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Report to Congressional Requesters:

April 2004:

BISCUIT FIRE:

Analysis of Fire Response, Resource Availability, and Personnel 
Certification Standards:

GAO-04-426:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-04-426, a report to congressional requesters 

Why GAO Did This Study:

In 2002, the United States experienced one of the worst wildland fire 
seasons in the past 50 years—almost 7 million acres burned. These fires 
included the largest and costliest fire in Oregon in the past century—
the Biscuit Fire. Following a lightning storm, five fires were 
discovered in the Siskiyou National Forest over a 3-day period 
beginning July 13. These fires eventually burned together to form the 
Biscuit Fire, which burned nearly 500,000 acres in southern Oregon and 
Northern California and cost over $150 million to extinguish. GAO 
evaluated (1) whether policies and procedures were in place for 
acquiring needed firefighting resources during the initial days of the 
Biscuit Fire, and the extent to which these policies and procedures 
were followed when the fire was first identified; (2) what resource 
management issues, if any, affected the ability of personnel to fight 
the fire; and (3) what differences, if any, existed in key 
certification standards for personnel among federal and state agencies 
and whether these differences affected efforts to respond to the fire. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Forest Service stated that 
the report appears to be accurate and the agency generally agrees with 
its contents. The Department of the Interior did not provide comments.

What GAO Found:

National policies and procedures were in place and provided the 
framework to guide personnel in the local interagency dispatch center 
in Grants Pass, Oregon, who were responsible for acquiring resources to 
fight the Biscuit Fire. These policies and procedures provide for a 
multilevel dispatching system where, if sufficient firefighting 
personnel and equipment are not available locally, resource requests 
can be elevated to other dispatch centers at the regional and, if 
necessary, national level. To facilitate the swift suppression of new 
fires, local dispatch center personnel can contact neighboring centers 
directly, including those in adjacent regions, before elevating 
resource requests. When the first two fires were found on July 13, the 
Grants Pass dispatch center did not have sufficient firefighting 
resources available locally. Grants Pass personnel requested resources 
from the responsible regional center in Portland, as well as from a 
dispatch center in central Oregon, but no resources were immediately 
available in the region due to other higher priority fires that were 
threatening lives and property. Grants Pass personnel did not request 
resources from a neighboring interagency dispatch center in Fortuna, 
California, located in an adjoining dispatch region, because they 
believed the center had no available resources due to fire activity 
there. State officials working at the Fortuna dispatch center later 
said that a Fortuna-based helicopter fighting fires in Northern 
California near the first of the five Biscuit fires could have been 
made available to suppress this fire. However, Forest Service officials 
working with Fortuna personnel disagreed, saying that the helicopter 
had been needed to fight fires in California. Because no request was 
made, there was no discussion on that first day about whether the 
Biscuit Fire would have been the best use of the helicopter, and it is 
unclear, in any case, what the outcome of such a request would have 
been. 

Following the initial days of the Biscuit Fire, delays in obtaining 
needed personnel hampered efforts to fight the rapidly growing fire. 
Specifically, officials faced problems obtaining (1) highly experienced 
management teams to direct suppression strategies and crews to carry 
the strategies out, (2) supervisors to manage crews and equipment, and 
(3) support staff to monitor the training and experience of contracted 
crews. An unusually severe fire season, with many other higher priority 
fires, affected the availability of personnel needed to fight the 
Biscuit Fire.

Finally, while some differences exist in certification standards for 
personnel between federal and state agencies responsible for fighting 
wildland fires, these differences did not appear to affect efforts to 
respond to the Biscuit Fire.


www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-426.

