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entitled 'Wildland Fire Management: A Cohesive Strategy and Clear Cost-
Containment Goals Are Needed for Federal Agencies to Manage Wildland 
Fire Activities Effectively' which was released on June 19, 2007. 

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Testimony: 

Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, 
Committee on Natural Resources, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

For Release on Delivery Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT: 

Tuesday, June 19, 2007: 

Wildland Fire Management: 

A Cohesive Strategy and Clear Cost-Containment Goals Are Needed for 
Federal Agencies to Manage Wildland Fire Activities Effectively: 

Statement of Robin M. Nazzaro, Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

GAO-07-1017T: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-07-1017T, a testimony before the Subcommittee on 
National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, Committee on Natural 
Resources, House of Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Increasing wildland fire threats to communities and ecosystems, 
combined with rising costs of addressing those threats—trends that GAO 
and others have reported on for many years—have not abated. On average, 
the acreage burned annually by wildland fires from 2000 to 2005 was 70 
percent greater than the acreage burned annually during the 1990s. 
Annual appropriations to prepare for and respond to wildland fires have 
also increased substantially over the past decade, totaling about $3 
billion in recent years. The Forest Service within the Department of 
Agriculture and four agencies within the Department of the Interior 
(Interior) are responsible for responding to wildland fires on federal 
lands. 

This testimony summarizes several key actions that federal agencies 
need to complete or take to strengthen their management of the wildland 
fire program, including the need to (1) develop a long-term, cohesive 
strategy to reduce fuels and address wildland fire problems and (2) 
improve the management of their efforts to contain the costs of 
preparing for and responding to wildland fires. The testimony is based 
on several previous GAO reports and testimonies addressing wildland 
fire issues. 

What GAO Found: 

The Forest Service and Interior agencies need to complete several 
actions to strengthen their overall management of the wildland fire 
program. First, because a substantial investment and decades of work 
will be required to address wildland fire problems that have been 
decades in the making, the agencies need a cohesive strategy that 
addresses the full range of wildland fire management activities. Such a 
strategy should identify the available long-term options and associated 
funding for reducing excess vegetation and responding to wildland fires 
if the agencies and the Congress are to make informed decisions about 
an effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing wildland 
fire problems. GAO first recommended in 1999 that such a strategy be 
developed to address the problem of excess fuels and their potential to 
increase the severity of wildland fires and cost of suppression 
efforts. By 2005, the agencies had yet to develop such a strategy, and 
GAO reiterated the need for a cohesive strategy and broadened the 
recommendation’s focus to better address the interrelated nature of 
fuel reduction efforts and wildland fire response. Further, because the 
agencies said they would be unable to develop a cohesive strategy until 
they have completed certain key tasks, GAO recommended that the 
agencies develop a tactical plan outlining these tasks and the time 
frames needed for completing each task and a cohesive strategy. 
Although the agencies concurred with GAO’s recommendations, as of April 
2007, they had yet to develop a tactical plan. 

Second, as GAO testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources in January 2007, the steps the Forest Service and 
Interior agencies have taken to date to contain wildland fire costs 
lack several key elements fundamental to sound program management, such 
as clearly defining cost-containment goals, developing a strategy for 
achieving those goals, and measuring progress toward achieving them. 
For cost-containment efforts to be effective, the agencies need to 
integrate cost-containment goals with the other goals of the wildland 
fire program—such as protecting life, resources, and property—and to 
recognize that trade-offs will be needed to meet desired goals within 
the context of fiscal constraints. Further, because cost-containment 
goals need to be considered in relation to other wildland fire program 
goals, it is important that the agencies integrate cost-containment 
goals within an overall cohesive strategy. GAO’s forthcoming report on 
federal agencies’ efforts to contain wildland fire costs includes more-
detailed findings and recommendations to the agencies to improve the 
management of their cost-containment efforts; this report is expected 
to be released at a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 
hearing scheduled for June 26, 2007. 

