Sponsors (3)
The bill accelerates evaluation and scaling of wildfire technologies to improve detection, responder safety, and community protection, but does so at additional federal cost and with risks of safety gaps, administrative burdens for smaller agencies, and potential bias toward commercial vendors.
Firefighters, tribal first responders, and local emergency personnel gain access to tested, scalable technologies that can improve detection, response, and on-the-job safety during wildfires.
Communities at risk of wildfire — especially rural and tribal areas — could see faster detection and reduced property and infrastructure damages if effective technologies are scaled and deployed.
Federal agencies improve coordination and procurement for multiagency wildfire technology deployments, which can lower costs and speed adoption across jurisdictions.
Taxpayers could face additional federal spending to evaluate, pilot, and scale technologies over the program’s multi‑year timeframe.
Rapid deployment or insufficiently rigorous evaluation of new technologies could introduce safety or reliability risks for firefighters and responder operations.
Smaller, underfunded, or resource‑constrained local and tribal agencies may face administrative and coordination burdens to participate in pilots or access procurement assistance.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Creates a 7-year public–private pilot, run by USDA and Interior, to test and deploy wildfire prevention, detection, communication, response, and mitigation technologies with reporting requirements.
Introduced November 18, 2025 by Young Kim · Last progress November 18, 2025
Establishes a publicly partnered pilot program, to be set up within one year by the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, to test and deploy wildfire prevention, detection, communication, response, and mitigation technologies. The program will bring together federal land and emergency agencies with private firms, nonprofits, and universities, set technology priorities and evaluation criteria, coordinate multiagency procurement and deployments, accept applications from potential participants, require reporting to Congress, and expire seven years after enactment.