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Testimony: 

Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

For Release on Delivery: 
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Tuesday, July 21, 2009: 

Wildland Fire Management: 

Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional 
Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Challenges: 

Statement of Patricia Dalton, Managing Director: 
Natural Resources and Environment: 

GAO-09-906T:  

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-09-906T, a testimony before the Committee on Energy 
and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate.  

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The nation’s wildland fire problems have worsened dramatically over the 
past decade, with more than a doubling of both the average annual 
acreage burned and federal appropriations for wildland fire management. 
The deteriorating fire situation has led the agencies responsible for 
managing wildland fires on federal lands—the Forest Service in the 
Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of 
Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service 
in the Department of the Interior—to reassess how they respond to 
wildland fire and to take steps to improve their fire management 
programs. This testimony discusses (1) progress the agencies have made 
in managing wildland fire and (2) key actions GAO believes are still 
necessary to improve their wildland fire management. This testimony is 
based on issued GAO reports and reviews of agency documents and 
interviews with agency officials on actions the agencies have taken in 
response to previous GAO findings and recommendations.  

What GAO Found: 

The Forest Service and Interior agencies have improved their 
understanding of wildland fire’s ecological role on the landscape and 
have taken important steps toward enhancing their ability to cost-
effectively protect communities and resources by seeking to (1) make 
communities and resources less susceptible to being damaged by wildland 
fire and (2) respond to fire so as to protect communities and important 
resources at risk while also considering both the cost and long-term 
effects of that response. To help them do so, the agencies have reduced 
potentially flammable vegetation in an effort to keep wildland fires 
from spreading into the wildland-urban interface and to help protect 
important resources by lessening a fire’s intensity; sponsored efforts 
to educate homeowners about steps they can take to protect their homes 
from wildland fire; and provided grants to help homeowners carry out 
these steps. The agencies have also made improvements that lay 
important groundwork for enhancing their response to wildland fire, 
including adopting new guidance on how managers in the field are to 
select firefighting strategies, improving the analytical tools that 
assist managers in selecting a strategy, and improving how the agencies 
acquire and use expensive firefighting assets. 

Despite the agencies’ efforts, much work remains. GAO has previously 
recommended several key actions that, if completed, would substantially 
improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire. Specifically, the 
agencies should:  

* Develop a cohesive strategy laying out various potential approaches 
for addressing the growing wildland fire threat, including estimating 
costs associated with each approach and the trade-offs involved. Such 
information would help the agencies and Congress make fundamental 
decisions about an effective and affordable approach to responding to 
fires.  

* Establish a cost-containment strategy that clarifies the importance 
of containing costs relative to other, often-competing objectives. 
Without such clarification, GAO believes managers in the field lack a 
clear understanding of the relative importance that the agencies’ 
leadership places on containing costs and are therefore likely to 
continue to select firefighting strategies without duly considering the 
costs of suppression.  

* Clarify financial responsibilities for fires that cross federal, 
state, and local jurisdictions. Unless the financial responsibilities 
for multijurisdictional fires are clarified, concerns that the existing 
framework insulates nonfederal entities from the cost of protecting the 
wildland-urban interface from fire—and that the federal government 
would thus continue to bear more than its share of the cost—are 
unlikely to be addressed.  

* Take action to mitigate the effects of rising fire costs on other 
agency programs. The sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires 
have led the agencies to transfer funds from other programs to help pay 
for fire suppression, disrupting or delaying activities in these other 
programs. Better methods of predicting needed suppression funding could 
reduce the need to transfer funds from other programs.  

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is making no new recommendations at this time. The agencies have 
generally agreed with GAO’s previous recommendations, but have yet to 
implement several key recommendations GAO believes could substantially 
assist them in capitalizing on the important progress they have made to 
date.  

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-906T] or key 
components. For more information, contact Patricia Dalton at (202) 512-
3841 or daltonp@gao.gov, or Robin Nazzaro at (202) 512-3841 or 
nazzaror@gao.gov.  

