
| FY2025 Q1 | $6.8M | Oct–Dec 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 Q2 | $12.0M | Jan–Mar 2025 |
| FY2025 Q3 | $12.5M | Apr–Jun 2025 (YoY base) |
| FY2025 Q4 | $56.1M | Jul–Sep 2025, fire-season peak |
| FY2026 Q1 | $5.1M | Oct–Dec 2025, winter low |
| FY2026 Q2 | $7.4M | Jan–Mar 2026 |
| FY2026 Q3 | $21.5M | Apr–Jun 2026, spring ramp |
The seasonal shape is unmistakable across seven quarters: obligations bottom in the October–December winter quarter (just $5.1 million in FY2026 Q1, on 8 new orders) and spike as crews and aircraft are put under contract for summer. Of the $21.5 million obligated this quarter, $11.6 million (54%) was on the 94 newly issued task orders; the other $9.9 million came as obligations added to standing contracts signed earlier in the year.
Interior wrote 71% of it; aircraft operators took the top lines
The transaction-level records⧉ — 144 obligations summing exactly to the $21,500,597.54 quarterly total — split $15.3 million to the Department of the Interior and $6.2 million to the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service. Aircraft dominate the largest lines. The single biggest new task order went to Aero Spray Inc — $1.41 million for an exclusive-use single-engine air tanker for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, explicitly a "task order for the 2026 wildland fire season" under a standing 2024 contract. Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression took the most new orders — 26 Forest Service task orders worth $4.4 million. The season's two largest obligations, $7.6 million combined, went to Bridger Aerospace Group on two Interior exclusive-use aircraft contracts first signed earlier in FY2026 — the standing-contract mechanism that makes each spring's surge predictable.
View data as table
| FY2025 Q1 | 45 | Oct–Dec 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 Q2 | 36 | Jan–Mar 2025 |
| FY2025 Q3 | 61 | Apr–Jun 2025 |
| FY2025 Q4 | 162 | Jul–Sep 2025, peak |
| FY2026 Q1 | 8 | Oct–Dec 2025, low |
| FY2026 Q2 | 31 | Jan–Mar 2026 |
| FY2026 Q3 | 94 | Apr–Jun 2026 |
- $21.5M in wildland-fire contract obligations in Q3 FY2026 (Apr–Jun 2026) — nearly triple the prior quarter's $7.4M and up 72% year-over-year.
- 94 brand-new task orders issued in the quarter, versus 31 the quarter before — the most of any quarter except FY2025 Q4's fire-season peak of 162 orders and $56.1M.
- Interior wrote 71% ($15.3M); Agriculture's Forest Service the rest ($6.2M). Aircraft operators took the top lines.
- The surge is structural, not a spike: standing exclusive-use aircraft contracts — Aero Spray ($1.41M new BIA tanker order), Firestorm (26 new Forest Service orders, $4.4M), Bridger Aerospace ($7.6M in season obligations) — get renewed and obligated every spring.
Figures cover federal definitive-contract award types A–D whose USAspending record matches the keyword "wildland fire". The dollar trend is quarterly obligations by action date (Spending Over Time), reconciling exactly to the 144 shipped Q3 transactions ($21,500,597.54). New-order counts use the Award Count endpoint with new_awards_only (awards whose base action date falls in the quarter). These are distinct measures: the $21.5M is total quarterly obligations, not the base value of the 94 new orders — $11.6M sits on the new orders, $9.9M on additions to older standing contracts. USAspending's new_awards_only obligation aggregate returns a nearly identical $21.47M; action_date is load-bearing because it reconciles to a transaction list. Keyword matching is a proxy — it can miss fire work described otherwise and catch incidental matches. USAspending is live; recent-quarter totals revise. Snapshot pulled 2026-08-14; full data ships as data-usaspending-wildlandfire-2026q3.json.