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Barry T. Hill at (202) 
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[End of section]

Contents:

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

National Policies and Procedures Were in Place to Guide the Process for 
Acquiring Firefighting Resources: 

Reduced Availability of Key Personnel Hampered the Ability to 
Effectively Fight the Biscuit Fire: 

Some Differences in Certification Standards Exist between State and 
Federal Firefighting Agencies, but No Effect Was Identified 28:

Conclusions: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendixes:

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Forest Service: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

Table: 

Table 1: The Five Types of Incidents: 

Figures Figures: 

Figure 1: Locations and Final Perimeter of the Five Fires That Became 
the Biscuit Fire: 

Figure 2: Biscuit 1 Burning on Steep Terrain on July 14, 2002: 

Figure 3: Example of an Extended Attack Firefighting Organization: 

Figure 4: Illustration of the Flow of Resource Requests between the 
Local Dispatch Centers Involved in the Initial Attack of the Biscuit 
Fire: 

Figure 5: Key Events on July 13 and 14, 2002, Related to the Biscuit 
Fire: 

Figure 6: New Fire Starts Identified in the Vicinity of the Biscuit Fire 
on July 13 and 14, 2002: 

Figure 7: Fire Size on Key Dates When Fire Management Teams Were 
Requested and Received: 

Abbreviations: 

CDF: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection:

NIFC: National Interagency Fire Center:

NWCG: National Wildfire Coordinating Group:

ODF: Oregon Department of Forestry:

Letter April 12, 2004:

The Honorable Greg Walden: 
Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health: 
Committee on Resources: 
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Peter DeFazio: 
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Scott McInnis: 
House of Representatives:

In 2002, the United States experienced one of the worst wildland fire 
seasons in the past 50 years. In total, the federal government spent 
more than $1.6 billion to suppress fires that burned almost 7 million 
acres. These fires included the largest and costliest fire in Oregon in 
the past century--the Biscuit Fire.[Footnote 1] The fire season in 2002 
began early, with major fires in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico 
draining many firefighting resources out of the Pacific Northwest 
during early summer. As a result, when lightning storms hit California 
and Oregon from July 12 to 15, there were limited resources available 
to fight the hundreds of ongoing fires, including five fires that 
eventually burned together to form the Biscuit Fire. While no lives 
were lost, the Biscuit Fire burned almost 500,000 acres, including much 
of the biologically diverse 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness. The 
Biscuit Fire was not declared extinguished until December 31, 2002, 
more than 5 months after it began. In all, the Biscuit Fire destroyed 4 
primary residences and 10 other structures, resulted in about 15,000 
residents being put on evacuation notice, required thousands of 
firefighters and other resources, and cost over $150 million to fight.

All five fires began in the Siskiyou National Forest in southwest 
Oregon over a 3-day period, beginning July 13, 2002. On the first day, 
two fires were found--one approximately 4 miles north of the 
California-Oregon border, named Biscuit 1, and another, the Carter 
Fire, 16 miles north of the state border within the Kalmiopsis 
Wilderness (see fig. 1). The Carter Fire was the first fire Siskiyou 
Forest officials took action to suppress, and it was contained within a 
few days. On July 14, the third fire--Biscuit 2--was found near Biscuit 
1, and on July 15, the last two fires--Florence and Sourdough--were 
found (see fig. 1). The Florence Fire was located almost 30 miles north 
of Biscuit 1 and 2, and by early August it had burned 244,000 acres, 
about one-half of the total acreage ultimately burned by the entire 
Biscuit Fire. The Sourdough Fire was located near Biscuit 1 and 2, and 
by July 22, the three had burned together to form one fire. By August 
7, the Florence Fire had burned south and merged with the other fires 
to form what was later called the Biscuit Fire.

Figure 1: Locations and Final Perimeter of the Five Fires That Became 
the Biscuit Fire:

[See PDF for image] 

Note: The names of the fires changed as they progressed. Initially, 
each of the fire starts was named individually. As these fires burned 
together, the names were modified. Ultimately, the fires merged to 
become one--the Biscuit Fire.

[End of figure] 

Since no one agency alone can handle all wildfires that may occur in 
its jurisdiction, especially when large fires like the Biscuit Fire 
occur, the United States uses an interagency incident management system 
that depends upon the close cooperation and coordination of federal, 
state, tribal, and local fire protection agencies. At the federal 
level, there are five agencies involved in firefighting efforts--the 
Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture; and the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife 
Service, and the National Park Service, all within the Department of 
the Interior. The Forest Service is the predominant firefighting agency 
among these in terms of the amount of resources devoted to 
firefighting. In addition to the federal agencies, state, tribal, and 
local firefighting agencies also play an important role in fighting 
wildland fires and share firefighting personnel, equipment, and 
supplies to facilitate cost-effective firefighting. Private companies 
are increasingly providing contracted crews and equipment to supplement 
those of federal, state, and local agencies.

