[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL FIRE PLAN
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND
FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
July 31, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-56
__________
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COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia, Ranking Democrat Member
Don Young, Alaska, George Miller, California
Vice Chairman Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
W.J. ``Billy'' Tauzin, Louisiana Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
Jim Saxton, New Jersey Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Elton Gallegly, California Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Samoa
Joel Hefley, Colorado Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii
Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas
Ken Calvert, California Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey
Scott McInnis, Colorado Calvin M. Dooley, California
Richard W. Pombo, California Robert A. Underwood, Guam
Barbara Cubin, Wyoming Adam Smith, Washington
George Radanovich, California Donna M. Christensen, Virgin
Walter B. Jones, Jr., North Islands
Carolina Ron Kind, Wisconsin
Mac Thornberry, Texas Jay Inslee, Washington
Chris Cannon, Utah Grace F. Napolitano, California
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania Tom Udall, New Mexico
Bob Schaffer, Colorado Mark Udall, Colorado
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Mark E. Souder, Indiana James P. McGovern, Massachusetts
Greg Walden, Oregon Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Hilda L. Solis, California
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Brad Carson, Oklahoma
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Betty McCollum, Minnesota
C.L. ``Butch'' Otter, Idaho
Tom Osborne, Nebraska
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Dennis R. Rehberg, Montana
Allen D. Freemyer, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
James H. Zoia, Democrat Staff Director
Jeff Petrich, Democrat Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
SCOTT McINNIS, Colorado, Chairman
JAY INSLEE, Washington, Ranking Democrat Member
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee Dale E. Kildee, Michigan
John E. Peterson, Pennsylvania, Tom Udall, New Mexico
Vice Chairman Mark Udall, Colorado
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Rush D. Holt, New Jersey
Michael K. Simpson, Idaho Anibal Acevedo-Vila, Puerto Rico
Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado Betty McCollum, Minnesota
J.D. Hayworth, Arizona
C.L. ``Butch'' Otter, Idaho
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C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 31, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Duncan, Hon. John J. Jr., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Tennessee..................................... 6
Hayworth, Hon. J.D., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona........................................... 7
Inslee, Hon. Jay, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Washington.............................................. 4
McInnis, Hon. Scott, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
McCollum, Hon. Betty, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota......................................... 7
Walden, Hon. Greg, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 8
Prepared statement of.................................... 10
Statement of Witnesses:
Bosworth, Dale, Chief, Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture................................................ 12
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Hartzell, Tim, Director, Office of Wildland Fire
Coordination, U.S. Department of the Interior.............. 20
Prepared statement of.................................... 23
Hill, Barry T., Director, Natural Resources and Environment,
U.S. General Accounting Office............................. 44
Prepared statement of.................................... 47
Lewis, Robert, Ph.D., Deputy Chief, Research and Development,
Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture............. 56
Prepared statement of.................................... 57
Wakimoto, Ronald H., Ph.D., Professor of Forestry, School of
Forestry, University of Montana............................ 61
Prepared statement of.................................... 62
Additional materials supplied:
Sexton, John, President, Ecoenergy Systems, Inc., Statement
submitted for the record................................... 74
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL FIRE PLAN
----------
Tuesday, July 31, 2001
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:02 p.m., in
Room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Scott McInnis
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SCOTT McINNIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. McInnis. The Forest and Forest Health Committee will
come to order.
First of all, as Chairman, and speaking for the ranking
member, we welcome all of our guests. We appreciate, Chief,
that you were able to come over here today. I know your time is
valuable, but we think that your input is also very
significant.
Also, I would like to kind of lay the ground rules for
those that are new to the Committee. I intend to make opening
remarks. I then will yield to the ranking member for opening
remarks. Neither of those remarks are limited by time. However,
we then kick into a time limit in order that we can allow all
of our panels to have a fair opportunity to have their
viewpoint or their input heard. So, in that regard, because,
Chief, I understand that Mr. Laverty--and by the way, welcome,
Mr. Laverty. I have a long-running, excellent relationship with
you--Chief, I am going to allow you 10 minutes for testimony
and, Mr. Hartzell, I am going to allow you 10 minutes for
testimony. I am going to allow the General Accounting Office 10
minutes for testimony. All other witnesses will be limited to 5
minutes.
And again, also, the members will each be given 5 minutes
for their respective opening statements, although traditionally
the members submit their opening statements.
So, with that, before I turn it over to Mr. Inslee, who is
the ranking member, for opening remarks, I would like to make a
few of my own.
The purpose of this hearing today has a couple of
significant points. First of all, I think it is very important
to listen and to understand exactly what the General Accounting
Office is telling us. We know, those of us who have lived out
in the West, and those of you who live elsewhere, but have
experienced a forest fire, how quickly they can become a
devastating catastrophe. We also know that the potential for
these kind of things are only a lightning strike away.
As a result of that, it is incumbent, it is incumbent upon
us, as servants of the people, to be prepared to move
immediately in an emergency situation to quell the threat or to
minimize the threat. It is also incumbent upon us, in my
opinion, not to wait for the 911 call, but to do the necessary
things, such as coordination of emergency teams, communications
between agencies, discussions and implementation of forest fuel
cleanup, et cetera, et cetera, prior to the lightning strike
occurring.
I am not confident that any of this has taken place to the
kind of degree that we need. That said, I do want to compliment
the Chief, I want to compliment Lyle, Tim. This is something
you have inherited, and you have got to, unfortunately, you are
not going to be able to take this at a normal pace. You have
got to take this as a high priority, especially in light of the
recent tragedy that we experienced in the West.
Let me say that I am trying to figure out, from my
viewpoint, what can I do constructively to assist you. When we
come to a fire, as many of you know, but for our guests in the
audience, out in the West, we have got the U.S. Park Service,
we have got U.S. Fish and Wildlife, we have got the U.S. Forest
Service, we have got the Bureau of Land Management. We then
have private property people, and some of these large ownership
tracts have their own fire trucks. We have local Fire
Departments, we have State Forest Service Fire Departments.
Coordination is absolutely critical because of the mass of
people that is necessary to fight one of these fires.
It is amazing, if you have never been to a fire, one of
these, to see what we have to set up just for accounting
purposes. We have to set up our kitchens that are necessary. We
have to set up a clothing store so we can issue uniforms. I
mean, we have to set up a miniature city. That does not get
done in a time-efficient manner if we do not have the best of
coordination and the best of communication.
So my thought was, well, maybe we need a Fire Czar. Maybe
we need a czar that is above the agencies, for the purpose of
coordination and communication. It is like a computer jam. We
need somebody to flow the traffic, to get that through that
fiber optic line, so that it is distributed to the necessary
parties, so that response to the 911 call can be immediate.
Now, those are my opening remarks in regards to the
Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McInnis follows:]
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SCOTT MCINNIS, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON
FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
This Subcommittee has spent more time working on the issues
surrounding wildland fire than on any other subject. This is
appropriate. There is no other federal forest issue that results in
more public spending, more damage to forests or more hardship for
people. Anyone who has been surprised by the size and severity of
forest fires during the last few years has either ignored the issue or
has been in denial, and there is no question that denial ran deep in
the previous Administration. Since the late nineteen-eighties,
commission after commission, report after report, all called for a
dramatic and improved response to this explosive situation. Even in the
face of these dire warnings, a business-as-usual approach dominated the
previous Administration's behavior for the better part of eight years,
until the impacts of their negligence became undeniable and unbearable
during last years disastrous fire season.
Fortunately, since then, the issue has been infused with a new
vigor in terms of greatly increased funding, and new direction in the
form of a National Fire Plan. But the years of negligence have created
an institutional momentum that won't be easy to curb. While some
aspects of the fire plan are being effectively implemented, others are
not. The GAO is going to testify that there are some crucial issues
that have yet to be adequately addressed. The timing of their comments
could not be better. Since this Administration is still in the process
of staffing key positions and establishing new policies, it can use the
GAO's remarks to help organize its basic strategies for implementation
of the National Fire Plan. This also ties in well with the
Administration's current collaborative efforts with the Western
Governors'' Association to develop a ten year comprehensive strategy.
To help ensure that these efforts move forward in an efficient,
coordinated manner, I recently proposed that the position of ``Fire
Czar,'' or its equivalent, be created to oversee all federal wildland
fire operations. A position such as this would help give the issue the
attention, direction and emphasis it deserves, and would be a unifying
force between Departments and a catalyst for inter-agency cooperation.
These objectives may be accomplished by other means than by the
appointment of a ``Fire Czar''; what is most important is that the
objectives are met.
Even though we have a long road ahead of us, I believe, for the
first time, that we have broad understanding and recognition of the
problem, a critical mass of support, the financial means and the
collective will to begin a decades long battle to protect our nation's
forests and adjacent communities from the indiscriminate ravages of
catastrophic wildfires. Hopefully, this hearing will help us to
continue to move these efforts forward in a positive manner.
______
Mr. McInnis. I have some very disturbing news that I now
want to discuss, and, Chief, we are in the process of
confirming this right now. So I am not trying to blind-side
you, and at this point, it is strictly an allegation, and I
would caution everybody in the Committee room, at this point it
is strictly an allegation. However, I should note that if, in
fact, it moves from the allegation stage to the fact stage, it
is verified, it will bring about, in my opinion, serious
consequences. And, Chief, I would hope that you would be back
here so that we can see this never happens again. And let me
tell you exactly what I am talking about.
I received information that has been confirmed through
confidential sources, as well, this party claims, has other
public sources and has also received confirmation from the
Forest Service itself. This regards the fire that took four
lives 2 weeks ago. Apparently, according to these allegations,
a water drop which was requested in an emergency--an emergency
request for a water drop to assist those firefighters was
delayed for a minimum of 2 hours due to the Endangered Species
Act, and the lack of coordination or communication somewhere up
the line, afraid to issue that order in fear of violating the
Endangered Species Act without some kind of task force
confirmation that, in fact, the helicopter could go in, dip a
bucket into the river and take water out of a river that had
endangered species.
Let me give you the time line. Again, this is all
allegation at this point, but I think we will be able to have
verification shortly. Here is the time line that has been given
to me:
At 5:30 in the morning, Hotshots have fire contained and
ask for helicopter support to douse the fire. Dispatch tells
the crew boss in the field a helicopter will not be available
until 10 o'clock that morning, when the pilots arrive.
9:08, the Hotshot crew is replaced by a Type II crew for a
``mop-up'' of the 30-mile fire. Gee, that is 9:08.
At 10:22 a.m., the Type II crew begins work.
At 12:08, Type II crew calls into dispatch asking about
delay of 10 o'clock scheduled helicopter drop. Dispatch tells
crew boss in field helicopters it cannot be used because of
three species of endangered fish in, I think the Chiwawa River.
Bull trout and fingerlings may be scooped up in the helicopter
dipper, the bucket that the helicopter uses.
At 1:15 p.m., single-engine tanker drop is requested by
crew boss.
At 2 o'clock, fisheries' biologists, fire management
supervisor and a forest ranger for the Methow Valley finish a
consultation and review and approve an exemption from the pact
fish policy that governs forest. Helicopter is permitted to
remove water from river.
2:17, helicopter en route.
2:38, helicopter bucket or dipper is being attached.
3 o'clock, approximately, we think one bucket of water,
first water was dropped.
At 3:58, the fire exploded.
4:17, air tankers diverted. Thirty Mile Fire too dangerous.
Crew runs for safety, deploys survival tents.
5:25, four firefighters pronounced dead.
It appears that there was inaction until 10 o'clock that
morning. It appears there may have been a delay from 12 o'clock
to 3 o'clock, due to the Endangered Species Act, as far as
resources focused on the fire, and it is also possible that
there was a delay from 10 o'clock to noon, as far as putting
the helicopter out also because of the Endangered Species Act.
As I am sure all of you understand, I am very, very
concerned and want to know, and, Chief, you can help us, we
need to find out if there was a delay in putting resources on
that fire because of the Endangered Species Act. One of the
questions that I would like you to address is at what level in
the field somebody can make a determination because there is a
threat of life to override any of these jurisdictions and put
whatever resources are necessary to save those people.
So, with that, I will turn it over to the Ranking Member,
Mr. Inslee.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAY INSLEE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a few
brief comments.
First off, I want to express what I am sure something
everyone in the country feels, which is a sense of honor of the
families who sent their sons and daughters into the paths of
danger in these forests. And the reason I say that that is a
sense that we share nationally, sometimes we get into arguments
about who owns the national forests, who gets to make decisions
about national forests: Should it be the local communities?
Should it be the States? Should it be the entire Nation?
I just want to say that I think everyone in the Nation
ought to take a moment to tip their hats to the folks who deal
with our national forests and frequently put their lives on the
line, and the individuals who in very, very difficult
situations made decisions in very quick periods under intense
heat. And we should be just a little bit slow in the U.S.
Congress to be critical of folks in this regard, and I want to
tell you why.
When this tragedy happened, one of the immediate thoughts
that struck me was that it was very possible that the U.S.
Congress would leap to action to use this multiple tragedy to
sort of flail at whatever political message they want to drive
home. We are the owners or possessors of 435 different
messages, and I will resist strenuously the efforts to turn the
loss of life and health that these individuals gave into some
sort of whipping post to whip up particular positions on
ideological issues about anything.
Those who would use this to say the tax cut was wrong
because we don't fund the Forest Service adequately, and as a
consequence, people die, I don't want to hear those arguments.
Those who have ideological predispositions against the
Endangered Species Act, let us focus on the facts of this
particular incident, rather than our ideological
predispositions. I am going to look forward to a rational
discussion about the specifics of this incident.
In this regard, I would also suggest we have a couple
thoughts, as we go through this evaluation:
One, Chief, I hope that you now understand you sit in a
place of constant, ubiquitous and certain criticism. If you had
let this fire run totally and it had destroyed Eastern
Washington, you would have been soundly criticized. You will be
soundly criticized by folks, for a variety of reasons, in
regard to this fire. I hope you understand that goes with the
nature of the position. It is a tough position to be in. I
think you are in it.
Secondly, I hope that people don't mix issues here about
decisions in fire suppression. There are decisions that can be
driven by trying to preserve the ecosystem. There are decisions
that need to be driven by safety of our firefighters. I hope in
our discussion we will keep those separate. They are
interrelated, but let us make sure that we keep them separate
in our mind.
With that, I look forward to your testimony. Thank you very
much.
Mr. McInnis. Before we begin the testimony, as Chairman of
the Committee, let me advise the Committee you are free to
discuss anything you want, as far as your policy and your
philosophy is in regards to forest fires. I think philosophy
has a lot to play with what has occurred out there. I think the
fact is that sometimes our priorities get confused. Our purpose
here is not to criticize the Forest Service, but it is to make
constructive implementation. And certainly as elected
representatives of the people out there, we have an inherent
responsibility to be sure that what is supposedly going on has
some kind of measurability or some type of standard of
performance.
This Committee hearing is not being used as some kind of
political ploy, and I can assure the ranking member that if the
allegations that I just read are, in fact, move into the
factual status, this Committee is a very appropriate place to
have those kind of discussions. So I am going to allow the
Committee to have that freedom.
We will go through the Committee. Go ahead, Mr. Duncan, you
can make an opening remark.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JOHN J. DUNCAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
Mr. Duncan. I would like to make a brief opening statement.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this hearing.
I sat on this Subcommittee in early 1998, when we heard
several experts from the Government and outside the Government
who estimated that we had 39 million acres of forest land in
the West in imminent or immediate danger of catastrophic forest
fires. Then, we received that warning again in another
Subcommittee hearing on this same subject in early 2000. Those
warnings came true this past summer when some 7 million acres
burned, and the damage estimates ran as high as $10 billion.
Now, if I went out and burned 1 tree in one of the national
forests, I would be arrested and put in jail. But because of
the policies of the past administration, 7 million acres were
burned and $10 billion of damage was done because there are
extremists who don't want us to touch the national forests. And
I am told by staff that some 6 billion board feet of trees die
each year, and that--I don't know what the total would be for
all of the accumulated dead trees over the years, but we were
told by expert after expert that the primary reason that these
forest fires get out of control is, is because of all of these
billions, and billions, and billions of board feet of dead and
dying trees that have accumulated over the past few years on
the floor of the forest, and then it causes a fuel build-up,
and that is the primary reason that we have these huge forest
fires.
And what we have got to realize, at some point, is that we
have to have some common-sense management of our national
forests or you are going to continue to see huge catastrophic
forest fires with more loss of life and more tremendous
economic damage in the years ahead. I hope that someday people
will realize that you have to cut a few trees to have a healthy
forest.
And if the allegations that the Chairman has just talked
about, that four people lost their lives because of some
concern about the Endangered Species Act, and we couldn't get
water to them in time, that is one of the most serious
allegations I have ever heard, and it would be just horrible to
think that there are actually Members of Congress who are
putting endangered species ahead of human life in this country.
That, to me, would seem to be just almost criminal, one of the
craziest things probably that I have heard since I have been in
the Congress.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McInnis. Ms. McCollum?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE BETTY McCOLLUM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Ms. McCollum. Mr. Chairman, I look forward to this
Committee meeting, and the rhetoric is getting pretty hot in
here, and I think we need to step back and cool it down, and do
it quickly up here.
Mr. McInnis. Ms. McCollum, may I interrupt for just a
moment?
Ms. McCollum. Well, no, Mr. Chair--
Mr. McInnis. Ms. McCollum, I am the Chairman. I will
interrupt.
Ms. McCollum. I realize that.
Mr. McInnis. All I am going to do is ask you to speak into
the mike, so we can hear you. Now you may proceed.
Ms. McCollum. I am a little nervous, Mr. Chair, because I
just heard one of the members of this Committee, I have heard
both people, this is something that people have very strong
opinions about how we manage our forests. And then I have heard
the gentleman that just spoke, you know, basically, if I was to
say right now this minute that I support some of the things in
the Endangered Species Act, and I am sure it was not done with
deliberate malice or intent to make me feel this way, I would
be put at a level where I would not value human life, and I
think we need to lower the rhetoric and go on with the
Committee hearing.
I am very interested in representing the State of
Minnesota, where we have the Boundary Waters area, and we are
very concerned about it, and we are trying to work through the
process with the Forest Service.
So, Mr. Chair, I know you will do a great job conducting
the hearing, and it will be a good hearing.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you. And I might point out that I am
confident that no member in here is saying that the Endangered
Species Act should take priority over human life. The concern
here is at what point do we have the ability on the field to
overrule or override some type of policy in existence in
regards to endangered species or a road or whether you can use
this kind of helicopter or that kind. We experienced it on
Storm King Mountain. We experience it in most disasters that we
have had in our history. Our obligation is to make this as
clean a communication and as clear-cut as we can.
With that, Mr. Hayworth?
Mr. Hayworth. Mr. Chairman--
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Otter, do you have any remarks? I will go
in order.
Let me, Mr. Hayworth, I am sorry. The vice Chairman has
just stepped in. As protocol, I should recognize the vice
Chairman.
Mr. Peterson, do you have any remarks?
Mr. Peterson. No, I want to wait until we get into the
hearing. Thanks.
Mr. McInnis. Mr. Hayworth, my apologies. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE J.D. HAYWORTH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Mr. Hayworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This isn't pleasant. It isn't fun. It is not time for
gamesmanship, but it is time for accountability, and we are
faced with decisions here that have consequences. And our role
in the Congress of the United States is to exercise effective
oversight, not only dealing with the mistakes of the past, but
how we can correct those mistakes.
Perhaps it is inevitable that politics intersect with
policy, but somehow to suggest that anyone would use the
tragedy of the death of these four firefighters or anywhere
else to try and score debating points I think is very
unfortunate. It is captivatingly clever to try to define the
field in a political manner and then say, ``But we are going to
step away from that.''
What we do need to focus on is a policy that strikes a
balance that leads to clear-cut accountability. And in the
words of a candidate who was successful in his pursuit of the
presidency in 1992, he entitled his plans for the future,
``Putting people first.''
So, far from the roar of the greasepaint, and the smell of
the crowd and accusations or imagined prepositioning on debate
policy, we have a clear mission here today, Mr. Chairman.
Something is wrong. We can't bring back those who have
perished. We should do more than tip our hats rhetorically. The
best tribute we can provide to those families, for whom the
solace of words holds little recompense, is to determine an
effective, common-sense coordinated policy that puts people
first while respecting our environment.
I look forward to the testimony today.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Hayworth.
I am going to ask for unanimous consent. Mr. Walden has
requested that he sit at the dais. I think you are ready to go.
Are you ready? So I would ask for unanimous consent to allow
him to sit at the dais. I would ask that we do that.
Furthermore, I think he has a couple of posters. The reason
that I have asked Mr. Walden to attend, and he has also
requested to attend, is obviously his district is a victim of
these kind of fires. He has got a massive district in the State
of Oregon. I think he is one of the leading experts in the
House on fires, forest fuel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
So I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Walden be allowed to join
us and allowed testimony.
Seeing no objections, so ordered.
Mr. Walden, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Indeed, 56
percent of the district I represent in Eastern Oregon is
controlled by the Federal Government. It includes 12 of our
Nation's forests, 12 national forests in that district. I will
have a full statement that I will submit for the record and try
and condense my comments here, but I think the photos that we
are going to show you speak louder than any words I could give
you.
What you will see here is the difference between treated
and untreated--fire that has gone through treated and fire that
has gone through untreated. The first picture that we will hold
up just a little higher here on the left is the Deschutes
National Forest, and it is called the Newbury fire. This is the
untreated lodgepole, and ponderosa, and underbrush that existed
in that forest. The interesting thing about this fire, which I
toured after it was out last summer, is that they are in the
process of doing, of treating these stands. And so you have a
real opportunity to view firsthand a fire that has gone through
both treated and untreated lands on our Federal forests. This
is the untreated.
The result to the right, now, if we could hold that one up
a little bit higher, is lands like this that were pictured on
the left untreated after the fire has gone through. And what
the Forest Service folks told me is most of the small, skinny
trees there are lodgepole pine. The bigger ones are ponderosa.
And in this example, first of all, the soil has been completely
destroyed and will be like that for some time to come. The
lodgepole pine is very susceptible to fire, and most all of
that will have died. And some, if not all, but some, quite a
bit of the ponderosa pine trees, which usually are fairly
resistant to fire, but when it gets this hot, some of those
will die as well.
Now, if we could go to the other set of pictures here, Mr.
Chairman. We will first hold up a photo of the treated areas.
This is after treatment on the same forest. As you can see, the
underbrush has been removed. The smaller trees have been taken
out. It has been treated by the Forest Service, part of the
treatment program.
Now, let us hold up how that looked after the same fire
that went through this area. I think you will see a dramatic
difference. Ponderosa pine, while charred, still alive. And
they told me that a lot of the lodgepole pine through there
would probably survive as well.
The question I ask the Committee is which do you want for
your forests? Which do you want? Do you want the charred
variety on the right or the one that will sustain an ecosystem
and come back to life much sooner? Obviously, we all want the
one on the left. And I think that is the key about this
hearing, in part, is how do we get more of what is on the left
here, in terms of treatment in our national forest, so that we
have less of what is on the right with the destruction of our
national forests?
Think of it as your backyard. If this was your backyard,
which one would you want? How would you proceed? And one of the
problems you have is, then when you have a fire that comes
through, as we see here on the right, it can take 3 or 4 years
to work through the process to get in and do anything to treat
those lands, and I can show you the Tower fire in Central
Oregon, where that was clearly the case.
There is another example, which I don't have the photo
right here right now, but in Wallowa County, extreme
Northeastern end of my district, in 1990, the Canal fire
devastated 18,000 acres of Federal lands, making the soil
acutely hydrophobic. To this very day, a tremendous amount of
sediment is washed into nearby streams each time a significant
rain event moves through the area. We worry a lot out there and
put a lot of money into restoring fish habitat and trying to
deal with water quality and quantity. In this case, a fire in
an untreated area has resulted in I believe it is upwards of 30
miles of fish habitat that is victim to, and I should point out
that is ash, not snow, that you see there, and that rushes
through these streams for many years to come.
So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the hearing that you--is
that the picture of the Canal fire? Okay. Yes. This will give
you an example of what is left. We talk about setbacks from
stream sides, but look at what happens here when you get a
catastrophic fire. That is your stream now, and it is a mess.
And it is why some of us feel so passionately about this issue
and about the need to be able to get in and not only improve
the forest health, but also, clearly, to be able to have the
tools to fight a conflagration when it does start because these
aren't the forests of 100 years ago because we have suppressed
fire for 100 years. We now have the overgrown forests of today.
So, when we do get a fire, people's lives, homes, and the
environment are extraordinarily at risk.
