SPACE Act of 2024

The Secretary of Agriculture shall enter into cooperative agreements with land-grant colleges and universities with a demonstrable capacity to collect data, interpret, report on, and otherwise conduct research on wildland fire sciences for the purpose of promoting and researching the use of available satellite data in order to predict, control, monitor, or otherwise mitigate wildland fire risk, including relating to the following:

(A) Smoke detection, land temperature, fire weather, fuel composition, soil moisture, and other metrics.

(B) Advanced remote sensing technologies, including light detection and ranging, forest carbon monitoring, and use of geostationary and geosynchronous remote sensing resources.

(C) Resource deployment, wildland fire management, and area mapping.

(D) Wildland fire behavior and predictive modeling from historic, real-time, and near real-time acquired data.

In entering cooperative agreements under paragraph (1), the Secretary of Agriculture shall—

(A) make available to recipient institutions satellite data acquired by the Agriculture Research Service, the National Agriculture Imagery Program, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and other research agencies determined relevant by the Secretary, including such data that—

(i) provide real or near-real time images of earth’s landmass;

(ii) can be gathered in multiple spectral bands, including infrared; and

(iii) provide historical data sets to mode, forecast, and track wildland fires; and

(B) require recipient institutions to share scientific research and reports, including wildland fire forecasts, models, smoke drift patterns, gaps and deficits in available data, and any other materials produced by resources provided by the Department of Agriculture determined necessary by the Secretary.

Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Agriculture shall submit to the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate a report regarding opportunities to expand wildland fire research cooperative agreements, improve the distribution of remote sensing resources, and expand cooperative agreements to include interagency groups with access to remote sensing data relevant to wildland fire research.

(1) The needed resources and possible timeline for implementation for integrating satellite and remote sensing technologies, including commercial data acquisitions, as well as airspace management technology and drones, to collect, interpret, and distribute data on wildland fire, for the following purposes:

(A) Forecasting fire growth and fire behavior modeling.

(B) Developing fire containment strategies.

(C) Improving operational resource deployment.

(D) Producing daily fire progression maps.

(2) The need and opportunities to deploy aerial resources, including drones, to provide field observations in regions experiencing multiple wildland fires.

(3) The capacity for remote sensing instruments, including infrared technology, to detect fine vegetation stress and fuel moisture with increased frequency.

(4) An estimate of the cost to carry out paragraphs (1) through (3), including to collect, acquire, and provide to the Agricultural Research Services, the National Agriculture Imagery Program, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Interagency Fire Center, and federally funded research entities, including land-grant colleges and universities, the information relating thereto.