[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1017T]. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Robin M. Nazzaro at (202) 
512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss the key steps that we believe 
federal wildland fire agencies--the Forest Service within the 
Department of Agriculture and four agencies[Footnote 1] within the 
Department of the Interior (Interior)--need to complete to manage their 
efforts to prepare for and respond to wildland fires effectively. 
Increasing wildland fire threats to communities and ecosystems, 
combined with rising costs of addressing those threats--trends that we 
and others have reported on for many years--have not abated. On 
average, the acreage burned annually by wildland fires from 2000 to 
2005 was 70 percent greater than the acreage burned annually during the 
1990s. Appropriations to federal agencies to prepare for and respond to 
wildland fires, including appropriations for reducing fuels, have also 
increased substantially, from an average of $1.1 billion annually from 
fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to an average of more than $2.9 billion 
annually from fiscal years 2001 through 2005 (adjusted for inflation, 
these appropriations increased from $1.3 billion to $3.1 billion). A 
number of factors have contributed to more-severe fires and 
corresponding increases in expenditures for wildland fire management 
activities. These factors include an accumulation of fuels due to past 
fire suppression policies; severe weather and drought in some areas of 
the country; and growing numbers of homes built in or near wildlands, 
an area known as the wildland-urban interface. In light of the federal 
deficit and the long-term fiscal challenges facing the nation, 
attention has increasingly focused on ways to contain these growing 
expenditures and to ensure that federal agencies' wildland fire 
activities are appropriate and carried out in a cost-effective and 
efficient manner. 

My testimony today is based on several of our previous reports and 
testimonies, which together discuss key issues we have identified over 
the last 7 years in federal agencies' management of wildland fire and 
critical actions the agencies need to complete if they are to 
effectively manage their efforts to prepare for and respond to wildland 
fires.[Footnote 2] Specifically, my testimony focuses on the Forest 
Service and Interior agencies' (1) efforts to develop a long-term, 
cohesive strategy to reduce fuels and address wildland fire problems 
and (2) management of their efforts to contain the costs of preparing 
for and responding to wildland fires. 

Summary: 

In summary, the Forest Service and Interior agencies need to complete 
several actions to strengthen their overall management of the wildland 
fire program. Because a substantial investment and decades of work will 
be required to address wildland fire problems that have been decades in 
the making, the agencies need to develop a cohesive strategy that 
addresses the full range of wildland fire management activities. Such a 
strategy should identify the available long-term options and associated 
funding for reducing excess vegetation and responding to wildland fires 
if the agencies and the Congress are to make informed decisions about 
an effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing problems 
that have been decades in the making. We first recommended in 1999 that 
such a strategy be developed to address the problem of excess fuels and 
their potential to increase the severity of wildland fires and cost of 
suppression efforts.[Footnote 3] By 2005, the agencies had yet to 
develop such a strategy, and we reiterated the need for a cohesive 
strategy and broadened our recommendation's focus to better address the 
interrelated nature of fuel reduction efforts and wildland fire 
response. Further, because the agencies said they would be unable to 
develop a cohesive strategy until they have completed certain key 
tasks, we recommended that the agencies develop a tactical plan 
outlining these tasks and the time frames needed for completing each 
task and a cohesive strategy.[Footnote 4] Although the agencies 
concurred with our recommendations, as of April 2007, a tactical plan 
had yet to be developed. 

Second, as we testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources in January 2007, the steps the Forest Service and 
Interior agencies have taken to date to contain wildland fire costs 
lack several key elements fundamental to sound program management, such 
as clearly defining cost-containment goals, developing a strategy for 
achieving those goals, and measuring progress toward achieving them. 
For cost-containment efforts to be effective, the agencies need to 
integrate cost-containment goals with the other goals of the wildland 
fire program--such as protecting life, resources, and property--and to 
recognize that trade-offs will be needed to meet desired goals within 
the context of fiscal constraints. Further, because cost-containment 
goals need to be considered in relation to other wildland fire program 
goals, it is important that the agencies integrate cost-containment 
goals within an overall cohesive strategy. Our forthcoming report on 
federal agencies' efforts to contain wildland fire costs includes more- 
detailed findings and recommendations to the agencies to improve the 
management of their cost-containment efforts; this report is expected 
to be released at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and 
Natural Resources scheduled for June 26, 2007. 

Background: 

Over the past decade, the number of acres burned annually by wildland 
fires in the United States has substantially increased. Federal 
appropriations to prepare for and respond to wildland fires, including 
appropriations for fuel treatments, have almost tripled. Increases in 
the size and severity of wildland fires, and in the cost of preparing 
for and responding to them, have led federal agencies to fundamentally 
reexamine their approach to wildland fire management. For decades, 
federal agencies aggressively suppressed wildland fires and were 
generally successful in decreasing the number of acres burned. In some 
parts of the country, however, rather than eliminating severe wildland 
fires, decades of suppression contributed to the disruption of 
ecological cycles and began to change the structure and composition of 
forests and rangelands, thereby making lands more susceptible to fire. 