[End of section] 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss wildland fire management by 
the federal wildland fire agencies--the Forest Service within the 
Department of Agriculture and four agencies within the Department of 
the Interior--including key actions that we believe the agencies should 
take to improve their management of wildland fires and help contain the 
rising costs of preparing for and responding to fires. The nation's 
wildland fire problems have worsened dramatically over the past decade, 
threatening communities as well as important natural and cultural 
resources. Both the average acreage burned annually and federal 
appropriations for wildland fire management activities have more than 
doubled, with appropriations reaching more than $2.9 billion annually, 
on average, during fiscal years 2001 through 2007. A number of factors 
have contributed to these increases. Uncharacteristic accumulations of 
vegetation that can fuel wildland fires, due in part to past fire 
suppression policies and land management practices, and severe regional 
weather and drought have led to higher-intensity fires and longer fire 
seasons. At the same time, continued development in and near wildlands, 
an area often called the wildland-urban interface, has placed more 
homes at risk. A series of damaging wildland fires in the 1990s led the 
Forest Service and the Interior agencies to reassess their approach to 
managing fire. It also prompted a sustained effort, known as the 
National Fire Plan,[Footnote 1] on the part of federal agencies and 
Congress to improve fire suppression capabilities, reduce fuels, 
restore fire-adapted ecosystems, and help communities better withstand 
wildland fire. Growing recognition of the long-term fiscal challenges 
facing the nation has also led Congress, the agencies, and others to 
focus on ensuring that federal wildland fire activities are appropriate 
and carried out in a cost-effective manner. 

My testimony today summarizes our previous findings and recommendations 
related to wildland fire, and also includes preliminary information 
from our ongoing work examining the extent to which the agencies have 
improved their wildland fire programs in response to our previous work. 
[Footnote 2] Specifically, I will focus on (1) the progress the Forest 
Service and the Interior agencies have made in managing wildland fire 
and (2) key actions we previously recommended and believe are still 
necessary to improve the agencies' management of wildland fire. To 
address these objectives, we reviewed previous GAO reports and agency 
documents and interviewed agency officials in Washington, D.C.; at the 
National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho; and elsewhere. We 
expect to issue a report later this year that will address these 
objectives in more detail. 

Background: 

Wildland fires triggered by lightning are both natural and inevitable 
and play an important ecological role on the nation's landscapes. These 
fires shape the composition of forests and grasslands, periodically 
reduce vegetation densities, and stimulate seedling regeneration and 
growth in some species. Over the past century, however, various land 
use and management practices--including fire suppression, grazing, and 
timber harvesting--have reduced the normal frequency of fires in many 
forest and rangeland ecosystems and contributed to abnormally dense, 
continuous accumulations of vegetation. Such accumulations not only can 
fuel uncharacteristically large or severe wildland fires, but also-- 
with more homes and communities built in or near areas at risk from 
wildland fires--threaten human lives, health, property, and 
infrastructure. 

The Forest Service and four Interior agencies--the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and 
National Park Service--are responsible for wildland fire management. 
These five agencies manage about 700 million acres of land in the 
United States, including national forests, national grasslands, Indian 
reservations, national parks, and national wildlife refuges. 

The federal wildland fire management program has three major 
components: preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction.[Footnote 3] 
To prepare for a wildland fire season, the agencies acquire 
firefighting assets--including firefighters, engines, aircraft, and 
other equipment--and station them either at individual federal land 
management units (such as national forests or national parks) or at 
centralized dispatch locations. The primary purpose of these assets is 
to respond to fires before they become large--a response referred to as 
initial attack--thus forestalling threats to communities and natural 
and cultural resources. The agencies fund the assets used for initial 
attack primarily from their wildland fire preparedness accounts. 

When a fire starts, current federal policy directs the agencies to 
consider land management objectives--identified by 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 it. A 
wide spectrum of fire response strategies is available to choose from, 
and the manager at the affected local unit--known as a line officer--is 
responsible for determining which strategy to use. In the relatively 
rare instances when fires escape initial attack and grow large, the 
agencies respond using an interagency system that mobilizes additional 
firefighting assets from federal, state, and local agencies, as well as 
private contractors, regardless of which agency or agencies have 
jurisdiction over the burning lands. Federal agencies typically fund 
the costs of these activities from their wildland fire suppression 
accounts. 

