What is the name of the top-secret government project in "The Andromeda Strain"?

The top-secret government project in Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain is called Project Wildfire. It is a secure underground research facility and emergency protocol designed to contain an extraterrestrial microorganism.

In the novel, a military satellite returns to Earth carrying a deadly organism later code-named Andromeda. Nearly everyone in the nearby town of Piedmont, Arizona, dies, prompting the government to activate Wildfire. A team of scientists is sent to investigate the organism under extreme biological-containment procedures.

Wildfire is hidden beneath a legitimate agricultural research station near Flatrock, Nevada. The facility is arranged in underground levels, with laboratories, decontamination systems, automated defenses, and a nuclear self-destruct mechanism. The weapon is intended to destroy the organism if containment fails, but the scientists discover that Andromeda may actually benefit from nuclear energy.

The name is sometimes shortened in discussion to “Wildfire,” but the project’s full name is Project Wildfire. The 1971 film adaptation also uses the name, making it one of the story’s most recognizable pieces of fictional government infrastructure.