Convening to Align Values for Wildfire Data and Technology

By James Puerini, Climate & Wildfire Institute and Jessica Blackband, Federation of American Scientists

The next 12-18 months will define the future of federal wildland fire data and technology. Two massive structural shifts are underway, among many other moving pieces:

• The Administration's push to reorganize existing agencies into a consolidated U.S. Wildland Fire Service (USWFS) to modernize and unify the fragmented system of federal fire management.

• The establishment of the Wildland Fire Intelligence Center (WFIC)—potentially a national hub for assessment, prediction, and coordinated decision support (as currently proposed in the Fix our Forests Act (S. 1462) and recent executive action).

These and other pending changes create immediate implications for technology procurement, deployment, data access, and research and development. As these changes unfold, policymakers have a unique opportunity to transform our collective capacity to manage wildfire for safer and more resilient communities by leveraging purpose-built data and technology. 

No matter how reforms proceed, wildfire data and technology will always be a multi-jurisdictional and multi-stakeholder effort. At this crucial moment, the Climate and Wildfire Institute and Federation of American Scientists convened a group of thought leaders from private industry, research, advocacy and philanthropy in Spring 2026 to align on near-term shared values. To demonstrate how technology can enhance collaboration, we leveraged innovative virtual facilitation techniques to co-develop the values produced below. These consensus-based principles serve as a foundation to guide and ground wildfire data and technology policy decisions.

• Funding: Dedicated federal funding is necessary to advance data and technology priorities. 

• Governance: The federal system needs an accountable, communicative, and well-informed cross-boundary management and decision-making body for wildfire data and technology. 

• End User Needs: End users require easy-to-use data and tools coupled with effective training and accessible data and technology translation. Creating iterative feedback loops between innovators and end users is also essential to ensuring new wildfire technology meets operational needs. 

• Coordination and Integration: Wildfire data and technology suffers primarily from a coordination problem; improved coordination across the private and public sectors, across boundaries, between tech end users and innovators, as well as between agencies, is essential to building wildfire resilience. 

• Procurement: The procurement process must be streamlined if we are to move at the pace and scale needed to develop and operationalize new technology.

• Infrastructure / Interoperability: The wildfire management system needs innovation infrastructure that can help make technology as usable as possible; common operating platforms and interoperability are core tools for achieving this end. We must improve upon existing systems where possible, and build new architecture where needed to fill gaps. 

• Evaluation: To justify investment and maximize operational effectiveness, our public wildfire management systems need common technology evaluation frameworks that are transparent, consistent, and defensible. These frameworks support robust competition and position the public sector to select the right tools for the job.

• Open Access: Open access data, technology, and analytics will promote uptake and accelerate collaboration across agencies, jurisdictional boundaries, and levels of government.

• Science-Based Solutions: Science must continue to guide and underpin data and technology priorities.

By seeking to align efforts with these clearly stated values, policymakers can operationalize a wildland fire management system that supports the kind of work that must be achieved at scale to further wildfire resilience at this watershed moment. 

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[Attachment 1: Value Statements]

[Attachment 2: Value Statements Use Toolkit]