Fire Ready Nation Act of 2025
Sponsored By: Senator Maria Cantwell
Passed Senate
Summary
Establishes a NOAA-led Fire Weather Services Program to centralize wildfire, fire‑weather, and smoke forecasting, improve impact-based warnings, and speed research-to-operations for better community and responder decision-making. It also would create an Incident Meteorologist Service, a Fire Weather Testbed, and new data and interoperability requirements to make forecasts and tools more accessible and actionable.
Show full summary
- Families and communities: People in fire-prone and remote areas would get faster impact-based forecasts, wildfire smoke guidance, and post-fire flooding and debris-flow assessments, with annual post-fire surveys and public release of findings for better local planning.
- Emergency responders and federal staff: Incident meteorologists and covered wildland response personnel would receive dedicated deployment support, training, and counseling, changes to premium‑pay treatment for calendar year 2025, and a workforce hiring/training plan due by March 30, 2026.
- Scientists, agencies, and tech providers: The bill would fund a testbed and competitive support for research-to-operations, require open data with digital object identifiers, authorize procurement of commercial observations, and push NOAA to secure high-performance computing and a centralized public data platform.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
4 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
More premium pay for federal responders
For calendar year 2025, some federal wildfire responders could earn more premium pay. Premium pay for covered services would not count toward usual pay caps, up to the Executive Schedule Level II rate. The extra premium pay would not count for retirement or lump-sum annual leave. The bill would also add the Department of Commerce to a federal pay rule. Commerce, Agriculture, and Interior would need a staffing plan by March 30, 2026, submitted to Congress before it starts and not dependent on higher-than-FY2024 funding.
Better fire weather forecasts and open data
If enacted, this would create a NOAA Fire Weather Services Program to improve wildfire and smoke forecasts and warnings. It would require open access to NOAA data, a fire weather testbed, and more computing power. It would authorize $15 million in 2026, $20 million in 2027, $27 million in 2028, $36 million in 2029, and $50 million in 2030. NOAA would need to submit a program administration plan within 180 days, a full plan and assessments within 18 months, and annual budget proposals. GAO would report on interagency roles within 1 year, program performance within 3 years, and ASOS within 4 years. Funds could not be used to unnecessarily duplicate activities already funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
On-site weather experts for wildfire teams
This would create an Incident Meteorologist Service in the National Weather Service. Meteorologists would deploy before, during, and after wildfires and big weather events. They would give on-site, impact-based forecasts to federal, state, local, Tribal, and Native Hawaiian responders. NOAA would provide staffing, training, real-time forecast access, and counseling support.
Plan to modernize airport weather stations
NOAA, with FAA and DoD, would assess and plan upgrades for airport weather stations (ASOS). The plan and a report to Congress would be due within 2 years, including funding needs. Standardization would not block upgrades to individual stations.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Maria Cantwell
WA • D
Cosponsors
Tim Sheehy
MT • R
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Ted Cruz
TX • R
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Sen. Luján, Ben Ray [D-NM]
NM • D
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Dan Sullivan
AK • R
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Jacky Rosen
NV • D
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Lisa Murkowski
AK • R
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Alex Padilla
CA • D
Sponsored 1/29/2025
Brian Schatz
HI • D
Sponsored 2/4/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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