Fire Ready Nation Act of 2025

The Fire Ready Nation Act of 2025 would create a coordinated, NOAA-led program to dramatically improve wildfire and fire-weather forecasting, observations, modeling, and decision support. Key aims include delivering better risk communications, expanding real-time fire weather services, and integrating fire weather with the broader Earth system through advanced models and data systems. The bill would push modernization across data management, computing, and observations (including drones and other uncrewed systems), establish an incident meteorologist service within the National Weather Service, and require routine assessments, federal-state collaboration, and congressional reporting. It also seeks to ensure equitable access and support for remote, isolated, and rural communities and to address workforce and premium-pay policies for federal staff involved in fire response. If enacted, the legislation would fund and guide a multi-office NOAA effort to connect research to operations, expand public-facing data platforms, accelerate adoption of new technologies, and coordinate with other federal agencies (DoD, FAA, land management agencies) to strengthen fire-weather forecasting, wildfire smoke forecasting, and post-fire hazard planning.