To coordinate the firefighting efforts of these agencies, the National 
Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) was established. This group adopted 
an interagency incident management system and firefighting standards 
for responding to wildland fires. This system provides an 
organizational structure that includes command, planning, logistics, 
operations, and finance functions to meet the complexity and demands of 
wildland fires. Needed personnel, aircraft, equipment, and supplies for 
wildland fires are ordered through a system of local, regional, and 
national dispatch centers. These dispatch centers are staffed or funded 
by federal or state agencies, or a combination of those agencies. 
Federal, state, local, or tribal agencies or private contractors supply 
the firefighting resources dispatched at these centers. If resources in 
the local dispatch area close to a wildland fire are insufficient, 
dispatch center personnel forward the requests to the responsible 
regional dispatch center[Footnote 2] that locates and sends additional 
firefighting resources from within the region. If necessary, the 
regional dispatch center can forward the request to the National 
Interagency Coordination Center in Boise, Idaho, which locates and 
assigns the closest available resources to the fire. This center is 
staffed jointly by Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service 
personnel. This incident management system was used to respond to the 
Biscuit Fire.

Concerns about the response to the Biscuit Fire surfaced as the fire 
rapidly grew and began to threaten lives, homes, and businesses. These 
concerns included whether firefighting resources were available across 
the border in California, which could have been used during the 
critical early days of the fires, and whether better management of 
firefighting resources could have improved suppression efforts. In this 
context, we reviewed (1) whether policies and procedures were in place 
for acquiring needed firefighting resources during the initial days of 
the Biscuit Fire, and the extent to which these policies and procedures 
were followed when the fire was first identified; (2) what resource 
management issues, if any, affected the ability of firefighting 
personnel to effectively fight the Biscuit Fire; and (3) what 
differences, if any, existed in key personnel certification standards 
at federal and state agencies involved in fighting wildland fires--
particularly in Oregon--and whether any such differences affected 
efforts to respond to the Biscuit Fire.

To address these questions, we reviewed firefighting policies and 
procedures that included interagency standards for fire and fire-
aviation operations, interagency personnel certification standards, 
the national mobilization guide, and the local mobilization guide and 
mutual aid agreement for the dispatch center in Grants Pass, 
Oregon,[Footnote 3] which was responsible for acquiring resources to 
respond to the Biscuit Fire. We interviewed headquarters, regional, and 
local firefighting officials from the Forest Service and Department of 
the Interior agencies, as well as state officials from California, 
Oregon, and five other Western states. We reviewed Biscuit Fire 
records, including daily fire reports, resource orders, and transcripts 
of key radio transmissions during the initial days of the Biscuit Fire. 
We conducted our work in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards.

Results in Brief:

National policies and procedures were in place and provided the 
framework to guide personnel in the local dispatch center in Grants 
Pass, Oregon, responsible for acquiring firefighting resources for the 
Biscuit Fire. Guided by these policies and procedures, dispatch centers 
use a three-tiered dispatching system--local, regional, and national--
to locate and send resources to wildland fires. If sufficient resources 
are not available locally, a dispatch center requests additional 
resources from its regional dispatch center. If sufficient resources 
are not available within the region, the request is then elevated to 
the national level. However, to facilitate the swift suppression of new 
fires--called the initial attack phase of a fire--these policies also 
permit dispatch centers to contact neighboring centers directly for 
resources, including those in adjacent regions, before elevating 
resource requests to a higher level. For the Biscuit Fire, the Grants 
Pass dispatch center did not have sufficient resources available and 
took steps to locate resources to fight what began as five separate 
fires in the Siskiyou National Forest, found over a 3-day period 
beginning July 13, 2002. Grants Pass dispatchers contacted their 
regional dispatch center in Portland about the availability of 
resources, including helicopters, on the first day of the Biscuit Fire. 
There were no resources immediately available due to other higher 
priority fires burning in the region. In making these inquiries, Grants 
Pass personnel did not request resources from the Fortuna dispatch 
center,[Footnote 4]a neighboring center located in the adjoining 
dispatch region in Northern California. Grants Pass personnel believed 
that Fortuna had no available resources, based on daily fire situation 
reports, because Northern California was also fighting numerous fires. 
Concerns were later expressed by state and local officials in 
California that a helicopter, under the control of the Fortuna dispatch 
center, was fighting fires in Northern California near one of the five 
fires in the Siskiyou National Forest--Biscuit 1--and could have been 
made available to fight it. However, Forest Service and California 
state officials working in the Fortuna dispatch center expressed 
differing viewpoints on whether they could have provided the helicopter 
for the Biscuit Fire, had Grants Pass requested it. State officials at 
the dispatch center said that the helicopter could have been sent to 
Oregon. However, Forest Service dispatchers disagreed, stating that the 
helicopter was needed to fight fires in Northern California. Because no 
request was made, there was no discussion on that first day about 
whether the Biscuit Fire would have been the best use of the 
helicopter, and it is unclear, in any case, what the outcome of such a 
request would have been.