In addition to preparing for and suppressing fires, the agencies 
attempt to reduce the potential for severe wildland fires, lessen the 
damage caused by fires, limit the spread of flammable invasive species, 
and restore and maintain healthy ecosystems by reducing potentially 
hazardous vegetation that can fuel fires. The agencies generally remove 
or modify hazardous vegetation using prescribed fire (that is, fire 
deliberately set in order to restore or maintain desired vegetation 
conditions), mechanical thinning, herbicides, certain grazing methods, 
or combinations of these and other approaches. The agencies fund these 
activities from their fuel reduction accounts. 

Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, federal agency 
officials, and others have expressed concern about mounting federal 
wildland fire expenditures. Federal appropriations to the Forest 
Service and the Interior agencies to prepare for and respond to 
wildland fires, including appropriations for reducing fuels, have more 
than doubled, from an average of $1.2 billion from fiscal years 1996 
through 2000 to an average of $2.9 billion from fiscal years 2001 
through 2007 (see table 1). Adjusting for inflation, the average annual 
appropriations to the agencies for these periods increased from $1.5 
billion to $3.1 billion (in 2007 dollars). The Forest Service received 
about 70 percent and Interior about 30 percent of the appropriated 
funds. 

Table 1: Forest Service and Interior Wildland Fire Appropriations, 
Fiscal Years 1996 through 2007: 

Fiscal year: 1996; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $772.4; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$984.2. 

Fiscal year: 1997; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $1,432.1; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$1,793.3. 

Fiscal year: 1998; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $1,116.7; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$1,381.7. 

Fiscal year: 1999; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $1,159.3; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$1,415.9. 

Fiscal year: 2000; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $1,598.9; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$1,914.2. 

Fiscal year: 2001; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $2,859.9; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$3,344.7. 

Fiscal year: 2002; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $2,238.8; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$2,569.0. 

Fiscal year: 2003; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $3,165.1; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$3,560.2. 

Fiscal year: 2004; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $3,230.6; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$3,541.6. 

Fiscal year: 2005; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $2,929.8; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$3,144.0. 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $2,701.4; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$2,775.4. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Nominal: $3,047.0; 
Total appropriations (millions of dollars), Inflation-adjusted[A]: 
$3,047.0. 

Source: GAO analysis of Congressional Research Service data. 

[A] We adjusted the appropriations amounts for inflation, using the 
chain-weighted gross domestic product price index with fiscal year 2007 
as the base year.  

[End of table]  

Agencies' Efforts to Implement a New Approach to Managing Wildland Fire 
Have Better Positioned Them to Respond to Fire Effectively: 

The Forest Service and the Interior agencies have improved their 
understanding of wildland fire's role on the landscape and have taken 
important steps toward improving their ability to cost-effectively 
protect communities and resources. Although the agencies have long 
recognized that fire could provide ecological benefits in some 
ecosystems, such as certain grassland and forest types, a number of 
damaging fires in the 1990s led them to develop the Federal Wildland 
Fire Management Policy.[Footnote 4] The policy formally recognizes not 
only that wildland fire can be beneficial in some areas, but also that 
fire is an inevitable part of the landscape and, moreover, that past 
attempts to suppress all fires have been in part responsible for making 
recent fires more severe. Under this policy, the agencies abandoned 
their attempt to put out every wildland fire, seeking instead to (1) 
make communities and resources less susceptible to being damaged by 
wildland fire and (2) respond to fires so as to protect communities and 
important resources at risk but also to consider both the cost and long-
term effects of that response. By emphasizing firefighting strategies 
that focus on land management objectives, rather than seeking to 
suppress all fires, the agencies are increasingly using less aggressive 
firefighting strategies--strategies that can not only reduce costs but 
also be safer for firefighters by reducing their exposure to 
unnecessary risks, according to agency fire officials. 