Sources(5) ▾
- U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending.gov (federal award data), USAspending.gov — Spending Over Time (quarter), wildland-fire contracts, FY2025 Q1 – FY2026 Q3 (2026-08-14) — Reproducible POST to the official federal spending API. Body: {"group":"quarter","filters":{"award_type_codes":["A","B","C","D"],"keywords":["wildland fire"],"time_period":[{"start_date":"2024-10-01","end_date":"2026-06-30","date_type":"action_date"}]}}. Returns Contract_Obligations aggregated by federal fiscal quarter on transactions whose award record matches the keyword "wildland fire" for definitive contract award types A/B/C/D, dated by action date. This is the load-bearing series for every quarterly dollar figure in the piece; it reconciles exactly to the Q3 transaction-level pull. Pulled 2026-08-14; full response in data-usaspending-wildlandfire-2026q3.json (quarterly_obligations_action_date). USAspending is a live database — recent-quarter obligations revise as agencies report. api.usaspending.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending.gov (federal award data), USAspending.gov — Spending by Award Count (new awards only), wildland-fire contracts, by quarter FY2025 Q1 – FY2026 Q3 (2026-08-14) — Reproducible POST, one call per quarter. Body per quarter: {"filters":{"award_type_codes":["A","B","C","D"],"keywords":["wildland fire"],"time_period":[{"start_date":"<q-start>","end_date":"<q-end>","date_type":"new_awards_only"}]}}. Returns results.contracts = the count of brand-new prime contract awards whose base (earliest) action date falls in the window. Q3 FY2026 (Apr–Jun 2026) = 94. Pulled 2026-08-14; all seven quarterly counts in data-usaspending-wildlandfire-2026q3.json (quarterly_new_award_counts). api.usaspending.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending.gov (federal award data), USAspending.gov — Spending by Transaction, wildland-fire contracts, Apr–Jun 2026 (Q3 FY2026) (2026-08-14) — Reproducible POST (paginated, limit 100). Body: {"filters":{"award_type_codes":["A","B","C","D"],"keywords":["wildland fire"],"time_period":[{"start_date":"2026-04-01","end_date":"2026-06-30","date_type":"action_date"}]},"fields":["Award ID","Recipient Name","Transaction Amount","Action Date","Awarding Agency","Awarding Sub Agency"],"sort":"Transaction Amount","order":"desc"}. Returns the 144 individual transactions making up Q3 FY2026, whose Transaction Amount values sum to $21,500,597.54 — reconciling exactly to the Spending Over Time action_date aggregate. Grouping by Awarding Agency gives the Interior/Agriculture/ split; intersecting award ids with the new-award list separates $11,612,006.18 of obligations on the 94 new task orders from $9,888,591.36 of obligations added to older standing contracts. Agency, new-vs-mods, and top-recipient rollups plus the largest season mods in data-usaspending-wildlandfire-2026q3.json (q3fy2026 block). api.usaspending.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending.gov (federal award data), USAspending.gov — Spending by Award (new awards only), wildland-fire contracts, Q3 FY2026 (94 new task orders) (2026-08-14) — Reproducible POST. Body: {"filters":{"award_type_codes":["A","B","C","D"],"keywords":["wildland fire"],"time_period":[{"start_date":"2026-04-01","end_date":"2026-06-30","date_type":"new_awards_only"}]},"fields":["Award ID","Recipient Name","Award Amount","Awarding Agency","Awarding Sub Agency","Description"],"sort":"Award Amount","order":"desc","limit":100}. Returns the 94 brand-new task orders. By awarding sub-agency: 79 Forest Service (Agriculture) and 15 Interior (Departmental Offices, BIA, , NPS), plus 1 . Firestorm Wildland Fire Suppression holds 26 of the Forest Service orders (base total $4,404,047.08). Used for the new-order recipient concentration; rollup in data-usaspending-wildlandfire-2026q3.json (q3fy2026.top_new_task_order_recipients_by_base_amount). api.usaspending.gov · original document
- U.S. Department of the Treasury / USAspending.gov (federal award data), USAspending.gov — Award CONT_AWD_140D0426F0607 (Aero Spray Inc, BIA, 2026 wildland fire season task order) (2026-08-14) — Award detail page (and API mirror https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_140D0426F0607_1406_140D0424D0080_1406/). Delivery/task order 140D0426F0607, Aero Spray Inc, total obligation $1,414,790, signed 2026-06-01, awarding sub-agency Interior/Departmental Offices, description: "TASK ORDER FOR THE 2026 WILDLAND FIRE SEASON UNDER CONTRACT 140D0424D0080 FOR AN EXCLUSIVE USE (EU) SINGLE ENGINE SCOOPER FOR THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS BASED IN DEER PARK, WA." The largest single new task order in the quarter, and a direct example of the standing-contract renewal mechanism (task order under a 2024 exclusive-use aircraft contract). usaspending.gov · original document
Comments
Always open. Logged-in readers can annotate paragraphs in place.
Federal wildland-fire contracts drew $21.5 million in obligations in fiscal-year 2026's third quarter (April–June 2026), per USAspending.gov⧉ — nearly triple the $7.4 million obligated the prior quarter and up 72% from the same quarter a year earlier. Interior and Agriculture issued 94 brand-new task orders in the window, more than any quarter except FY2025's July–September fire-season peak, when obligations hit $56.1 million across 162 new orders. The spring ramp repeats every year: as fire season nears, agencies obligate and renew standing aircraft contracts.