So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to sit on
the dais. I appreciate the courtesy of the Committee to do that
and your attention to this very, very serious problem facing
the West.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for affording me the
opportunity to sit on this subcommittee today. I'd also like to commend
you for holding this important oversight hearing on the progress of
implementing fuel hazard reduction projects prescribed under the
National Fire Plan. As a member who represents a district that is
nearly 56% federally owned and has all or part of 12 national forests,
this is an issue that is vital to both me and the communities that I
represent.
Mr. Chairman, from the Wallowa-Whitman and Malheur National Forests
in eastern Oregon to the Fremont National Forest in south central
Oregon, the 2nd Congressional District is home to 12 national forests,
in addition to substantial holdings of state and private forest lands.
Unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, due to years of poor land management
policy by the federal government, many of the forests in my district
have become overcrowded and thus ripe for a cataclysmic blowup similar
to those that occurred in Idaho and Montana last year and that we just
witnessed last week in Wyoming. I can't emphasize enough how important
it is for us to proceed with the fuel reduction projects made possible
by the National Fire Plan. Mr. Chairman, I saw firsthand the different
ecological effects a fire has on areas of forest that have undergone a
mechanical treatment versus those that have not when I took a tour of
areas in the Deschutes National Forest affected by the Newberry Fire of
August, 2000.
Since pictures speak louder than words, I would like to show the
subcommittee some pictures taken of the forest within the Newberry fire
area before and after this fire had run its course.
In the first picture you'll notice an area of the
Deschutes National Forest that has become severely overgrown, which is
regrettably common in the forests of Eastern Oregon and Eastern
Washington. Absent any mechanical treatment, the ponderosa pine, like
the picture illustrates, gets choked with young trees, competing
species and a lot of dead debris creating a flammable understory that
is so shaded that seedlings can't grow. If a fire were to occur, the
accumulated fuels could explode into an inferno.
That's exactly what we see in this second illustration
where a fire has raged through this area of the Deschutes killing the
ponderosa. The fire has burned so long and hot that it has killed
animals and underground roots, and the superheated soil no longer
absorbs rain, causing erosion.
Let's compare that devastation with an area of the
Deschutes National Forest that has been mechanically treated. As you
can see, due to this treatment a healthy ponderosa pine forest has
developed consisting of widely spaced trees and brush. The forest floor
contains only modest amounts of dead fuel and wood. If a fire were to
travel through this area, it would kill only a few large trees while
cleansing the understory of debris.
And as this final picture illustrates, such a
mechanically treated forest can recover from a fire of this type
because the fast-paced fire doesn't superheat the soil, thereby letting
animals and underground roots survive.
Although maintaining a healthy forest is our primary goal in
performing mechanical treatments on our national forests, we can't
overlook the ancillary effects that these treatments have on watershed
health. My friends in the environmental community often forget how
sediment runoff from a devastated area of forest made hydrophobic by a
severe burn can affect a nearby watershed. Such a situation exists in
Wallowa County, located in the extreme northeast corner of my district.
In 1990 the Canal Fire devastated approximately 18,000 acres of forest-
land making the soil acutely hydrophobic. To this very day, a
tremendous amount of sediment is washed into nearby streams each time a
significant rain event moves through the area. This erosion not only
delays the successful rehabilitation of the forest, but it has a
detrimental effect on the recovery of listed species of fish.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to close my remarks by briefly commenting on
the potential effects that mechanical treatments have for biomass
cogeneration not only in my district and throughout my state, but in
many other areas of the country as well. Disposing of the biomass that
stockpiles on these lands from overcrowded and dying timber stands,
timber sales that actually materialize, and thinning projects is not
only environmentally sound, but represents a valuable resource if used
properly. Converting forest biomass to energy is a beneficial source of
renewable energy production--particularly during our national energy
crunch. Furthermore, it can provide at least a slight economic boost in
many of our struggling rural communities that were once able to rely on
consistent employment and revenue from well-managed timber sales. Many
of the communities in my district continue to suffer from the decline
of timber sales on state and federal lands. Providing incentives for
biomass cogeneration through fuel hazard reduction would provide a
welcome economic boost to many communities in Oregon, while benefitting
the environment by simultaneously reducing the chance of severe
wildfires.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance of my time.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Walden.
We are now going to move on to our panel. Our first witness
on Panel I is the Chief of the Forest Service, Mr. Bosworth,
who I think has been on the job for 8 weeks. Coming in on the
job in the beginning of the fire season is like taking over
command of a ship in combat. You have got a tough deal, and I
know that you haven't been on the job very long.
Also, we will have Mr. Hartzell. We are going to ask that
you limit your testimony to 10 minutes each which, by the way,
is twice what we traditionally allow our witnesses.
Chief, I would appreciate if you would have somebody on
your staff, I think it would be beneficial to the entire
Committee if you would have somebody send to us written
communication that outlines exactly what the command structure
is at the scene of a fire that is just on Forest Service
property, at the scene of a fire that involves multiple
agencies, which would include private property or local
municipalities, and I think it will help us understand a little
better what happens when you arrive at that scene from the 911
call or whatever call is made, how that all comes together and
how a fire community is built to resolve that.
Furthermore, I would appreciate, if you have some comments
in regards to the allegations that I have repeated earlier.
Also, I want to give you an opportunity, you have seen the
comments or have an idea of the comments of the General
Accounting Office, I appreciate any response you may have to
that.
Clearly, I would like to hear about the implementation of
the fire plan. Again, I compliment you. Lyle, I know you are
new on the job here. Tell us where we are. Tell us. And I think
we should be frank with each other. As the ranking member said,
this is what we want to achieve in this Committee. I agree with
him.
And then, finally, I know this is a lot of things, but I
would like to, maybe a Fire Czar is an idea you can throw up in
the air and discuss.
Anyway, Chief, with that in mind, you may proceed. Again,
we appreciate you coming today.
STATEMENT OF DALE BOSWORTH, CHIEF, USDA FOREST SERVICE;
ACCOMPANIED BY LYLE LAVERTY, USDA FOREST SERVICE
Mr. Bosworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear here today. I am looking forward to
talking about the National Fire Plan and the implementation of
the National Fire Plan.
I am accompanied here today by Lyle Laverty, who is the
Associate Deputy Chief, and he is also the National Fire Plan
Coordinator for the Forest Service, and also with me is Dr.
Robert Lewis, who is the Deputy Chief for Research and
Development, and Dr. Kevin Ryan, who is a Project Leader in
Fire Effects in our research station in Missoula, Montana. They
will testify on fire ecology on one of the other panels. So
they will answer questions about the science basis.
I would like to just summarize my testimony and enter the
entire piece into the record, if I can.
Let me start first by talking about the Thirty Mile Fire.
The Thirty Mile Fire occurred on the Okanogan National Forest.
Four young firefighters, as you know, as you have been
referring to, their names are Tom Craven, Karen FitzPatrick,
Jessica Johnson, and Devin Weaver, lost their lives when they
got trapped in a narrow canyon on July 10th. Their deaths
occurred even though they deployed their fire shelters.
Fortunately, there were 10 other people that deployed their
shelters and were saved. And there were two civilians who
happened to be in the area that were also saved in a shelter
that they shared with one of the firefighters.
Four of the survivors and the two civilians had some
injuries. All, but one, of the injured were treated in a local
hospital and later released. One of the injured firefighters,
Jason Emhoff, received burns over 30 percent of his body, and
he is still at the Burn Center at the Harborview Medical Center
in Seattle.
Shortly after I heard about the incident, I went out to the
Okanogan National Forest, and I met with some of the injured
firefighters. I visited with Jason and his family at the Burn
Center. I just have to say that I really admire their courage.
They are just hugely courageous people, and they are going
through some, if I call it recovery, both emotionally and
physically.
I, also, met with some of the other firefighters while I
was there that were in the burn-over, and once again I was
really impressed with the professionalism of these brave men
and women that they exhibited while they are exercising their
day-to-day work on the fire line. Season after season, they
protect the life and property of our country's resources.
When something like this happens, it really impacts people
in the Forest Service. And it isn't just the friends and the
colleagues in the local offices that get impacted, but it has a
huge effect on everyone in the Forest Service family because
everyone cares deeply about these people.
We don't know all of the reasons behind this event. We have
an investigation that has been going on now since the fire, and
they are working hard at doing a thorough investigation. We
have some of the best people in the Forest Service on that
investigation team. It will be in-depth, and it will be
thorough, and it will be important to us, so that we can help
make adjustments, so that we can ensure that we will have, in
the future, that we will have even safer situations for our
wildland firefighters.
I would like to comment briefly about the helicopter
business that you talked about, the bucket. I really don't know
the details of that. I haven't heard a whole bunch about that.
It will be part of the investigation that will be checked into.
I do know that the places where I have worked, we pre-identify
locations where you can draw water out of a stream. Before a
fire occurs, we have identified where those spots are and have
worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National
Marine Fisheries Service to try to work those things out before
you have a fire.
Normally, if we have an ongoing very difficult fire, then a
decision is made, if you need water, you get water where you
need to get it, and then you consult later, and that normally
is worked out for us. Again, I don't know the circumstances
here, but we will check that out, and we will report back to
you.
Now I would like to turn to the National Fire Plan.
Mr. McInnis. Just a minute, Chief. I don't usually
interrupt a witness. But I do want to point out, as you pointed
out, one of your firefighters, and for the Committee's
information, one of the firefighters deployed their shield,
their burn shield--what is the technical name?
Mr. Bosworth. Fire shelter.
Mr. McInnis. Fire shelter. And pulled in two civilians;
isn't this correct? Pulled two civilians into the fire shelter.
They are made for one person. Pulled two people in who had no
fire shelter, which then, of course, exposed, meant that she
wasn't going to have full protection. I think it was a female
firefighter.
Mr. Bosworth. That is correct.
Mr. McInnis. And I think the female firefighter suffered
burns as a result, all three of them, but they were all three
saved.
Mr. Bosworth. That is correct.
Mr. McInnis. Boy, you pin a star on her and give her the
highest praise--to all of the firefighters--but that took a lot
of guts, and I just want the Committee to know about the
actions of one particular firefighter that saved the lives of
two civilians.
Mr. Bosworth. Thank you for adding that.
On the National Fire Plan, for the past century, we have
been pretty successful at preventing and suppressing unwanted
fire. This work has been accomplished with I think the best
intentions, to protect our growing communities, and the
valuable forests and the rangeland resources. In some
locations, we have had unintended consequences from that
success, and that is the buildup of fuels, of excessive amounts
of fuels and dense vegetation, which now when we have drought
conditions and high winds, they can fuel devastating wildfires.
As we have said before, there is no real short-term
solution to this problem. We have to be in it for the long term
in order to deal with it. While we continue with our best
efforts to protect communities and forest lands from the
effects of unwanted fire, we need to focus our attention to
treating the hazardous buildup of vegetation that fuels those
fires. I think we are at a very important turning point right
now. The National Fire Plan really is a beginning of the
solution.
About 9 months have passed since the Forest Service, and
the Department of Interior, and our State partners undertook a
huge task of implementing the National Fire Plan. I believe it
is a huge task. It is a monumental task. In that brief time, we
have learned a lot of lessons, and I think we all realize that
we have many areas where we can improve. We are dedicated to
developing processes to expedite collaboration, providing
common performance measures and budget planning models, and
analyzing and managing interagency landscape-scale projects.
And while I think we recognize that there are some
shortcomings, we don't want to lose sight either of the
extraordinary achievements that have occurred on the ground in
the last 9 months. Today, national forest resources and nearby
communities are protected by an optimum level of firefighters
and equipment. That wasn't the case 9 months ago. During a
recent firefighting readiness review that was held in
California, fire managers on the Sequoia National Forest
described how the new firefighting assets provided by the
National Fire Plan have helped control wildfires in 1 day that
historically would have taken 3 to 5 days to control. In Utah,
we have spoken with people that have said that without the
additional firefighters, many of the fires that occurred there
this year would have grown to a much larger size. The list of
accomplishments, I believe, is quite long, and Lyle Laverty
will answer any questions on the specifics of those
accomplishments.
Last week I was out in the West, and I visited the
Bitterroot Valley. The Bitterroot Valley was a place where we
had, as you know, many fires last summer, lots of fire. I went
out there because I wanted to look at mud slides that are
occurring now that I had heard about. I flew over in a
helicopter and looked down and saw drainage after drainage,
where there were gullies that were 5/10-feet deep from one
small storm that went through that dropped less than an inch of
rain. And this is after putting hundreds of thousands of
dollars in to try to prevent those kinds of things from
happening. Some of the mud ended up down in some of the houses
where the houses had been saved from the fires last summer.
There is lots that goes on when you have that kind of
wildfire, and there is huge potential for problems. I went to
one drainage, where it has been a bull trout habitat, an
endangered species, and we thought maybe that that habitat,
about 3 miles of that stream had habitat that we thought might
have been saved. But now with the mud down there, the
biologists tell me there isn't any chance at all that there is
going to be any habitat there for a long time.
I went from there to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to see the fire
that was taking place there just outside of Wilson, Wyoming,
and saw the houses that were right in the middle of the dense
timber and watched as the firefighters were able to save those
homes. I don't think that could have happened if we hadn't have
had the level of firefighting force that we have today. I,
also, think that that is a good example of the kind of places
where you have to work hard in the wildland-urban interface to
thin those places out so that you don't have that high
potential for fire.
My staff and I are going to continue to work closely with
the Department of Interior team, and the State foresters and
the communities to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and
to minimize the losses from future wildfires. We have been
hiring and training personnel to improve future fire management
capabilities. We are stabilizing and rehabilitating many of the
sites that were damaged in the fires of 2000. The reduction of
hazardous fuels reflects an expanded scale of action, with
extensive planning underway for 2002 and 2003. In cooperation
with the States, the list of communities at risk has been
revised and will be an important tool to plan future projects.
I think I will conclude my statement at this point, and I
would be happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bosworth follows:]
STATEMENT OF DALE BOSWORTH, CHIEF, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk
about the implementation of the National Fire Plan. I am Dale Bosworth,
Chief of the Forest Service. I am accompanied today by Lyle Laverty,
Associate Deputy Chief and National Fire Plan Coordinator of the Forest
Service. Also with me today is Dr. Robert Lewis, Deputy Chief for
Research and Development and Dr. Kevin Ryan, project leader in fire
effects research at Missoula, Montana, who will testify on fire ecology
in one of the other panels.
Thirty Mile Fire
First I would like to speak briefly about the Thirty Mile Fire on
the Okanogan National Forest in Washington State. Four young
firefighters, Tom Craven, Karen FitzPatrick, Jessica Johnson, and Devin
Weaver, lost their lives when they were trapped in a narrow canyon on
the afternoon of July 10. Their deaths occurred despite the fact they
deployed fire shelters. Fortunately, 10 other firefighters and two
civilians in the area survived.
Four of the survivors and two civilians were injured. All but one
of the injured were treated at local hospitals and later released. One
firefighter, Jason Emhoff, received burns over 30% of his body and
remains in the Burn Center at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
I went out to the fire scene after hearing of this tragedy and met
with some of the injured firefighters and visited Jason shortly after
the accident. I admire their courage as they recover from their
physical and emotional injuries. I also met with other firefighters
while I was there and was once again impressed with the professionalism
these brave men and women exhibit while dedicating themselves to the
fireline--season after season--protecting life, property, and our
country's natural resources.
When something like this happens it really impacts the Forest
Service. Not just the friends and colleagues in local offices who
suffer a tremendous emotional blow but everyone in the Forest Service
family cares deeply and is affected.
As of July 30, the Thirty Mile Fire burned 9300 acres and is 100%
contained. Mop-up and monitoring is expected to continue throughout the
summer. The fire burned in dense lodgepole pine, sub-alpine and Douglas
fir stands that are 80 to 100 years old. Fires in this vegetation type
during dry years burn with intense heat and are extremely difficult to
suppress once they become large. When first attacked, and for several
hours afterwards, the fire was not perceived as dangerous. It became
dangerous suddenly with a change in conditions.
We still do not know all the reasons behind this horrible event.
The investigation is not complete. We want the investigation to be in-
depth and thorough because it is important for the future safety of our
wildland firefighters that we learn all we can from this tragedy. When
the investigation is complete, we would be happy to brief you on the
results.
National Fire Plan
I would like to now turn to the National Fire Plan. The severe fire
season of 2000 captured the attention of the American people on the
need to find ways to protect life and property and minimize losses of
natural resources. On September 8, 2000, the Secretary of Agriculture
and the Secretary of the Interior issued a report entitled ``Managing
the Impact of Wildfires on Communities and the Environment.'' The
report, referred to as the National Fire Plan, contains recommendations
to reduce the impacts of wildland fires on rural communities, reduce
the long-term threat from catastrophic fires, and ensure sufficient
firefighting resources in the future.
For the past century we have been very successful at preventing and
suppressing unwanted fire. This work was accomplished with the best
intentions to protect our growing communities and valuable forest and
rangeland resources. In some locations an unintended consequence of
this success, however, was the buildup of excessive amounts of dense
vegetation, that now, in times of drought and wind, fuels devastating
wildfires. These uncharacteristically intense fires threaten homes,
communities, watersheds, wildlife habitat, and the lives of
firefighters and the public. Each year, more vegetation grows and the
problem becomes incrementally worse. There is no short-term solution to
this problem. Now, more than ever, we must continue to prevent and
suppress unwanted fires and reduce these unnatural fuel conditions.
They have the potential to be more destructive to communities and the
environment than ever before.
While we continue with our best efforts to protect communities and
forestlands from the effects of unwanted fire, we must focus our
attention to treating the hazardous buildup of vegetation that fuels
these fires. An aggressive fuel treatment program is the only long-term
solution if we are to reduce the effects of unwanted wildland fire,
restore our forests to ecologically health conditions, and protect our
communities on a longer term basis. As we continue to find common
ground and work in partnership with other federal agencies, states,
tribes, counties, local communities, and Congress, we leverage our
resources and skills, increasing our ability to solve this national
problem. We are at a turning point. The National Fire Plan is the
beginning of the solution.
Less than nine months have passed since the Forest Service,
Department of Interior, and our State partners undertook the giant task
of implementing the National Fire Plan. It is a monumental task. In
that brief time, we've learned many lessons, and we realize we have
many areas in which we can improve. We are dedicated to developing
processes to expedite collaboration, providing common performance
measures and budget planning models, and analyzing and managing
interagency landscape scale projects.
While we recognize shortcomings, we should not lose sight of the
extraordinary achievements that have occurred on the ground in the last
nine months. Today, national forest resources and nearby communities
are protected by an optimum level of firefighters and equipment. That
was not the case 9 months ago. During a recent firefighting readiness
review in California, fire managers on the Sequoia National Forest
described how the new firefighting assets, provided by the National
Fire Plan, have helped control wildfires in one day that historically
have taken 3-5 days to control. In Utah, we have spoken with people who
have said that without the additional firefighters, many of the fires
occurring there this year would have grown to a large size.
The rehabilitation and restoration efforts in Montana's Bitterroot
Valley are a testament to community and agency partnerships. Research
and feasibility studies in bio-energy and biomass production are
underway in Colorado, California, and the Pacific Northwest, as we look
for alternative ways to improve utilization and reduce hazardous fuels.
Contracting Officers are working on a national contract to provide
engines and crews from the private sector to assist us with wildland
fire suppression and fuel treatment projects. Today, there are
unprecedented examples of interagency and governmental cooperation
occurring to meet these goals; this, from a program only nine months
old.
The list of accomplishments is long, and I am proud of the progress
we have made in such a short time.
In discussing the National Fire Plan, I would like to focus on 5
key points:
Firefighting
Rehabilitation and Restoration
Hazardous Fuel Reduction
Community Assistance
Accountability.
The status of our actions in these five key areas include the
following:
Firefighting Readiness
The National Fire Plan made funds available to increase initial
attack capability, increase extended attack support, and provide more
resources during large fire episodes. These additional firefighting
resources will control more fires during initial attack, thereby
reducing wildland fire threats to communities at risk. We have promoted
over 980 permanent employees to fill important supervisory positions.
Lastly, we have hired 453 people targeted to offset fire leadership
retirements anticipated over the next five years. The cornerstone of
the Forest Service fire safety program is the training provided to
every individual involved in these programs.
The Forest Service adheres to the National Wildfire Coordinating
Group fire qualification standards. This training is reinforced with
daily, weekly and monthly safety meetings and annual fire safety
refresher training. In addition, Safety Briefings are given at the
beginning of each shift on an incident.
To enhance our readiness and attack capabilities, our scientists
are conducting research to improve monitoring of fuel conditions,
enhancing fire risk assessments, improve fire weather and behavior
predictions, and increase the accuracy of long term fire severity, fire
weather, and climatic conditions. Twenty-two research and development
projects related to these improvements have been funded using the Joint
Fire Sciences and National Fire Plan programs.
While these efforts will help reduce threats to communities at
risk, large wildland fires will not be eliminated. Long term and
comprehensive programs in fire prevention, fire suppression, and fuel
treatment, involving the States, tribes, communities, and other federal
agencies, will be necessary before the current fire environment is
changed to one that is less destructive and costly. To this end, we are
currently working on improvements to wildland fire planning systems,
working with the Congress to expand authorities for the use of federal
dollars on State and private lands, focusing fuel treatment in areas
where communities are at risk, working with other State and federal
agencies to plan interagency landscape level fuel treatment programs,
and expanding fire prevention programs.
Rehabilitation and Restoration
Healthy, diverse ecosystems are resilient and less likely to
produce uncharacteristically intense fires when they burn. In fiscal
year 2001, we have focused on treatment of some of the areas most
seriously damaged by fire during the 2000 fire season. In fiscal year
2001, 437 restoration projects are underway to treat 300,000 acres.
Watershed restoration is planned for 840,000 acres. Road and trail work
will address more than 3,000 linear miles. Habitat restoration will be
carried out on 500,000 acres, and forest health projects to treat
invasive plants and suppress insects and diseases will cover 280,000
acres. In fiscal year 2001, nine research projects are funded through
the Fire Plan in support of rehabilitation.
Hazardous Fuel Reduction
We are investing to reduce fire risk in communities, municipal
watersheds, and other areas where conditions favor uncharacteristically
intense fires. As of June 30th, treatment projects have been completed
on more than 859,000 acres. About 80 % of these acres are treated with
prescribed fire. The remaining 20% are treated either mechanically or
by hand labor. Estimates of accomplishments projected through the end
of the year continue to vary due to unseasonably dry conditions in many
regions. In Florida, the state with the largest program, a third year
of drought canceled most planned prescribed burning activities. A lower
than normal snow pack in the interior West has also left much of that
part of the country at high fire danger earlier in the season than
normal. Currently, national program managers anticipate that actual
hazardous fuels accomplishment will total more than 1 million acres but
less than the 1.8 million acres target.
The most important aspect of hazardous fuels reduction is reducing
the threat to local communities. When it comes to reducing threat, we
need to protect communities and help the communities to help themselves
through changing the landscape from high risk to low risk. We'll
accomplish that by working closely with communities on major projects.
We will be concentrating on projects that will reduce risk.
One dimension of the fiscal year 2001 program of work is the
planning effort to prepare for fuel reduction treatments in fiscal
years 2002 and beyond. The increased focus on wildland-urban interface
areas presents additional challenges in planning, including increased
community participation, and increased use of hand treatments and
equipment. Nearly 1 of every 8 dollars appropriated for hazardous fuels
reduction in fiscal year 2001 is focused on planning activities.
Our work on the ground this year is based on planning done in
previous years when there was less emphasis on mechanical treatment and
the wildland-urban interface. Planning underway this year and in the
future reflects our emphasis on the interface and ecosystem
restoration.
Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine
Fisheries Service are working together at national, regional and local
levels to accomplish consultation under the Endangered Species Act of
1973, thanks to swift Congressional action to clarify the Department of
Agriculture's authorities.
Our scientists are conducting research in ranking areas for fuel
reduction efforts, determining impacts of these treatments on wildlife,
fish and riparian areas, and developing new uses and systems for
harvesting forest undergrowth and small diameter trees. Through the
National Fire Plan, 24 research projects in support of Hazardous Fuels
reduction are funded in 2001.
Community Assistance
We are just completing a successful interagency effort with the
States and tribes to better define the communities in the wildland
urban interface across the United States. Using State Fire Assistance
funds, we have helped states increase firefighting capability, and
establish a significant new hazard mitigation program. Over 290
mitigation projects have received grants in 2001, and over 128,000
homeowners in the Western U.S. will receive benefits from treatments.
The Cooperative Fire Program has also funded 10 national FIREWISE
workshops; educating 870 community leaders from 450 communities in 41
states about methods to increase protection for their communities.