Increasingly, federal agencies have recognized the role that fire plays 
in many ecosystems and the role that it could play in the agencies' 
management of forests and watersheds. The agencies worked together to 
develop a federal wildland fire management policy in 1995, which for 
the first time formally recognized the essential role of fire in 
sustaining natural systems; this policy was subsequently reaffirmed and 
updated in 2001. The agencies, in conjunction with Congress, also began 
developing the National Fire Plan in 2000.[Footnote 5] To align their 
policies and to ensure a consistent and coordinated effort to implement 
the federal wildland fire policy and National Fire Plan, Agriculture 
and Interior established the Wildland Fire Leadership Council in 
2002.[Footnote 6] In addition to noting the negative effects of past 
successes in suppressing wildland fires, the policy and plan also 
recognized that continued development in the wildland-urban interface 
has placed more structures at risk from wildland fire at the same time 
that it has increased the complexity and cost of wildland fire 
suppression. Forest Service and university researchers estimated in 
2005 that about 44 million homes in the lower 48 states are located in 
the wildland-urban interface. 

To help address these trends, current federal policy directs agencies 
to consider land management objectives--identified in land and fire 
management plans developed by each local unit, such as a national 
forest or a Bureau of Land Management district--and the structures and 
resources at risk when determining whether or how to suppress a 
wildland fire. When a fire starts, the land manager at the affected 
local unit is responsible for determining the strategy that will be 
used to respond to the fire. A wide spectrum of strategies is 
available, some of which can be significantly more costly than others. 
For example, the agencies may fight fires ignited close to communities 
or other high-value areas more aggressively than fires on remote lands 
or at sites where fire may provide ecological or fuel-reduction 
benefits. In some cases, the agencies may simply monitor a fire, or 
take only limited suppression actions, to ensure that the fire 
continues to pose little threat to important resources, a practice 
known as "wildland fire use." 

Agencies Need a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Problems: 

Federal firefighting agencies need a cohesive strategy for reducing 
fuels and addressing wildland fire issues. Such a strategy should 
identify the available long-term options and associated funding for 
reducing excess vegetation and responding to wildland fires if the 
agencies and the Congress are to make informed decisions about an 
effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing problems 
that have been decades in the making. We first recommended in 1999 such 
a strategy be developed to address the problem of excess fuels and 
their potential to increase the severity of wildland fires and cost of 
suppression efforts.[Footnote 7] By 2005, the agencies had yet to 
develop such a strategy, and we reiterated the need for a cohesive 
strategy and broadened our recommendation's focus to better address the 
interrelated nature of fuel reduction efforts and wildland fire 
response. The agencies said they would be unable to develop a cohesive 
strategy until they have completed certain key tasks. We therefore 
recommended that the agencies develop a tactical plan outlining these 
tasks and the time frames needed for completing each task and a 
cohesive strategy. These tasks include (1) finishing data systems that 
are needed to identify the extent, severity, and location of wildland 
fire threats in our national forests and rangelands; (2) updating local 
fire management plans to better specify the actions needed to 
effectively address these threats; and (3) assessing the cost- 
effectiveness and affordability of options for reducing fuels and 
responding to wildland fire problems. 

First, federal firefighting agencies have made progress in developing a 
system to help them better identify and set priorities for lands 
needing treatment to reduce accumulated fuels. Many past studies have 
identified fuel reduction as important for containing wildland fire 
costs because accumulated fuels can contribute to more-severe and more 
costly fires. The agencies are developing a geospatial data and 
modeling system, called LANDFIRE, intended to produce consistent and 
comprehensive maps and data describing vegetation, wildland fuels, and 
fire regimes across the United States.[Footnote 8] The agencies will be 
able to use this information to help identify fuel accumulations and 
fire hazards across the nation, help set nationwide priorities for fuel-
reduction projects, and assist in determining an appropriate response 
when wildland fires do occur. LANDFIRE data are nearly complete for 
most of the western United States, with data for the remainder of the 
country scheduled to be completed in 2009. The agencies, however, have 
not yet finalized their plan for ensuring that collected data are 
routinely updated to reflect changes to fuels, including those from 
landscape-altering events, such as hurricanes, disease, or wildland 
fires themselves. The agencies expect to submit a plan to the Wildland 
Fire Leadership Council for approval later this month. 