To help them better achieve the federal wildland fire management 
policy's vision, the Forest Service and the Interior agencies in recent 
years have taken several steps to make communities and resources less 
susceptible to damage from wildland fire. These steps include reducing 
hazardous fuels, in an effort to keep wildland fires from spreading 
into the wildland-urban interface and to help protect important 
resources by lessening a fire's intensity. As part of this effort, the 
agencies reported they have reduced fuels on more than 29 million acres 
from 2001 through 2008. The agencies have also nearly completed their 
geospatial data and modeling system, LANDFIRE, as we recommended in 
2003.[Footnote 5] LANDFIRE is intended to produce consistent and 
comprehensive maps and data describing vegetation, wildland fuels, and 
fire regimes across the United States.[Footnote 6] Such data are 
critical to helping the agencies (1) identify the extent, severity, and 
location of wildland fire threats to the nation's communities and 
resources; (2) predict fire intensity and rate of spread under 
particular weather conditions; and (3) evaluate the effect that 
reducing fuels may have on future fire behavior. LANDFIRE data are 
already complete for the contiguous United States, although some agency 
officials have questioned the accuracy of the data, and the agencies 
expect to complete the data for Alaska and Hawaii in 2009. 

The agencies have also begun to improve their processes for allocating 
fuel reduction funds to different areas of the country and for 
selecting fuel reduction projects, as we recommended in 2007.[Footnote 
7] The agencies have started moving away from "allocation by tradition" 
toward a more consistent, systematic allocation process. That is, 
rather than relying on historical funding patterns and professional 
judgment, the agencies are developing a process that also considers 
risk, effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments, and other factors. 
Despite these improvements, further action is needed to ensure that the 
agencies' efforts to reduce hazardous fuels are directed to areas at 
highest risk. The agencies, for example, still lack a measure of the 
effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments and therefore lack 
information needed to ensure that fuel reduction funds are directed to 
the areas where they can best minimize risk to communities and 
resources. Forest Service and Interior officials told us that they 
recognize this shortcoming and that efforts are under way to address 
it; these efforts are likely to be long term involving considerable 
research investment, but they have the potential to improve the 
agencies' ability to assess and compare the cost-effectiveness of 
potential treatments in deciding how to optimally allocate scarce 
funds. 

The agencies have also taken steps to foster fire-resistant 
communities. Increasing the use of protective measures to mitigate the 
risk to structures from wildland fire is a key goal of the National 
Fire Plan. The plan encourages, but does not mandate, state or local 
governments to adopt laws requiring homeowners and homebuilders to take 
measures--such as reducing vegetation and flammable objects within an 
area of 30 to 100 feet around a structure, often called creating 
defensible space, and using fire-resistant roofing materials and 
covering attic vents with mesh screens--to help protect structures from 
wildland fires. Because these measures rely on the actions of 
individual homeowners or homebuilders, or on laws and land-use planning 
affecting private lands, achieving this goal is primarily a state and 
local government responsibility. Nonetheless, the Forest Service and 
the Interior agencies have helped sponsor the Firewise Communities 
program, which works with community leaders and homeowners to increase 
the use of fire-resistant landscaping and building materials in areas 
of high risk.[Footnote 8] Federal and state agencies also provide 
grants to help pay for creating defensible space around private homes. 

In addition, the agencies have made improvements laying important 
groundwork for enhancing their response to wildland fire, including: 

* Implementing the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The Federal 
Wildland Fire Management Policy directs each agency to develop a fire 
management plan for all areas they manage with burnable vegetation. 
Without such plans, agency policy does not allow the use of the entire 
range of wildland fire response strategies, including less aggressive 
strategies, and therefore the agencies must attempt to suppress a fire 
regardless of any benefits that might come from allowing it to burn. We 
reported in 2006 that about 95 percent of the agencies' 1,460 
individual land management units had completed the required plans. The 
policy also states that the agencies' responses to a wildland fire are 
to be based on the circumstances of a given fire and the likely 
consequences to human safety and natural and cultural resources. 
Interagency guidance on implementing the policy, adopted in 2009, 
clarifies that the full range of fire management strategies and tactics 
are to be considered when responding to every wildland fire, and that a 
single fire may be simultaneously managed for different objectives. 
Both we and the Department of Agriculture's Inspector General had 
criticized the previous guidance,[Footnote 9] which required each fire 
to be managed either for suppression objectives--that is, to put out 
the fire as quickly as possible--or to achieve resource benefits--that 
is, to allow the fire to burn to gain certain benefits such as reducing 
fuels or seed regeneration. By providing this flexibility, the new 
guidance should help the agencies better achieve management objectives 
and help contain the long-term costs of fire management. 