Volunteer Fire Assistance funds, to date in the amount of 13.2 million
dollars, are being delivered through grants to rural Volunteer Fire
Departments providing training and equipment for small fire departments
that are often the first line of defense in the interface. The Economic
Action Programs are in the final stages of awarding grants for biomass
energy systems, small diameter market development, and community
economic development and fire planning.
Here are some examples:
1) Bastrop County, Texas has received a $205,000 federal grant for
The Texas Wildfire Protection Plan: Lost Pines Project. The grant will
provide funding for projects that encompass education, land
stewardship, fuel reduction, residential planning and multi-agency
partnerships. State and local resources will add an additional $221,000
in match for the projects.
2) Many Southern states have joined together to use National Fire
Plan grant dollars to fund an extensive assessment to evaluate the
areas of the states that have the highest wildfire risk combined with
the value of homes and improved property. The project will fund GIS
mapping to display the most at-risk communities. The assessment will
serve as a tool for growth planning, determination of fire resource
allocations, as well as for educating community leaders and the general
public.
3) The Concerned Resource Environmental Workers received a $161,000
National Fire plan grant to construct approximately 25 miles of fire
breaks throughout the foothills of Ojai, CA, over eighteen months. At-
risk youth and other kids will be the workers on the project to protect
the community. Plans are to employ as many 45 youth this summer.
4) Governor Kenny Guinn of Nevada has announced two new public
service announcements for radio and television, to recruit volunteer
firefighters and seek support for volunteer fire departments in Nevada.
Governor Guinn noted support of volunteer fire departments and
enlistment of new members is essential to successful fire protection
efforts in the small communities of the state. Through a grant from the
National Fire Plan, two new public service announcements have been
developed. Firefighters representing nine volunteer fire departments in
Nevada were used for filming on location at the scene of last summer's
Arrow Creek fire in Reno, and in Virginia City.
Accountability
Oversight, coordination, program development and monitoring for
performance are critical for the National Fire Plan. We are conducting
a series of regional reviews to assess progress. We are working with
Governors, the Department of the Interior and other stakeholders to
finish a 10-year Comprehensive Strategy for implementation of the
National Fire Plan. We have been directed by the Secretaries to fully
integrate all of our efforts.
We are committed to demonstrating sound accountability for the
funds provided by Congress in support of the National Fire Plan. We
have implemented a new financial management system that better tracks
federal funding and expenditures. We continue to use existing and new
information systems to track program performance and we will soon
complete a Third Quarter Status Report on our accomplishments. The
agency is using a new system to pilot an automated accomplishment
reporting system for fuels, rehabilitation and restoration, and
community assistance functions. Reporting under this system is enabling
prompt assessment of output accomplishments. If deemed successful, this
reporting system will be expanded for agency-wide use as early as
fiscal year 2003. The output measures reported under the National Fire
Plan are a key aspect of the broader agency performance measure
accomplishment now being incorporated in the Annual Performance
Planning process.
The Department of the Interior, National Association of State
Foresters and the Forest Service have jointly established an
interagency website for the National Fire Plan where people can find
out more about National Fire Plan Implementation and ways they can
participate in making their homes safer from wildfire. Additionally the
Forest Service and Department of the Interior have cooperated in
development of the Action and Financial Plans required by Congress. We
will continue such cooperative efforts in preparation of the fiscal
year 2003 program that will improve the consistency of information.
Fire Management Plans, Land Management Plans and the National Fire Plan
Ninety one percent of the national forests have fire management
plans that guide fire suppression actions on initial attack fires and
larger fires that escape initial attack. Many of these fire management
plans are being updated to meet the guidelines in the 1995 Federal
Wildland Fire Policy; however, they currently contain adequate
direction for tactical fire suppression initial attack and fuel
treatment.
By December 2003, all National Forests will have a fire management
plan that meets guidelines established in the 1995 Federal Wildland
Fire Management Policy.
Interagency Coordination
Successful implementation of the National Fire Plan requires a
commitment among the federal partners to integrate their programs, to
the maximum extent practicable, to ensure that implementation proceeds
in a standard, consistent, and cost-effective manner across agencies.
This we are doing. For example, we should have integrated priorities,
accomplishment timeframes, performance measures, and reporting
procedures. Our agencies are working to identify and quickly resolve
implementation issues as they arise.
Although we have made progress in some of these areas, Secretary
Veneman and Secretary Norton have discussed the need for much more
thorough integration of program activities between the two agencies and
have tasked their respective Deputy Secretaries to ensure that this is
accomplished. The findings and recommendations of the Comptroller
General will be a useful tool in this effort.
Summary
Mr. Chairman, while we continue with our best efforts to protect
communities and forestlands from the effects of unwanted fire, we must
now focus our attention to treating the hazardous buildup of vegetation
that fuels these fires. The National Fire Plan is the beginning of the
solution. We have come a long way and we recognize there are many areas
in which we can improve. My staff and I will continue to work closely
with the Department of the Interior team and the State Foresters and
communities to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems and to minimize
the losses from future wildfires. We are hiring and training personnel
to improve future fire management capabilities. We are stabilizing and
rehabilitating many of the sites damaged during the fires in 2000. The
reduction of hazardous fuels reflects an expanded scale of action with
extensive planning underway for 2002 and 2003. In cooperation with the
States, the list of communities at risk has been revised, and will be
an important tool to plan future projects.
This concludes my statement; we would be happy to answer any
questions you or Members of the Subcommittee might have.
______
Mr. McInnis. Chief, before we take questions, we are going
to go ahead and finish the panel.
Mr. Hartzell, thank you for making time to come over here
today and discuss and meet our Committee, again. You may
proceed, Mr. Hartzell. You have 10 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TIM HARTZELL, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WILDLAND FIRE
COORDINATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Hartzell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Committee. I would like to thank the Committee members for
their kind words about the concern for the safety of our
firefighters. I make that acknowledgment for three reasons:
One, as an employee who lost a supervisor on a fire in
Idaho; a supervisor who lost an employee on a fire in
Colorado--
Mr. McInnis. I am sorry, could you pull the mike a little
closer.
Mr. Hartzell. Yes. And, lastly, a witness who has three
children fighting fire in the West right now. So I would like
to acknowledge the Committee for their concern for the
firefighters' safety.
Mr. Chairman, I am here to talk about our success in
implementing the National Fire Plan. The National Fire Plan is
a very big effort. It is a bigger task I think than any of us
realized. The National Fire Plan represents an unparalleled
amount of work for both our fire community and our resources
community.
And I think we need to recognize we are suffering from a
period of inactive management, public land management, and as a
result, we have a huge job ahead of us. We have tremendous fuel
buildups, and we have tremendous issues to deal with, but we
can't accomplish the strategy laid out in the National Fire
Plan overnight, we can't accomplish it in a month or two, and
we certainly couldn't accomplish it in the first 6 months of
this administration. But I am here, and I am pleased to report
that we have made significant progress, and I am also here to
acknowledge that much remains to be done.
I think our progress is reflected in several areas, and I
will highlight specific examples of what we have done to date.
But we have made significant strides in increasing our
collaboration with States and local communities and tribes. We
have made significant strides in increasing the level of our
fuels treatment. We have shown that we are capable of working
more closely together, in a seamless fashion, with the Forest
Service.
A few statistics to help you understand how far we have
come in a short time. We have already completed rehabilitation
on more than one million acres of the severely burned lands
from last summer. Our target was 1.4 million acres. We are now
very close to achieving that target.
A year ago last year we had roughly 4,700 firefighters and
support staff in the field. Because of the National Fire Plan
and our hiring commitments, we have an additional 1,800 people
in our fire program. I think it is important to know that, of
those, 1,400 are front-line firefighters, and they are out
there on the ground, throughout the country today.
Also, we have placed orders for almost all of the necessary
firefighting equipment that we had listed in our financial and
action plan, which we sent up to the Congress in January.
Included in that amount are 40 new heavy engines and 38 new
light engines. And, in addition, we have contracted for 10
additional fixed-wing aircraft and 11 additional helicopters.
Last fire season, because of the intensity and magnitude of
the fire season, resources were stretched throughout the
country. We experienced some difficulty in hiring firefighters
with the necessary supervisory experience. This year we are
doing several things to counter that:
One, we are using financial incentives; one, we are waiving
the mandatory separation age for physically fit supervisory
firefighters this year; and we are establishing or we are about
to establish a cooperative agreement with Australia and New
Zealand that will allow us to use upwards of 200 of their
experienced supervisory personnel if the fire season demands.
We also estimated, under the fire plan, that we could
provide assistance to 820 rural Fire Departments throughout the
country. We would provide this assistance with a new $10-
million appropriation we got for that purpose this year. I am
pleased to tell the Committee that, as of the end of June, we
have already provided assistance grants. We have made 945
assistance grants to these small, rural fire departments.
Also, since February, when our new Secretary took office,
we have treated nearly an additional 430,000 acres of hazardous
fuels, compared to only 100,000 acres in the first 4 months of
the fiscal year. Depending on weather conditions, we may be
able to treat another 250,000 acres before the end of the year.
I want the Committee to know that we will continue this vital
fuels treatment work, and we are committed to, and ready to
complete, treating the 700,000 acres that may be carried over
into next fiscal year as early as this fall.
Also, to ensure that we meet our commitments to fuels
treatment, we have designated one person in each of our four
bureaus as a fuels treatment coordinator to ensure that this
important work is carried out and that it is coordinated across
administrative boundaries.
One aspect of our fuels work that I would like to mention
needs improvement and will get improvement is our outsource
contracting. We are not yet satisfied with the level of
contracting activity. We are addressing this problem in several
ways. Most importantly, perhaps, by hiring additional
contracting personnel. We are also assuring that all of our
agencies, not just Interior, but between Interior and Forest
Service, share contracting lists, and we post, also, on our
National Fire Plan website the names and phone numbers of all
of our fuels management and contracting specialists.
One of the problems we encountered is that many of the
small communities throughout the country lack a contracting
infrastructure, and this is a difficult problem to solve. In
these communities, we are conducting a substantial amount of
outreach. We are going to the community leaders, we are going
to the businesses, we are going to the Chambers of Commerce,
and we are going to the newspapers, we are going to community
colleges to explain to people the opportunities that will occur
in the future, and do occur now, for contracting for fuels
hazard reduction.
I think it is also important that I talk a bit about our
need in the Department of Interior to establish even a better
implementation track record with the National Fire Plan with
the Forest Service. One of the things the Committee should be
aware of that in the first week on the job our new Deputy
Secretary, Mr. Griles, had a meeting with his counterpart at
the Department of Agriculture to talk about ways that they
could improve the collaboration in the oversight and
accountability as we jointly administer the National Fire Plan.
The other thing that I would like to draw to your attention
is the fact that we have a Secretary that is actively engaged
in the National Fire Plan and the monitoring and oversight of
the National Fire Plan. And she is very interested in the fire
program, in general, and our success on the ground. She has
done several things that have been very helpful to us.
One, she immediately exempted firefighters from the
government-wide hiring freeze.
She also has issued a couple memorandums that are moving us
down the road to better coordination within our Department.
Number one, a memorandum that established a National Human
Resources Committee to assure coordination for the hiring of
firefighters the next fiscal year; and, secondly, a National
Fuels Coordination Team.
I think that the two Departments have been working closer
than ever before, as we implement the National Fire Plan. I am
in regular contact with my counterpart at headquarters, Mr.
Laverty. There are several long-term issues with the National
Fire Plan that we are going to address, we plan to address and
are addressing.
Number one, together with the Office of Management and
Budget, we are going to be reviewing our current model for
determining the number of firefighting personnel and the
equipment needed for a normal fire season. And our objective is
to update that model to reflect current conditions, revise
policy in the strategic direction contained in the Federal
Wildland Fire Policy and the National Fire Plan.
The other thing the Committee should know is that we are
conducting a full audit of our fire suppression dollars this
fiscal year, and we also plan to be revising our performance
measures to ensure uniform accountability between the Forest
Service and the Department of Interior. We will do that jointly
with the Forest Service.
We are also increasing our emphasis on updating our fire
management plans. And both of our Departments are working
jointly with the National Academy of Public Administration to
develop a joint set of recommendations to improve
accountability in the program.
And, lastly, I want the Committee to know that we are
determined to work with the National Academy of Public
Administration. We are determined to work with the General
Accounting Office, OMB, State foresters and any others who make
thoughtful and sound suggestions for improving the fire
program.
Before closing, I would like to say that we have talked
about the tragic loss of firefighters in Washington, and with
that in mind, in getting ready for this fire season, our
emphasis has been on training, training and recertification of
our existing firefighters. We feel that our firefighters are
appropriately trained for the type of assignment they are
given. When they are dispatched to a fire, we believe it is
within the full confidence that they have the training, the
knowledge, and the experience required for the task ahead.
Firefighter training has been developed by fire experts
over many decades. Safety is emphasized in every course we do.
In everything we do, everything we say, safety is emphasized.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity. We believe we
have made good progress toward reversing the trend of the
deteriorating trend of our forests, and we look forward to
continuing to work with the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hartzell follows:]
STATEMENT OF TIM HARTZELL, OFFICE OF WILDLAND FIRE COORDINATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.
Introduction
I appreciate the opportunity to address this committee concerning
the Department of the Interior's progress on the implementation of the
National Fire Plan. My name is Tim Hartzell and I oversee the Office of
Wildland Fire Coordination for the Department of the Interior. I am
pleased to report that the Department of the Interior firefighting
agencies have made significant progress in implementing the National
Fire Plan. We at the Department of the Interior are grateful for the
opportunity and recognize that there is more work to do that will be
done in order to lessen the dangers to communities at risk, restore
ecosystems and the natural role of fire, protect our critical natural
resources, and most importantly, keep our firefighters and the public
safe.
General Overview And Progress To Date
The National Fire Plan represents an unparalleled amount of work
for the fire community at every level. It is a huge job, one that
cannot be accomplished overnight, or in two months or in the first six
months of the Administration. However, the Administration has made
progress. That progress is reflected in our hiring, fuels treatment
projects, collaboration with States, tribes and local communities, and
in our efforts to make sure the Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior are working together to protect lives and property and to
care for our damaged ecosystems.
A few important statistics tell the progress we have made:
This year, as in previous years, more than 95% of fires are
suppressed while they are still small.
We have already completed rehabilitation on more than 1 million of
the 1.4 million acres that were severely damaged by fires last year.
A year ago, more than 60,081 fires burned 3.4 million acres. As of
today, 49,708 fires have burned 1.5 million acres. This year's fire
season is also below the 10 year average of 52,735 fires and 1.9
million acres burned.
A year ago at this time, we had 4,710 fire fighters and support
staff. This year, we have 1,800 more people in the fire program, and of
those, 1,400 are front-line fire fighters.
We have placed orders for almost all the necessary firefighting
equipment and contracted for additional aircraft called for in the
National Fire Plan to support wildland firefighting.
During last year's fire fighting season we experienced difficulty
in hiring supervisors with fire experience. This year we are using
financial incentives, waiving mandatory retirement ages for physically
fit fire fighters and establishing cooperative agreements with other
countries that allow us to use their supervisory personnel if the fire
season demands.
Since February 1st, when Secretary Norton took office, more than
413,000 acres of fuels treatment have been done, as compared to 100,000
acres in the first four months of this fiscal year. Depending on
weather conditions, an additional 250,000 acres will be treated before
the end of the fiscal year. More acres would have been treated had it
not been for severe drought conditions and moratoriums placed on
prescribed burns. We will continue this vital fuels treatment work into
the next fiscal year to complete the remaining 700,000 acres of
projects that are ready to be treated. We have selected one person at
each of the Department's four bureaus with fire fighting
responsibilities to coordinate fuels treatment work. We are already
working with the states to identify further fuels treatment projects,
and to complete the environmental clearances necessary so that fuels
treatment work can begin. One aspect of the fuels treatment work that
needs and will get improvement is outsource contracting. We are not yet
satisfied with our level of contracting activity. We are addressing
this problem by hiring additional contracting personnel, sharing
contractor lists among all agencies and posting on our websites the
names and telephone numbers of Federal employees directly responsible
for contracting. Many communities lack contracting infrastructure. This
is a more difficult problem to solve. In these communities, we are
conducting outreach for community leaders, businesses and chambers of
commerce. One example of this was BLM's program to hire 80 unemployed
farmers in Klamath Falls, Oregon, to do fuels treatment work.
The Department of the Interior is also addressing the need to
establish even better implementation of the National Fire Plan and to
work more closely with the U.S. Forest Service. In the first week after
Deputy Secretary Steve Griles was confirmed by the Senate, Secretary
Norton directed him to work with his counterpart at the Department of
Agriculture to develop cabinet-level joint oversight of the fire
program, and to develop one set of goals and performance measures.
Deputy Secretary Griles has already met with Agriculture Deputy
Secretary Jim Mosely to begin work, and even more important, to
conclude it.
Even before Deputy Secretary Griles was confirmed, Secretary Norton
has been working to improve Interior's fire suppression and fuels
treatment programs, and to seek better cooperation with the U.S. Forest
Service. Her first visit outside Washington was a working session with
the fire directors at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise.
Her first official acts as Secretary were to exempt firefighters from
the government-wide hiring freeze and to release more money to do more
environmental clearances for fuels treatment projects. Her chief of
staff holds weekly meetings to identify and review obstacles that are
impeding progress in achieving hiring and fuels treatment goals.
Secretary Norton has asked for a report on how Interior's four bureaus
can work more cooperatively in both suppressing fires and doing fuels
treatment.
The Interior and Agriculture Departments have been working closer
than ever before. I am in regular contact with my counterpart at the
Department of Agriculture. Together with the Office of Management and
Budget, the Interior Department and Forest Service will be reviewing
the current model for determining the number of firefighting personnel
and equipment needed for ``normal fire seasons'' with the objective of
updating that model to reflect new information and data, revised policy
and the strategic direction of the National Fire Plan. We will be
conducting a full audit of dollars expended in the fiscal year 2001
fire season. We will also be revising performance measures, along with
the Forest Service, to assure accountability and consistent results of
the National Fire Plan. We will be working with our land managers to
update fire plans. Both of our departments are working cooperatively
with the National Academy of Public Administration to develop a joint
set of recommendations to improve the program. We are determined to
work with NAPA, GAO, state foresters and others who make thoughtful and
sound suggestions for improving the fire program.
The next few weeks will decide the scope and magnitude of the fire
season. We have greatly benefitted by the good fortune of having fewer
ignitions. However, it is also true that some of the success we have
had so far can be attributed to having more fire fighters, more
equipment, and having done more fuels treatment. We are grateful for
the bipartisan support that the fire program has had in Congress.
Before further highlighting the work we have done and the work that
remains to be done in implementing the National Fire Plan, I would like
to talk about keeping our firefighters and the public safe in light of
the recent loss of five firefighters.
Firefighter and Public Safety
On the afternoon of July 10th, fourteen firefighters and two
civilians took refuge in fire shelters in Washington State's northern
Cascade Mountains. Four of the firefighters who deployed their shelters
in a boulder field did not survive. On the same day, an air tanker
crashed in northern Idaho, claiming the pilot's life.
When a firefighter dies, a genuine, deeply felt sorrow ripples
through the fire community. No one is immune from the sense of grief.
Everyone pauses and reflects on the risks that are a part of
firefighting, and how things can be made safer next time. My hope is
that, in the aftermath of tragedy, everyone in the fire community is
again reminded that safety always comes first. Secretary Norton issued
a reminder to everyone that safety is our primary responsibility.
Firefighting is an inherently dangerous occupation, and we cannot
mitigate every hazard. What we can do is recognize risk, manage it, and
minimize it, whenever possible.
In getting ready for this fire season the emphasis has been on
training and re-certification. Federal firefighters are appropriately
trained for the type of assignment they are given. When they are
dispatched to a fire, it is with full confidence that they have the
training, knowledge and experience required for the task ahead.
Firefighter training has been developed by fire experts over many
decades. Safety is emphasized in every course, from basic training
through the most advanced classes. Firefighters are trained to remain
calm, think clearly, and act decisively in potentially dangerous
situations. This training has prevented untold numbers of entrapments,
injuries and fatalities.
Accomplishments under the National Fire Plan
The National Fire Plan directs that the Departments of Agriculture
and the Interior carry out the following activities:
Continue to make all necessary firefighting resources
available
Restore landscapes and rebuild communities
Invest in projects to reduce fire risk
Work directly with communities
Be accountable
As outlined by the following summary of accomplishments, we have
made significant progress on all fronts.
1. Continue to Make All Necessary Firefighting Resources Available
Preparedness. This year marks the first year the Department of the
Interior has been funded at the full readiness level. Thanks in large
part to Congress, we are better prepared to fight fires this year than
ever before. This funding has increased our ability to hire additional
firefighters and purchase necessary equipment. As a result, we are
better able to respond to initial attack incidents efficiently,
effectively and safely. Because of the time lag between ordering and
delivery of much of the specialized firefighting equipment, it will
take up to one year to realize the full potential from this funding
increase.
Hiring. The Department has made hiring a top priority. In April
2001, Secretary Norton recorded firefighter recruitment public service
announcements (PSAs), which were distributed to 5,000 radio stations
nationwide. This markedly increased interest in our firefighter
program. As of July 25, 2001, the Department has hired approximately 80
percent of a total of 8,103 fire personnel--approximately 1,800 more
than last year. Of this increase, approximately 1,400 are frontline
firefighters.
One important component of hiring was the conversion of a large
number of positions from temporary to career status. This provides the
Department with additional supervisory capabilities on large fires. The
effort continues to be a work-in-progress and will not be completed
until next year. When finished, it will significantly increase large
fire suppression capabilities, as well as further improve our initial
attack capabilities.
Purchase of additional fire equipment and contracting for
additional aircraft. All or most of an additional 110 pieces of
equipment have either been purchased or ordered. All or most of the
contracts for an additional 24 aircraft, including helicopters, single
and multi-engine airtankers, large air transport, air attack and
smokejumper (jumpships) aircraft have been processed.
Re-evaluating normal year readiness calculation. The Department is
jointly re-evaluating normal year readiness calculations with the
Forest Service for consistency between the agencies, to use the most
current science available in determining preparedness needs, and to
factor in performance measures.
Agreements with Australia and New Zealand for firefighting support.
The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior will soon sign
agreements with Australia and New Zealand to formalize the exchange of
fire suppression assistance. Both Australia and New Zealand assisted
the Departments last year, during the worst fire season in 50 years.
This could provide up to 200 additional supervisory firefighters as the
fire season warrants.
2. Restore Damaged Landscapes and Rebuild Communities
Burned Area Rehabilitation. The Department of the Interior targeted
approximately 1.4 million acres that were severely damaged from last
year's fires. As of July 25, 2001, we have completed 80 percent of the
rehabilitation work. Much of this work is multi-year projects, with
immediate site stabilization followed by restoration of native
vegetation. Successful restoration, especially on public rangelands
devastated by the annual weeds and wildland-fire cycle, is critical to
the long-term health of these ecosystems and an eventual return to a
more natural fire regime and reduction of catastrophic blazes. The
Department recently revised its Departmental Manual on Burned Area
Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation. To implement the manual, a
draft handbook was distributed for use during the 2001 fire season.
After this fire season, it will be revised in light of what worked and
what did not.
Native Plant Materials Development Program. To protect areas
severely damaged by wildfire and unlikely to recover naturally, an
interagency team of Department of the Interior and Department of
Agriculture employees has been formed to develop a long-term strategy
to supply native plant materials to meet this need. This team is
developing a strategy to increase the supply of native seed, with the
help of our non-Federal partners.
3. Invest in Projects to Reduce Fire Risk
Hazardous fuels treatments. For Fiscal Year 2001, the Department
planned to treat hazardous fuels on an estimated 1.4 million acres.
Much of this was to be accomplished through the use of prescribed fire.
The Department may not achieve this acreage due to drought conditions
in the Southeast, Pacific Northwest, Northern Great Basin, and Northern
Rockies. A severe fire season may also hamper fuels treatment efforts,
as many of the same personnel involved in fire suppression are also
responsible for prescribed fire project planning and implementation. As
of July 23, 2001, we have treated 515,348 acres.
Secretary Norton issued a memorandum to bureau directors to ensure
that coordinated, efficient and effective fuels treatment occurs on all
Interior lands. This memo established a fuels management team to
provide guidance for fuels treatment project selection and to
coordinate with the Forest Service and State agencies.
Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) interagency collaborative working
groups. The Department of the Interior has worked with the Forest
Service, the National Association of State Foresters, the Western
Governors'' Association, and other State organizations to establish
locally led interagency teams that will prioritize hazardous fuels
treatment projects in the wildland urban interface. Instruction
memoranda have been provided to these groups to help them select
projects for treatment. This process will guide implementation of the
national fuels reduction program in the WUI for fiscal year 2002 and
provide a preliminary project list for fiscal year 2003.
Utilizing Small Diameter Material and Other Biomass.
Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) research. A large, 5-
year project begun in 1999 includes 11 sites nationwide where
scientists will study the fuels ``treatment costs and utilization
economics'' of biomass, including small diameter fuels. Research is
planned on evaluating factors affecting the feasibility of economically
viable utilization of biomass material removed to reduce fire hazard
and fuel loading.
Buncom Landscape Project, in the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) Medford (OR) District, utilized small diameter trees.
This forest health project focused on the restoration of oak and pine
savanna habitat for the benefit of wildlife and fire prevention.
Landowners coordinated thinning, burning, planting, and noxious weed
control treatments with their neighbors and the BLM to create wildlife
habitat that reaches across numerous ownership boundaries and connects
watershed uplands with aquatic lowlands. Small diameter trees were
thinned to reduce the effects of years of fire suppression.
Approximately 95,000 trees yielded more than 18 million board feet, and
provided jobs for numerous local contractors.
Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Coalition project,
Ely, NV, producing biomass material. The BLM Ely District in eastern
Nevada has committed to produce 50,000 to 100,000 tons per year of
pinyon-juniper biomass to restore and improve habitat for sage grouse
and Rocky Mountain elk. The project will treat over 100,000 acres in
fiscal year 2001. The coalition involves 75 Federal, State, and local
governments, private foundations and environmental groups, and local
community and industry leaders. The coalition is exploring markets for
the biomass material, including fuel for wood-stove pellets, bioenergy
or co-generation, fiber or flakeboard and a variety of other
nontraditional forest products.
Allocating Necessary Project Funds.
Transfer of funds for environmental consultations. In addition to
the allocation of project funds to appropriate field units, funds were
transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) to hire personnel to facilitate threatened and
endangered species consultations. The FWS and NMFS have added staff to
accommodate the increased workload, and are working cooperatively with
the Fire agencies to plan projects for fiscal year 02 and beyond. This
will expedite fiscal year 2002 and 2003 clearances for fuels treatment
projects designed to reduce risks to communities and priority
watersheds.
4. Work Directly with Local Communities
Contracting with local businesses and organizations. In January
2001, the Department of the Interior, along with the Forest Service,
developed policy guidance to implement a streamlined approach to
awarding contracts to local businesses and organizations for hazardous
fuels treatment projects and landscape restoration. This policy will be
implemented on an interagency basis in each of the 11 Geographic Areas
currently used for firefighting coordination across the country. In
each Geographic Area, one of the Federal agencies has taken the lead
for contracting. In some cases, the geographic area has been subdivided
and agency leadership designated to facilitate work. The policy
requires an organized approach for community outreach and coordination
to locate and develop firms with which we can contract and assist
communities developing local fuels reduction and restoration
capability.
Increasing employment and contracting opportunities in Idaho. The
Department, along with the Forest Service and the State of Idaho are
working together to increase opportunities for local contracting and
recruiting in support of the National Fire Plan, particularly for
unemployed natural resource workers, including ranchers, farmers,
loggers, and forest product workers.
Increasing employment and contracting opportunities in Oregon. The
BLM Klamath Falls Office, OR, has started a 3,000 acre wildland urban
interface fuels reduction project that includes tree thinning, brush
removal, and slash piling in and around Bly Mountain. The project is
providing temporary jobs for up to 80 displaced farm workers in the
drought-devastated Klamath Basin. The BLM has hired four contractors
who have begun recruiting workers in the local area. The Oregon
Department of Forestry and local elected officials are assisting the
BLM in planning, support, and community relations.
Improving Local Fire Protection Capabilities Through Financial and
Technical Assistance to State, Local, and Volunteer
Firefighting Efforts.
Rural Fire Assistance. In 2001, Congress established a
new $10 million Rural Fire Assistance program. The Department developed
policy to guide implementation of this pilot program. The program is
providing rural fire departments with needed assistance in training,
equipment purchase, and prevention activities to increase firefighter
safety, enhance fire protection capabilities, enhance protection in the
wildland urban interface, and increase the coordination among local,
State, Tribal, and Federal firefighting resources. The Department
estimated that approximately 820 of the 3,223 rural/volunteer fire
departments adjacent to Interior lands and within the wildland urban
interface would receive funds and benefit from the pilot program this
fiscal year. As of June 2001, 944 awards have been given to rural and
volunteer fire departments, totaling $5.1 million.
Expanding Outreach and Education to Homeowners and Communities about
Fire Prevention Through Use of Programs such as FIREWISE.
The FIREWISE program, developed by the National Wildfire
Coordination Group in 1986, provides information to homeowners, county
officials, building contractors, firefighters and others about
practices that can lessen the risk of wildfires to communities. Through
the National Fire Plan, $5,000,000 is targeted in fiscal year 2001-3
for development and delivery of a series of national FIREWISE
workshops. Participants at the State-level workshops might include
representatives from the construction industry, homeowners
associations, insurance industries, local governments, and rural fire
departments. The workshops are presented as a ``Training-of-Trainers''
experience, with the expectation that participants will return to their
host organizations or communities and, in turn, conduct similar
workshops at the local level. The Secretaries of Agriculture and the
Interior will soon record interagency public service announcements to
increase awareness of the FIREWISE program.
5. Be Accountable
Interagency coordination. The Departments of Agriculture and the
Interior coordinate with each other on an ongoing basis.
Representatives in each Secretary's office work together to ensure
consistency of policy and messages. Individuals at both the Forest
Service and Department of the Interior responsible for implementing the
National Fire Plan work closely together.
Monitoring of implementation. The Department is monitoring fire
management programs. The Rural Fire Assistance pilot program will be
evaluated at the end of this fiscal year to determine effectiveness.
The Council on Environmental Quality has made several site visits to
determine how the environmental review process occurs (NEPA/ESA
consultation) on hazardous fuels treatment projects. In addition, we
have taken other steps to be more accountable:
Recommending staffing for a Department of the Interior
wildland fire policy office. The objective of the office is to ensure
the implementation of the National Fire Plan and the Federal Wildland
Fire Policy, coordinate budget formulation and fire policy, provide
program oversight, measure program performance, and ensure
accountability.
Development of a National Fire Plan Data Reporting
System. A contract has been awarded to develop an automated database to
track progress in meeting the goals set out in the National Fire Plan,
related documents, and associated performance measures. The target is
to have a pilot system operational by the end of 2001.
National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) Report.
The Department has commissioned a report by NAPA, which will
concentrate on six areas from the 2001 Review and Update of the 1995
Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy:
* LManagement accountability
* LInteragency coordination
* LIntergovernmental coordination
* LImproving risk management
* LWorkforce management
* LInstitutionalizing lessons learned
NAPA expects to complete the report by mid-November, 2001. Results
of this study, along with internal reviews, will be used to review
oversight and coordination mechanisms of the National Fire Plan and to
assure that an effective strategy is in place to institutionalize the
2001 Federal Wildland Fire Policy.
DOI Cohesive Strategy - The Department of the Interior is
developing a cohesive strategy to provide the Interior agencies with a
framework for reducing the risk and consequences of unwanted wildland
fire by protecting, maintaining, and restoring land health and desired
fire cycles. This strategy has been coordinated with the Forest
Service.
10-Year Comprehensive Strategy. Developed by the
Department and the Forest Service in partnership with the Western
Governors'' Association, this strategy will be a template for how the
Departments of Agriculture and the Interior will collaborate on the
National, State, and local level to implement the National Fire Plan.
Interagency National Fire Plan website. The Department of
Interior and the USDA Forest Service, with feedback from the National
Association of State Foresters, developed a joint National Fire Plan
interagency website (www.fireplan.gov). The goals for the website are
to:
* Provide an interagency information clearing house
* Provide one place for the public to get information on a
variety of topics
* Provide mechanisms for public involvement in implementing the
National Fire Plan
* Demonstrate that Federal and State wildland fire agencies are
taking a cohesive and carefully planned approach to implementing the
2001 appropriation
The Southwest Strategy. The Southwest Strategy is a
community development and natural resources conservation and management
effort among Federal, State, Tribal and local governments working in
collaboration to restore and maintain the cultural, economic and
environmental quality of life in the states of Arizona and New Mexico.
A Fire Plan Implementation Coordination Group under the Southwest
Strategy integrates local interagency and inter-Tribal planning and
implementation of the National Fire Plan among the States of Arizona
and New Mexico.
Interagency Fire Management Cooperation in the Pacific
Northwest. The Oregon/Washington BLM Branch of Fire and Aviation
Management, and the Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region,
Directorate of Fire and Aviation Management, have been officially
integrated at the State Office and Regional Office level since 1995.
Employees work on an issues basis, rather than on an agency basis. The
National Fire Plan is implemented on an interagency basis. The
interagency office works with all of its State, local and Federal
partners in all aspects of fire management.
Wyoming Governor's Wildland Fire Action Team. All
Department of the Interior bureaus participate in this
intergovernmental fire steering group. The team was established to
coordinate all fire suppression and fuels reduction activities in
Wyoming.
National Fire Plan Collaboration Coordinators Conference
Denver, Colorado. A cornerstone of the National Fire Plan has been
enhancing the communication among all partners in the wildland fire
management arena. To this end, all of the National Fire Plan
coordinators from the Department of the Interior and the Forest
Service, and representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency,
Council on Environmental Quality and others, assembled in Denver on
February 21 and 22, 2001, to share concerns and issues, clarify roles
and expectations, validate the importance of success, and define a
management structure for collaboration at the geographic area level
throughout the country. This meeting provided a springboard to unify
State, Tribal and Federal efforts to cooperate across jurisdictions,
coordinate plans and activities, and collaborate with local governments
to implement efficiently and effectively the goals and commitments
outlined in the National Fire Plan.
Conclusion
I appreciate the opportunity to testify at this hearing. We believe
that we have made good progress in reversing the trend of deteriorating
health for our forest and rangeland ecosystems. We view the National
Fire Plan as an investment that will, in the future, help protect
communities and natural resources, and most importantly, the lives of
firefighters and the public.
The Department has made real gains in working with all of its
partners to implement the National Fire Plan, but it has required a
shift in the way we have traditionally conducted business, and a shift
in the way we implement nearly every fire management program. Just as
we need time to acquire all the new, specialized fire equipment, we
will need time to continue to make fire management seamless across the
Federal, Tribal, State and local agencies, so that we may better
protect lives and resources, and restore ecosystems to a functioning
condition.
We are committed to these goals, and look forward to your continued
support.
Thank you, again. I will be happy to answer any questions from the
committee.
______
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Hartzell.
I will begin the questioning with the panel. First of all,
Mr. Hartzell, I missed your comment at the beginning. You
talked about your 40 heavy new engines and your 40 lighter
engines. Now, are those contracted? You have got those or you
have been able to secure that equipment, and it is in place for
utilization?
Mr. Hartzell. Those are not contracted. Those are
procurement items, and they are special order items. The heavy
engines have to be, they are special made, and they may take
anywhere from 12, 14, upwards of 18 months to receive delivery
of those items.
Mr. McInnis. I would assume the same would exist for
helicopters and so on. So this is equipment that is not really
here to help us this year, but hopefully we will have it on the
ground next year?
Mr. Hartzell. The helicopters are contracted, and they are
available this year to assist.
Mr. McInnis. And, also, you said the Secretary is actively
involved. ``Actively'' meaning what? I know you went through a
couple of points there, but I am assuming--obviously, I have a
long-time relationship with her. She is from Colorado. I think
she has a pretty good understanding of the danger we face out
there. I just want to be sure that this is going to the
Secretary's desk for supervision and so on.
Mr. Hartzell. Mr. Chairman, we have, in our Department,
weekly chief of staff meetings, where all of the Bureau
directors, the chief of staff, the Deputy Secretary are
together in a room. We get the four Bureau fire directors on
the phone with us out at the Fire Center, and it is not at all
uncommon for the Secretary to come into those meetings to
engage the Bureau directors and the fire directors in
discussion about their progress on the National Fire Plan.
Mr. McInnis. Chief, a couple of questions.
One, I am wondering about the recommendations of the GAO. I
would hope that you would integrate those with your
comprehensive strategy moving forward.
Mr. Bosworth. Yes. I haven't gone through the
recommendations carefully. I read through it quickly.
Obviously, when GAO has recommendations, they are things we
want to look very carefully at because often they have some
really good ideas.
I think that you asked earlier about the notion of a czar
or some kind of a person like that. I would just like to make a
comment about that. My view is that we have been at this for
about 9 months now, and we have a lot to learn and a long ways
to go to improve. I think we need to look at all opportunities,
but it is key, it is critical that we stay tuned in between the
USDA and between Interior. I think we are doing that fairly
well, but I think that there is still room for improvement.
I wouldn't want to jump to a solution, in my opinion, quite
yet because I think that we have got to identify what the
problems are very carefully and make sure that we craft
solutions for those problems. And that may be a solution, but I
am just not sure enough yet to say that I would really advise
that.
To me, the place where we do the very, very best, at least
in the Forest Service, in terms of integrating with other
agencies, is in the area of fire suppression. In the area of
fire suppression, when you go out on a project fire, you don't
know whether it is a Forest Service person, a BLM person, a
Park Service person, a State person. These overhead teams are
fully integrated, and they work very, very well together.
We can learn a lot about how we operate on our suppression
side, we can learn a lot toward how we might be able to
operate, as far as the other aspects of the National Fire Plan
from that.
Mr. McInnis. Thanks, Chief. I think you are right. And I am
not sure that the Fire Czar is the answer, but the key that I
know because I have been--I used to be a firefighter and a
police officer, and I can tell you, for example, at Storm King,
you need to have somebody that your chain-of-command that
arrives and is in charge. There, we had lots of different
agencies. Everybody was set back emotionally because of the
loss we just suffered. The whole town turned out with shovels,
and picks, and some volunteers were heading up the mountain on
their own, I mean, just out of good intent. And that
coordination between these agencies, what equipment needs to
come in, what people need to come in, and also the decision-
making process, I think you ought to have somebody on-site.
This was the Thirty Mile Fire was a cleanup. That is why
that crew with so little experience was in there. As I
understand, it is the typical experience of a crew that is sent
in for cleanup. They didn't know this was going to occur,
obviously, and they are in there doing, this is how they learn
about the firefighting. It is pretty routine. But we need to
have somebody who could very quickly make decisions, overriding
decisions on what we are going to utilize. It all comes back to
that chain-of-command, and that is where I think we have to
focus.
I appreciate, again, and also I want to compliment you,
with so few months in service, keep it up. We have all got to
work together as a team on this.
Mr. Inslee?
Mr. Inslee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to note
that the young woman that the Chairman has referred to is named
Rebecca Welch, a 22-year-old employee. And I just want to point
out, because this was an enormous tragedy, but I hope people
understand that there were several heroes there, and one of
them was Rebecca Welch, who saved two American citizens out of
this that probably would not have survived this, but for Forest
Service activity. I hope that your people take some pride in
their actions in this regard and Rebecca's.
I need to ask a few questions relating to this incident. I
think it will be helpful in the general policy discussion. In
the area of the Okanogan fire, was that an area that there was
any planning would have pretreatment or thinning or was this an
area that would not have been treated in any event? Can you
describe the conditions and how it related to the fire plan
relating to any thinning proposals.
Mr. Bosworth. That area would have been a very, very low
priority. It just would not have been an area where we would
have been doing thinning. It was a long ways from a community,
homes, and it was close to the wilderness area. It is a back-
country area and had a road going up to it, but, no, the answer
is we would not have been putting our dollars into thinning
that area for fire purposes.
Mr. Inslee. So, I guess, people could be confident that the
inability of the lack of treatment was not related to this
tragedy, I would take that from your comments.
Mr. Bosworth. That is correct. Also, I did not, I want to
add that there is a resource natural area designation to the
forest plan for a portion of that area that was burned, also,
where the fire was.
Mr. Inslee. And how would that affect decisions regarding
how to approach this particular fire that was in a resource
natural area?
Mr. Bosworth. Well, essentially, since it was a person-
caused fire, then our objective would be to suppress the fire,
which is what we did.
Mr. Inslee. Could you articulate that a little bit more.
You and I have talked about this, just yesterday, about this,
but I take it that the current policy is to treat a fire
differently if it is caused by human conduct; is that correct?
Mr. Bosworth. You may treat it differently. If it is a
person, you know, in this case, it was a campfire that was left
burning, then we need to suppress the fire. Now, there are
places in the national forests where we have done fire planning
and will allow fires to burn under certain conditions,
particularly if they are going to meet some kind of land
management objective, and so we make that decision based upon
the conditions and the preplanning that has been done.
In this case, since it was a person-caused fire,
suppression was indicated.
Mr. Inslee. Could you, and perhaps anyone of the panel
could answer this, but could you give us some idea about the
area that, given an unlimited budget, the Forest Service would
want to have some treatment, some thinning of some nature on
relative to what has been done in the last couple of years.
Could you give us any ballpark figures on that? I am just
looking at the GAO report, and it refers to 211 million acres,
almost one-third of all fire-adopted Federal lands continue to
deteriorate. Is that a real number, and how does that compare
to what we have been able to do to date?
Mr. Laverty. Mr. Inslee, in the Interior West, between the
Department of Interior and the Forest Service, we have
identified about 100 million acres at moderate to high risk
that are in need of some type of treatment, but our plan, I
think our strategies, would be such that it probably is not
going to be feasible or reasonable to expect to treat all 100
million acres. But in terms of fuel conditions, that is a
representation of what we are experiencing in the Interior
West.
Mr. Inslee. So what have we done or are we going to do in
the next year? And I assume it is a very, very, very, very
small percentage of 100 million acres, but--
Mr. Laverty. We are making good progress. Between Interior
and the Forest Service, we have identified about 3 million
acres that we plan to treat in 2001. We have already treated in
excess of 1.2 million, and we are moving along fairly well to
accomplish that target. Our expectation is that in 2002, we
would probably be at that same level of investment again.
Mr. Inslee. Let me ask you about decisions on how to go
about that treatment. In the original fire plan, my
understanding is, is that there was a basic policy statement
made that we would not look to commercial harvest of mature or
late successional trees, as part of this treatment strategy.
And we, at least our staff, received a number of reports that,
in fact, we are having harvests of mature and late successional
trees. In fact, we have also heard, and again this may not be
accurate, I like your comment on it, that some agencies are
using funds associated with the treatment category for use of
actually preparing commercial timber sales. I just wonder if
you can tell us what the policy is at this moment about harvest
of commercial, mature, late successional trees as part of the
treatment program.
Mr. Bosworth. I believe that it is really on a case-by-case
basis. Most of the time what we need to be doing is thinning
the smaller material, thinning from below, and being able to
get fire back into an are where you don't have, you know,
getting rid of some of the heavy fuels and the vegetation that
is in there.
But there are some places where just taking some of the
small material may not be the right thing. You may need to
remove some larger material in order to open it up. Say, for
example, a dry pine type, you might want to open that up and
get it closer to what its natural condition ought to be and
then get fire burning through there the prescribed way,
controlled way.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope that you
will pass on to all of your employees our national appreciation
for their efforts and our sometimes unspoken recognition of the
danger they face.
Thank you.
Mr. Bosworth. I will do that.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Peterson, you may proceed.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you and good afternoon.
Reading the GAO report, I wanted to refer to Page 3. It
says, ``The failure of five Federal agencies, land management
agencies, to incorporate into the National Fire Plan many of
the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policies regarding
principles and recommendations can be traced to the reluctance
to change their traditional organizational structures of
Federal wildland management. As a result, the five agencies
continue to plan and manage wildland fire management activities
primarily on an agency-by-agency basis.''
Is that a fair accusation?
Mr. Bosworth. Well, I think that, as I said earlier, I
believe that, particularly in the area of fire suppression, we
are extremely integrated on our crews. I mean, when we get on a
project fire or we have an incident command team that goes to
the fire, and there are 30 or 40 people on that overhead team,
they are likely to be from several different agencies, all
working together under the incident commander, and that has
been the case for a number of years.
Now, as you get to, and when we start talking about the
restoration of the burned areas that were lost in the fires
last year, that is a little bit different situation. I know
that in most of the national forests, we are working
aggressively to do that restoration work, but we are
coordinated with the Bureau of Land Management particularly,
and there is Bureau of Land Management lands are in the same
area.
Then, in terms of the fuels, and planning for the fuel
reduction, we are looking at that on a landscape basis, where
the Forest Service and BLM work together, along with the States
and the private communities to plan out what are the highest
priority and where we need to be doing the treatments and what
kind of treatments.
And then in terms of building our firefighter workforce up
to the most efficient level, we have been working very closely
between the Forest Service and BLM on that aspect on the hiring
and the identification of the people that we need.
Mr. Peterson. But do all five agencies coordinate making
sure adequate personnel are available and plans coincide
somewhat?
Mr. Laverty. If I could maybe answer that, Mr. Peterson. I
really believe that we do, and some of the things that Tim and
I have been working on is the actual hiring and recruitment of
these firefighters we brought on as a result of the National
Fire Plan. There has been really good coordination among the
States, as we work with the BLM, and the Interior lands and the
Agency lands.
In terms of training, we have coordinated training so that
we are not duplicating those kinds of efforts. And even in the
placement of these crews, there is coordination that goes on,
not only with the agencies, but even among the States so that
we are not bunching up all of the resources in one particular
location. So there really is some incredible coordination that
goes on.
Just to build on what Dale talked about, in today's paper,
we saw Joe Carvello up in Jackson Hole. Joe is the incident
commander for the Jackson Hole fire. That fire team, if you
were to see that today, would be made up of people from the
Park Service, probably from the BLM, the Forest Service, and
even State personnel, so that it is truly the manifestation of
what the coordination is that we are talking about, and it
works well. It works extremely well, in terms of the incident
commander being able to call those resources. And I am
convinced the fact that we didn't burn any structures in
Jackson Hole today is because of the fire plan and the
resources that Mr. Carvello had available to him.
Mr. Peterson. So there, again, it was agency coordination.
Mr. Laverty. Absolutely.
Mr. Hayworth. And, Mr. Peterson, also, as we move forward
to complete our fire management plans, there is very clear and
open dialogue now among all of the Federal partners, Forest
Service and Interior that we need to approach this fire
management planning in a seamless way rather than the four
Interior bureaus developing their own individual plans and then
Forest Service developing their plans. We look at a landscape,
and we develop a fire management plan.
The fuels problems out there don't adhere to the
administrative boundaries, and the solutions shouldn't either,
and that is the approach that we are going to be taking in the
future as we develop fire management plans.
Mr. Laverty. Mr. Peterson, one other piece, if I could just
add in--
Mr. Peterson. Sure.
Mr. Laverty. That, again, reflects I think how the agencies
are working together is in the development of the comprehensive
strategy that we have been working with the governors across
the country to develop an integrated, comprehensive strategy on
how are we going to address the fuels not only on the Federal
lands, but coordinate that on the State and private lands as
well. That is ready to be signed probably 2 weeks from today,
and coordinating with the governors.
Mr. Peterson. This is more of a new development of this
kind of coordination.
Mr. Laverty. Yes, sir. It is one of the directions that
came out of the conference report.
Mr. Peterson. Back to the Endangered Species Act for just
one question here. It would seem to me that a hot fire is
probably the greatest danger any species, endangered or not,
faces. I mean, not too many live through it, do they? I mean, a
hot fire, from what I have--
Could it be possible that during any actual fighting of a
hot fire that people are worrying about incidentals of the
Endangered Species Act, when the ultimate danger to the species
is roaring at them? I mean--
Mr. Bosworth. Well, I can't really say what was going on in
any particular person's mind and what they are worrying about.
But, again, we try to do preplanning on these kind of things.
So we understand what--we don't want to do more damage with the
suppression than what the fire is going to do. So we have plans
ahead of time so that we can make sure that we are doing the
fire suppression in a way that minimizes the damage to soils,
to watersheds, to threatened or endangered species. But there
is no question that when you get hot fire going through some
drainages, you can have an effect on threatened or endangered
species.
Also, like I mentioned earlier, what I saw in the
Bitterroot Valley last week with mud slides, you might end up
with the same problem with the mud slides.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you. We have run out of time.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Peterson. I hate to interrupt
like that, but we do have two more panels and a number of
members that would like to ask questions.
Mr. Udall, you may proceed.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I wanted to ask a couple of questions about the Thirty Mile
fire. It seemed, with your testimony, that you said that we are
putting out every human-caused fire, that that is the policy.
