Sec. 8. Responsibilities of National Wildland Fire Risk Reduction Program agencies
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The Director shall— carry out research on the effect of wildland fires on communities, buildings, and other infrastructure, including structure-to-structure transmission of fire and spread within communities; carry out research on the generation of firebrands and firebrand showers in 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; support the development of performance-based tools to mitigate the effect of wildland fires, and work with appropriate groups to promote and assist in 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; in collaboration with the United States Fire Administration, carry out research and development of decontamination methods and technologies for firefighting gear on and off the field; develop and execute a research plan on public safety communication coordination standards among Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal wildland firefighters, fire management response officials, and the National Interagency Fire Center; carry out research to improve and integrate existing communications systems to transmit secure, real-time data, alerts, and accurate advisories to wildland firefighters; carry out both live and virtual field testing and measurement of equipment, software, and other technologies to determine current effectiveness and timeliness of information dissemination and develop standards and best practices for the delivery of useful and secure real-time data to wildland firefighters; and develop and publish recommendations to improve public safety communication coordination standards among wildland firefighters and member agencies of the National Interagency Fire Center, including providing such recommendations to the Office of Budget and Management and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The Director shall— coordinate Federal post-wildland fire investigations of fires at the wildland-urban interface; and develop methodologies, in coordination with the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and in consultation with relevant stakeholders, to characterize the effect 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.
The Director of the National Science Foundation shall support research and development activities, including large-scale convergent 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 the impacts of wildland fires on buildings, communities, infrastructure, watersheds, ecosystems, and living systems; to develop and improve research infrastructure, tools, and technologies, including sensors and sensor networks, databases, and computational models, to enable and accelerate the understanding and prediction of wildland fires and their impacts; to improve the understanding of the impacts of climate change, drought, and climate variability on wildland fires, including wildland fire risk, frequency, size, and severity; to improve the understanding of long-term wildland fire management strategies, including natural fire regimes, and wildland fire prediction, mitigation, and resilience strategies; and to improve the understanding of— the response to wildland fire risk communications by individuals, communities, and policymakers; economic, social, and other factors influencing the implementation and adoption of wildland fire risk reduction measures by individuals, communities, and policymakers; and decision making regarding wildland fires and emergency response to wildland fires.
The Director of the National Science Foundation shall support undergraduate and graduate research opportunities and graduate and postdoctoral fellowships and traineeships in fields of study relevant to wildland fires and their impacts. The Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shall support research and development activities, including research, observations, modeling, forecasting, prediction, and historical analysis of wildland fires and associated fire weather and smoke— to improve understanding, prediction, detection, forecasting, monitoring, and assessments of wildland fires and associated fire weather and smoke for— the protection of life, property, and natural resources; and the enhancement of the national economy; to develop products and services to meet stakeholder needs; to transition physical and social science research into operations; to improve modeling and technology, including coupled fire-atmosphere fire behavior modeling, in consultation with relevant Federal agencies; to improve the understanding of the links between fire weather events and subseasonal-to-climate impacts; and to improve the forecasting and understanding of the impacts of prescribed fires and how such impacts differ from those of wildland fires which originate from an unplanned ignition.
The Administrator shall— develop and provide, in consultation with such Federal agencies as the Administrator considers appropriate, accurate, precise, timely, and effective risk communications, forecasts, watches, and warnings relating to wildland fires and fire weather events that endanger life and property, including— red flag warnings; operational fire weather alerts; and any other warnings or alerts the Administrator deems appropriate; provide relevant 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, including by deploying incident meteorologists for the duration of an extreme event.
The Administrator shall contribute to and support the centralized, integrated data collaboration environment pursuant to section 4(2) and any other relevant Federal data systems by ensuring— interoperability, usability, and accessibility of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration data and tools relating to wildland fires, associated smoke, and their impacts; inclusion of historical wildland fire incident and fire weather data, and identifying potential gaps in such data; and the acquisition or collection of additional data that is needed to advance wildland fire science.
The Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in coordination with the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and in consultation with relevant stakeholders, shall— leverage available observations, technologies, and assets and develop or acquire new technologies and data 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 relevant stakeholders; prioritize the ability to detect, observe, and monitor wildland fire and smoke in the requirements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for current and future operational space-based assessments and commercial data purchases; and not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act— may offer to enter into contracts with one or more entities to obtain additional space-based and airborne remoting sensing 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 4; and in carrying out clause (i), shall consult with private sector entities through the Advisory Committee established under section 6 to identify needed tools and data that can best be provided by satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and are most beneficial to wildland fire smoke detection and monitoring.
In collaboration with Program agencies and other relevant stakeholders, the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shall establish a fire weather testbed to evaluate physical and social science research, technology, and other available data and research to develop fire weather products and services for implementation by relevant stakeholders. 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; and in carrying out the program under subparagraph (A), the Administrator, in collaboration with other relevant Federal agencies, may establish one or more national centers for prescribed fire and wildfire sciences that leverage Federal research and development with university and nongovernmental partnerships.
