Pentagon Threatening to Abandon FireGuard

Renew that program!:

Since 2019, the nascent FireGuard program has relied on temporary permission from the Pentagon to review classified data collected from a variety of government sources, including U.S. military satellites that search the skies for enemy missiles.

...The latest authorization expires Sept. 30, and the Pentagon hasn’t acted on a pending one-year renewal request, or on a separate request from California lawmakers to make the pilot program permanent.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), 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.

...“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.”

FireGuard pulls data from government and military-operated satellites, as well as from drones and on-the-ground sensors and cameras. Images are altered to ensure that the military’s classified capabilities are not revealed as they are shared with the California National Guard, which has a team of intelligence analysts to sift through the information. They are on call 24/7 during wildfire season in California, alerting incident commanders on the fire lines to new developments.

The program began in California with the goal of providing a detailed view of wildfires, updated frequently enough — every 15 minutes — to be almost in real time. The COVID-19 pandemic and catastrophic 2020 wildfire season quickly convinced the fire community of FireGuard’s value. It now operates out of California and Colorado, and shares information with firefighters throughout the nation.