Is that the policy?
Mr. Bosworth. On that particular forest, and that plan
there is that if it is a man-caused fire, that you suppress it.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. And where is that policy written?
Mr. Bosworth. I believe that that was the management for
the resource natural area, the management plan for the resource
natural area.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. In the resource natural area,
where the fire was started?
Mr. Bosworth. That is correct.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. And there is a policy for that
particular resource natural area, that says we put out every
human-caused fire?
Mr. Bosworth. I believe that is correct. I will have to
check it and make sure, but I believe that is in the planning
guideline, in the plan for the write-up for the resource
natural area. It is also in our 1995 policy, that we suppress
man-caused, person-caused fires, the Federal Wildland Fire
Policy.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. The 2001 Federal Fire Policy
clearly states that the response to wildland fires, based on
the Fire Management Plan, not the ignition source or the
location of the fire, and that is at your 2001 update page,
page 4, so I don't see how these two fit together, even though
the Thirty Mile fire was human-caused, conditions may have
warranted confinement or a monitoring response, or perhaps even
allowing the fire to burn under a prescribed burn. This was a
very remote area, wasn't it?
Mr. Bosworth. It is a fairly remote area, that is correct.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. And in one of these resource
natural areas, they are banned, aren't they, the fighting of
fires and aerial retardants and things like that?
Mr. Bosworth. That is not correct. It depends on the
conditions. We don't have any place where we ban fighting
fires. It depends upon all sorts of prescribed conditions that
we evaluate ahead of time before we have any fire.
Also I would like to say that under the 1995 Wildland Fire
Policy, we suppress all human-caused fires. You are correct
that there are some statements in the 2001 policy, but it also
has to be consistent with state arson laws, and when you make
sure with state arson laws that were not allowing, in some
states, particularly, that were not allowing person-caused
fires to burn.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. This fire, the Thirty Mile fire,
ended up taking the lives of these four people, and it was
fought, I guess, to the tune of 4.6 million, and it was really
put out by the weather, wasn't it? It ended up the weather
changed and that is what got it under control?
Mr. Bosworth. I don't know the specifics of the final days
of the fire, but almost all cases where we have a large fire
that is burning, that we don't get a handle on it till we get
some help from the weather.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. And don't you think there is--in
terms of looking at this fire and looking at where it was
started and how remote it was, and that the Forest Service
wouldn't have been a lot better off to have left this continue
its natural course rather than attack it with crews and fire
retardants and all that?
Mr. Bosworth. No, sir, I don't. You remember that was July
10th. That is fairly early in the fire season. We had another 8
weeks probably of fire season to go. We had multiple fires
burning on the Okanogan National Forest, one fire that was
approximately 1,000 acres. We had no idea how much--how many
resources we would have for fires, and I would be would be
very, very concerned about letting a fire go that early in the
fire season under those conditions, when you have the kind of
drought that we had, and I think that the Forest's actions to
suppress a fire were exactly right.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Attached to this, the Incident
Management Situation Report, is a chart at the end that talks
about wildland fire use or the prescribed fires and acres year
to date. Looking at this and looking at all the areas, it looks
like that very, very little acreage is being burned in terms of
prescribed fires. I mean, is that an accurate wildland fire
use? Very little of it is--this chart here shows that we are
not really allowing it to take its course.
Mr. Laverty. I think that chart that you are referring to
is a correct representation of what is actually taking place. I
know from talking to the folks down on the Gila, that they had
a fire earlier this summer that they had planned to go to
30,000 acres of fire use fire. Weather put it out. And I think
we are finding more and more of those examples.
We have one right now in Colorado in the Mount Zirkels,
that is about 1,000 acres, and it could go up to probably
15,000 acres if the weather would permit that. So in situations
where we do in fact have these prescriptions in place, we are
able to make those happen. So they are happening, and in fact,
there are some in the Frank Church right now that are actually
burning in terms of fire use. So there is more and more of
those coming along. But we just need the weather to help us.
Mr. Udall of New Mexico. Thank you very much. And I know
these are very difficult decisions, and I thank the panel for
their testimony.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Udall.
As a courtesy to the ranking member, Mr. Inslee has a
follow up.
Mr. Inslee. I appreciate that, Mr. Chair.
Chief, I just wondered, I certainly and maybe others have
some question about different policy based on the source of the
fire. For instance, this was probably negligence, I take it,
around a campfire. Could you help us by giving just, at a later
date, not necessarily today, a little more description of
specifically indeed what the policy is for the Forest Service?
You might relate it to this fire as well. I think that would be
helpful. I think that there are some legitimate issues about
what the policy should be on negligently-caused human fires,
whether that should change really our policy or not. I
personally at the moment don't think it should, but I would
appreciate if you can just give that to us in writing. We
appreciate it.
Mr. Bosworth. Sure.
Mr. McInnis. Thank you, Mr. Inslee.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief.
I apologize. I didn't get to hear much of the testimony of the
witnesses because of another meeting.
But, Mr. Bosworth, the GAO tells us that while a lot of the
west is burning, that the southeast really has more communities
at risk, and I suppose that is because we are of a higher
population concentrations. Have you looked at that, or do you
feel that you are going to be better able to respond or to
respond more quickly, since there are more communities at risk,
or have you given that any consideration?
Mr. Bosworth. I am going to ask Lyle to add a little bit,
but first I would like to say that in the South we do have a
number of places where we have communities at risk, just as
well as we do in the interior West, and in fact, I was just
looking at some maps today in Georgia, where--just pictures of
where all the homes were around, schools were. We are in the
same kind of circumstance. We have also increased the fire-
fighting capability in the South. We are accomplishing a lot of
our acres in broadcast burning or prescribed burning is being
done in the South.
Do you want to add to that?
Mr. Laverty. If I could just add, Mr. Duncan, even on top
of the acres that we have treated already in terms of
prescribed fire, a majority of those have actually come from
the South and the Southeast, a very, very strong component. And
I think recognizing again that we do in fact have communities.
One of the pieces specifically, in Tennessee, we were able to
bring a hot-shot cool on for that Southeast part of the country
as part of the National Fire Plan, that I think helps us even
be more responsive to some of those communities.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Then let me ask you this. I am told
by the staff that one group sent out an e-mail last month
saying that they opposed thinning of the forests even if it
would reduce the impacts of wildfire. Would a totally hands-off
approach increase the risk of more fires as we have seen in the
last couple of years?
Mr. Bosworth. I just do not support a hands-off approach
dealing with the fire and fuel situation. We need to be
actively managing, particularly around these communities and
these watersheds. We need to be doing some thinning. We need to
be getting prescribed fire back in, and I don't support a
hands-off approach.
Mr. Duncan. Do you see active management as somehow being
harmful to the environment?
Mr. Bosworth. I believe that active management can be
harmful to the environment if it is not done correctly, but it
also believe that active management can be done in a way that
is not harmful to the environment, and that is what we attempt
to do.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Peterson. [Presiding] The gentleman from Colorado, Mr.
Udall.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to
welcome the panel as well. Thank you for taking your time today
to be here with us. I want to focus, Chief, and Mr. Laverty and
Mr. Hartzell, on Colorado's front range, if I might. It is a
prime example of the so-called urban wildlands interface. In
Colorado we actually have another term. We call it the Red
Zone. It has been extensively mapped, and we have identified
these areas where developments are closest to the forests and
where wildfires provide the greatest threat to homes and
communities.
The main reason I have supported the fuel reduction part of
the fire plan is because I have understood it would focus on
these interface areas. And so I am concerned, based on what I
have heard and read, that at this point only a small part of
the fuel reduction work has taken place in those areas, so I
would like to direct a few questions at all of you in that
regard.
Am I right that only 25 percent of the acres treated to
reduce fuels have been in the interface area?
Mr. Bosworth. That is probably correct, about 25 percent.
But I would like to point out that when this started 9 months
ago, we have been trying to be very clear to people that this
first year we would have to take existing projects that we
already had completed planning and the environmental impact
statements for, and that that is the kind of projects that we
would be doing this first year, which in many cases weren't
focused on the wildland urban interface. At the same time
though, as we are planning our projects for next year, those
projects are being planned in the high-risk areas in the
wildland urban interface.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. In this fiscal year, Chief, the
Forest Service expects to treat about 60,000 acres in Colorado?
Again, I want to ask you if you think that is an accurate
number, and if so, how many of those acres are in the interface
area?
Mr. Bosworth. I am going to have Lyle answer that.
Mr. Laverty. If I could take that, Mr. Udall.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. I figured Mr. Laverty might, since
he has been--and by the way, been very attentive to Colorado
and I have enjoyed working with him.
Mr. Laverty. I believe that the region is working hard to
accomplish that 60,000 acres. We have had some early rains. We
have lost some opportunities because of the monsoons that have
come. My guess is that we will probably be a little short of
that 60,000, but just as Tim talked about, we will be able to
carry those over.
I would expect that as we look at all the projects and the
accomplishments at the end of the year, that probably 25 plus
percent of those will be urban interface project. Maybe a
little bit more in Colorado, because I think we did have a few
more projects that were urban interface projects than some of
the other regions.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. If you look at the GAO study, of
course, they have got a map that has the number of communities
by state identified by Interior as being at the highest
wildfire risk, and Colorado and Utah in the West have the
largest number of dots. I note that my colleague, Mr. Duncan of
Tennessee, has quite a few as well. But again, I point that out
just to underline the concerns that we have in Colorado in this
regard. Also I think we have enormous opportunity to create
some exciting new markets potentially for these materials for
biomass and other uses.
With that, let me--I don't want to leave the Interior
Department out of this, so I will direct a question to Mr.
Hartzell. How many acres in Colorado do you expect to treat,
and how many of them will be in this interface area?
Mr. Hartzell. Mr. Udall, I think this year we had roughly
12,000 acres in the wild and urban interface that were targeted
for treatment, and we have completed roughly 3,000 of those
acres.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. 12,000 treated?
Mr. Hartzell. 12,000 planned in the wildland urban
interface, 3,000 treated. Many of our projects this year were
heavily oriented toward prescribed fire. There are projects
that had been in the planning stage for two or 3 years. I
believe in the out years, particularly around communities, you
are going to see a shift in emphasis to using more mechanical
means. Where we have dangerous fuels, we need to thin the
forest first.
Let me just quickly say that I don't have the specifics,
but I know through this collaborative partnership that we have
got with all of the state foresters for the State of Colorado
for next year, somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 60 projects
totalling 7-1/2 to 8-1/2 million dollars has been identified in
the wild and urban interface.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. I thank you for that additional
information. That was my next question.
Does it cost more to reduce fuels in these interface areas,
and are there any factors that make it harder to do this fuel
reduction work, say, compared to more remote areas? And I would
direct that also to the Forest Service.
Mr. Hartzell. I can tell you that this year, in our
department, it costs roughly 7 times more per acre to do a
wildland urban interface treatment. The reason for that is when
you are working up against a community, you have got heavy
fuels, mechanical thinning is needed to thin the fuel.
Mr. Bosworth. I would say that it is a similar cost in the
Forest Service. It definitely costs more to do it in the
wildland urban interface for the same reasons he was talking
about. And I think it is really important to recognize that it
would be dangerous for us to focus only on the number of acres
that we accomplish, because if we want to accomplish acres, we
can go to easy places, but they may not be the right places. It
may be the chief ones, but maybe not the right ones. And all of
our strategy is to find the right places, even though it may
cost more because of the kind of treatments we have to do.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. That is a fair point.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time, and I don't know
whether we will have a second round, but I would certainly ask
unanimous consent that we could extend further questions to all
of the people who have testified today. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Peterson. The gentleman from Idaho.
Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I always hate to use these for personal reasons, but since
I have got you here, I will ask you. I got a place that is just
over the pass in Jackson Hole. What does that fire look like
today?
Mr. Bosworth. It is in good shape.
Mr. Laverty. That is in good shape.
Mr. Simpson. In good shape?
Mr. Bosworth. Actually, it is in pretty good shape.
Mr. Simpson. Doesn't look like it will go over the pass?
Mr. Bosworth. No, but when I was flying over it a couple of
days ago, I would have not said the same thing, but I mean I
would not have been surprised, when I was flying over it about
3 days ago, whether it would go over the pass, but it is my
understanding that it looks a lot different today.
Mr. Simpson. Well, I appreciate that. It makes my August a
heck of a lot more friendly.
You mentioned about the 2002 fire plan, the projects that
have been planned and so forth, and some of those are going to
be put on hold and delayed and so forth because of appeals and
litigation. What are the basis for some of those appeals and
litigations that you anticipate?
Mr. Laverty. There are a number of themes. I was just
talking to the folks on the Bitterroot on one of the rehab and
restoration projects that they are working on, another project
that was a fuels hazardous reduction outside of a community
just outside of Hamilton. And there is a variety of issues that
surface on why, threatened endangered species, clean water.
Those are some of the elements that are already surfacing in
some of the early appeals that we are beginning to see on some
of the fire projects. So it would be--those are the concerns I
think that people are expressing.
Mr. Simpson. I am curious as to whether we have done more
damage, as an example, in the Clear Creek fire area? I am sure
you have flown over and seen some of the mud slides and so
forth that have occurred when you get a little moisture. Do we
do more damage to threatened and endangered species habitat
when that occurs, than we would if we got in and did a sound
job of thinning, trying to reduce these forest fires so they
aren't quite so catastrophic?
Mr. Bosworth. Of course, it depends on which threatened and
endangered species we are talking about, and it varies, but
from a water quality standpoint, you know, I believe that when
we end up with mud slides like I saw in the Bitterroot and the
feedback I got from the biologists there was, was that that was
very damaging to the--it wiped out the habitat. I also believe
that if we had done some strategic kinds of placement of
thinning and prescribed burning over the last 15 or 20 years,
we may have--the whole area may have looked a whole lot
different.
Mr. Simpson. So are you suggesting that we can actually, if
we do it correctly, and we plan properly, and we are sensitive
to the environment that we are trying to protect, that we can
actually potentially protect threatened and endangered habitat,
clean water and so forth, by doing active management, rather
than just letting it go by its wayside?
Mr. Bosworth. I believe that we can--that that is correct,
yes.
Mr. Laverty. Mr. Simpson, if I could just add onto that.
The basic premise of the cohesive strategy that we put together
about a year ago, which became one of the foundations of the
National Fire Plan, speaks exactly to that point, that by
managing these in a healthy, functioning condition, that we can
improve the resilience of these ecosystems to function in this
kind of a fashion and now lose habitat.
Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that. One of the things that was
just mentioned is the source of the fire and the decision of
whether to go put a fire or not and that type of thing. What
does the source of the fire have to do with it? I mean I know
that sounds like a stupid question, but does a tree know how
the fire started?
Mr. Bosworth. No, but again, I mentioned arson laws, for
example. If a person starts a fire, then they have some
responsibility for what happens when that fire burns.
Mr. Simpson. Well, it would seem to me that the thing that
would be the deciding factor is the condition of the forest and
what the goal was, regardless of how it started.
Mr. Bosworth. That is a primary concern is the condition of
the forest, but again, if--to me it is a very slippery slope
when you start deciding to allow anybody that happened to start
a fire, to decide to allow those fires to burn. I think that we
could have some real problems, and we have in recent--there are
some unintended consequences that could happen from that. And
we don't allow, just because it is a lightning-caused fire,
doesn't mean we are going to allow it to burn, but under very
specific conditions, where there are certain things that can--
you know, some beneficial use that would take place from a fire
that has been analyzed and public involvement way ahead of
time, we understand exactly what the fuels are supposed to be,
the fuel moisture is supposed to be, and what the weather is
supposed to be, how late and early it is in the year. We may
decide to allow one of those fires to burn.
Mr. Simpson. Does the fact that we have such huge fuel
loads in our forests make it more likely that we are going to
have to put out fires because of the potential that they are
going to be catastrophic once they start burning? And,
therefore, if we could actually reduce the fuel loads, you
could actually get back to a system where natural fires were
allowed to burn because they wouldn't become as catastrophic,
as they currently do?
Mr. Bosworth. Well, particularly around communities, if you
have got heavy fuel loads, you don't want to allow a fire to
burn because you can't control it, and you may not be able to--
you know, it is just too much risk.
But, on the other hand, I fully support allowing fires to
burn under certain conditions back in the back country and
wilderness areas, some of the roadless areas, and if we have
done--even along the interface areas, if we had done the
thinning, and we have been doing prescribed burning every 15 or
20 years, and a fire starts, it may not make much difference if
it burned or not.
Mr. Simpson. If I could just ask one real brief one before
I finish. An awful lot of people don't like the words
``commercial harvest,'' and if you go out and thin forests and
somehow that wood is used for something that could be
commercially valuable, that is commercial harvest and you are
in trouble. Some of these thinnings are actually going to be
for commercial purposes, and some of them will probably address
the mature successional trees as you look at areas to try to
reduce the fire hazard.
I am curious. What is the health--I mean, you are a
professional fireman. What is the health of that mature
successional tree going to be? Just out of curiosity. I know
this is an off-the-top question, and I am just wondering what
you think it will be after this is put out.
Mr. Bosworth. It will probably be a pretty dead tree when
that is done, but there--
Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I appreciate your being here today.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bosworth. Could I respond to one other thing, just very
briefly?
Mr. Peterson. Just briefly.
Mr. Bosworth. Okay. I would like to go back to the business
about leaving--you know, person-caused fires burning. And one
of the things I think people need to think about is if in
that--if we had allowed that fire to burn, say, in Thirty Mile
Canyon, if those two civilians were up there, if they had been
caught in that fire and it was one that we had allowed to burn
and it was a person-caused fire, I think there are some real
major problems when we allow those things to happen. So we have
got to be very, very careful about those kind of choices,
particularly when they are person-caused.
Mr. Peterson. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
The gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Who was held accountable, then, for the Los Alamos fire and
what happened?
Mr. Hartzell. Mr. Chairman, the Los Alamos fire, the Board
of Inquiry concluded that those employees followed existing
policy and that the policy was flawed.
Mr. Otter. That the policy was flawed?
Mr. Hartzell. That is correct.
Mr. Otter. So nobody gets fired, nobody has to pay up? You
know, we had some folks that their tire went flat in Idaho when
they were traveling down the highway--actually, I think they
were from Minnesota. But their tire went flat on their trailer
and it threw out a bunch of sparks and caused a fire, burned
about 180,000 acres. Their insurance company paid--I don't
know--2 or 3 million bucks. But because we were following
policy and it was a flawed policy--who made the policy? Can we
go back to the deep pocket here or to the source of the policy
and lay some blame and get some credibility back into the
system?
Mr. Hartzell. The issue was that the 1995 Federal wildland
fire policy that was referred to had not been institutionalized
and was not reflected--that the guidance on that policy was not
reflected in the manuals and handbooks that were being followed
by the Park Service employees.
Mr. Otter. I see. Actually, I was just following up on that
because it was curious to me that it seemed like we were
looking to lay liability, and I know in several instances we
have been able to lay liability on bad policy and the reasons
for it as bad policy, but then we can't find anybody to hold
accountable.
You know, I am like some of my colleagues here, when I
first heard about the four deaths, I reflected back when I was
a firefighter on the Sundance fire. I reflected back that when
my son was on the first strike crew, the hot-shot crew for the
Sawtooth National, and my son-in-law, who is now initial attack
crew on the Panhandle, the first thing I thought of wasn't, you
know, whether or not somebody was going to disrupt the
environmental policy of this country. I thought about the
families and the mothers and the fathers and the sisters and
the brothers. And I think a public policy that is absent the
sensitive soul that we should have here for human life is a
public policy that is drastically flawed.
So, having said that, I want to get on, I guess, with what
this hearing is really all about. Mr. Bosworth, you are only on
the job here a very short period of time. You have got an
administration that is pretty new in place. The GAO report,
which I have read, actually reflects time when you haven't even
been on the job. In fact, your team, the administration team,
isn't even in place yet, is it, totally?
Mr. Bosworth. Well, there are still a lot of positions to
be filled. That is correct.
Mr. Otter. Do you expect to have a team that will be
coordinated with the five agencies, that will have a
singularity of purpose in our National Fire Plan when we get
this administration's team--I understand why the other
administration's team didn't work well together. But I would
expect that when we get our team in place, when this
administration team gets in place, don't you have some high
expectations of some coordinates and compatibility in enforcing
and establishing our National Fire Plan?
Mr. Bosworth. I am very optimistic about that. I really do
believe that when we get, you know, a little time, we will see
improvements every day as we move forward. I am very optimistic
about that.
Mr. Otter. You were asked several questions about why would
you put out that fire if it was manmade or it was lightning-
made. In Idaho, I remember one time in 1995--actually, 1994, we
had 1,400 lightning strikes in a single evening, which resulted
in about 400 fires, but many of them were small. And one of the
fires that we were noticed on was what we call now the
Blackwell Corral complex fires. We were noticed--I was
Lieutenant Governor and Acting Governor at the time because
Governor Andrus had gone out of town, out of the State. And we
were requested by the Payette National Forest to let it be. And
so we let it be. Then, finally, when it hit--that was when it
was at about 50 acres. When it hit 500 acres, they started
deploying some initial resources to the fire. When it hit 5,000
acres, they decided this could get serious; 287,000 acres
later, we decided that maybe we should have gone in and put--
and let the folks on the ground make the decision, call the
shots as to whether or not major resources were going to be
wasted as a result of that fire.
So let me just say that I hope this national policy plan
that we come up with and the one we are going to be enforcing
is going to include a generous helping of reason and logic and
folks on the ground--and I know, Mr. Bosworth, you have said
earlier in your testimony that was one of the great hopes and
aspirations that you had for your time at the steering wheel,
was to get the people back on the ground involved.
Mr. Bosworth. That is correct.
Mr. Peterson. I thank the gentleman from Idaho, and we
would like to thank the panel, Forest Chief Bosworth and Mr.
Laverty and Mr. Hartzell from the Department of Interior. Thank
you for your willingness to come today. We are going to invite
the members to do written questions for the record if they
would like, and you can respond to them.
Thank you very much for your generous time and your candid
answers.
Mr. Bosworth. Thank you.
Mr. Peterson. We will now call on the second panel. Our
second panel will be Barry T. Hill, Associate Director on
Energy Resources and Science Issues, U.S. General Accounting
Office, and his support team. Welcome and please proceed.
We are going to limit the questions to 3 minutes to try to
give everybody a chance to ask questions. So I will warn you
first.
Mr. Inslee. Mr. Chair, could I add something?
Mr. Peterson. You are recognized.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. As ranking member, I may not be able
to listen to your testimony. I need to excuse myself briefly. I
will try to get some written questions to you if I don't get
back in time.
And just one other comment. In response to Mr. Otter's
comment, I wanted to assure this panel and everybody in this
room, I think there is bipartisan concern about the individuals
involved in fighting this fire. I went up to Harborview
Hospital and met with Mr. Emhoff's family while he was in
surgery about this. I think this is something we share on a
bipartisan basis.
Thank you.
Mr. Peterson. I thank the gentleman, and, Mr. Hill, please
proceed.
STATEMENT OF BARRY T. HILL, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
Subcommittee. It is certainly a pleasure for us to appear
before this Subcommittee this afternoon to discuss
implementation of the National Fire Plan. Before I begin, allow
me to introduce my colleagues.
With me today, on my right, is Charlie Cotton and, on my
left, Cliff Fowler, who are responsible for leading the ongoing
wildfire work we are doing for the Subcommittee and for the
information we will be presenting today. And if I may, I would
like to briefly summarize my prepared statement and submit the
full text of my statement for the record.
Usually, our testimony is based on an issued GAO report.
However, in this instance, our work for you is still ongoing.
Instead of an issued GAO report, we do have for each member of
the Subcommittee a copy of the 2001 update of the 1995 Federal
wildland fire management policy. This policy provides the
philosophical and policy foundation for Federal interagency
fire management activities conducted under the National Fire
Plan. If Agriculture's Forest Service and Interior's National
Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land
Management, and Bureau of Indian Affairs were adhering to the
policies, guiding principles, and recommendations contained in
this document, we would likely have many positive things to say
about how these five Federal land management agencies are
implementing the National Fire Plan.
However, many of the policies, guiding principles, and
recommendations, especially those that present challenges to
traditional organizational structures, have not been
implemented. As a result, the five agencies cannot ensure that
they are spending the almost $2.9 billion appropriated for
wildland fire management for fiscal year 2001 in an efficient,
effective, and timely manner. Nor will they be able to account
accurately for how they spend or what they accomplish with the
$30 billion that they say they need over the next 10 years to
implement the plan.
Let me take a moment and explain why the National Fire Plan
is important, not just from a budgetary perspective but from a
human perspective as well.
