Today, the Subcommittee on Federal Lands held an oversight hearing examining new and existing technologies that could improve forest management. The need to leverage such technologies to combat and prevent future wildfires was supported through President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14308, “Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response,” and in the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act. Subcommittee Chairman Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) issued the following statement in response:

"The federal government’s approach to forest management remains outdated, inefficient, and overly focused on bureaucracy rather than results. The Federal Lands Subcommittee is working to change that by investing in prevention and embracing private-sector innovation. It’s time Washington used modern tools to detect, model, and fight wildfires before more communities are left in ruins."

Background

In the past five years, wildfires scorched more than 36.4 million acres, claimed more than 170 lives and caused approximately $10 billion in property damage. The federal government now spends an average of $3 billion annually on wildfire suppression. Proactive investments in innovative technologies have the potential to modernize forest management, improve wildfire response times and reduce both the human and financial costs associated with today’s escalating wildfire crisis.

Wildfires move fast, and technology must evolve to keep pace. Rapidly emerging technological solutions offer promising new ways to detect, track and suppress fires before they escalate.

Tools such as satellites, AI-powered cameras, drones, geospatial and cloud-based software and 5G networks are already available, offering promising solutions to enhance the speed, precision and effectiveness of forest management and wildfire response.

At scale, tech-enabled prevention and response can save hundreds of billions of dollars in avoided fire suppression costs, infrastructure damage and community recovery.

Despite their potential, emerging technologies remain underutilized by federal land management agencies. While many state agencies, utility companies and private landowners are implementing new technologies, the federal government lags several years behind in testing and deploying new wildfire detection, mitigation and suppression technologies.

The bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA) empowers federal land managers to adopt cutting-edge technologies that improve wildfire prevention and forest management. The bill supports a full spectrum of innovation, from deploying proven systems on the ground to advancing promising pilot programs and early-stage research. FOFA aligns with President Trump’s EO 14308, “Empowering Commonsense Wildfire Prevention and Response,” which restores common sense to wildfire suppression and forest management on the local, state and federal levels by incentivizing further collaboration, supporting technological innovations to forest management and more.