[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 180 (Friday, September 19, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 45265-45267]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-18121]
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OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
Notice of Request for Information; Technology Roadmap To Increase
Wildfire Firefighting Capabilities
AGENCY: Office of Science and Technology Policy.
ACTION: Request for information.
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SUMMARY: The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) requests
input from all interested parties on the development of a
comprehensive, technology roadmap to increase wildfire firefighting
capabilities at the Federal, State, and local levels, pursuant to
Executive Order 14308. Through this Request for Information (RFI), OSTP
seeks input from the public, including fire professionals, academia,
private sector organizations, industry groups, venture capital,
philanthropic organizations, and State, local, tribal, and territorial
governments, and any other interest parties. other interest parties, on
priorities for such a roadmap.
DATES: Interested persons are invited to submit comments on or before
11:59 p.m. (ET) October 20, 2025.
ADDRESSES: Interested individuals and organizations should submit
comments electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov by searching the Docket ID number OSTP-NATSEC-2025-
0034. Comments submitted in response to this notice should be submitted
electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov by selecting the Docket ID number. Information on
how to use regulations.gov, including instructions for accessing agency
documents, submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on
the site under ``FAQ'' (https://www.regulations.gov/faq).
Instructions
Response to this RFI is voluntary. Please note that all submissions
received in response to this notice may be posted on https://www.regulations.gov/ or otherwise released in their entirety.
Do not include in your submissions any copyrighted material;
information of a confidential nature, such as personal or proprietary
information; or any information you would not like to be made publicly
available.
OSTP will not respond to individual submissions. A response to this
RFI will not be viewed as a binding commitment to develop or pursue the
project or ideas discussed. This RFI is not accepting applications for
financial assistance or financial incentives. Responses containing
references, studies, research, and other empirical data that are not
widely published should include copies of or electronic links to the
referenced materials. Responses from minors, or responses containing
profanity, vulgarity, threats, or other inappropriate language or
content will not be considered.
Comments submitted in response to this notice are subject to the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Please note that the United States
Government will not pay for response preparation, or for the use of any
information contained in a response.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For additional information, please
direct questions to [email protected] or Lisa Kerle at 202-720-0015.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On June 12, 2025, President Trump signed
Executive Order 14308 (Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and
Response), which recognized that firefighters across the country are
forced to rely on outdated technology and directed the development of a
comprehensive technology roadmap.
OSTP seeks input from professionals in the wildland firefighting
community to inform the wildfire technology roadmap. For the purposes
of this RFI, ``wildfire'' refers to all fires that burn in the natural
environment, including those that transition to the built environment
or begin in the built environment and transition to wildlands. The
technology roadmap is intended to increase wildfire firefighting
capabilities at the Federal, State, local, tribal, and territorial
levels, including through enhanced integration or application of
artificial intelligence, data sharing, innovative modeling and mapping
capabilities, and technology to identify wildland fire ignitions,
improve weather forecasts that inform response and evacuation, and
improve prevention, suppression, and response capabilities.
OSTP is interested in opportunities to advance novel and emerging
technology development and use, such as:
fostering the commercialization of artificial intelligence
and innovative modeling capabilities for use in wildfire detection,
monitoring, prevention, suppression, response, and performance
measurement;
creating synthetic wildfire imagery datasets for training
and testing computer vision models;
enabling next-generation lightning mapping to advance fire
weather forecasts from sources of wildfire
[[Page 45266]]
ignition to improve response and suppression;
modernizing physical equipment and infrastructure,
including robotics, for wildfire mitigation, response, and recovery;
establishing data standardization and interoperability
requirements to facilitate seamless data-sharing, and tools that will
improve situational awareness for Federal, State, local, tribal, and
territorial governments and private stakeholders;
leveraging data, tools, information, and communications to
enhance modeling, and decision-making, and performance measurement
related to wildfire risk mitigation and response;
facilitating Federal acquisition of commercial datasets
and other information related to wildfire mitigation and response
through streamlined procurement processes, resource allocations, and
other necessary improvements;
addressing barriers (e.g., policy, administrative,
training, financial) to technology adoption; and
integrating and improving the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration's fire-weather products, including fire-
weather models and related decision support technologies, to advance
mitigation, preparedness, response, and the application of related
technologies.
