Emerging wildfire technology makes pitch to US lawmakers at congressional hearing on Thursday

The United States’ wildland firefighting force was called the “very best 1990s firefighters” during a congressional hearing on Thursday morning.

San Bernardino County Fire Protection District Chief Dan Munsey, speaking at a hearing held at the House Committee on Natural Resources, said it’s a misnomer to say the US has the most “technologically advanced” firefighting force, since firefighters on the ground are using paper maps and radios from decades ago, compared with the modern technology available to the general public today. Munsey attributed the failure to use modern technology to federal barriers.

“We are slow to innovate, we are burdened by the regulatory process, we are hampered by lengthy bureaucratic procurement processes, and we lack access to fundamental tools,” Munsey said. “We don’t have a technology problem in the United States to combat wildfire; we have a technology adoption problem.”

Lawmakers invited wildfire technology experts to Capitol Hill to start fixing the problem Munsey spoke on. Thursday’s hearing focused on advancing innovative technology for forest management and wildfire prevention. Although some portions were overshadowed by partisan back-and-forths over whose fault the current wildland fire crisis is, lawmakers shared a common goal of adopting more technological advancements to meet the crisis and prevent future tragedies.

The wildfire technology sector continues to grow, including the launch of the Association of Firetech Innovation, which claims to be the first trade association dedicated to supporting technology focused on wildfire prevention, mitigation, and response. The association plans to act as a “central force for policy engagement, investment, and industry collaboration,” and was meeting with congressional leaders as the hearing went on.

One of the association’s founding member CEOs, Allison Wolff with Vibrant Planet, was also a speaker at the hearing and released research showing how a federal investment of $9 million in wildfire risk mitigation treatments would have slowed January’s Eaton Fire enough to mitigate much of the $40 billion in damages the community of Altadena experienced from the fire.

Data analyzed by Vibrant Planet found 300 communities in eight states have a 98% to 100% wildfire risk, similar to Altadena. Wolff also estimated that investing between $40 billion to $73 billion in risk mitigation in communities similar to Altadena, the nation can avoid up to $435 billion in insured losses.

“The problem is that today, without modern tools like ours, it can take three, five, to even 10 years to get to an implementation plan,” Wolff said. “Often, the data is low-quality, and collaborators are often planning on paper. Plans are often obsolete by the time they hit print because the landscape has already burned.”

Many Democratic lawmakers pointed out that the Trump administration’s recent budget cuts to research and development at the United States Forest Service and the Department of the Interior would further slow getting new technologies into firefighters’ hands. Karen Howard, director of science and technology assessment at the US Government Accountability Office, agreed, saying having new tools does nothing if systems aren’t in place to study and use them.

“You could have a beautiful tool that tells you where hazardous fuel reduction will be most effective, but if the agencies…don’t have the resources to conduct that hazardous fuels reduction, the model doesn’t do us a lot of good,” Howard said.