Following the initial efforts to suppress the Biscuit Fire, fire 
officials faced delays obtaining (1) highly experienced management 
teams to direct fire suppression strategies, along with sufficient 
crews to carry out fire plans; (2) supervisors to manage crews and 
equipment; and (3) support staff to monitor the training and experience 
of contracted crews. These delays were primarily due to the severe fire 
season--there were many higher priority fires within and outside the 
region. By the time the most highly experienced type of management team 
had arrived at the fire, the fire had grown from a few hundred acres to 
almost 200,000 acres. Difficulties in filling supervisory positions for 
managing firefighting crews hindered the effectiveness of firefighting 
efforts. Insufficient personnel to supervise crews and equipment 
resulted in the inability to use crews to carry out planned actions, 
and as a result, fire suppression progress was delayed. Insufficient 
support personnel meant that thousands of contracted personnel could 
not be adequately monitored to determine if they met applicable 
training and experience requirements. As a result, some insufficiently 
trained or inexperienced contractor crews were not always able to carry 
out planned operations, resulting in the need to postpone or alter some 
tactical firefighting operations.

Finally, while some differences exist in certification standards for 
personnel between federal land management agencies and state agencies 
responsible for fighting wildland fires, these differences did not 
appear to have affected efforts to respond to the Biscuit Fire. In 
1993, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group--an interagency group 
comprising federal and state representatives--established minimum 
training and experience standards for personnel assigned to fight 
interagency wildland fires outside their home region. Federal land 
management agencies, as well as firefighting agencies in five of the 
seven states we contacted in and around the Northwest Region, have 
adopted these standards as the minimum requirements for all of their 
fire personnel. The state firefighting agency in Oregon--the Oregon 
Department of Forestry--uses these standards for firefighting personnel 
assigned to fight interagency fires outside their home region, although 
the state maintains its own certification standards for personnel 
assigned to state fires or interagency fires within the Northwest 
Region. Finally, the California state firefighting agency--the 
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection--has maintained 
its own requirements and certification system for fire personnel, but 
state officials said that these standards meet or exceed those 
established by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group. We did not 
find any evidence of problems at the Biscuit Fire that stemmed from 
these differing standards, based on our review of relevant documents 
and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture 
and of the Interior for review and comment. The Forest Service 
commented that the report appears to be accurate and the agency 
generally agrees with its contents. The Forest Service's comment letter 
is presented in appendix II. The Department of the Interior did not 
provide comments.

Background:

A severe drought in many Western states set the stage for an early and 
intense fire season. By mid-June, several major fires were burning, 
including the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in Arizona and the Hayman Fire in 
Colorado. These fires siphoned both aerial and ground firefighting 
resources from the Pacific Northwest, including helicopters, air 
tankers, agency and contract fire engines, smoke jumpers, highly 
trained agency crews (called "hot shot" crews), and contract 
firefighting crews. By June 21, the National Interagency Fire Center 
(NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, was reporting a preparedness level of 5, the 
highest level, indicating that the nation had the potential to exhaust 
all agency firefighting resources. When lightning storms passed through 
California and Oregon on July 12 and 13, igniting hundreds of fires, 
including the Biscuit Fire, more than 30 large fires were already 
burning across the nation and firefighting resources available for 
initial attack were limited.

