Fire Science Innovations through Research and Education | PD 25 345Y

Opportunity Information: Apply for PD 25 345Y

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Fire Science Innovations through Research and Education (FIRE) program is a discretionary grant opportunity designed to push wildland fire science beyond today s limits by funding bold, coordinated research and education efforts. The central idea is that wildland fire is becoming more complex and interconnected with climate, ecosystems, communities, infrastructure, and governance than our current tools and frameworks can handle. FIRE is meant to support a new, proactive and scalable approach that treats fire as a coupled system spanning biological, geoscientific, engineering, and social processes, with the goal of generating cross cutting breakthroughs that improve understanding, prediction, and resilience in a rapidly changing world.

FIRE is explicitly multidisciplinary and multisector. NSF is looking for teams that do not stay inside a single discipline or institution, but instead bring together combinations of academics, educators, scientists, students, industry partners, practitioners, resource managers, community members, and Tribal representatives. Projects should be built around convergent research and education activities, meaning the work is integrated across fields and aimed at solving complex real world problems rather than producing isolated results. All areas of science, engineering, and education that NSF supports are considered in scope, so proposals can draw from a wide range of methods and perspectives as long as they clearly advance wildland fire science and related education.

Competitive proposals are expected to show strength in one or more priority directions. These include advancing how wildfire relevant data are collected, stored, and shared (including Earth observation data); developing new modeling and computational approaches (including AI and machine learning) to better represent fire behavior and smoke; improving understanding of cross scale interactions from local to global fire dynamics; producing new insights into community adaptation and governance; reducing vulnerability of built infrastructure, fuels, and social systems; and meaningfully engaging stakeholders so the science supports forward looking decision making. NSF will manage the merit review process in consultation with partner organizations, and proposals and unattributed reviews may be shared with those partners as appropriate, which signals that the program is coordinated across agencies or operational stakeholders even though NSF runs the review.

The opportunity supports two main proposal types: research proposals and conference (network) proposals. Research proposals generally fund the development of new knowledge, methods, technologies, and educational components, while conference or network proposals focus on building and organizing communities of practice, aligning datasets and standards, and creating durable collaborations that can tackle gaps too large for a single group.

FIRE is organized around three focus areas. Focus Area 1, Next Generation Coupled Fire Models (FIRE-MODEL), targets major improvements in predictive fire and smoke modeling. The program emphasizes that current models carry large uncertainties and struggle to capture key dynamics across space and time, especially the coupling between weather and fire that can drive extreme events. Proposed work in this area is encouraged to combine experiments (from lab to landscape), theory, and advanced computation alongside strong data management and analytics. Key themes include developing innovative algorithms and models that work across disparate spatiotemporal scales; systematically quantifying uncertainty and conducting rigorous verification and validation; improving models using measurable parameters that span the range of factors controlling fire while also addressing missing data; incorporating processes operating on both fast and slow timescales to support ideas like predictive fire ecology and future fire regime exploration; and using new mathematical, statistical, and use inspired approaches such as surrogate models and digital twins to speed experimentation and improve inference under uncertainty. The intended payoff is practical and wide ranging, including better integration of satellite and other Earth observations, improved planning for prescribed burns, more effective training and decision support, timelier warnings, and better allocation of limited personnel and equipment.

Focus Area 2, Enhancing Capacity for Fire Resilience in the Wildland Urban Interface (FIRE-WUI), concentrates on the zone where communities and infrastructure meet flammable vegetation, often the highest consequence setting for wildfire impacts. This area calls for convergent research that connects fire behavior with the realities of risk management, response, recovery, and long term adaptation, taking into account global change pressures like demographics, land use, and development patterns. Examples of supported topics include research on community adaptation and governance; studies of public perception, communication, decision making, and impacts on livelihoods and cultural heritage; analysis of socioeconomic disparities and the uneven burdens wildfire places on remote and rural communities; testing and modeling how structures, building components, and infrastructure systems behave under wildfire exposure; development of new materials, retrofits, and remediation techniques for buildings affected by fire and smoke; and creation of robust risk scenarios and algorithms that evaluate cascading failures and community scale vulnerability. The overall aim is to generate knowledge and tools that help communities reduce loss, improve resilience, and make better informed choices about living with fire.

Focus Area 3, FIRE Networks (FIRE-NET), funds conference style and networking projects that build new collaborative teams and shared strategies for addressing major gaps in wildland fire research and education. These proposals are geared toward coordination across disciplines, organizations, geographies, and in some cases international boundaries, with an emphasis on exchanging knowledge among groups that do not typically work together. FIRE-NET activities can include leveraging and aligning existing datasets, developing new data resources, and setting community standards for data and metadata management; building mechanisms for sharing information and ideas, including integrating disparate data streams such as Earth observations; using novel networking and collaborative training approaches to coordinate across fields and knowledge holders; and accelerating workforce development by creating pathways for sustained collaboration. NSF encourages both small and large scale convenings, especially those that intentionally assemble a highly functioning team spanning scientists, government and operational partners, resource managers, and community participants.

Key administrative details in the listing include the opportunity title Fire Science Innovations through Research and Education, funding opportunity number PD 25 345Y, agency National Science Foundation, and an original closing date of 2025 06 20. Eligible applicants are listed as unrestricted, and the opportunity falls under the science and technology and other research and development activity category, with multiple NSF CFDA numbers associated with the program (47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.074, 47.075, 47.076, 47.079, 47.083, 47.084). Award ceiling and expected awards are not specified in the provided source data, which usually means applicants should rely on the full solicitation for budget guidance, project sizes, and any limits tied to specific tracks.

Overall, FIRE is positioned as an ambitious NSF program for teams that can connect fundamental discovery with practical relevance, build shared data and modeling foundations, and integrate education and workforce development, all while treating wildland fire as a deeply coupled natural human system that requires new frameworks to understand and manage.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Fire Science Innovations through Research and Education" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.074, 47.075, 47.076, 47.079, 47.083, 47.084.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-03-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-06-20. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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