* Improving fire management decisions. The agencies have recently 
undertaken several efforts to improve decisions about firefighting 
strategies. In one such effort, the agencies in 2009 began to use a new 
analytical tool, known as the wildland fire decision support system. 
This new tool helps line officers and fire managers analyze various 
factors--such as the fire's current location, adjacent fuel conditions, 
nearby structures and other highly valued resources, and weather 
forecasts--in determining the strategies and tactics to adopt. For 
example, the tool generates a map illustrating the probability that a 
particular wildland fire, barring any suppression actions, will burn a 
certain area within a specified time, and the structures or other 
resources that may therefore be threatened. Having such information can 
help line officers and fire managers understand the resources at risk 
and identify the most appropriate response--for example, whether to 
devote substantial resources in attempting full and immediate 
suppression or to instead take a less intensive approach, which may 
reduce risks to firefighters and cost less. Other efforts include (1) 
establishing experience and training requirements for line officers to 
be certified to manage fires of different levels of complexity, and (2) 
forming four teams staffed with some of the most experienced fire 
managers to assist in managing wildland fires. The Forest Service has 
also experimented in recent years with several approaches for 
identifying ongoing fires where suppression actions are unlikely to be 
effective and for influencing strategic decisions made during those 
fires, in order to help contain costs and reduce risk to firefighters. 
Although these efforts are new, and we have not fully evaluated them, 
we believe they have the potential to help the agencies strengthen how 
they select firefighting strategies. By themselves, however, these 
efforts do not address certain critical shortcomings. We reported in 
2007, for example, that officials in the field have few incentives to 
consider cost containment in making critical decisions affecting 
suppression costs, and that previous studies had found that the lack of 
a clear measure to evaluate the benefits and costs of alternative 
firefighting strategies fundamentally hindered the agencies' ability to 
provide effective oversight.[Footnote 10] 

* Acquiring and using firefighting assets effectively. The agencies 
have continued to make improvements--including better systems for 
contracting with private vendors to provide firefighting assets and for 
dispatching assets to individual fires--in how they determine the 
firefighting assets they need and in how they acquire and use those 
assets, although further action is needed. For example, although the 
agencies in 2009 began deploying an interagency budget-planning system 
known as fire program analysis (FPA) to address congressional direction 
that they improve how they determine needed firefighting assets, our 
2008 report on FPA's development identified several shortcomings that 
limit FPA's ability to meet certain key objectives.[Footnote 11] FPA 
was intended to help the agencies develop their wildland fire budget 
requests and allocate funds by, among other objectives, (1) providing a 
common budget framework to analyze firefighting assets without regard 
for agency jurisdictions; (2) examining the full scope of fire 
management activities; (3) modeling the effects over time of differing 
strategies for responding to wildland fires and treating lands to 
reduce hazardous fuels; and (4) using this information to identify the 
most cost-effective mix and location of federal wildland fire 
management assets. We reported in 2008 that FPA shows promise in 
achieving some of the key objectives originally established for it but 
that the approach the agencies have taken hampers FPA from meeting 
other key objectives, including the ability to project the effects of 
different levels of fuel reduction and firefighting strategies over 
time. We therefore concluded that agency officials lack information 
that would help them analyze the extent to which increasing or 
decreasing funding for fuel reduction and responding more or less 
aggressively to fires in the short term could affect the expected cost 
of responding to wildland fires over the long term. Senior agency 
officials told us in 2008 that they were considering making changes to 
FPA that may improve its ability to examine the effects over time of 
different funding strategies. The exact nature of these changes, or how 
to fund them, has yet to be determined. Officials also told us the 
agencies are currently working to evaluate the model's performance, 
identify and implement needed corrections, and improve data quality and 
consistency. The agencies intend to consider the early results of FPA 
in developing their budget requests for fiscal year 2011, although 
officials told us they will not rely substantially on FPA's results 
until needed improvements are made. As we noted in 2008, the approach 
the agencies took in developing FPA provides considerable discretion to 
agency decision makers and, although providing the flexibility to 
consider various options is important, doing so makes it essential that 
the agencies ensure their processes are fully transparent.  

