NASA effort to improve aerial firefighting gets congressional support

A project being led by NASA could improve aerial firefighting operations, helping localities fight fires like the Quaker Run Fire that burned 4,000 acres of public, private and Shenandoah National Park land in Madison County last year.

“Firefighters from local departments, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and our federal agencies go to work each day to protect our neighbors, and they deserve our strongest support,” said Seventh District Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, who is backing the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations Act, legislation led by Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) and Jennifer McClellan (D-Va.) that aims to connect rural and wildland firefighters with additional tools to protect their communities from wildland fires.

The bill builds on NASA’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations project, launched in 2023, that has developed concepts and tested new technologies – like drones and other advanced aviation technologies – to improve aerial firefighting operations.

Currently, aerial firefighting operations using an aircraft are limited to daytime and low-smoke environments to prevent crashes. Drones could assist firefighters in delivering equipment to ground crews, improving communications, and remotely suppressing expansive wildland fires, which in Virginia, according to the Virginia Department of Forestry, burn an average of nearly 8,000 acres across the Commonwealth every year.

“This bipartisan legislation would leverage the advancements made by experts at NASA, better coordinate these first responders’ ability to monitor and suppress wildland fires, and support further innovation to help firefighters do their jobs,” Spanberger said.

Brian Gordon, the deputy county administrator in Madison County, said the county government there believes the ACERO Act “can better support wildland operations around the country.”

“Our area does not routinely see the extreme fire conditions that are observed in other parts of the country, but having added technology and resources can only strengthen our approach in mediating wildland fires when they occur,” Gordon said.