Human activities, especially the Federal Government's
decades-old policy of suppressing all wildland fires, have
resulted in dangerous accumulations of hazardous fuels on
Federal lands. As a result, conditions on 211 million acres, or
almost one-third of all fire-adapted Federal lands, continue to
deteriorate. According to the Federal wildland fire management
policy, these conditions have increased the probability of
large, intense wildland fires beyond any scale yet witnessed.
Coupled with the explosive growth of people and structures in
the wildland-urban interface, these fires will, in turn,
increase the risk to communities, watersheds, ecosystems, and
species. They will also place in jeopardy the lives of the
public as well as the firefighters charged with controlling or
suppressing them.
As the Federal wildland fire management policy recognizes,
the challenge facing the Congress and the administration is not
finding new solutions to an old problem but of implementing
known solutions. After every severe fire season or when human
lives have been lost battling wildfires, working groups or
commissions are established, reports are issued, and
recommendations are made. Unfortunately, just as every wildland
fire eventually dies out, so has the collective will to
effectively implement these recommendations.
The National Fire Plan represents the latest effort to
address wildland fire on Federal lands. Two conditions set this
effort apart from prior efforts: first, congressional
recognition of the need to sustain increased funding for
wildland fire management in future fiscal years; and, second,
congressional direction to reduce the risk of wildland fire in
the wildland-urban interface. However, implementation of the
National Fire Plan currently lacks the coordination,
consistency, and agreement called for in the Federal wildland
fire management policy. Let me cite a few examples.
First, although the Congress directed the five Federal land
management agencies to reduce the risk of wildland fire in the
wildland-urban interface, they currently do not know how many
communities are at high risk of wildland fire, where they are
located, and what it will cost to reduce the risk. Therefore,
the agencies are not positioned to set priorities for treatment
or to inform the Congress about how many will remain at high
risk after appropriated funds are expended.
The agencies have attempted to identify high-risk
communities. However, the number of communities has ballooned
from almost 4,400 in January to over 22,000 in May. Moreover,
rather than continue to work toward a jointly published list of
communities, as the Congress directed them to do, Interior and
the Forest Service have gone their separate ways. From the list
of over 22,000 communities, Interior has identified 545
communities near its lands that it determined to be highest
risk. However, if you look at the two charts that we have
brought today, on the chart to my right it shows the location
of the major fire occurrences that happened last year, and the
chart on my left shows the communities that Interior has
identified as being at highest risk to wildfire.
Two hundred and seventy-eight, or over half of these
communities, are in three Southeastern States--Georgia, North
Carolina, and Tennessee--which are not prone to severe wildland
fires. Conversely, California and Idaho refused to prioritize
their communities on the initial list of 4,400, and as a
result, Interior did not include any communities in these two
fire-prone States.
Meanwhile, by October, the Forest Service plans to develop
its own separate list of highest-risk communities from the list
of over 22,000. However, it plans to allow each of its nine
regional offices to work individually with States within its
boundaries to develop nine separate lists of highest-risk
communities.
Efforts under the National Fire Plan to prepare for and
suppress wildland fires also lack the coordination,
consistency, and agreement called for in the Federal wildland
fire management policy. For example, the five Federal land
management agencies cannot agree on the priority to be given to
preparing fire management plans. These plans are critical to
determining preparedness needs for fighting wildland fires
because they identify, among other things, which fires should
be suppressed and which should be allowed to burn. However, 6
years later, only the 60 units managed by the Bureau of Land
Management have fully complied with the policy. Of the
remaining 1,323 units managed by the other four agencies, 768,
or 58 percent, still do not have a plan that complies with the
policy. These 768 units encompass about 121 million acres, or
31 percent of all the acres with burnable vegetation managed by
these four agencies.
Another example of this problem relates to the process used
to request the equipment needed to be fully prepared to fight
future wildland fires. For fiscal year 2001, the Congress gave
the agencies the opportunity to request the needed equipment.
However, each agency identified its own equipment needs, and as
a result, the Forest Service failed to ask for about $44
million that it needs to procure hundreds of pieces of
equipment, including fire engines, bulldozers, water tenders,
trucks, as well as associated supplies.
Similarly, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to request
about $8 million it needs to procure about 90 pieces of
firefighting equipment. So for these two agencies, it is not
clear when they will reach the firefighting capacity envisioned
with the funding provided for fiscal year 2001.
Mr. Chairman, these examples lead to the inevitable
question: Why? Why have the five Federal land management
agencies failed to incorporate into the National Fire Plan many
of the Federal wildland fire management policies, guiding
principles, and recommendations? We believe the reason can be
traced to their reluctance to change their traditional
organizational structures of Federal wildland fire management.
As a result, the five agencies continue to plan and manage
wildland fire activities primarily on an agency-by-agency and
unit-by-unit basis. Unfortunately, wildland fire does not
recognize the administrative boundaries of Federal land units.
Moreover, although efficient, effective, and timely
implementation of the National Fire Plan will require an
interdisciplinary approach, Federal fire managers and managers
in other disciplines--including those responsible for wildlife
and fisheries and vegetation and watershed management--have
been reluctant to forge the necessary new working
relationships.
According to the Federal wildland fire management policy,
an entity is needed with the authority to provide the necessary
strategic direction, leadership, coordination, conflict
resolution, and oversight and evaluation into the full range of
affected agencies and disciplines. Although it is early in the
implementation of the National Fire Plan, it is clear that its
implementation also requires such an entity. Therefore, we
encourage the administration and the Congress to consider all
the alternative organizational structures identified in the
policy, including establishing a single Federal wildland fire
management entity.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. We would be
happy to respond to any questions that you or other members of
the Subcommittee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hill follows:]
STATEMENT OF BARRY T. HILL, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND
ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
We are here today to discuss the results of our preliminary work
for you on the implementation of the National Fire Plan. The National
Fire Plan is not a single, cohesive document. Rather, it is composed of
various documents, including (1) a September 8, 2000, report
1 from the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture to
the President of the United States in response to the wildland fires in
2000; (2) congressional direction accompanying substantial new
appropriations for wildland fire management for fiscal year 2001; and
(3) several approved and draft strategies to implement all or parts of
the plan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Managing the Impact of Wildfires on Communities and the
Environment, A Report to the President In Response to the Wildfires of
2000, Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture (Sept. 8, 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition, the 1995 federal wildland fire management policy,
2 updated in 2001, 3 provides the philosophical
and policy foundation for federal interagency fire management
activities conducted under the National Fire Plan. Incorporating the
policy's guiding principles and recommendations into the plan presents
unusual, if not unique, challenges to traditional organizational
structures. Wildland fires do not recognize the administrative
boundaries of federal land units. Therefore, the policy requires
coordination, consistency, and agreement among five federal land
management agencies in two departments--the National Park Service, the
Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the
Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior and the
Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture. Moreover, an
effective strategy to reduce the risk of wildland fire requires a full
range of fire management activities, including management-ignited fires
(prescribed fires) and other fuel treatments, such as thinning.
Therefore, the policy requires an interdisciplinary approach in which
federal fire managers must forge new working relationships with other
disciplines within the agencies, including those responsible for
wildlife and fisheries and vegetation and watershed management.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review,
Report to the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture by an
Interagency Federal Wildland Fire Policy Review Working Group (Dec. 18,
1995).
\3\ Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management
Policy, Report to the Secretaries of the Interior, of Agriculture, of
Energy, of Defense, and of Commerce; the Administrator, Environmental
Protection Agency; and the Director, Federal Emergency Management
Agency, by an Interagency Federal Wildland Fire Policy Review Working
Group (Jan. 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Federal and state officials estimate that $30 billion will be
needed over the next 10 years to implement the National Fire Plan.
Toward this end, the Congress appropriated almost $2.9 billion for
Wildland Fire Management for fiscal year 2001. At your request, we are
reviewing whether the five federal land management agencies are
spending this money in an efficient, effective, and timely manner. To
date, we have focused our work primarily on efforts to reduce dangerous
accumulations of hazardous fuels and firefighting management and
preparedness.
In summary, the preliminary information we have gathered to date
suggests the following:
Human activities, especially the federal government's
decades-old policy of suppressing all wildland fires, including
naturally occurring ones, have resulted in dangerous accumulations of
hazardous fuels on federal lands. As a result, conditions on 211
million acres, or almost one-third of all federal lands, continue to
deteriorate. According to the federal wildland fire management policy,
these conditions have increased the probability of large, intense
wildland fires beyond any scale yet witnessed. Coupled with the
explosive growth of people and structures in areas where human
development meets or intermingles with undeveloped wildland--the
wildland-urban interface--these fires will, in turn, increase the risk
to communities, watersheds, ecosystems, and species. They will also
place in jeopardy the lives of the public as well as the lives of the
firefighters charged with controlling or suppressing them.
The National Fire Plan represents the latest effort to
address wildland fire on federal lands. Two conditions set this effort
apart from prior efforts to reduce the risk of wildland fire: (1)
congressional committee recognition of the need to sustain increased
funding for wildland fire management in future fiscal years and (2)
congressional committee direction to reduce the risk of wildland fire
in the wildland-urban interface. However, although the federal wildland
fire management policy is intended to provide the policy foundation for
the National Fire Plan, many of the policy's guiding principles and
recommendations--especially those that present challenges to
traditional organizational structures--have not been implemented.
Lacking the coordination, consistency, and agreement called for in the
federal wildland fire management policy, the five federal land
management agencies cannot ensure, among other things, that they (1)
are allocating funds to the highest-risk communities and ecosystems,
(2) will be adequately prepared to fight wildland fires in 2002, and
(3) can account accurately for how they spend the funds and what they
accomplish with them.
The failure of the five federal land management agencies
to incorporate into the National Fire Plan many of the federal wildland
fire management policy's guiding principles and recommendations can be
traced to their reluctance to change their traditional organizational
structures of federal wildland fire management. As a result, the five
agencies continue to plan and manage wildland fire management
activities primarily on an agency-by-agency and unit-by-unit basis.
Moreover, although implementing the National Fire Plan in an efficient,
effective, and timely manner will require an interdisciplinary
approach, federal fire managers and managers in other disciplines
within the agencies--including those responsible for wildlife and
fisheries and vegetation and watershed management--have been reluctant
to forge the necessary new working relationships.
Conditions on Federal Lands Continue to Deteriorate
For a number of years, both the Congress and the administration
have been made aware of the increasingly grave risk of wildland fire
posed by the buildup of brush and other hazardous vegetation on federal
lands. The 2001 update on federal wildland fire management policy
emphasized the urgency of reintroducing fire onto federal lands.
The 1988 wildland fires that burned Yellowstone National Park and
millions of acres of other public and private land resulted in a 1994
report by the statutorily established National Commission on Wildfire
Disasters. 4 The Commission stated:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Report of the National Commission on Wildfire Disasters (1994).
The National Commission on Wildfire Disasters was established on May 9,
1990, by the Wildfire Disaster Recovery Act of 1989 (Pub. L. No. 101-
286).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``The vegetative conditions that have resulted from past
management policies have created a fire environment so
disaster-prone in many areas that it will periodically and
tragically overwhelm our best efforts at fire prevention and
suppression. The resulting loss of life and property, damage to
natural resources, and enormous costs to the public treasury,
are preventable. If the warning in this report is not heeded,
and preventative actions are not aggressively pursued, the
costs will, in our opinion, continue to escalate.''
The Commission observed: ``The question is no longer if policy-
makers will face disastrous wildfires and their enormous costs, but
when.'' The when came that very year. The 1994 fire season resulted in
34 fatalities, including 14 firefighters on Storm King Mountain in
Colorado. These deaths, coupled with a growing recognition of the fire
problems caused by the accumulation of hazardous fuels, resulted in the
first comprehensive federal wildland fire management policy for the
departments of the Interior and of Agriculture. The December 1995
policy stated:
``The challenge of managing wildland fire in the United States
is increasing in complexity and magnitude. Catastrophic
wildfire now threatens millions of wildland acres, particularly
where vegetation patterns have been altered by past land-use
practices and a century of fire suppression. Serious and
potentially permanent ecological deterioration is possible
where fuel loads exceed historical conditions. Enormous public
and private values are at high risk, and our nation's
capability to respond to this threat is becoming
overextended.''
According to the 2001 update to the federal wildland fire
management policy, conditions on federal lands have continued to
deteriorate. In the aftermath of the escape of a prescribed fire at
Cerro Grande, New Mexico, in May 2000, the Secretaries of the Interior
and of Agriculture requested a review of the 1995 federal wildland fire
management policy and its implementation. According to the 2001 update,
as a result of excluding fire from federal lands, conditions on these
lands continue to deteriorate. The update observed that the fire hazard
situation is worse than previously understood and stated:
``The task before us--reintroducing fire--is both urgent and
enormous. Conditions on millions of acres of wildland increase
the probability of large, intense fires beyond any scale yet
witnessed. These severe fires will in turn increase the risk to
humans, to property, and to the land upon which our social and
economic well being is so intimately intertwined.''
The 2001 policy update also observed that the fire hazard situation
in the wildland-urban interface is more complex and extensive than was
understood in 1995. According to the update, the explosive growth in
the wildland-urban interface now puts entire communities and associated
infrastructure, as well as the socioeconomic fabric that holds
communities together, at risk from wildland fire. The update concluded
that the fire problem in the wildland-urban interface would continue to
escalate as people continue to move from urban to wildland areas in the
twenty-first Century.
Implementation of the National Fire Plan Lacks the Coordination,
Consistency, and Agreement Called for in the Federal Wildland
Fire Management Policy
The National Fire Plan represents the latest effort to address
wildland fire on federal lands. Two conditions set this effort apart
from prior efforts to reduce the risk of wildland fire: (1)
congressional committee recognition of the need to sustain increased
funding for wildland fire management in future fiscal years and (2)
congressional committee direction to reduce the risks of wildland fire
in the wildland-urban interface. However, although the federal wildland
fire management policy is intended to provide the policy foundation for
the National Fire Plan, many of the policy's guiding principles and
recommendations--especially those that present challenges to
traditional organizational structures--have not been implemented.
Lacking the coordination, consistency, and agreement called for in the
federal wildland fire management policy, the five federal land
management agencies cannot ensure, among other things, that they (1)
are allocating funds to the highest-risk communities and ecosystems,
(2) will be adequately prepared to fight wildland fires in 2002, and
(3) can account accurately for how they spend the funds and what they
accomplish with them.
Highest-Risk Communities Have Not Been Identified
The Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations
Act for Fiscal Year 2001 required the Secretaries of the Interior and
of Agriculture, after consultation with state and local firefighting
agencies, to publish jointly in the Federal Register a list of all
urban-wildland interface communities, as defined by the Secretaries,
within the vicinity of federal lands that are at high risk from
wildfire, as defined by the Secretaries. Despite this directive, the
five federal land management agencies currently do not know how many
communities are at high risk of wildland fire, where they are located,
or what it will cost to lower the risk. Therefore, they cannot set
priorities for treatment or inform the Congress about how many will
remain at high risk after appropriated funds are expended.
Here is what we have learned to date.
Prior to publishing an initial list of communities, the Secretaries
of the Interior and of Agriculture did not define either ``urban-
wildland interface communities'' or ``within the vicinity of federal
lands that are at high risk from wildfire.'' On January 4, 2001, the
Secretaries published an initial list in the Federal Register of 4,395
communities. However, as stated in the notice, (1) 11 states did not
respond or did not have lists of communities available, (2) 5 states
indicated that they did not have any at-risk communities, and (3) each
of the 34 states that did identify communities used ``criteria it
determined appropriate for selecting communities at risk.''
In February 2001, Interior and the Forest Service issued guidance
intended to refine and narrow the initial list of communities. The
guidance defined wildland-urban interface. It also identified three
criteria for evaluating the risk to wildland-urban interface
communities (fire behavior potential; risk to social, cultural, and
community resources; and fire protection capability) and risk factors
relating to each criterion. In addition, the guidance included a
discussion of fire behavior potential that provided some general
information on identifying fire risk. However, the guidance did not
specifically identify federal lands that are at high risk from wildland
fire rendering it difficult to identify urban-wildland interface
communities within the vicinity of such lands. Without this definition
and with the criteria subject to broad interpretation by the states,
the list of at-risk communities ballooned to over 22,000 in May 2001.
In addition, two states with lands in the fire-prone interior West--
California and Idaho--did not revise their initial lists of communities
on the basis of the February guidance, stating that all of their
communities on the initial list should be considered high-risk.
At that time, the Secretaries of the Interior and of Agriculture
said they intended to continue to work collaboratively with states,
tribes, local leaders, and other interested parties to identify and set
priorities for specific treatment projects. However, rather than
continue to work toward a jointly published list of communities,
Interior and the Forest Service went their separate ways.
From the list of over 22,000 communities, Interior has identified
545 communities near its lands that it determined to be at ``highest
risk'' by assigning numeric values to the risk factors in the February
2001 guidance. However, 278--or over half--of the communities are in
three southeastern states--Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee--that
are not prone to severe wildland fires. Conversely, since California
and Idaho did not revise their initial lists of communities on the
basis of the February guidance, Interior did not include any
communities are in these two fire-prone states. (See app. I and II.)
Meanwhile, by October 2001, the Forest Service plans to develop its
own separate list of highest-risk communities from the list of over
22,000. However, it plans to allow its nine regional offices to work
individually with states within their boundaries to develop nine
separate lists of highest-risk communities.
In the interim, a group of federal, state, and private individuals
has prepared a draft 10-year strategy to implement the National Fire
Plan. 5 This draft strategy emphasizes not only locally
driven priority-setting but also locally driven budget development,
project planning and implementation, monitoring, and reporting.
However, without nationwide criteria to differentiate risks among
wildland-urban interface communities in different states and
geographical regions, the National Fire Plan will become little more
than a funding source that will not allow for accountability at the
national level and not ensure that federally appropriated funds are
being spent in those wildland-urban interface communities at the
highest risk of wildland fire.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ A Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildfire Risks To
Communities and the Environment: Ten-Year Comprehensive Strategy (Draft
for Signature)(May 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neither the Forest Service Nor Interior Is Fully Prepared to Fight
Future Wildland Fires
The coordination, consistency, and agreement required by the
federal wildland fire management policy is also missing from efforts by
Interior and the Forest Service to ensure that the nation is fully
prepared to fight future wildland fires.
For instance, the five federal land management agencies cannot
agree on the priority to be given to preparing fire management plans.
Since 1995, federal wildland fire management policy has required that
every federally managed area with burnable vegetation must have an
approved fire management plan. These plans are critical to determining
preparedness needs for fighting wildland fires because they identify,
among other things, which wildland fires should be suppressed and which
should be allowed to burn. However, 6 years later, only the 60 units
managed by the Bureau of Land Management have fully complied with the
policy. Of the remaining 1,323 units managed by the other four federal
land management agencies, 768--or 58 percent--still do not have a plan
that complies with the policy. These 768 units encompass about 121
million acres--or 31 percent--of all the acres with burnable vegetation
managed by the four agencies. (See app. III.) Moreover, although
wildland fire does not recognize the administrative boundaries of
federal land units, federal fire management plans have been, and
continue to be, prepared on a unit-by-unit basis.
Similarly, rather than using one computer model to identify their
fire-preparedness needs, the five federal land management agencies use
three different models. The Forest Service, the Bureau of Land
Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs use one model to determine
their preparedness needs, the National Park Service uses another, and
the Fish and Wildlife Service uses a third. Moreover, all three models
appear to be inadequate for planning because they (1) do not consider
conditions on non-federal lands in the wildland-urban interface and
elsewhere, and (2) stop at the administrative boundaries of land units
as opposed to providing the broader scale planning embraced in the
federal wildland fire management policy.
Further, using existing fire preparedness models, all five of the
federal land management agencies requested funds to hire, develop, and
support additional fire managers and firefighters, and all five have
made substantial progress in hiring the additional personnel. (See app.
IV.) However, in addressing firefighting equipment needs, it is a
different story. Even though the Congress gave the agencies the
opportunity to request the equipment needed to be fully prepared to
fight future wildland fires, the agencies did not identify their
funding needs in a coordinated or consistent fashion. Instead, each
agency identified its own equipment needs. Two of the agencies--the
Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service--did not request the
funding needed to procure the firefighting equipment called for in
their existing fire preparedness models. So for these two agencies it
is not clear when they will reach the firefighting capacity envisioned
with the funding provided for fiscal year 2001. The Forest Service
failed to ask for about $44 million that it needs to procure hundreds
of pieces of equipment, including fire engines, bulldozers, water
tenders, and trucks, as well as associated supplies. According to the
Fish and Wildlife Service, it was not aware that it was supposed to
request about $8 million that it needs to procure about 90 pieces of
firefighting equipment.
Lack of Coordination, Consistency, and Agreement Extends to How
Accomplishments Are Measured and How Funds Are Accounted For
Lack of coordination, consistency, and agreement among the five
federal land management agencies extends to how they plan to measure
accomplishments and how they account for funds.
For instance, to ensure that the National Fire Plan accomplishes
its intended goals and objectives, the federal wildland fire management
policy requires federal agencies to establish and implement a clear,
concise system of accountability. However, Interior has not established
any quantifiable long-term or annual performance measures to gauge its
progress in reducing hazardous fuels. Conversely, the Forest Service
plans to measure and report on (1) the percent of wildland-urban
interface areas with completed fuels treatments and (2) the percent of
all acres with fuel levels meeting ``condition class 1;'' that is,
where human activities have not significantly altered historical fire
regimes or where management activities have successfully maintained or
restored ecological integrity.
Similarly, Interior and the Forest Service are using different
measures to gauge their progress toward being fully prepared to fight
future wildland fires. Interior measures the percent of wildland fires
contained during initial attack while the Forest Service measures the
amount of firefighting resources that it can make available to fight a
wildland fire.
Interior and the Forest Service also do not consistently account
for how they spend funds appropriated for wildland fire preparedness
and suppression. Prior to fiscal year 2001, both Interior and the
Forest Service personnel normally assigned to managerial,
administrative, and other staff positions in their wildland fire
management programs charged the first 8 hours of every workday to funds
allocated for firefighting preparedness, even when they were assigned
to fighting wildland fires. However, beginning with fiscal year 2001,
all Forest Service personnel assigned to fighting wildland fires now
charge their entire time to funds allocated for firefighting
suppression. Although our ongoing work has not determined which is more
appropriate, the Forest Service's accounting change will reduce funds
charged to preparedness and increase funds charged to suppression, in
comparison with prior years and Interior's accounting for its funds
allocated for similar activities. As a result, the Congress has no
consistent basis for holding Interior and the Forest Service
accountable.
Effective Implementation of the National Fire Plan May Require Changes
to Interior's and the Forest Service's Existing Organizational
Structures
According to the 2001 update, the failure to fully implement the
1995 federal wildland fire management policy resulted, in part, from
the lack of an entity with the authority to provide the necessary
strategic direction, leadership, coordination, conflict resolution, and
oversight and evaluation to the full range of affected agencies and
disciplines. Although it is early in the implementation of the National
Fire Plan, it is clear that its implementation also suffers from the
lack of such an entity.
The five federal land management agencies have been reluctant to
change their traditional organizational structures of federal wildland
fire management. Because of this reluctance, they have failed to
incorporate into the National Fire Plan many of the federal wildland
fire management policy's guiding principles and recommendations. As a
result, the five agencies continue to plan and manage wildland fire
management activities primarily on an agency-by-agency and unit-by-unit
basis. Moreover, although implementing the National Fire Plan in an
efficient, effective, and timely manner will require an
interdisciplinary approach, federal fire managers and managers in other
disciplines within the agencies--including those responsible for
wildlife and fisheries and vegetation and watershed management--have
been reluctant to forge the necessary new working relationships.
From a budgetary perspective, this continuation of a narrowly
focused, stovepipe approach will mean that funds appropriated for
wildland fire management may not be used in an efficient, effective,
and timely manner. There may be human consequences as well. For
instance, the failure to allocate funds for fuels reduction to the
highest-risk communities and ecosystems increases future risks not only
to those communities and ecosystems, but also to firefighters charged
with controlling and suppressing wildland fires.
We are continuing our review of the implementation of the National
Fire Plan. However, we agree with the federal wildland fire management
policy that the federal land management agencies must take action now
to resolve the wildland-urban interface problem. We would encourage the
administration and the Congress to consider all of the alternative
organizational structures identified in the policy, including
establishing a single federal wildland fire management entity with the
authority to provide the necessary strategic direction, leadership,
coordination, conflict resolution, and oversight and evaluation to the
full range of affected agencies and disciplines.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my formal statement. I will be pleased
to respond to any questions that you or other Members of the
Subcommittee may have.