Second, we reported in 2006 that 95 percent of the agencies' individual 
land management units had completed fire management plans in accordance 
with agency direction issued in 2001.[Footnote 9] As of January 2007, 
however, the agencies did not require regular updates to ensure that 
new data (from LANDFIRE, for example) were incorporated into the plans. 
In addition, in the wake of two court decisions--each holding that the 
Forest Service was required to prepare an environmental assessment or 
environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy 
Act (NEPA)[Footnote 10] to accompany the relevant fire management plan-
-the Forest Service decided to withdraw the two plans instead of 
completing them. It is unclear whether the agency would withdraw other 
fire management plans successfully challenged under NEPA; nor is it 
clear whether or to what extent such agency decisions could undermine 
the interagency policy directing that every burnable acre have a fire 
management plan. Without such plans, however, current agency policy 
does not allow use of the entire range of wildland fire response 
strategies, including less aggressive, and potentially less costly, 
strategies. Moreover, in examining 17 fire management plans, a May 2007 
review of large wildland fires managed by the Forest Service in 2006 
identified several shortcomings, including that most of the plans 
examined did not contain current information on fuel conditions, many 
did not provide sufficient guidance on selecting firefighting 
strategies, and only 1 discussed issues related to suppression 
costs.[Footnote 11] 

Third, over the past several years, the agencies have been developing a 
Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system, which was proposed and funded to 
help the agencies: 

* determine national budget needs by analyzing budget alternatives at 
the local level--using a common, interagency process for fire 
management planning and budgeting--and aggregating the results; 

* determine the relative costs and benefits for the full scope of fire 
management activities, including potential trade-offs among investments 
in fuel reduction, fire preparedness, and fire suppression activities; 
and: 

* identify, for a given budget level, the most cost-effective mix of 
personnel and equipment to carry out these activities. 

We have said for several years--and the agencies have concurred--that 
FPA is critical to helping the agencies contain wildland fire costs and 
plan and budget effectively. Recent design modifications to the system, 
however, raise questions about the agencies' ability to fully achieve 
key FPA goals. A midcourse review of the developing system resulted in 
the Wildland Fire Leadership Council's approving in December 2006 
modifications to the system's design. FPA and senior Forest Service and 
Interior officials told us they believed the modifications would allow 
the agencies to meet the key goals. The officials said they expected to 
have a prototype developed for the council's review in June 2007 and to 
substantially complete the system by June 2008. We have yet to 
systematically review the modifications, but after reviewing agency 
reports on the modifications and interviewing knowledgeable officials, 
we have concerns that the modifications may not allow the agencies to 
meet FPA's key goals. For example, under the redesigned system, local 
land managers will use a different method to analyze and select various 
budget alternatives, and it is unclear whether this method will 
identify the most cost-effective allocation of resources. In addition, 
it is unclear how the budget alternatives for local units will be 
meaningfully aggregated on a nationwide basis, a key FPA goal. 

Although the agencies have made progress on these three primary tasks, 
as of April 2007, they had yet to complete a joint tactical plan 
outlining the critical steps, together with related time frames, that 
the agencies would take to complete a cohesive strategy, as we 
recommended in our 2005 report. We continue to believe that, until a 
cohesive strategy can be developed, it is essential that the agencies 
create a tactical plan for developing this strategy, so Congress 
understands the steps and time frames involved in completing the 
strategy. 

Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders Federal Agencies' Efforts to 
Contain Wildland Fire Costs: 

As we testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources in January 2007, the steps the Forest Service and Interior 
agencies have taken to date to contain wildland fire costs lack several 
key elements fundamental to sound program management, such as clearly 
defining cost-containment goals, developing a strategy for achieving 
those goals, and measuring progress toward achieving them. First, the 
agencies have not clearly articulated the goals of their cost- 
containment efforts. For cost-containment efforts to be effective, the 
agencies need to integrate cost-containment goals with the other goals 
of the wildland fire program--such as protecting life, property, and 
resources. For example, the agencies have established the goal of 
suppressing wildland fires at minimum cost, considering firefighter and 
public safety and values being protected, but they have not defined 
criteria by which these often-competing objectives are to be weighed. 
Second, although the agencies are undertaking a variety of steps 
designed to help contain wildland fire costs, the agencies have not 
developed a clear plan for how these efforts fit together or the extent 
to which they will assist in containing costs. Finally, the agencies 
are developing a statistical model of fire suppression costs that they 
plan to use to identify when the cost for an individual fire may have 
been excessive. The model compares a fire's cost to the costs of 
suppressing previous fires with similar characteristics. However, such 
comparisons with previous fires' costs may not fully consider the 
potential for managers to select less aggressive--and potentially less 
costly--suppression strategies. In addition, the model is still under 
development and may take a number of years to fully refine. Without 
clear program goals and objectives, and corresponding performance 
measures to evaluate progress, the agencies lack the tools to be able 
to determine the effectiveness of their cost-containment efforts. Our 
forthcoming report on federal agencies' efforts to contain wildland 
fire costs includes more-detailed findings and recommendations to the 
agencies to improve the management of their cost-containment efforts; 
this report is expected to be released at a hearing before the Senate 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources scheduled for June 26, 2007. 

