"Firefighters cannot be held hostage to congressional infighting," said Lucas Mayfield, president of the advocacy group Grassroots Wildland Firefighters. More than 10 million acres were affected in 2015 and 2017. Last year, the cost of suppressing wildfires across 7.6 million acres surpassed $3.5 billion, according to the center. "Now is not the time ... to be engaging in this kind of the political gamesmanship around something as important as the livelihood of our wildland firefighters," he told Reuters. Neguse and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona, have introduced legislation in their respective chambers that would avoid the pay cliff and authorize future pay increases for wildland firefighters.

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Persons: Matthew A, Foster, Handout, Mike Simpson, Joe Biden, Lucas Mayfield, Mayfield, Joe Neguse, Kyrsten Sinema, David Morgan, Scott Malone, Alistair Bell Organizations: Force, U.S . Army National Guard, Staff, REUTERS, Rights, Interagency Fire, Idaho Republican, Reuters, Republicans, Democrats, Democratic, Biden, Grassroots, Firefighters, Republican, National Interagency Fire Center, Colorado Democrat, House, Thomson Locations: Lahaina , Hawaii, U.S, Washington, West, British Columbia, Idaho, United States, Neguse, Arizona