Sec. 6. Responsibilities of Program agencies
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The responsibilities of the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology with respect to the Program are as follows: The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall— carry out research on the impact of wildland fires on communities, buildings, and other infrastructure; carry out research on the generation of firebrands from wildland fires and on methods and materials to prevent or reduce firebrand ignition of communities, buildings, and other infrastructure; carry out research on novel materials, systems, structures, and construction designs to harden structures, parcels, and communities to the impact of wildland fires; carry out research on the impact of environmental factors on wildland fire behavior, including wind, terrain, and moisture; and support the development of performance-based tools to mitigate the impact of wildland fires, and work with appropriate groups to promote the use of such tools, including through model building codes and fire codes, standard test methods, voluntary consensus standards, and construction and retrofit best practices.
The Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology shall— coordinate Federal post-wildland fire investigations of fires at the wildland-urban interface; and develop methodologies to characterize the impact of wildland fires on communities and the impact of changes in building and fire codes, including methodologies— for collecting, inventorying, and analyzing information on the performance of communities, buildings, and other infrastructure in wildland fires; and for improved collection of pertinent information from different sources, including first responders, the design and construction industry, insurance companies, and building officials.
As a part of the Program, the Director of the National Science Foundation shall support— research to improve the understanding and prediction of wildland fire risks, including the conditions that increase the likelihood of a wildland fire, the behavior of wildland fires, and their impacts on buildings, communities, infrastructure, ecosystems and living systems; development and improvement of tools and technologies, including databases and computational models, to enable and accelerate the understanding and prediction of wildland fires and their impacts; development of research infrastructure, as appropriate, to enable and accelerate the understanding and prediction of wildland fires and their impacts, including upgrades or additions to the National Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure; research to improve the understanding of— the response to wildland fire risk messages by individuals, communities, and policymakers; economic and other factors influencing the implementation and adoption of wildland fire risk reduction measures by individuals, communities, and policymakers; and decision making and emergency response to wildland fires; undergraduate and graduate research opportunities and graduate and postdoctoral fellowships and traineeships in fields of study relevant to wildland fires and their impacts; and research to improve the understanding of the impacts of climate change and climate variability on wildland fires, including wildland fire risk, frequency, and severity, and wildland fire prediction, mitigation, and resilience strategies.
The Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (in this subsection referred to as the Administrator ) shall conduct research, observations, modeling, forecasting, prediction, and historical analysis of wildland fires to improve understanding of wildland fires, and associated fire weather and smoke, for the protection of life and property and for the enhancement of the national economy. The Administrator shall— develop and provide accurate, timely, and effective warnings and forecasts of wildland fires and fire weather events that endanger life and property.
Such warnings may include red flag warnings, operational fire weather alerts, and any other warnings or alerts the Administrator deems appropriate; provide stakeholders and the public with impact-based decision support services, seasonal climate predictions, air quality products, and smoke forecasts; and provide on-site weather forecasts, seasonal climate predictions, and other decision support to wildland fire incident command posts. The Administrator, in collaboration with Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, shall develop a publicly accessible Fire Incident Research Database to support the archiving, stewardship, and understanding of historical wildland fire and fire weather data, and to advance wildland fire science.
In developing the database, NOAA shall collaborate with Program agencies and stakeholders to— develop data standards to enhance interoperability of diverse wildland fire data and improve usability of data for a diverse range of stakeholders; and solicit data from other Program agencies and from relevant stakeholders. The Administrator, in coordination with Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, shall leverage existing observations, technologies and assets and develop new technologies to sustain and enhance environmental observations used for wildland fire prediction and detection, fire weather and smoke forecasting and monitoring, and post-wildland fire recovery, with a focus on— collecting data for pre-ignition analysis, such as drought, fuel conditions, and soil moisture, that will help predict severe wildland fire conditions on subseasonal to decadal timescales; supporting identification and classification of fire environments to determine vulnerability to wildland fires and rapid wildland fire growth; detecting, observing, and monitoring wildland fires and smoke; supporting research on the interaction of weather and wildland fire behavior; and supporting post-fire assessments conducted by Program agencies; and prioritize the ability to detect wildfire and smoke in its requirements for its current and future operational space-based assessments and commercial data purchases.