Contacts and Acknowledgment
For future contacts regarding this statement, please contact Barry
T. Hill on (202) 512-3841. Individuals making key contributions to this
testimony were Ron Belak, Paul Bollea, Charlie Cotton, Alan Dominicci,
Clif Fowler, Ches Joy, Paul Lacey, and John Murphy.
______
[Appendices attached to Mr. Hill's statement follow:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4282.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4282.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T4282.007
Mr. Peterson. Due to the time problems, I am going to ask,
Mr. Hill, and your people, could you hang around and we are
going to try to hear from the other panel, Panel 3, and then
what time we have left before a series of votes, we will do Q &
A.
Mr. Hill. Sure.
Mr. Peterson. We thank you very much.
Mr. Peterson. If the other panel could quickly come to the
table, and any members who want to write questions for the
record, that would be appropriate.
I will introduce the next panel. We have Dr. Robert Lewis,
Jr., Deputy Chief, Research and Development, USDA, Forest
Service; and Dr. Ronald Haruto Wakimoto, Ph.D., Professor of
Forestry, University of Montana School of Forestry.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT LEWIS, JR., PH.D., DEPUTY CHIEF, RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST
SERVICE; ACCOMPANIED BY KEVIN RYAN, PH.D., ROCKY MOUNTAIN
RESEARCH STATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FOREST
SERVICE
Mr. Lewis. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to
testify this day. I have with me Dr. Kevin Ryan from our
Missoula, Montana, research lab. Also, I would like to enter my
written statement into the record.
The purpose of our testimony today is to address the issue
of science involved in the National Fire Plan and the
implementation of that plan. Specifically, Mr. Chairman, we
want to address the issue of fire ecology and the scientific
basis for managing a fire-adapted ecosystem.
We have fire-based ecosystems, especially in the Western
U.S.A. We also have the confounding problem of the wildland-
urban interface, as mentioned here earlier. In other words, we
have lots of people moving to where lots of trees exist.
Over the past 100 years, we have suppressed wildfires, and
many of these areas and regions have accumulated masses of
material that is combustible. Consequently, when we have fires
today in many of these areas, they are catastrophic, causing
tremendous damage not only to property and threatening human
lives but also to the environment that we are destined to care
for as stewards.
The role of science is to better inform policymakers and
the fire managers in debates and to better prepare the citizens
to live in a fire-adapted ecosystem.
Our role is to provide knowledge, analytical judgment, and
also to pose the hard questions that must be addressed when we
look at policy alternatives and options. Our goal is to
integrate human and biological systems and to provide the
scientific basis for developing a sound system of managing the
ecosystem and managing these fires.
We have had significant changes in vegetation over the last
100 years. We have as a result of that major threats. If these
highly flammable forests go down in flame and they are
catastrophic, we have a number of impacts. One would be the
loss of soil productivity and site stability. That is where we
have tremendous soil erosion when we have these catastrophic
fires and the soil becomes hydrophobic.
We have an increase in sedimentation, and streams of water
are polluted and habitats are disturbed for fish, wildlife, and
even plants. We have another problem in those denuded areas,
and that is the threat of exotic weeds and invasive species,
some native and non-native. We have an increase in the spread
of those.
Consequently, we must address this problem. We are
currently in a dilemma. We have a large number of acres that
have not been managed actively over the last 100 years. What do
we do with these threats? To sit back and do nothing is a
threat within itself because human lives and even ecosystems
are at threat. Therefore, we must develop and devise some
method of dealing with this particular problem.
Consequently, science has--we have, in research not just
within my agency, we have provided a sound scientific basis for
the national plan that has been developed, and this plan will
incorporate removing vegetation by thinning and prescribed
burning. There are some stands that are, frankly, way
overdrawn, and prescribed burning is not a solution within
itself. Therefore, we have devised within our plan a
combination of thinning and removal of vegetation, as well as
prescribed burning where appropriate.
I might also point out that one solution does not fit all
situations. Therefore, we must use the best science suitable
for a particular region.
We have had an opportunity to observe incidents where
science has been misquoted and misused. I believe it is
inappropriate to disguise a political or policy debate and
misuse science, and we have had examples of that, and I will
just list a few of them.
One misconception is that the incidence of high-intensity
fire is not unusual and is not indicative of systems that are
uncharacteristically stressed. The fact of the matter is that
the records indicate that we have had decades of fire
suppression, and as a result, stands overstock and we have a
problem.
Another misconception is that harvesting trees will
increase the fire risk. In the early part of the last century,
when more logging slash was left than is left today and we did
not have the modern silvicultural processes, then this perhaps
might have been the case. But modern silvicultural treatment
allows us to harvest and treat and restore ecosystems in a very
sound way.
I have a number of other examples such as that that I would
like you to read in our written testimony, but basically I
would like to conclude that we have a sound basis for the fire
plan that we have developed, and research work that we
currently are doing and work that we have done in the past are
being used to implement this plan and to develop and refine it
over time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis follows:]
STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT LEWIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT,
FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
MR. CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to talk about
fire ecology and science and the National Fire Plan. I am Dr. Robert
Lewis, Deputy Chief for Research and Development. With me today is one
of our preeminent fire ecologists, Kevin Ryan, project leader in fire
effects research at the Missoula Fire Laboratory of the Rocky Mountain
Research Station. Dr. Ryan is available to discuss the scientific
principles that govern fire-adapted systems.
I would first like to introduce the scientific basis for managing
fire-adapted ecosystems and then describe the role of science and
research in the National Fire Plan.
Fire Ecology and the Scientific Basis for Managing Fire-Adapted
Ecosystems
Fire is a major force in shaping ecosystems. But fires can inflict
great damage and suffering when they occur in environments heavily
inhabited by humans and their structures. This inherent duality -
ecological agent and destructive force - creates many dilemmas in fire
policy formulation and management. These dilemmas have been exacerbated
in recent years by the explosive population growth in the wildland
urban interface and the rapid accumulation of vegetation.
To better inform policy and fire management debates and better
prepare citizens to live in fire-adapted ecosystems, the science
community provides knowledge and analytical judgment and asks hard
questions about the consequences of management and policy alternatives.
Science can describe the connections of integrated human/biophysical
systems, more reliably forecast the occurrence of damaging fire events,
and characterize the possible outcomes of policy and management
options. Scientists can help managers interpret what they are seeing on
the ground and can help design management programs as experiments to
better understand how ecological systems operate and alert managers to
changes that might be needed in management strategies.
Compared with preindustrial times, wildland fire incidence from
1930 through the 1970s decreased in response to aggressive fire
suppression and land use changes. The unintended consequences of these
changes have been a significant change in vegetation composition and
structure - especially in ecosystems in the Interior West that are
tuned to periodic fires at relatively short return intervals. This
reduction in wildland fire has destabilized many forested ecosystems
that depended on these periodic fires to keep stands thinned of
competing underbrush and trees. Understory vegetation has become so
dense that wild fires that do occur are larger and more severe than the
historical fires. For some fire-adapted ecosystems, the frequency of
severe fires has become abnormal, or as we scientists say, outside the
range of historical variation.
The severity of these extreme fires poses threats to species
persistence, watershed integrity, aesthetics, air quality, and
community resilience. Extreme fire behavior can result in loss in soil
productivity and site stability, increase sedimentation in streams and
water supplies, degrade or destroy critical habitat for fish, wildlife,
and plant species, including those at risk of extinction, and increase
the spread of invasive weeds or non-native plants. Such fires also emit
millions of tons of gases and particulate matter into the air, with
negative consequences for human health, carbon balances, and the global
climate.
The ecologically sound prescription for this situation is to return
fire, on proper terms, to these fire-adapted ecosystems. But it is not
simply a matter of letting wildfires burn, because many of these
systems are already primed for severe and destructive fire behavior and
are festooned with human structures and other values at risk. Frequent,
controlled fires - prescribed burning - can be an antidote for
sporadic, catastrophic fires. However, many of these systems have
missed so many natural fire intervals and have become so encumbered
with vegetative fuels that mechanical thinning may be necessary to
safely restart natural fire processes. In some of the most overgrown
conditions, prescribed burning without thinning could lead to
catastrophic escape fires, illustrated vividly in the unfortunate case
of the Cerro Grande prescribed fire escape last summer. Fire managers
implementing the National Fire Plan are rapidly increasing the use of
prescribed fire and thinning in scientifically based prescriptions to
reduce fuel and protect multiple resources. These practices pose their
own risks and controversies but when applied in scientifically designed
fuels programs, they can be used effectively and safely. The
alternative, that is no active management, involves all the resource
and human losses associated with high intensity fires and the
exorbitant costs of trying to suppress them.
Many policy questions surround the fire problem. These policy
questions are heated, confusing, and often come disguised as science
questions. We must remember that these questions are not solely
scientific questions and that many non-scientific considerations--e.g.,
policy, law, and economics--must be part of the answer to these policy
questions. While science can provide a more solid foundation for
management decisions, science alone cannot answer these questions.
However, we realize that not everyone agrees that active management
is warranted to reduce wildfire risk. In the context of debate about
fire management and policy options, scientific understanding is
sometimes misrepresented, oversimplified and taken out of context. This
practice is unfortunate and detracts not only from the quality of the
deliberation about fire and land management strategies but also
severely hampers the ability of agencies to build public confidence and
trust needed to implement positive changes. We feel it is important to
base policy and management choices on the body of knowledge, not
statements or snippets lifted from reports to justify a point. It is
the duty of the scientific community to be as clear as possible about
what is known and not known about a body of science to put statements
in their proper context, and to correct distortions and
misrepresentations. This is extremely important in the field of fire
ecology, the source of knowledge for strategies for fire-adapted
ecosystems.
We acknowledge that we much to learn--or, as I will discuss
later,--important knowledge gaps that we must attack. Some of these
knowledge gaps relate to areas of identified misperception. Some, but
certainly not all, of the more common misperceptions are:
A. That the incidence of high intensity fire is not unusual and is
not indicative of systems that are uncharacteristically stressed.
Records clearly show that the acreage burned is substantially higher in
the last 10 years than in the previous seven decades. The number and
intensity of extremely large fires has increased due to a combination
of factors including fuels condition changes, climatic variation,
initial attack, and suppression capability.
B. That harvesting trees exacerbates fire risk. In the early part
of the last century when more logging slash was left than is left
today, this was true. Modern harvesting operations, based on
scientifically sound silvicultural prescriptions, use material more
efficiently and follow up rapidly with burning or mechanical reduction
of residues, the risk of fire is minimal. Thinning trees in conjunction
with subsequent prescribed burning is an effective strategy for
reducing fire risk.
C. That fires should be left to burn because fire is a natural part
of the ecosystem. Forest Service and other agencies have wilderness and
other areas where planning has deemed that fires can burn naturally and
benefit the ecological and other objectives of the area. However, in
much of the West, fuels have accumulated so much that fires left to
burn can quickly become extreme events with a range of devastating
consequences. We have initiated new research that will sharpen our
ability to determine where relaxed suppression is appropriate and how
wildland fires and prescribed burning can be used to achieve ecological
and other objectives at the landscape level.
D. That mechanical removal of fuel is unnecessary and that
prescribed burning alone can effectively reduce fuels. The Cohesive
Strategy, based on a scientific analysis of the vegetative condition of
the western forests, recommends that the most overgrown systems, having
missed several fire cycles, will require mechanical thinning before any
prescribed burning can be done safely. This strategy is the fuels
management core of the National Fire Plan and is based on returning
fire in its natural role to fire-adapted ecosystems. To build an even
stronger scientific basis for strategy, we are researching ways to make
fuels management prescriptions economically feasible and
environmentally sensitive.
E. That we don't have to treat vegetation at the landscape or
watershed level since we can protect homes through firesafe
construction and home landscaping practices in the immediate interface.
Our research has shown that fire safe practices are effective. However,
this research did not negate the ecological and economic rationale for
correcting problems at the landscape level. There are many reasons to
minimize the frequency and impact of uncharacteristically intense fires
including ecological values, aesthetic conditions, business and
infrastructure, human health, quality of life and efficient use of
taxpayer's dollars. Home protection and landscape health should fit
together in an integrated protection strategy supported by scientific
advances on all fronts.
Science and the National Fire Plan
Science plays a key role in the National Fire Plan. Each of the key
points of the National Fire Plan have a science basis that has helped
shape what is possible and what is sound. Forest Service Research and
Development has sustained an active program of wildland fire research
since the 1920's. It remains the world's premier organization in
wildland fire science. We collaborate closely with research agencies,
universities, and the private sector and work closely with fire
management operations to refine research needs and ensure technology
adoption. For example, firefighting procedures are based on findings
from years of past and ongoing work in the fire behavior, meteorology,
economics, operations research and engineering development.
Rehabilitation and recovery methods are becoming more effective and
efficient thanks to rigorous testing and environmental evaluation.
Fuels reduction strategies have been developed and are being refined by
scientific investigations at various scales to quantify the effects of
removal and burning regimes on potential fire behavior and a suite of
ecological values and processes. These ongoing studies, in close
collaboration with managers, are helping us understand how to plan
fuels and vegetation treatment and enlighten us about the consequences
of not taking active measures to manage fuels. They are showing us how
to remove and use fuels materials we might otherwise burn and add to
air quality problems. A growing body of social science shows us how to
work with the public and the new fire science of structural ignition is
showing us how to effectively protect homes in the interface.
It is a long-standing responsibility of Forest Service research to
build the science base to protect forest ecosystems and to restore at
risk systems to healthy conditions. We know that the science basis for
some key questions is more complete than for others. We are working to
fill these knowledge gaps and to help managers and the public think
through problems with the best technical assistance and expertise. We
know, for example, that many managers in recent fire seasons have
observed dramatic reductions in fire spread and intensity as fires
entered stands that have been thinned or previously burned. Scientific
validation of these landscape scale phenomena is complex and involved,
but we are working with managers closely to establish parameters for
interpreting these events and setting up landscape scale experiments to
help establish guidelines for future management.
We have many examples of successful collaboration between users and
research that have resulted in science-based tools in common use such
as:
National Fire Danger Rating System
Fire retardant technologies
Fire Effects Prediction Systems
Smoke Management Systems
Fire Behavior Prediction Systems
Fire Hazard Mapping and Fuel Models
Fire Management Planning and Economic Analysis Systems
Fire safety and health guidelines
We have parlayed this successful relationship into an intensified
program of research and development made possible by the National Fire
Plan funding. In fiscal year 2001, increased fire-related research and
development in the Forest Service (including the Joint Fire Science
Program) has been invested in 63 research and development work units.
These units are already turning out useful products to support goals in
each of the first four key points of the National Fire Plan.
In addition, the Joint Fire Science program, established by
Congress in 1998, also supports the development of information and
tools for fuels management. This interagency research and development
program was funded at $ 16 million each with equal $8 million
contributions from the Departments of Interior and Agriculture. The
National Fire Plan doubled the size of the Joint Fire Science program
in fiscal year 2001. There is an important complementary relationship
between the Joint Fire Science program and the Forest Service research
and development programs. The Joint Fire Science program does not
employ scientists or manage other elements of scientific capability
such as facilities, equipment, and support staff. The program focuses
on applied research on issues that relate to fuels management, while
the Forest Service research program provides scientific capability and
focuses on long-term issues and fundamental science related to forest
health, fire hazard, and the social and economic consequence of fire
and other disturbances.
For fiscal year 2002 and beyond, the science base for The National
Fire Plan and the Cohesive Strategy will attack important knowledge
gaps. Top priority areas for research and development are:
Firefighting
Tools to assist the integration of fire management with
land management planning
Improved predictions of fire behavior and fire season
severity.
Improved organizational effectiveness and safety
practices
Rehabilitation and Recovery
Improved effectiveness of rehabilitation (Emergency
Stabilization and Rehabilitation) treatments
Understanding of the effects of post fire treatments on
wildlife
Methods for reestablishing native species and excluding
invasive exotic plants.
Hazardous Fuels Reduction
Techniques for assessing and managing fire risk at
landscape scales.
Integrated silvicultural, processing, and marketing
systems to economically reduce fire hazards.
Testing the effectiveness and the environmental effects
of different fuel treatments
Community Assistance
Better understanding of public knowledge, beliefs, and
attitudes about fire and fire management.
Strategies for integrating fire and fuels management with
sustainable community development.
Strategies for reducing the vulnerability of homes and
communities.
Summary
In summary, Mr. Chairman, the science community provides knowledge
and analytical judgment to better inform policy and fire management
debates and to better prepare citizens to live in fire-adapted
ecosystems. In the context of debate about fire management and policy
options, scientific understanding is sometimes misrepresented or
oversimplified. It is the duty of the scientific community to be as
clear as possible about what is known and not know about a body of
science, to put statements in their proper context and to correct
distortions and misrepresentations. Science plays a key role in the
National Fire Plan. Each key point of the National Fire Plan has a
science basis that has helped shape what is possible and what is sound.
We are working to expand knowledge and to help managers and the public
think through the problems with the best technical assistance and
expertise.
This concludes my statement. Dr. Ryan and I would be happy to
answer any questions you or members of the Subcommittee might have.
______
Mr. Peterson. Thank you.
Mr. Wakimoto?
STATEMENT OF RONALD HARUTO WAKIMOTO, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF
FORESTRY, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA SCHOOL OF FORESTRY
Mr. Wakimoto. Chairman McInnis, distinguished members of
the Subcommittee, it is a great privilege to have the
opportunity to once again speak to this body. My opportunity to
speak to Mrs. Chenoweth and Mr. Hill in Missoula last September
was a memorable experience.
Way back in the 1950's and 1960's, the California Division
of Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service supported studies that
looked at fire weather and fuel conditions under ``sheltered
fuelbreaks.'' The term ``sheltered'' comes about by thinning of
understory trees and shrubs and removal of larger trees to
leave a widely spaced overstory. The term ``fuelbreaks'' simply
means a strip or wide zone of modified fuels. Fuelbreaks, as
opposed to fire breaks, cannot stop a fire unless suppression
personnel are present and capable of suppressing the surface
fire moving through the fuels on the ground. ``Fire breaks''
are narrow strips of bare mineral soil devoid of fuel.
These studies indicated that any tree manipulation deemed
adequate to create conditions to stop a crown fire created
conditions where the forest was hotter, it was drier, and it
was windier than in the adjacent unmodified forest. You know,
this is not rocket science. The spacing between the trees
allows greater solar heating of the surface fuels, and the
increased air movement dries these fuels near the ground. In
short, the forest floor becomes more flammable. They are not
fireproof.
So why do fire managers entertain thinning as a fuel
treatment? They do so in the hopes that a crown fire will not
be sustained when it reaches well-spaced trees. The reduction
of the surface fuel decreases the convective energy going into
the tree crowns, and the spacing of the trees limits the amount
of radiation heat transfer to the adjacent trees. If these
reductions are sufficient, the fire drops to the surface. If
this surface fire is low intensity, then the personnel have a
chance to suppress that fire.
Simply thinning without surface fuel reduction will
increase fire risk and potential fire behavior. Thin stands are
not fireproof.
So we have the question of what degree of thinning is
effective. I don't know the answer to this question given the
variety of ecological conditions, fuel loadings, and forest
structures that exist in the West. The best we can do is with
empirical rules of thumb developed from observation.
Observations last year in Montana indicated that pine stands
with less than 20 feet between the crowns of the trees carried
crown fires readily in Montana.
As I stated in September of 2000 in similar hearings, much
of the land that burned in the Bitterroot National Forest in
Montana last year was cut-over land, where the large, widely
spaced Ponderosa pine had been harvested and a dense understory
of Douglas fir released to grow. Nearly all the trees that
burned last year had never seen a fire in their lifetime. So
mortality was extremely high. Simply thinning such stands of
fir will not solve our fire problem.
In addition, severe disease problems have occurred from
such thinnings of Douglas fir where they are the climax
species. In many areas of the West, plant succession and tree
growth have progressed to a point that commercial thinning of
these trees is probably the only way we will be able to reduce
the fire hazard.
Now, I want to conclude by making this comment, that one of
the key elements that I believe has been missing at times is
looking at the role of fire on the landscape. We heard a panel
before us from the agency talking about landscape-scale
treatments. Well, I am not just talking about big treatments. I
am talking about looking at the role of fire historically on
the landscape, so we put the treatments in the right place.
When we have thinned large forested landscapes solely for
fuel management purposes, they become almost a Maginot line
where the likelihood of fire actually occurring adjacent to
those thinned areas is almost zero. Many, many years ago during
the CCC era, we built a 650-mile-long fuelbreak along the
length of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. And you
can't find that fuelbreak at this time. It is because we built
such an area, we did it only for fire management purposes, not
for silviculture or to grow trees, and the likelihood of a fire
being against that fuelbreak was almost zero. And it was so
important to us in our fire management that we could never
maintain it and we never chose to maintain it.
I guess I will conclude my remarks there.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wakimoto follows:]
Statement of Ronald H. Wakimoto, Professor, University of Montana,
School of Forestry, Missoula, Montana
Chairman McInnis, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is
a great privilege to have the opportunity to once again present
testimony to this body. My opportunity to speak to Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage
and Mr. Hill in Missoula last September was a memorable experience.
I will not comment on the ``Thirty Mile'' Incident at this time.
Many people have been speculating about fire experience, training and
forest fuel conditions as causal factors without ever really examining
the actual situation.
Way back in the 1950's and 1960's the California Division of
Forestry and the U.S. Forest Service supported studies to look at fire
weather and fuel conditions under ``sheltered fuelbreaks.'' The term
``sheltered'' comes about by the thinning of understory trees and
shrubs and removal of larger trees to leave a widely spaced overstory.
The term ``fuelbreak'' simply means a strip or wide zone of modified
fuels. Fuelbreaks, as opposed to fire breaks, cannot stop a fire unless
suppression personnel are present and capable of suppressing the
surface fire moving through the fuels on the ground. ``Fire breaks,''
are narrow strips of bare mineral soil devoid of fuel. These were often
jeep roads bulldozed down the middle of fuelbreaks. The studies
indicated that any tree manipulation deemed adequate to prevent the
movement of crown fire across the fuelbreak created conditions that
were hotter, drier and windier that the adjacent unmodified forest.
This is not rocket science. The spacing between the trees allowed
greater solar heating of the surface fuels, and the increased air
movement dried these fuels near the ground.
Why do fire managers entertain thinning as a fuel treatment? They
do so in hopes that a crown fire will not be sustained when it reaches
well-spaced trees. The reduction of surface fuel decreases the
convective energy heating of tree crowns and the spacing of the tree
crowns limits the amount of radiation heat transfer to adjacent trees.
If these reductions are sufficient, the fire drops to the surface. If
this surface fire is low intensity, fire fighting personnel have a
chance to suppress the fire. In other words, intensive surface fuel
reduction must be combined with thinning and access for such treatments
to be effective. Simply thinning without intensive surface fuel
reduction will increase fire risk and potential fire behavior.
What degree of thinning is effective? I don't think we know the
answer to this question given the variety of site conditions, fuel
loadings and stand structures that exist in the West. The best we can
do are empirical ``rules of thumb'' developed from observation. Thanks
to long term, active research by the U.S. Forest Service experiment
station, we have a good computer-based model of surface fire. Currently
the development of a crown fire model to test the effectiveness of
thinning is limited, but is being enhanced currently thanks to
Congressional action providing funding for the Joint Fire Science
Program.
Have we ever thinned large forested areas solely for fire
management objectives before? How many of you have heard of the
Ponderosa Way and Truck Trail? This was a 650-mile-long fuelbreak and
road that spanned the length of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range in
California. This fuelbreak was constructed by the U.S. Forest Service
using CCC labor during the Great Depression to do battle with the enemy
of the forest, wildland fire. After the cheap labor force was gone it
could not be maintained. It is now hardly visible on aerial photos.
Once the trees are thinned, how can we afford to maintain such
fuelbreaks? We have been there and done that! Such a strategy only
makes sense if there are very high values-at-risk adjacent to the
fuelbreak.
Comments I made in the September 16, 2000, hearings are worth
repeating here. Much of the land burned on the Bitterroot National
Forest in Montana last year was cut-over land, where the large widely
spaced pines had been harvested and dense understory Douglas-fir
released to grow. Nearly all the trees that burned last year had never
seen a fire in their lifetime. Simply thinning such stands of fir will
not solve the fire problem. Observations indicate that stands thinned
to less than 20 feet between tree crowns carried crown fire readily. In
addition, severe disease problems have occurred from such thinning in
Douglas-fir where they are the climax species. Ponderosa pine must be
restored to such sites. Where Ponderosa pine stands exist, thinning and
removal of much of the Douglas-fir understory is desirable. In many
areas of the West plant succession has progressed to such a point that
the shade tolerant understory is too large in diameter to kill with
prescribed fire. In such places, harvesting these trees is an ideal way
to reduce fire hazard.