The Administrator, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, shall acquire high performance computing technologies and supercomputing technologies, leveraging existing resources, as practicable— to conduct research and development activities; to support the translation of Program-related research to operations; and to host operational fire and smoke forecast models. Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall submit to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology of the House of Representatives the results of an assessment of National Weather Service workforce and training challenges for incident meteorologists and a roadmap for overcoming the challenges identified.
The assessment described in subparagraph
(A)shall take into consideration— information technology support; logistical and administrative operations; anticipated weather and climate conditions; and feedback from relevant stakeholders. The assessment described in subparagraph
(A)shall include, to the maximum extent practicable, an identification by the National Weather Service of— the expected number of incident meteorologists needed over the next 5 years; potential hiring authorities necessary to overcome identified workforce and training challenges; and alternative services or assistance operations the National Weather Service could provide to meet operational needs. The Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency shall support— the development of community risk assessment tools and effective mitigation techniques for responding to wildland fires, including at the wildland-urban interface; the collection and analysis of data relating to wildland and wildland-urban interface fire and operational response; public outreach, education, and information dissemination relating to wildland fires and wildland fire risk; and the promotion of wildland and wildland-urban interface fire preparedness and community risk reduction measures, including— hardening the wildland-urban interface through proper construction materials; land use practices; sprinklers; assessment of State, local, Tribal, and territorial emergency response capacity and capabilities, including evacuation planning and evacuation routes; and other tools and approaches as appropriate. In collaboration with the Director and the heads of such other Program agencies as the Administrator considers appropriate, the Administrator shall— promote and assist in the implementation of research results; and promote fire-resistant building, retrofit, and land use practices within the design and construction industry, including architects, engineers, contractors, builders, planners, code officials, and inspectors. The Administrator shall— establish and operate a wildland fire preparedness and mitigation technical assistance program to assist State, Tribal, local, and territorial governments in using wildland fire mitigation strategies, including through the adoption and implementation of wildland and wildland-urban interface fire resistance codes, standards, and land use; incorporate wildland and wildland-urban interface fire risk mitigation and loss avoidance data into the existing risk, mitigation, and loss avoidance analyses of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; incorporate data on the adoption and implementation of wildland and wildland-urban interface fire resistant codes and standards into the hazard resistant code tracking resources of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; translate new information and research findings into best practices to improve training and education for firefighter, fire service, and allied professions in wildland fire response, crew deployment, and wildland fire resilience, prevention, mitigation, and firefighting; conduct outreach and disseminate information to fire departments regarding best practices for wildland and wildland-urban interface firefighting, education, training, and fireground deployment; and develop resources regarding best practices for establishing or enhancing peer-support programs within wildland fire firefighting units. The Administrator shall, in collaboration with such other heads of Program agencies and stakeholders as the Administrator considers appropriate, develop a national-level, interactive, and publicly accessible wildland fire hazard severity map that includes community and parcel level data and that can readily integrate with risk gradations within wildland and wildland-urban interface fire resistant codes and standards. The Administrator shall, in coordination with the Director and such other heads of Federal agencies as the Administrator considers appropriate, carry out a study to— examine perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances ( PFAS ) and other potentially harmful contaminants in firefighter gear, fire retardants, and wetting agents; determine the lifecycle of firefighting garments; and evaluate exposure risks based on different phases of the fire. The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration shall— 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; facilitate the communication of wildland fire research, knowledge, and tools to relevant stakeholders; and use commercial data where such data is available and accessible through existing Federal Government commercial contracts, agreements, or other means, and purchase data that is deemed necessary based on consultation with other Program agencies. The Administrator shall support basic and applied wildland fire research and modeling activities, including competitively selected research— to improve understanding and prediction of fire environments, wildland fires, associated smoke, and their impacts; to improve the understanding of the impacts of climate change, drought, and climate variability on wildland fire risk, frequency, size, and severity; to characterize the pre-fire phase and fire-inducing conditions, such as soil moisture and vegetative fuel availability; to characterize the active fire phase, such as fire and smoke plume mapping, fire behavior and spread modeling, and domestic and global fire activity; to characterize the post-fire phase, such as landscape changes, air quality, erosion, landslides, watershed impacts, and impacts on carbon distributions in ecosystem biomass; to contribute to advancing predictive wildland fire models; to 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; to improve the translation of research knowledge into actionable information; to develop research and data products, including maps, decision-support information, and tools, and support related training as appropriate and practicable; to collaborate with other Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, as appropriate, on joint research and development projects, including research grant solicitations and field campaigns; and to 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, drought, and climate variability, land and property burned, and wildlife and ecosystem destruction, among other areas; prioritize the dissemination of data identified under subparagraph