In collaboration with Program agencies, the Administrator shall establish a Fire Weather Testbed to evaluate physical and social science, technology, and other research to develop fire weather products and services for implementation by relevant stakeholders. The Administrator shall support a wildland fire and smoke research and development program with the goals of— improving the understanding, prediction, detection, forecasting, monitoring, and assessments of wildland fires and associated fire weather and smoke; developing products and services to meet stakeholder needs; transitioning physical and social science research into operations; improving modeling and technology, including coupled fire-atmosphere fire behavior modeling; and better understanding of links between fire weather events and subseasonal-to-climate impacts.
The Administrator shall collaborate with and support the non-Federal wildland fire research community, which includes institutions of higher education, private entities, nongovernmental organizations, and other relevant stakeholders, by making funds available through competitive grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements. The Administrator shall acquire high performance computing technologies and supercomputing technologies to conduct research and development activities, support research to operations under this section, and host operational fire and smoke forecast models.
Not later than 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall submit to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the House, and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in the Senate the results of an assessment of National Weather Service workforce and training needs for Incident Meteorologists for wildland fires and other extreme events and the potential need for more such Incident Meteorologists. Such assessment shall take into consideration information technology support, logistical and administrative operations, future climate conditions, and feedback from relevant stakeholders.
The Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency shall— support— the development of risk assessment tools and effective mitigation techniques for wildland fires; wildland fire-related data collection and analysis; public outreach and information dissemination related to wildland fires and wildland fire risk; and promotion of the adoption of wildland fire preparedness and risk reduction measures, including for households, businesses, and communities; work closely with standards development organizations and building code organizations, in conjunction with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to promote the implementation of research results and promote better buildings and retrofit practices within the design and construction industry, including architects, engineers, contractors, builders, and inspectors; and acting through the United States Fire Administration— help translate new information and research findings into best practices to improve the training of firefighters in wildland fire firefighting; and conduct outreach and information dissemination to fire departments regarding best practices for wildland fire firefighting and training in wildland fire firefighting.
The responsibilities of the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (in this subsection referred to as the Administrator ) with respect to the Program are as follows: The Administrator shall, with respect to the Program— support relevant basic and applied scientific research and modeling; ensure the use in the Program of all relevant National Aeronautics and Space Administration Earth observations data for maximum utility; explore and apply novel tools and technologies in the activities of the Program; support the translation of research to operations, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders; and facilitate the communication of wildland fire research, knowledge, and tools to relevant stakeholders.
The Administrator shall support basic and applied wildland fire research and modeling activities, including competitively-selected research, to— improve the understanding and prediction of fire environments, wildland fires, associated smoke, and their impacts; improve the understanding of the impacts of climate change and variability on wildland fire risk, frequency, and severity; characterize the pre-fire phase and fire-inducing conditions, such as soil moisture and vegetative fuel availability; characterize the active fire phase, such as fire and smoke plume mapping, fire behavior and spread modeling, and domestic and global fire activity; characterize the post-fire phase, such as landscape changes, air quality, erosion, landslides, and impacts on carbon distributions in forest biomass; contribute to advancing predictive wildland fire models; address other relevant investigations and measurements prioritized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Decadal Survey on Earth Science and Applications from Space; improve the translation of research knowledge into actionable information; develop research and data products, including maps, decision-support information, and tools, and support related training as appropriate and practicable; collaborate with other Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, as appropriate, on joint research and development projects, including research grant solicitations and field campaigns; and transition research advances to operations, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, as practicable.
The Administrator shall— identify, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Earth science data systems, data, including combined data products, that can contribute to improving the understanding, monitoring, prediction, and mitigation of wildland fires and their impacts, including data related to fire weather, plume dynamics, smoke and fire behavior, impacts of climate change and variability, land and property burned, wildlife and ecosystem destruction, among other areas; prioritize the dissemination of data identified under this subparagraph to the widest extent practicable to support relevant research and operational stakeholders; consider opportunities to support the Program under section 2 and the Program activities under section 3 when planning and developing Earth observation satellites, instruments, and airborne measurement platforms; identify opportunities, in collaboration with Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, as practicable and appropriate, to acquire additional airborne and space-based data and observations that may enhance or supplement the understanding, monitoring, prediction, and mitigation of wildland fire risks, and the relevant Program activities under section 3; and lead, in collaboration with Program agencies, the development of a Wildland Fire Risk Reduction Scientific Data Collaboration Environment for the purposes of accelerating the understanding and prediction of wildland fires and to facilitate communications and outreach on wildland fire data, science, and risk to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders.