At higher elevations in forest that have historically had longer
intervals between fires, the opportunity to mechanically thin is
extremely limited due to lack of wind firmness. Such trees may have all
originated from one major disturbance and need adjacent trees to help
block the wind. Climax forests at higher elevations were seldom thinned
by fire, so if they were to be thinned by harvest, disease problems may
be enhanced by such actions as would blowdown. We may have to live with
such low frequency/high intensity fire, while progressively thinning
seral species stands adjacent to the urban/wildland interface.
It is significant to me that the four fire fighters who lost their
lives in Washington State were working on a fire situated in a
``roadless area''. Hence the political posturing about fuel treatments
and their effects on fire behavior and risk. Since 1964 and the passage
of the Wilderness Act, the actions of Congress required two separate
reviews and evaluations of roadless areas as candidates for wilderness
status. Over 58 million acres of National Forest have ``roadless''
status. After seven administrations these lands remain in this status.
Fire management is carried out to support the land management decisions
that have been made. The people of this country have yet to choose, so
I cannot support any actions in the name of fire management that would
bypass such an important choice by the American people. The vast
majority of the acreage is non-commercial (low productivity) and
remote. Thinning such forested land would destroy potential wilderness
quality and enhance flammability. I also firmly believe that such
actions would be an incredible waste of resources, especially when I
consider the vast acreage of the wildland/urban interface that is
already roaded and for which many land-use decisions have already been
made.
Last year fire managers using well-conceived wilderness fire
management plans combined with the federal wildland fire policy which
allowed ``wildland fire use,'' saved the U.S. taxpayers millions of
dollars and preserved the naturalness and wildness of wilderness. Many
lightning-caused wilderness fires were monitored rather than actively
suppressed which allowed suppression personnel to defend lives and
property along the wildland/urban interface. Rather that spending
millions of dollars and risking many lives in suppression efforts, a
natural process was allowed to operate as freely as possible in places
set aside for naturalness. I urge that the implementation of the
National Fire Plan include funding for the development of fire
management plans specifically for roadless areas. Without such plans
there can be no wildland fire use where lightning-caused fires may be
allowed to burn. These areas have very low timber values and high
public value.
______
Mr. Peterson. We will start with the gentleman from Idaho,
Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lewis, you heard the GAO's report, and I would assume
that you have read--
Mr. Peterson. Excuse me, could the gentleman pause just a
moment? Would the GAO people come back to the table so you can
get to a microphone? And questions will be for everybody.
Mr. Otter. Perhaps we ought to get a wrestling ring here.
Mr. Peterson. We have one.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Peterson. I apologize.
Mr. Otter. No problem. This didn't take off my time, I
trust.
Mr. Peterson. We will alter that. We are starting with 3
minutes.
Mr. Otter. Let me begin again. Mr. Lewis, how long have you
been with the Forest Service?
Mr. Lewis. I have been with the Forest Service since
January 1970.
Mr. Otter. Of 1970?
Mr. Lewis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Otter. And so you have gone through quite a few
administrations, then, haven't you?
Mr. Lewis. I have gone through quite a few.
Mr. Otter. And each administration has sort of a different
attitude? Have they had demonstrably different attitudes on how
they wanted the management and the process to take place in the
management of the Forest Service?
Mr. Lewis. Well, when I started out, I was down at
Stoneville, Mississippi, as a technician, and so I have not
been in the high-level research position but about 4 years. But
I have been in management for about 10 to 15 years, and I see
differences in administrations, and we work as career employees
to serve that administration to our best ability. But I do see
differences in them.
Mr. Otter. So you have seen at least three administrations.
Mr. Lewis. I have.
Mr. Otter. And would you agree that it generally takes some
time for them to hit the ground and get going? And do you think
that amount of time has elapsed for the Bush administration?
Mr. Lewis. I have worked in Washington, D.C. This is my
second tour, and I realize that it takes time for a new team to
come in. And that is just the way it is in management.
Mr. Otter. So if I were to conclude that the GAO report
that we have here today probably does indeed reflect the
attitude of the past administration and not the present
administration, would you agree or disagree with that?
Mr. Lewis. That is a tough one for me to wade into.
However, the National Fire Plan was initiated under the
previous administration, and it is my assumption that the GAO
used information that had been developed for quite a number of
years.
Mr. Otter. I don't want to use up all my time and pick on
just you, Mr. Lewis, or subject just you to getting back to the
office and getting summoned elsewhere. But it would seem to me
that if this report does indeed reflect--this report doesn't
reflect on the merits of the fire plan but on the lack of
process to get going and lack of coordination.
Mr. Lewis. Right, the--
Mr. Otter. Would you agree with that?
Mr. Lewis. Right. As I look at the report, the GAO report
and the review period--and it covers a number of years, not
just from January of this year until this present time--
Mr. Otter. Thank you, Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Hill, where does this report end? How long did it take
you to actually write up this report? Not do all the research
and everything else, but when does this report end?
Mr. Hill. Well, the testimony we gave today is based on
ongoing work that continues and will continue probably for--we
have actually two ongoing jobs: one in the fuel reduction
effort and one on the capacity issue, seeing how both of those
efforts are being carried out. And we anticipate that both of
those reports will probably be issued this fall.
Mr. Otter. Yes, I understand that. But all I have in front
of me today, including your testimony, is the substance of this
report, is the ingredients right here in this report. And what
I--maybe I ought to just ask you for your opinion. Do you
expect--how long have you been with the GAO?
Mr. Hill. I have been with the GAO for 31 years.
Mr. Otter. Well, then, you have seen a couple of
administrations as well, haven't you?
Mr. Hill. Yes, I have.
Mr. Otter. And don't you expect them to change from time to
time in their manner and their focus and their value system?
Mr. Hill. They definitely change over time.
Mr. Otter. And do you think that we have given this present
administration enough time? Does this reflect the present
administration's attitude or the past?
Mr. Hill. Let me just say it is not a matter of
administrations. I mean, GAO's job is to basically document the
present condition and to measure the present condition against
what should be. And this, our testimony today, reflects the
present condition. I think it is fair to say that the new
administration has just taken over. A lot of the policies and
the plans were put in place by the last administration. It
would be unfair to judge the new administration solely based on
the work they have done to date. We have got to give them some
time.
Mr. Otter. In fact--
Mr. Hill. But may I also say that I have been around a long
time in GAO, and on this particular issue, we have been
watching this issue for many years. And as I said in my short
statement, every time there is a disaster, every time there is
a bad fire season, every time that firefighters get killed on
the line fighting fires, there are commissions, there are task
forces, there are groups that are put together to study what
went wrong and to come up with solutions. And it is not a
question that the solutions have not been identified. It is
just a question of they have not been carried out and
implemented. And it gets frustrating over the years.
Mr. Otter. Well, trust me on this, Mr. Hill. It is my
hope--in fact, my prayer--that this administration is going to
be different.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Peterson. The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. I don't have a lot of detailed questions, and
obviously Indiana isn't one of your risk zones, and I haven't
had a lot of experience with it . But I found some of the
testimony a little confusing, and I want to ask some basic
questions.
One is, it is unclear to me how your testimonies relate to
the given situation as opposed to a hypothetically pure
situation? In other words, allowing fires to burn might be fine
were we not where we are today. But I heard through all the
testimony some people were maintaining that, given the fact of
where we are--I think the GAO study says that, given where we
are, we have lots of highly flammable areas that could explode
into major fires. I think Dr. Lewis' testimony says similar
things, but your conclusions seem to be slightly different.
In other words, if there is accumulation of, quite frankly,
Forest Service efforts to suppress fire over time--I grew up
with Smokey the Bear suggesting that we shouldn't be having
fires and doing everything possible to avoid any risk of fire,
and I am sure that the reason this accumulation there is
between political and Forest Service policies that have
determined that we weren't going to have it. Now suddenly to
reverse that, what I saw in one of the myths that Dr. Lewis
listed was that somehow a radical change to that policy could
also cause problems. Yet Mr. Hill seemed to be saying that we
have this explosive problem that we have to deal with. Is there
a difference between your proposals?
Mr. Lewis. Okay. I will take the first cut at that. We are
taking the position, based on what we know from research and
anecdotal studies, that to sit back and do nothing and continue
the practice of the last 80, 90 years and let the biomass
continue to accumulate would be irresponsible. If we do
nothing, we are putting these lands at risk.
Mr. Souder. It is suggested where you say that harvesting
trees exacerbates fire risk is a myth, and that you also said a
myth would be that fires should be left to burn because fire is
a natural part of the ecosystem. It suggests to me that you
believe that there are alternative methods to just letting a
fire burn to thinning out.
Mr. Lewis. We believe that the active management involves
both thinning and prescribed fire.
Mr. Souder. And would some of that thinning be commercial
as well as just to practice thinning?
Mr. Lewis. We have an objective in the thinning process,
and that is, to restore forest health. Many of these stands are
very unhealthy, and they are a threat and a risk to the various
communities and also to ecosystems. There are ecological risks
as well.
Mr. Souder. Is there any reason that that process couldn't
also help pay for itself?
Mr. Lewis. That is a policy call, and from my point of
view, there is not any reason why.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Hill, do you agree with those statements or
have any elaborations or disagreement?
Mr. Hill. Well, the problem you have is that the fuel has
been allowed to build up over a 90-, 100-year period, and it
has gotten to the point now where when fire is introduced into
these high-risk forests, you don't have the natural burning
process that cleans out the undergrowth. You have these
catastrophic fires that just wipe out the whole forest. The
whole effort that is being directed with the National Fire Plan
is to focus on where these high-risk areas are, and
particularly focusing in on wildlife-urban interfaces within
these high-risk areas, and to go in there and remove or to thin
some of this material that is accumulating in these high-risk
areas so that when fire is introduced, it is introduced in a
more natural way and it won't result in the entire forest
burning.
So thinning is a tool that is used for that. Prescribed
burns is a tool that is used for that. Harvesting could even be
a tool that is used for that. It depends upon the forest we are
dealing with. It depends upon the current condition that you
are trying to deal with. So all these tools have to be used in
a very thoughtful way, but, yes, they could be used to
alleviate the problem.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Peterson. In my hand here, I have one called Western
Forest Health Initiative. This was in 1994. And then we have
all been talking about the Federal Wildland Fire Management
Plan of 1995. But, in fact, isn't it true that these were just
studies that were done, recommendations that were done, and
they were basically ignored? They weren't implemented.
Mr. Hill. They certainly weren't acted upon.
Mr. Peterson. Well, I guess you would call that ignoring
them, wouldn't you?
Mr. Hill. I don't know. Congress threw a lot of money at
implementing them. They just weren't acted upon properly.
Mr. Peterson. Well, I guess it has been my--I can say this,
you can't. But it has been my observation that the last
administration had a wilderness philosophy that all public land
would be wilderness, if they could have their way, and it
wouldn't be managed in any way. And your report here in 1995
talks about what will happen if that is allowed to happen, and
it happened. The fires today were predicted year after year
after year. And suddenly it came home to roost. Is that a fair
assumption? Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. Hill. It is an accurate statement that the problem has
been studied, certainly in 1994 and 1995, again in 2001, and
that it has not been effectively dealt with. That is correct.
Mr. Peterson. Mr. Lewis?
Mr. Lewis. Yes, we have done a number of studies, some of
them interagency, and I would like Dr. Ryan, if he would, if he
has any statements on that.
Mr. Ryan. Yes, I would like to think sometimes research is
actually in a role of leadership here. We have been doing fire
research at the landscape level, across interagency boundaries,
trying to understand where on the landscape you can accomplish
the most amount of good with a fuels treatment, what should be
the nature of that fuels treatment, first to mitigate the fire
problem and then addressing what are the ecological
implications of that type of treatment. So we have got, for
example, a 15-million-acre area in southern Utah where we are
looking at the entire landscape, using all the fire behavior
and all the fire facts models to try to design where on that
landscape--and that includes State lands, Park Service, Forest
Service, BLM--trying to figure out where and how to design
treatments on the landscape to have the maximum effectiveness
for all the various resource values.
I think one of the points I would like to make is that if
the agencies have been not as forthcoming in doing some of
these things, it is because there is a science element that
they don't really have all the guidance from science in order
to be able to make the good decisions on where and how. And so
that is part of our research effort, to come up with that type
of a knowledge system in order to support this type of fuels
treatment.
The ecology is a lot like politics. It is about place, and
you have to integrate all of the interactions of that place and
try to design a treatment for that place and for the intended
purpose. And they are complex problems, and, you know, I think
we are making some real headway in trying to come up with the
tools for managers to use to turn the corner on some of these
things.
Mr. Peterson. So you could make the statement that in each
region of the Forest Service it is a little bit different ball
game. Is that fair?
Mr. Ryan. And within region.
Mr. Peterson. And within region.
Mr. Ryan. As a matter of fact, if you look at a lot of our
country, I wouldn't prescribe the same treatment on the north
side of the same mountain as I would on the south side, because
the historical range variation that that site developed with
and its fire relationships are different. You have to recognize
those differences with any treatment that you prescribe.
Mr. Peterson. But the treatments we prescribe today with
the potential of lawsuits, it is sometimes pretty hard to get
to the finish line. Has that been a problem?
Mr. Ryan. That is not a science problem. That is a policy
problem.
Mr. Peterson. It is not policy. It is a process problem. We
have so allowed individual lawsuits that any one person that
disagrees with all of your science can stop it, with not
spending a dollar. Is that a fair assessment? I mean, that is
how I see it today. The lawsuits in my forest areas are by
individuals, usually very young, usually college age, quite
often by free lawyers, donated from universities that work pro
bono--until they win, then they get paid. So there is no cost
investment, and they just take their philosophical views and by
issuing a lawsuit can stop the process that you are talking
about of adequately thinning so you could go back to prescribed
burn.
Mr. Cotton. May I take--
Mr. Peterson. Sure, take a shot at it. I have been waiting
to hear from you.
Mr. Cotton. It is true that wherever you are going to
propose to thin a forest before you do a prescribed burn, you
are going to get appealed and you are likely going to get
litigated. What I think Dr. Ryan is pointing out is the fact
that if they in the national forest system applied the
landscape-scale type approach that he is applying in research,
then they would have a better scientific basis on which to
defend their actions. But right now, I am not sure when Dr.
Ryan's study is going to be completed or when it is going to be
transferred and applied in the regions and in the forests. In
the meantime, they are still planning, they are still
budgeting, and they are still implementing on a unit-by-unit
basis. And if they keep doing that, they are going to keep
getting sued and they have got a darn good chance of losing.
Mr. Lewis. Even when we have the best available science, we
cannot guarantee that we will not get litigation. But through
applying the best available science, we have a much better
chance of winning and making our point. And in science, our
role is to provide credible, objective information to the
policymakers and to not advocate on a political view or a
policy view or an environmental or non-environmental view, but
state the facts as they are and deal with reality.
Mr. Peterson. I like that, and I like many of your
statements. But I guess the part from my background in
Government, I don't know of any other area of Government where
lawsuits have become the way we operate. It is the ability for
any one person to stop anything. And if we did that in health
care--and we are having a little bit of a debate about health
care right now that talks about lawsuits. But if lawsuits
determined what health care was going to move forward, what
procedures were going to be standard, what was going to be the
best medical practice to treat our cancers and our problems, we
would all be dying.
I think the root cause of many of our problems is this
ability of any one person to stop 10 years of research from
being implemented and the 4 or 5 years of debate in the
Departments that are hired to manage our forests, all of their
best policies are debated, and then one individual can have a
lawsuit and stop it all dead in its tracks.
In my view, the 1995 plan was not implemented. The 1994
plan was not implemented. And now we last year saw the record
number of fires and the greatest amount of damage anybody could
have ever dreamed of, I guess. We have another high-fire season
going already. But if we don't have the ability to implement,
we are just going to continue to burn.
Mr. Cotton. Mr. Peterson, lawsuits didn't stop the
implementation of any of those plans. What stopped the
implementation of those plans was the failure of these agencies
to work effectively together.
Mr. Peterson. So you think--you are back to that issue that
the agencies' not working together is still one of the biggest
detriments?
Mr. Cotton. If they did a good job of identifying where the
highest-risk communities are, where the Federal lands that face
the highest risk of catastrophic wildfire are, and develop
land-based or land-scale approaches to reducing those fuels,
just as Dr. Lewis said, yes, you are going to get appealed and,
yes, you are going to get litigated, but you will have the
scientific credibility to win.
Mr. Peterson. But is it fair to say that--I am going to
give you a shot. Is it fair to say that agencies who don't like
to get sued and don't like to lose are hesitating to make the
right decisions because if the treatment has anything to do
with cutting down trees, they are going to get sued?
Mr. Cotton. I don't think that they are not going to
implement a project simply because of a threat of a lawsuit,
especially in the fact with the direction that the Congress has
given them in identifying the highest priority areas. And I
feel uncomfortable sitting here with scientists talking about
science, but they are always going to be dealing with a certain
level of scientific uncertainty. And that is where adaptive
management comes in, where a good monitoring and evaluation
component says what did we set out to do, what have we
accomplished, and if we didn't accomplish what we set out to
do, what do we need to change. And right now that is a
component that is not part of many of these projects. There is
no money there for monitoring, there is no money there for
evaluation, and there is no money there to address scientific
uncertainty.
Mr. Lewis. Yes, I think that the agencies are working
together in a number of areas, and we have a brand new Chief,
Dale Bosworth, and I know him--he is not here, and I can say
this. I am not buttering up to the boss. But he--
Mr. Peterson. Sure you are.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Lewis. Right. He is definitely committed to working
across departments in Government, and I know that for a fact.
We also have the Joint Fire Sciences Program. It is an
interagency science program where we are aiming at getting the
best available science. And you are right, adaptive management
is a very important part of this.
Science will always uncover new evidence, new ways of doing
thing. Mr. Chairman, just as you pointed out about treatment of
cancer, as we get new treatments and FDA approves them, we
implement them. And that is what we are doing here. And we
think--I would like to look at science as having the role of
helping policymakers create new and better visions, and also we
have the role of helping them achieve their goals and
aspirations. And we plan to work as hard as we can to help make
this a success.
Mr. Peterson. Well, I share your hope, because I do think
this administration is going to try. But with the ability to
sue that is there, it is going to be very difficult.
Mr. Udall, I think you have a question. You are recognized.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to
also welcome the panel and thank you for your time today.
I did want to address some comment that Mr. Peterson made
about wilderness areas having somehow created the problem of
wildfire in the West. The wilderness areas take up quite a
small percentage of public lands in the West, and if I am
correct, the GAO did a study that suggested--and I would like
to see if we can include it in the record--that, in fact, we
are more at risk of wildfire on lands that have been in some
way or another manipulated by human beings and human activity,
for all the positive things that occur from those activities,
than wilderness lands which have been left alone in many ways.
I think that is an important thing to look at. That is not,
again, to say that some wilderness areas haven't been prone to
wildfires that have been intense and caused problems. But most
of the fires that have occurred, from my understanding, have
been in these areas where we have logged, where we have had
human impacts occur.
I will leave that for the response from the panel, if I
could, for some written questions. But I did want to move to
the GAO report. On page 12 of the report, the report says, ``We
agree that the Federal land management agencies must take
action now to resolve the wildland-urban interface problem.''
Are you saying--and, Mr. Hill, I would direct this to you--that
greater emphasis should be put on our fuel reduction work in
the interface area?
Mr. Hill. I think that was congressionally directed when
the money was appropriated to implement the National Fire Plan,
and we would agree that that is the high-risk area. That is the
area where you have people who are moving in and houses and
structures that need to be protected, and certainly the
wildland-urban interface areas that are located in the high-
risk areas are the areas that should be targeted, and quite
appropriately, Congress directed the agencies to target their
efforts.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. If I could, that leads to another
part of the report, and if I could quote it: ``Despite this
directive''--the directive to the Secretaries is implied in
that phrase--``the five Federal land management agencies
currently do not know how many communities are at high risk of
wildland fire, where they are located, or what it will cost to
lower the risk. Therefore, they cannot set priorities for
treatment or inform the Congress about how many will remain at
high risk after the appropriated funds are expended.''
Your maps in the context of that comment raise a question.
Does the greater number of Southern and Eastern communities at
risk reflect population densities or some other factor rather
than the extent of fire risks?
Mr. Cotton. Mr. Udall, they reflect some other factors,
mainly the fact that neither Interior nor the Forest Service
developed any criteria to define an interface community facing
high risk in the vicinity of Federal lands. And it is very
important in the Southeast that many of those lands are
Category 1 lands, meaning that they have a low risk of
catastrophic or severe wildfire, because they have been treated
on a fairly regular basis. But the new money that the Congress
gave those agencies this year was to treat the other
communities that are facing the higher risks, that are in the
Category 2 and Category 3 lands. So it was absolutely
imperative for these agencies to identify those lands, identify
the communities, and treat them. And they haven't.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. Are those areas mostly in the West,
would you say?
Mr. Cotton. They are virtually all in the interior West.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. I think that lends further
credibility to your concerns, and strength, not that you are
lacking for credibility--to strengthen your point of view that
we need to create a situation where the agencies can cooperate
more effectively.
Mr. Cotton. To do things like define ``interface.''
Mr. Udall of Colorado. Yes.
One of the questions that I was left without being fully
answered with the last panel--and it was more a function of
time than, I think, intent on the part of the people who
testified--was this comment that it is more expensive to treat
in the urban-wildland interface. It seemed counterintuitive to
me that you have access in those areas, roads, power supplies,
citizens who know those areas, and that it would be easier to
get in and treat those areas.
Would you comment on the expense to treat the urban-
wildlife interface?
Mr. Cotton. The expense is primarily the fact that you have
to do mechanical thinning before you can burn, because if you
don't and the fire gets away, then it will be catastrophic to
those communities, to those residents, to those people.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. So if I could clarify, you are
suggesting that in those areas you first have to thin, then you
can introduce fire. In other areas, where you have lesser
risks, say, you can take maybe a little bit more of a chance to
put fire back into the landscape initially and then control it
if, in fact, you have a problem.
Mr. Cotton. That is correct. You can do a prescribed burn.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. I think that is one of the important
things that this Committee, I think, understands but needs to
remember, is that it sounds great to return fire into these
landscapes. We all now have undergone, I think, a sea change,
if I am not mixing metaphors, in our understanding of the
important role that fire plays. But you can't just throw it
into the landscape because we have so much fuel that you are
going to get a crown fire or fires that run out of control. So
you first have to thin; then you can bring fire back and
hopefully our forests will return to a more natural condition.
Mr. Cotton. That is correct.
Mr. Udall of Colorado. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your
indulgence, and I would also ask unanimous consent to direct
some additional written questions to the panelists.
Mr. Peterson. A quick comment from Mr. Souder.
Mr. Souder. I wanted to make sure the record reflects that
the map that was shown earlier, if it is printed in the record
as it was shown earlier, it almost has a reverse correlation to
what you have been saying is the highest risk. In other words,
where the communities, because they were self-identified
without clear criteria by the States, that, in fact, what this
chart shows are cities at risk; when you match it with the
fire, it is almost, with the exception of Colorado and Utah, an
inverse correlation.
Mr. Cotton. That is correct.
Mr. Souder. And so this has to be taken very lightly, if
anybody looks at this and says these communities are at risk,
because it has got to be overlaid with this map.
Mr. Cotton. I certainly wouldn't fund them.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Peterson. I thank the gentleman.
I would like to thank the panel. I think the dilemma that
we sense here today is that we have had a multitude of plans
that have not been implemented. We all have high hopes that
this administration is going to get the departments working
together and get a comprehensive plan. But we just talked about
the areas of highest fire potential. You are going to have to
do mechanical thinning before you do prescribed burn, and I am
going to tell you, when you do mechanical thinning, you are
going to get lawsuits and it is not going to happen. And
somehow we have got to get by that issue, but I would like one
quick comment from Mr. Hill.
Your report says that this problem is worse than we think
it is. Is that an accurate assessment?
Mr. Hill. I think that was contained in the policy update,
if I recall. We took that language directly out of Interior and
Agriculture's own policy update. The assessment of the group of
individuals that put that policy together basically said that
the situation is worse than ever.
Mr. Peterson. Well, last year we burnt 7 million acres. I
hope sanity comes to us and we somehow get our act together and
get beyond this.
Thank you all very much for a very interesting discussion
and for sharing candidly today.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[A statement submitted for the record by John Sexton,
President, Ecoenergy Systems, Inc., follows:]
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