Conclusions: 

Complex conditions have contributed to increasing wildland fire 
severity. These conditions have been decades in the making, and will 
take decades to resolve. The agencies must develop an effective and 
affordable strategy for addressing these conditions in light of the 
large federal deficit and the long-term fiscal challenges facing our 
nation. To make informed decisions about an effective and affordable 
long-term approach to addressing wildland fire problems, the agencies 
need to develop a cohesive strategy that identifies the available long- 
term options and associated funding for reducing excess vegetation and 
responding to wildland fires. Because the agencies cannot develop such 
a strategy until they complete certain key tasks, we continue to 
believe that in the interim the agencies must create a tactical plan 
for developing this strategy so that Congress can monitor the agencies' 
progress. While the agencies continue to work toward developing a 
cohesive strategy, they have initiated a number of efforts intended to 
contain wildland fire costs, but the agencies cannot demonstrate the 
effectiveness of these cost containment efforts, in part because the 
agencies have no clearly defined cost-containment goals and objectives. 
Without clear goals, the agencies cannot develop consistent standards 
by which to measure their performance. Further, without these goals and 
objectives, federal land and fire managers in the field are more likely 
to select strategies and tactics that favor suppressing fires quickly 
over those that seek to balance the benefits of protecting the 
resources at risk and the costs of protecting them. Perhaps most 
important, without a clear vision of what they are trying to achieve 
and a systematic approach for achieving it, the agencies--and Congress 
and the American people--have little assurance that their cost- 
containment efforts will lead to substantial improvement. Moreover, 
because cost-containment goals should be considered in relation to 
other wildland fire program goals--such as protecting life, resources, 
and property--the agencies must integrate cost-containment goals within 
the overall cohesive strategy for responding to wildland fires that we 
have consistently recommended. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased 
to answer any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee 
may have at this time. 

GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments: 

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at 
(202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 
page of this statement. David P. Bixler, Assistant Director; Ellen W. 
Chu; Jonathan Dent; Janet Frisch; Chester Joy; and Richard Johnson made 
key contributions to this statement. 

FOOTNOTES 

[1] The four agencies are the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land 
Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service. 

[2] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Lack of a Cohesive Strategy Hinders 
Agencies' Cost-Containment Efforts, GAO-07-427T (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 
30 2007); Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to 
Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats, GAO-06-
671R (Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006); and Wildland Fire Management 
Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges Remain to Completing a 
Cohesive Strategy, GAO-05-147 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2005). 

[3] GAO, Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to 
Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats, GAO/RCED-99-65 (Washington, 
D.C.: Apr. 2, 1999). 

[4] GAO-05-147. 

[5] The National Fire Plan is a joint interagency effort to respond to 
wildland fires. Its core comprises several strategic documents, 
including (1) a September 2000 report from the Secretaries of 
Agriculture and the Interior to the President in response to the 
wildland fires of 2000, (2) congressional direction accompanying 
substantial new appropriations in fiscal year 2001, and (3) several 
approved and draft strategies to implement all or parts of the plan. 

[6] The Wildland Fire Leadership Council is composed of senior 
Agriculture and Interior officials, including the Agriculture 
Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment; the Interior 
Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget; the Interior 
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Business Management and Wildland Fire; 
and the heads of the five federal firefighting agencies. Other members 
include representatives of the Intertribal Timber Council, the National 
Association of State Foresters, and the Western Governors' Association. 

[7] GAO/RCED-99-65. 

[8] A fire regime generally classifies the role that wildland fire 
plays in a particular ecosystem on the basis of certain 
characteristics, such as the average number of years between fires and 
the typical severity of fire under historic conditions. 

[9] Fire management plans are local plans prepared by individual agency 
management units (such as national forests or wildlife refuges) to 
define each unit's program to prepare for and manage fires; such plans 
are important for identifying the fuel reduction, preparedness, 
suppression, and rehabilitation actions needed at the local level to 
effectively address wildland fire threats. 

[10] For major federal actions that significantly affect the quality of 
the human environment, the National Environmental Policy Act requires 
all federal agencies to analyze the environmental impact of the 
proposed action. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). 

[11] Independent Large Wildfire Cost Panel, chartered by the U.S. 
Secretary of Agriculture, Towards a Collaborative Cost Management 
Strategy: 2006 U.S. Forest Service Large Wildfire Cost Review 
Recommendations (Washington, D.C., May 15, 2007).


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