On April 7, 2026, NOAA released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Wildfire Imagery Pilot to be conducted under its National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Services (NESDIS) Commercial Data Program (CDP). Industry proposals are due on April 30, 2026. Details are available here, SAM.gov.
The NOAA NESDIS CDP is seeking multispectral imagery, including infrared data, from commercial vendors to potentially augment NOAA’s remote sensing fire detection and monitoring capabilities. This data will complement and augment NOAA’s wildfire detection, monitoring, and mapping activities and products, and help generate fire detection and characterization intelligence to support time-critical decision-making.
NESDIS CDP will assess the quality and impact of the commercially available multispectral imagery on modernizing fire warnings and will assess infrared-based fire detection performance compared to NOAA’s Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instruments. Successful studies subsequently may lead to sustained commercial data purchases of this type of data to supplement the government backbone supporting NOAA’s operational services.
NESDIS CDP assesses and acquires space-based observational weather data from the private sector to improve NOAA’s weather forecasts and explore ways to meet mission requirements more efficiently. The program consists of two lines of effort:
- Commercial Data Pilots, which demonstrate the quality and impact of commercial data on NOAA forecast models; and
- Commercial Data Purchases, which support operational weather forecasting.
NESDIS’s authority to manage CDP is pursuant to the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-25) and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law 118-42).