In addition, previous studies have found that agencies sometimes use 
more, or more-costly, firefighting assets than necessary, often in 
response to political or social pressure to demonstrate they are taking 
all possible action to protect communities and resources. Consistent 
with these findings, fire officials told us they were pressured in 2008 
to assign more firefighting assets than could be effectively used to 
fight fires in California. More generally, previous studies have found 
that air tankers may be used to drop flame retardants when on-the-
ground conditions may not warrant such drops. Aviation activities are 
expensive, accounting for about one-third of all firefighting costs on 
a large fire. We believe that providing clarity about when different 
types of firefighting assets can be used effectively could help the 
agencies resist political and social pressure to use more assets than 
they need. 

Agencies Have Yet to Take Certain Key Actions That Would Substantially 
Improve Their Management of Wildland Fire: 

Despite the important steps the agencies have taken, much work remains. 
We have previously recommended several key actions that, if completed, 
would improve the agencies' management of wildland fire. Specifically, 
the agencies need to: 

* Develop a cohesive strategy. Completing an investment strategy that 
lays out various approaches for reducing fuels and responding to 
wildland fires and the estimated costs associated with each approach 
and the trade-offs involved--what we have termed a cohesive strategy-- 
is essential for Congress and the agencies to make informed decisions 
about effective and affordable long-term approaches for addressing the 
nation's wildland fire problems. The agencies have concurred with our 
recommendations to develop a cohesive strategy but have yet to develop 
a strategy that clearly formulates different approaches and associated 
costs,[Footnote 12] despite our repeated calls to do so.[Footnote 13] 
In May 2009, agency officials told us they had begun planning how to 
develop a cohesive strategy but were not far enough along in developing 
it to provide further information. 

Because of the critical importance of a cohesive strategy to improve 
the agencies' overall management of wildland fire, we encourage the 
agencies to complete one and begin implementing it as quickly as 
possible. The Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act, 
introduced in March 2009 and sponsored by the chairman of this 
committee, would require the agencies to produce, within 1 year of the 
act's enactment, a cohesive strategy consistent with our previous 
recommendations.[Footnote 14] Although they have yet to complete a 
cohesive strategy, the agencies have nearly completed two projects-- 
LANDFIRE and FPA--they have identified as being necessary to 
development of a cohesive strategy. However, the shortcomings we 
identified in FPA may limit its ability to contribute to the agencies' 
development of a cohesive strategy. 

* Establish a cost-containment strategy. We reported in 2007 that 
although the Forest Service and the Interior agencies had taken several 
steps intended to help contain wildland fire costs, they had not 
clearly defined their cost-containment goals or developed a strategy 
for achieving those goals--steps that are fundamental to sound program 
management.[Footnote 15] The agencies disagreed, citing several agency 
documents that they argued clearly define their goals and objectives 
and make up their strategy to contain costs.[Footnote 16] Although 
these documents do provide overarching goals and objectives, they lack 
the clarity and specificity needed by land management and firefighting 
officials in the field to help manage and contain wildland fire costs. 
Interagency policy, for example, established an overarching goal of 
suppressing wildland fires at minimum cost, considering firefighter and 
public safety and importance of resources being protected, but the 
agencies have established neither clear criteria for weighing the 
relative importance of the often-competing elements of this broad goal, 
nor measurable objectives for determining if the agencies are meeting 
the goal. As a result, despite the improvements the agencies are making 
to policy, decision support tools, and oversight, we believe that 
managers in the field lack a clear understanding of the relative 
importance that the agencies' leadership places on containing costs 
and--as we concluded in our 2007 report--are therefore likely to 
continue to select firefighting strategies without duly considering the 
costs of suppression. Forest Service officials told us in July 2009 
that although they are concerned about fire management costs, they are 
emphasizing the need to select firefighting strategies that will 
achieve land management objectives and reduce unnecessary risks to 
firefighters, an emphasis they believe may, in the long run, also help 
them contain costs. Nonetheless, we continue to believe that our 
recommendations, if effectively implemented, would help the agencies 
better manage their cost-containment efforts and improve their ability 
to contain wildland fire costs. 