Questions To Inform the Development of the Technology Roadmap
1. Wildfire detection and monitoring:
a. What are your current capabilities in wildfire detection and
monitoring?
b. What are your desired capabilities in wildfire detection and
monitoring?
c. What current gaps or limitations currently exist in wildfire
detection and monitoring?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance wildfire
detection and monitoring within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to wildfire detection and monitoring?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
2. Wildfire suppression and response:
a. What are your current capabilities for wildfire suppression and
response capabilities or effectiveness?
b. What are your desired capabilities that increase wildfire
suppression and response capabilities or effectiveness?
c. What current gaps or limitations currently exist in wildfire
suppression and response that are lowering response capabilities or
effectiveness?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance wildfire
suppression and response capabilities or effectiveness within the next
5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to wildfire suppression and response capabilities or
effectiveness?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
3. Wildland firefighter safety:
a. What are your current capabilities related to firefighter
safety?
b. What are your desired capabilities related to increasing
firefighter safety?
c. What current gaps or limitations currently exist to improving
firefighter safety?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could improve
firefighter safety within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to firefighter safety?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
4. Wildfire risk reduction and land management, including fuel
treatments and building codes:
a. What are your current capabilities to improve the effectiveness
of landscape wildfire risk reduction?
b. What are your desired capabilities to improve the effectiveness
of landscape wildfire risk?
c. What current gaps or limitations currently exist in pre-wildfire
land management?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance pre-
wildfire land management within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to pre-wildfire land management?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
5. Post-wildfire recovery and cascading effects (e.g., flooding,
mudslides, etc.):
a. What are your current capabilities in post-wildfire recovery and
cascading effects?
b. What are your desired capabilities in post-wildfire recovery and
cascading effects?
c. What current gaps, or limitations currently exist in post-
wildfire recovery and cascading effects?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance post-
wildfire recovery and cascading effects within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to post-wildfire recovery and cascading effects?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
6. Data management:
a. What are your current capabilities in forestry and wildfire data
management?
b. What are your desired capabilities in forestry and wildfire data
management?
c. What current gaps, or limitations currently exist in forestry
and wildfire data management?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance forestry
and wildfire data management within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to forestry and wildfire data management?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
7. Modeling, forecasting, and mapping:
a. What are your current capabilities in modeling, forecasting, and
mapping?
b. What are your desired capabilities in modeling, forecasting, and
mapping?
c. What current gaps or limitations currently exist in modeling,
forecasting, and mapping?
d. What opportunities or novel technologies could advance modeling,
forecasting, and mapping within the next 5 years?
e. What barriers exist that prevent the adoption or integration of
improvements to modeling, forecasting, and mapping?
f. How can existing products leverage or integrate with our current
portfolio of tools and applications?
8. Procurement, partnerships, and market access
a. What barriers exist to entering or scaling in the wildfire
technology market?
b. What mechanisms (e.g., Small Business Innovation Research
(SBIR), Other Transaction Authority (OTA), pilot grants) are helpful
for entering or scaling in the wildfire tech market?
c. How could industry days, technology sprints, or field
demonstrations be better used to surface promising solutions?
d. How could the Federal government better support demonstration,
evaluation, or acquisition to new and emerging wildfire technologies?
e. What are examples of partnerships that could be expanded to
facilitate technology development or integration?
9. Is there any additional information related to increasing
wildfire firefighting capabilities at the Federal, State, and local
levels, not requested above, that you believe should be considered? If
so, describe.
[[Page 45267]]
Dated: September 16, 2025.
Stacy Murphy,
Deputy Chief Operations Officer/Security Officer.
[FR Doc. 2025-18121 Filed 9-18-25; 8:45 am]
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