The Wildland Fire Risk Reduction Scientific Data Collaboration Environment under clause
(v)of subparagraph
(A)shall be— a publicly available means of accessing Program agencies’ wildland fire risk scientific data related to active wildland fires; and comprised of observations, available real-time and near-real-time measurements, derived science and data products, such as risk and spread maps, and other relevant decision support and information tools. The Administrator, in collaboration with other Program agencies and relevant stakeholders shall apply novel tools and technologies to support active wildland fire research, monitoring, mitigation, and risk reduction, as practicable and appropriate. In particular, the Administrator shall: Establish a program to develop and demonstrate a unified concept of operations for the safe and effective deployment of diverse air capabilities in active wildland fire monitoring, mitigation, and risk reduction. The objectives of the Program shall be to— develop a wildland fire airspace operations system accounting for piloted aircraft, uncrewed aerial systems, and other new and emerging capabilities such as autonomous and high-altitude assets; develop an interoperable communications strategy to support such system; develop a roadmap for the on-ramping of new technologies, capabilities, or entities into such system; identify additional development, testing, and demonstration that would be required to expand the scale of operations of such system; identify actions that would be required to transition the program into ongoing, operational use; and identify other objectives for such system, as deemed appropriate by the Administrator. Develop and demonstrate affordable and deployable sensing technologies, in consultation with other Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, to improve the monitoring of fire fuel and active wildland fires, wildland fire behavior models and forecast, mapping efforts, and the prediction and mitigation of wildland fires and their impacts. The Administrator shall— test and demonstrate technologies such as infrared, microwave, and active sensors suitable for deployment on spacecraft, aircraft, and uncrewed aerial systems, as appropriate and practicable; develop and demonstrate affordable and deployable sensing technologies that can be transitioned to operations for collection of near-real-time localized measurements; identify opportunities and actions required, in collaboration with Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, to transition relevant technologies, techniques, and data to science operations, upon successful demonstration of the feasibility and scientific utility of the sensors and data; transition demonstrated technologies, techniques, and data into ongoing, operational use, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders; and prioritize and facilitate, to the greatest extent practicable, the dissemination of these science data to operations, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders. The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall support environmental research and development activities to— improve the understanding of— wildland fire and smoke impacts on communities, and on water and outdoor and indoor air quality; wildland fire smoke plume characteristics, chemical transformation, and transport; wildland fire and smoke impacts to contaminant containment and remediation; the contribution of wildland fire emissions to climate forcing emissions; differences between the impacts of prescribed fires compared to other wildland fires on communities and air and water quality; and climate change and variability on wildland fires and smoke plumes, including on smoke exposure; develop and improve tools, sensors, and technologies including databases and computational models, to accelerate the understanding, monitoring, and prediction of wildland fires and smoke exposure; better integrate observational data into wildland fire and smoke characterization models to improve modeling at finer temporal and spatial resolution; and improve communication of wildland fire and smoke risk reduction strategies to the public in coordination with relevant stakeholders and other Federal agencies. The Secretary of Energy shall carry out activities to research and develop tools, techniques, and technologies for— withstanding and addressing the current and projected impact of wildland fires on energy sector infrastructure; providing real-time or near-time awareness of the risks posed by wildland fires to the operation of energy infrastructure in affected and potentially affected areas; early detection of malfunctioning electrical equipment on the transmission and distribution grid, including detection of spark ignition causing wildland fires; assisting with the planning, safe execution of, and safe and timely restoration of power after emergency power shut offs following wildland fires started by grid infrastructure; improving electric grid and energy sector safety and resilience in the event of multiple simultaneous or co-located weather or climate events leading to extreme conditions, such as extreme wind, wildland fires, extreme cold, and extreme heat; coordinating data across relevant entities to promote resilience and wildland fire prevention in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transmission infrastructure; and considering optimal building energy efficiency practices, as practicable, in wildland fire research.