* Clearly define financial responsibilities for fires that cross 
jurisdictions. Protecting the nation's communities is both one of the 
key goals of wildland fire management and one of the leading factors 
contributing to rising fire costs. A number of relatively simple steps--
such as using fire-resistant landscaping and building materials--can 
dramatically reduce the likelihood of damage to a structure from 
wildland fire. Although nonfederal entities--including state forestry 
entities and tribal, county, city, and rural fire departments--play an 
important role in protecting communities and resources and responding 
to fires, we reported in 2006 that federal officials were concerned 
that the existing framework for sharing suppression costs among federal 
and nonfederal entities insulated state and local governments from the 
cost of providing wildland fire protection in the wildland-urban 
interface.[Footnote 17] As a result, there was less incentive for state 
and local governments to adopt laws--such as building codes requiring 
fire-resistant building materials in areas at high risk of wildland 
fires--that, in the long run, could help reduce the cost of suppressing 
wildland fires. We therefore recommended that the federal agencies work 
with relevant state entities to clarify the financial responsibility 
for fires that burn, or threaten to burn, across multiple jurisdictions 
and develop more specific guidance as to when particular cost-sharing 
methods should be used. The agencies have updated guidance on when 
particular cost-sharing methods should be used, although we have not 
evaluated the effect of the updated guidance; the agencies, however, 
have yet to clarify the financial responsibility for fires that 
threaten multiple jurisdictions. Without such clarification, the 
concerns that the existing framework insulates nonfederal entities from 
the cost of protecting the wildland-urban interface from fire--and that 
the federal government, therefore, would continue to bear more than its 
share of that cost--are unlikely to be addressed. 

* Mitigate effects of rising fire costs on other agency programs. The 
sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires have led the Forest 
Service and the Interior agencies to transfer funds from other programs 
to help pay for fire suppression, disrupting or delaying activities in 
these other programs. Better methods of estimating the suppression 
funds the agencies request, as we recommended in 2004,[Footnote 18] 
could reduce the likelihood that the agencies would need to transfer 
funds from other accounts, yet the agencies continue to use an 
estimation method with known problems. A Forest Service official told 
us the agency had analyzed alternative methods for estimating needed 
suppression funds but determined that no better method was available. 
Because the agencies have had to transfer funds in each of the last 3 
years, however, a more accurate method for estimating suppression costs 
may still be needed. To further reduce the likelihood of transferring 
funds from the agencies' other programs to cover suppression costs, our 
2004 report also noted, Congress could consider establishing a reserve 
account to fund emergency wildland firefighting. Congress, for example, 
could provide either a specified amount (known as a definite 
appropriation) or as much funding as the agencies need to fund 
emergency suppression (known as an indefinite appropriation). 
Establishing a reserve account with a definite appropriation would 
provide the agencies with incentives to contain suppression costs 
within the amount in the reserve account, but depending on the size of 
the appropriation and the severity of a fire season, suppression costs 
could still exceed the funds reserved, and the agencies might still 
need to transfer funds from other programs. An account with an 
indefinite appropriation, in contrast, would eliminate the need for 
transferring funds from other programs but would offer no inherent 
incentives for the agencies to contain suppression costs. Furthermore, 
both definite and indefinite appropriations could raise the overall 
federal budget deficit, depending on whether funding levels for other 
agency or government programs are reduced. The Federal Land Assistance, 
Management, and Enhancement Act proposes establishing a wildland fire 
suppression reserve account; the administration's budget overview for 
fiscal year 2010 also proposes a $282 million reserve account for the 
Forest Service and a $75 million reserve account for the Interior to 
provide funding for firefighting when the appropriated suppression 
funds are exhausted. 

We are making no new recommendations at this time. Rather, we believe 
that our previous recommendations--which the agencies have generally 
agreed with--could, if implemented, substantially assist the agencies 
in capitalizing on the important progress they have made to date in 
responding to the nation's growing wildland fire problem. We discussed 
the factual information in this statement with agency officials and 
incorporated their comments where appropriate. 

