House Passes ACERO Act Unanimously, Sending Drone Wildfire Bill to Senate

The U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 390, the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) Act, by a unanimous vote on February 24, 2026, sending the bipartisan wildfire drone bill to the Senate. Sponsored by Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA-20) and co-led by Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-VA-4), the legislation directs NASA to expand its existing ACERO project at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California’s 20th District — developing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) capable of operating in the heavy smoke and low-visibility conditions that regularly ground manned aircraft during active fires. The full press release is available on Congressman Fong’s website.

The vote was unanimous. Not a single “no.” In a House where agreement on almost anything is rare, that tells you something about both the need and the politics.

What the ACERO Act Actually Does

H.R. 390 gives statutory authority to NASA’s ACERO project, which has been running as a research effort without dedicated legislative backing. The bill directs NASA to tackle the specific problem of airspace deconfliction during wildfires: when a fire is actively burning, helicopters, fixed-wing tankers, and drones all share the same smoke-choked airspace, often with limited communication between them. Crashes happen. Aircraft get grounded. The fire grows.

The bill requires NASA to build a multiagency concept of operations — a shared framework that lets federal, state, and local agencies coordinate aerial assets in real time. That includes a situational awareness platform showing all aerial assets in the fire zone simultaneously. Annual progress reports to Congress run through 2030, creating accountability that standalone research projects rarely face.

DroneXL covered the NASA ACERO project’s Portable Airspace Management System (PAMS) testing in November 2024, when researchers from NASA’s Ames Research Center evaluated the suitcase-sized units at Monterey Bay Academy Airport. Each PAMS unit combines an airspace management computer, a communications radio, and an ADS-B receiver. The system shares aircraft locations and flight plans across a fire zone — a hardware solution to a coordination problem that has existed for decades.

The China Procurement Ban Changes the Calculus

One provision in H.R. 390 carries weight well beyond wildfire operations. The bill prohibits NASA from procuring drones for the ACERO program from foreign adversaries, explicitly including entities domiciled in or controlled by China. That language is a direct shot at DJI, which dominates the professional UAS market globally and currently has no approved path to federal procurement under existing restrictions.

The practical effect: whatever drone platforms NASA selects for ACERO demonstrations and eventual deployment must come from U.S. or allied manufacturers. That opens doors for companies like Freefly Systems, Joby Aviation (which tested PAMS integration with its optionally piloted aircraft in 2025), and others building platforms capable of extended wildfire operations. We covered how Freefly’s Alta X has already proven itself in active wildfire deployments, dropping ignition spheres in California’s Green Fire last summer.

Industry and State Aviation Officials Back the Bill

Support for H.R. 390 went well beyond the bill’s sponsors. Paul Petersen, Executive Director of the United Aerial Firefighters Association, stated that H.R. 390 directly addresses what pilots face when manned and unmanned assets work together. Kern County Fire Chief Aaron Duncan noted that his department has invested in UAS capabilities because technology demonstrably improves situational awareness and firefighter safety. Kenji Sugahara, Director of the Oregon Department of Aviation, called the bill’s unanimous passage an important step toward improving safety and coordination in wildfire operations nationwide.

That coalition — state aviation officials, aerial firefighting associations, and county fire departments — matters for the Senate. These are not tech lobbyists. They are people who run aircraft over active fires and have opinions about what kills their pilots.

The broader trend is clear. The U.S. Forest Service went from roughly 700 drone flights in 2019 to 17,000 in 2024, as DroneXL reported in September 2025. ACERO is the legislative structure that catches up to the operational reality already happening on the ground.

The ACERO Act was not introduced from scratch in 2025. Rep. McClellan and former Rep. Mike Garcia introduced an earlier version in the 118th Congress, and that version passed the House as part of the NASA Reauthorization Act of 2024 on September 23, 2024. Fong and McClellan reintroduced the standalone bill on January 14, 2025, responding to the Los Angeles wildfires burning at the time.

DroneXL’s Take

Every wildfire season, the same failure mode plays out: a civilian drone enters restricted airspace, all aerial firefighting operations halt, and the fire gets bigger. We covered the 21 unauthorized drone incursions reported by the National Interagency Fire Center just in the 2024 season. The irony is that the solution to reckless civilian drones over fires is more professional drone integration — not less. ACERO is that integration, built on a legislative foundation that forces accountability through annual Congressional reports rather than leaving it to agency discretion.

I’ve watched the ACERO project’s trajectory since our June 2024 coverage of NASA’s groundbreaking drone wildfire project. The technology is real. The PAMS hardware works. The Joby Aviation integration tests worked. What has been missing is the statutory authority that converts a research project into a program with teeth and a budget. H.R. 390 provides that.

The Senate passes this by summer 2026. The unanimous House vote, the broad coalition of first responder organizations, and the politically painless framing — American technology, China procurement ban, firefighter safety — give Senate leadership no reason to sit on it. Watch for it to move as part of a broader aviation or emergency management package rather than as a standalone floor vote.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.