Wildfire Projects within NOAA's Multiple Supplemental: 1. Improving Forecasts of Hurricanes, Wildfires, and Floods (IFHWF), 2. Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriation (DRSA), and 3. Bi-partisan Infrastructure Law (BIL Portfolios

Authors: Ben Woods1, Christopher Spells1, and Renee (Richardson) Keller2,

Wildfire trends are both alarming and deadly. The wildfire season in western North America is trending to start earlier, last longer, and be more deadly. Furthermore, once thought to be only a “western states” problem, the summer of 2023 wildfires in eastern Canada and Hawaii were disasters hitting places unfamiliar with the destruction and loss of life they bring. In an ongoing effort to curb the cost to life and property, the U.S. Congress has passed a number of laws that provide extra, or Supplemental funds, for accelerating research in high-impact weather, water, and climate events. Research on Wildfires is a growing component of the overall Supplemental Program Portfolios. Starting with the Disaster Relief Act on June 6, 2019, and extended with both the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act on March 31, 2021 and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation on November 15, 2021, research into Wildfire Detection and Prediction, along with better forecasts of smoke and air quality, is emphasized. This presentation will share the advancements made by wildfire research supported within these portfolios. Specifically, this presentation will discuss the progress (including lessons learned) from the wildfire research in the following portfolios:
3 Wildfire Projects within the Improving Forecasting of Hurricanes, Wildfires, and Floods
14 Wildfire Projects within the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act
25 Wildfire Projects in Provisions 5 and 15 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation

A sampling of the work done by these research projects include: accelerating development of the Unified Forecast System (UFS), coupled models and better observations for impact of smoke on air quality, and addressing running research projects on the Cloud in times of limited High Performance Computing (HPC) resources. Lastly, best practices for all 3 portfolios moving forward, including effective management of the 42 research projects, as well as possible future supplemental programs, in continued efforts to build a Weather-Ready Nation will be shared.

1 NOAA, Weather Program Office, Silver Spring, MD

2 FedWriters services supporting NOAA/WPO, Silver Spring, MD