(A)to the widest extent practicable to support relevant research and operations stakeholders; consider opportunities to support the Program under section 3 and the Program activities under section 4 when planning and developing Earth observation satellites, instruments, and airborne measurement platforms; identify opportunities, in collaboration with Program agencies and relevant stakeholders, 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 other relevant Program activities under section 4, and consider such options as commercial solutions, including commercial data purchases, prize authority, academic partnerships, and ground-based or space-based instruments, as practicable and appropriate; and jointly develop with Program agencies, and contribute data to, the centralized, integrated data collaboration environment pursuant to section 4(2) and any other relevant interagency systems, by— collecting, organizing, and integrating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s scientific data, data systems, and computational tools related to wildland fires, associated smoke, and their impacts; and enhancing the interoperability, usability, and accessibility of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s scientific data, data systems, and computational tools, including— observation and available real-time and near-real-time measurements; derived science and data products, such as fuel conditions, risk and spread maps, and data products to represent the wildland-urban interface; relevant historical and archival observations, measurements, and derived science and data products; and other relevant decision support and information tools. The Administrator shall, in collaboration with such other heads of Program agencies and relevant stakeholders as the Administrators considers as practicable and appropriate, 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; to develop— and demonstrate 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; an interoperable communications strategy to support such system; and a roadmap for the on-ramping of new technologies, capabilities, or entities into such system; and to identify— additional development, testing, and demonstration that would be required to expand the scale of program operations; actions that would be required to transition the unified concept of operations in subparagraph
(A)into ongoing, operational use; and other objectives for the program, as deemed appropriate by the Administrator. The Administrator shall, in collaboration with such other heads of Program agencies and relevant stakeholders as the Administrator considers practicable and appropriate— develop and demonstrate affordable and deployable sensing technologies to improve— monitoring of fire fuel and active wildland fires; wildland fire behavior models and forecasts; mapping efforts; and the prediction of wildland fires and mitigation of their negative impacts; and in carrying out subparagraph (A)— conduct a pilot program to test and demonstrate technologies such as infrared, microwave, and radar sensors suitable for deployment on spacecraft, aircraft, uncrewed aerial systems, and ground-based in situ platforms, 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; develop and demonstrate near-real-time data processing, availability, interoperability, and visualization, as practicable; 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 such technologies, techniques, and data; transition demonstrated technologies, techniques, and data into ongoing, operational use, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders; prioritize and facilitate, to the greatest extent practicable, the dissemination of relevant scientific data to operations, including to Program agencies and relevant stakeholders; and consider opportunities for potential partnerships among industry, government, National Laboratories, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and other relevant stakeholders. The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency shall support research and development activities— to improve the understanding of— wildland fire and smoke impacts on communities, and outdoor and indoor air quality, watersheds and water quality, and freshwater ecosystems; wildland fire smoke plume characteristics, chemical composition, chemical transformation, and transport; wildland fire and smoke impacts on contaminant containment and remediation; the contribution of wildland fire emissions to climate-forcing emissions; differences between the impacts of prescribed fires, as compared to other wildland fires, on communities and air and water quality; and climate change, drought, and climate variability on wildland fires and smoke plumes, including on smoke exposure; to 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; and to better integrate observational data, such as remote sensing data from academic, governmental, or commercial sources, into wildland fire and smoke characterization models to improve modeling at finer temporal and spatial resolutions. The Administrator shall, in coordination with such other heads of Federal agencies and stakeholders as the Administrator considers appropriate, promote the translation of research findings under this subsection and improve communication of wildland fire and smoke risk reduction strategies to the public. The Secretary of Energy shall, in collaboration with the National Laboratories, carry out research and development activities to advance tools, techniques, and technologies, as the Secretary considers applicable, for— withstanding and addressing the current and projected impacts 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, including by leveraging the Department of Energy’s high-performance computing capabilities and climate and ecosystem models; early detection of malfunctioning, damaged, or otherwise hazardous electrical equipment on the transmission and distribution grid, including detection of spark ignition that may cause wildland fires, and assessment of competing technologies and strategies for addressing such hazards; assisting with the planning, safe execution of, and safe and timely restoration of power after emergency power shut offs relating to wildland fire risk due to malfunctioning or damaged 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, extreme or exceptional drought, and extreme heat; improving coordination between utilities and relevant Federal agencies to enable communication, information-sharing, and situational awareness in the event of wildland fires that impact the electric grid; wildland fire forecasting, spread, and ecosystem impact; considering optimal building energy efficiency practices and distributed renewable energy resource strategies, as practicable, in wildland fire research; and considering the use of real-time satellite views, sensing wind patterns, and tracking operations of energy infrastructure service coupled with artificial intelligence to quickly predict fire patterns once they have ignited and use these predictions to devise plans to prevent damage to energy sector infrastructure. The Secretary shall coordinate data across relevant entities, including academic, governmental, National Laboratory, and other stakeholders, to improve the understanding of wildland fire and to promote resilience and wildland fire prevention in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transmission infrastructure. The Secretary shall use the capabilities of the National Laboratories, including user facilities, earth and environmental systems modeling resources, and high-performance computing and data analytics capabilities, to improve the accuracy of efforts to understand and predict wildfire behavior and occurrence and mitigate negative wildland fire impacts. The Secretary shall foster engagement between the National Laboratories and practitioners, researchers, policy organizations, utilities, and other entities, as appropriate, to understand the economic and social implications of power disruptions caused by wildland fires, particularly within disadvantaged communities and regions vulnerable to wildland fires, including rural areas.