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 Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

For further information about this testimony, please contact me at 
(202) 512-3841 or daltonp@gao.gov, or Robin M. Nazzaro, Director, 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. Steve Gaty, Assistant Director; David P. 
Bixler; Ellen W. Chu; Jonathan Dent; and Richard P. Johnson made key 
contributions to this statement. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further 
Development to Fully Meet Key Objectives. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-68]. Washington, D.C.: November 24, 
2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long-and Short-Term 
Management Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-433T]. Washington, D.C.: February 
12, 2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic Process 
Could Improve Agencies' Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction Funds and 
Selecting Projects. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1168]. Washington, D.C.: September 
28, 2007. 

Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders 
Federal Agencies' Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655]. Washington, D.C.: 
June 1, 2007. 

Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises Concerns about 
Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-570]. Washington, D.C.: May 30, 
2006. 

Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to Develop a 
Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-671R]. Washington, D.C.: May 1, 
2006. 

Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but 
Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-147]. Washington, D.C.: January 14, 
2005. 

Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations and 
Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-612]. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 
2004. 

Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to Better 
Identify and Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-805]. Washington, D.C.: August 15, 
2003. 

Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address 
Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-99-65]. Washington, D.C.: April 2, 
1999. 

[End of section]  

Footnotes:  

[1] 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 for fire management for fiscal year 
2001; and (3) several strategies and plans to implement all or parts of 
the plan. 

[2] Our previous reports and ongoing work are performance audits being 
conducted in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[3] Other fire program components include prevention; science, 
research, and development; and assistance to nonfederal entities. 

[4] U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior, 
Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review (Washington, 
D.C., December 1995). This policy was subsequently reaffirmed and 
updated in 2001. Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, 
Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, 
Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 
and National Association of State Foresters, Review and Update of the 
1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy (Washington, D.C., January 
2001). 

[5] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to 
Better Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-805] (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 15, 
2003). 

[6] 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. 

[7] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic 
Process Could Improve Agencies' Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction 
Funds and Selecting Projects, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1168] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 
2007). 

[8] The Firewise Communities program is the primary national effort to 
educate homeowners about wildland fire risks. The program is jointly 
sponsored by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, National 
Emergency Management Association, National Association of State Fire 
Marshals, National Association of State Foresters, National Fire 
Protection Association, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fire 
Administration, Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of 
Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park 
Service. Numerous state and local fire and forestry officials also 
participate in the program. See [hyperlink, http://www.firewise.org/] 
for more information. 

[9] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy 
Hinders Federal Agencies' Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting 
Fires, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655] (Washington, 
D.C.: June 1, 2007). 

[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655]. 

[11] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs 
Further Development to Fully Meet Key Objectives, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-68] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 24, 
2008). 

[12] Although the agencies issued a document titled Protecting People 
and Natural Resources: A Cohesive Fuels Treatment Strategy in 2006, 
this document did not identify long-term options or associated funding 
for reducing fuels and responding to wildland fires, elements we 
believe are critical to a cohesive strategy. 

[13] GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long-and 
Short-Term Management Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-433T] (Washington, D.C.: 
Feb. 12, 2008); Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency 
Efforts to Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire 
Threats, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-671R] 
(Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006); Wildland Fire Management: Important 
Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive 
Strategy, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-147] 
(Washington, D.C: Jan. 14, 2005); Western National Forests: A Cohesive 
Strategy Is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/RCED-99-65] (Washington, 
D.C: Apr. 2, 1999). 

[14] S. 561, 111th Cong. (1st sess., 2009); H.R. 1404, 111th Cong. (1st 
sess., 2009). 

[15] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-655]. 

[16] Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department 
of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Environmental 
Protection Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and National 
Association of State Foresters, Review and Update of the 1995 Federal 
Wildland Fire Management Policy (Washington, D.C.: January 2001). 
Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior, and Western 
Governors' Association, A Collaborative Approach for Reducing Wildland 
Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment, 10-Year Strategy 
Implementation Plan (Washington, D.C.: December 2006). 

[17] GAO, Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises 
Concerns about Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-570] (Washington, D.C.: 
May 30, 2006). 

[18] GAO, Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project 
Cancellations and Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management 
Disruptions, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-612] 
(Washington, D.C.: June 2, 2004).  

[End of section]  

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