H.R. 4075 — Fire Weather Development Act of 2025

This section establishes a program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve fire weather and fire environment forecasting, detection, and delivery of products or services through collaboration with federal and state agencies, local emergency managers, and relevant entities. The program aims to develop accurate forecasts and warnings to reduce wildfire-related loss of life, injuries, property damage, and economic harm, with a focus on predicting ignition and spread; monitoring fire weather; forecasting smoke dispersion; improving information dissemination and risk communication; enabling early detection; developing novel tools and techniques; addressing wildland-urban interface fires; and understanding prescribed burns. To achieve these goals, NOAA must solicit stakeholder input; conduct research, development, testing, and operational activities (including sensing technologies, fuel assessments, social sciences, satellite products, education, modeling, communication, data stewardship, and improved observations); develop novel tools in consultation with other agencies and commercial partners; support non-federal research through competitive grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements; and, not later than one year after enactment, enter into contracts with private sector entities for supplemental airborne and space-based data.

This section establishes an Interagency Coordinating Committee on Wildfires, chaired by the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and comprising the heads or designees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), United States Fire Administration (USFA), United States Forest Service (USFS), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of the Interior (DOI), Department of Agriculture (USDA), United States Geological Survey (USGS), Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and other agencies as appropriate. The Committee must coordinate development of accurate, timely wildfire forecasting, detection, monitoring, and related products or services to assist state and local emergency officials while avoiding duplication of activities; submit to Congress, not later than one year after enactment, a strategic plan describing short-term, mid-term, and long-term objectives, agency collaboration with stakeholders, needed observational and data infrastructure, agency roles, and guidance for federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial planning; and direct agencies to enter interagency agreements for cooperation on relevant tools, technologies, and research and to increase engagement with international, academic, state, and local communities.

This section establishes the National Advisory Committee on Wildfires in the Office of Science and Technology Policy not later than 90 days after submission of the strategic plan required by section 3(d). The committee consists of 7 to 15 non-federal members qualified in wildfire forecasting, detection, monitoring, and related products or services from research institutions, public communication entities, emergency management agencies, state/local/Tribal governments, the National Association of State Foresters, businesses, or other entities designated by the OSTP Director. It assesses and recommends improvements on (1) tailored forecasting, detection, and monitoring products and tools; (2) communication and delivery methods for such information; (3) streamlining federal information to local emergency personnel and communities; and (4) the management, coordination, implementation, activities, and effectiveness of the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Wildfires under section 3. The committee serves without compensation, reports biennially to the OSTP Director with recommendations to improve coordination and dissemination of wildfire forecasts, warnings, detection, and monitoring information, is exempt from refiling its charter after the initial filing, and terminates on September 30, 2029. Members must recuse themselves from activities involving a pecuniary interest.

This section directs the NOAA Administrator to establish a fire weather testbed to enable collaboration among federal, state, local, academic, private sector, and other stakeholders in evaluating the accuracy and usability of fire weather technologies, models, products, services, and research—accelerating their implementation and operational use by NOAA, federal land management agencies, and others. It authorizes $4 million for each of FY2026 through FY2029 and prohibits transferring or reprogramming funds, detailing personnel, or using infrastructure from NOAA's existing cooperative institutes for this purpose.

This section directs the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), not later than six months after enactment, to submit to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation an assessment of National Weather Service (NWS) workforce and training challenges for Incident Meteorologists (i.e., NWS personnel who provide weather forecasting support during wildland fires), including expected staffing needs over the next five years, potential hiring authorities, and alternative services, along with a roadmap to address such challenges that incorporates information technology, logistics, anticipated weather conditions, and stakeholder feedback. This section further provides that any premium pay for NWS Incident Meteorologists determined by the Secretary of Commerce to be primarily related to emergency wildland fire suppression activities is disregarded in calculating the aggregate basic pay and premium pay cap under 5 U.S.C. 5547 (i.e., the greater of the maximum GS–15 rate, including locality pay and special rates, or Executive Level V). (Thus, such Incident Meteorologists may receive premium pay without it counting toward the statutory cap.) The section also amends 5 U.S.C. 5542(a)(5), which authorizes special overtime rates for firefighters, to expressly include the NWS after "Interior."

This section directs the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), acting through the Public Safety and Communications Research Division and in consultation with the Fire Research Division and technology manufacturers, to carry out research not later than 60 days after enactment on (1) public safety communication coordination standards among federal, state, tribal, and local wildland firefighters, fire management response officials, and member agencies of the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) (i.e., Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, United States Fire Administration, and Department of Defense); and (2) improving and integrating communications systems to transmit secure real-time data, alerts, and advisories. NIST must further conduct live and virtual field testing of equipment and technologies to measure information dissemination times and develop standards for secure real-time data delivery. The section requires NIST to develop and publish recommendations to improve coordination standards, transmit them to the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Science and Technology Policy for member agency implementation, and report them to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Finally, the Comptroller General must report to the same committees, not later than one year after publication of NIST's recommendations, on member agencies' implementation.

This section defines, for purposes of the Act, the term “fire environment” as environmental conditions (e.g., soil moisture, vegetation, topography, snowpack, atmospheric temperature, moisture, and wind) that influence fuel and fire behavior, smoke dispersion and transport, and associated environmental impacts during and after fire events; and the term “fire weather” as weather conditions that influence the start, spread, character, or behavior of wildfires or fires at the wildland-urban interface, including relevant meteorological and chemical phenomena such as air quality, smoke, relative humidity, air temperature, wind speed and direction, atmospheric composition and chemistry, emissions, and mixing heights.