Padilla Secures Amendment to Strengthen Wildfire Response in Bipartisan National Defense Bill
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Senate passed U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s (D-Calif.) amendment to bolster the FireGuard program, which utilizes military satellites to help fight wildfires, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. The NDAA previously passed the House of Representatives and now goes to President Biden to be signed into law.
The National Guard’s FireGuard program uses Department of Defense (DoD) satellites to detect wildfires, notify authorities, and create products to disseminate to firefighting networks nationwide. The satellite data is “sanitized” into unclassified materials to be used by civilian agencies, a critical instrument to inform firefighting partners.
The amendment will give DoD the authority to enter into contracts or cooperative agreements with other government agencies or outside entities to support and sustain the FireGuard program. In conjunction with the National Guard, civilian-led efforts that deploy low earth orbit satellite constellations could provide additional quality data to improve FireGuard.
“As the West suffers from increasingly severe and frequent wildfires, we need to advance our commitment to protecting our communities and environment,” said Senator Padilla. “The FireGuard program is a crucial tool for using military satellites to combat wildfires, but we need every partner we can to maintain and build upon the program. The amendment I secured will allow the Department of Defense to better collaborate with other government agencies and cutting-edge civilian-led initiatives to strengthen our federal wildfire response.”
The amendment also instructs DoD to provide a report to Congress that includes an evaluation of the FireGuard program’s use of this new authority and suggests opportunities to further engage civilian capacity within the program.
Representative Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.-24) offered the amendment in the House of Representatives.
Senator Padilla has long been a leader in strengthening the federal and state response to wildfires. His legislation to strengthen the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) wildfire preparedness and response efforts, the FIRE Act, became law in 2022. Padilla also successfully advocated for California to receive billions for wildfire response and drought relief in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. After years of delays due to contracting issues, Padilla secured an amendment to the NDAA of 2024 to expedite the transfer of seven C-130s from the Coast Guard to California to retrofit for fighting wildfires. The planes began fighting deadly wildfires this summer. He also previously introduced the Fire Suppression Improvement Act, a bill to help ease the burden on state and local governments who are shouldering the weight of increasingly devastating wildfires.
Full text of the NDAA amendment is available here.
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