FireGuard, a pilot program that uses military satellite information to tackle California's wildfires, faces expiration in September.
When a brush fire trapped more than 100 hikers and campers last year in the Sierra National Forest, California firefighters needed to know precisely where the blaze was — and they needed to know fast.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff , who is leading the effort on Capitol Hill to save the program, said Pentagon officials are skeptical about extending — or making permanent — a program they view as outside the scope of their mission.a December letter urging Defense Department officials to make FireGuard permanent
“It’s important for situational awareness, for the alert of a new and emerging fire, as well as the ongoing assessment of fires,” SeLegue said. “Right now we utilize this on an hourly basis.” Triplett said a Pentagon official who has been in touch with his team was “pretty confident” approval would be granted for one more year of access. But permanent access to the data is more complicated.
But there is no feasible alternative to replace the program as it operates today, according to SeLegue. Hiring a private company to build a platform to collect this data and comb through it would likely be much more expensive, he said. FireGuard currently costs the U.S. Forest Service about $4.2 million annually, according to the agency.
“Their mission is national defense, and when you start asking things of the military that’s not national defense, they rightly ask whether or not they’re the right people to deal with that situation,” he said.
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