The Biscuit Fire began as five separate fires in the Siskiyou National 
Forest[Footnote 5] in southwest Oregon. The Siskiyou Forest, 
encompassing more than 1 million acres, contains diverse topography, 
including the Siskiyou Mountains, the Klamath Mountains, the Coast 
Ranges, and the 180,000-acre Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Steep terrain, 
together with many roadless areas, presented accessibility and 
logistical challenges for managers directing fire suppression efforts 
at the Biscuit Fire. To complicate the situation, the fires were also 
located almost 30 miles apart. As the fires rapidly grew during late 
July and early August, the southern fire burned south and crossed the 
state border into the Six Rivers National Forest in Northern 
California. While the Biscuit Fire burned primarily federal forestland, 
by early August, it threatened a number of communities in Oregon and 
California. Figure 2 shows Biscuit 1 burning on a steep hill on July 
14, 2002.

Figure 2: Biscuit 1 Burning on Steep Terrain on July 14, 2002:

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

To understand the response to the Biscuit Fire, it is important to 
understand the phases of fire suppression efforts and the nature of 
interagency wildland firefighting. On a large wildland fire, such as 
the Biscuit Fire, fire suppression efforts generally fall into two 
phases. The initial attack phase is defined as efforts to control a 
fire during the first operational period, usually within 24 hours. 
Local fire managers direct these initial firefighting efforts. In 
fiscal year 2002, firefighters were successful in suppressing about 99 
percent of wildland fires in federal, state, and local jurisdictions 
during the initial attack phase. If a fire has not been contained or 
will not be contained during this period or additional firefighting 
resources are ordered, firefighting efforts move into the extended 
attack phase.[Footnote 6] In this phase, key fire management officials 
prepare a Wildland Fire Situation Analysis that describes the situation 
and objectives, and compares multiple strategic wildland fire 
management alternatives. Additional management and firefighting 
resources may be requested. Figure 3 shows an example of a firefighting 
organization involved in an extended attack, although the specific 
positions filled depend on the complexity of the fire.

Figure 3: Example of an Extended Attack Firefighting Organization:

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

The Forest Service and its interagency firefighting partners employ an 
incident management system that is designed to provide the appropriate 
management and leadership team capabilities for firefighting efforts. 
The complexity of the fire determines the type of leadership team and 
firefighting resources assigned. There are five types of incidents--
type 1 being the most complex (see table 1). For example, to manage a 
type 5 incident, the incident commander may be a local district 
employee with adequate experience to direct initial attack efforts on a 
small fire with two to six firefighters. In contrast, for a type 1 
incident, such as the Biscuit Fire, the incident commander is just one 
member of a highly qualified management team. While both type 1 and 
type 2 incident management teams have a standard composition of 28 
members, type 1 team members receive additional training and experience 
in handling the most complex incidents.

Table 1: The Five Types of Incidents:

Type: 5; 
Source of incident commander/team: Local; 
Description: Up to 10 firefighters.

Type: 4; 
Source of incident commander/team: Local; 
Description: Up to 50 firefighters.

Type: 3; 
Source of incident commander/team: Local; 
Description: Up to 100 firefighters.

Type: 2; 
Source of incident commander/team: Regional; 
Description: Operations personnel normally do not exceed 200 at any one 
time.

Type: 1; 
Source of incident commander/team: National; 
Description: Operations personnel often exceed 500 at any one time. 

Source: GAO analysis of National Interagency Fire Center and National 
Academy of Public Administration data.

[End of table]

Incident management teams manage a variety of firefighting resources. 
These include highly trained "hot shot" crews, agency and contracted 
crews, air tankers, helicopters, fire engines, and bulldozers. Federal 
agencies, such as the Forest Service, provide a large number of the 
personnel that work on fires. These federal agencies rely on a 
"militia" strategy to fight wildland fires whereby personnel within 
each agency are trained to serve in fire suppression or support roles, 
when needed and requested, in addition to performing their normal day-
to-day work responsibilities. However, many factors, including past 
downsizing within the federal government, have reduced the pool of 
employees qualified to work on fires. Increasingly, private contractors 
provide crews and firefighting equipment, including engines and 
helicopters.

National Policies and Procedures Were in Place to Guide the Process for 
Acquiring Firefighting Resources:

National policies and procedures[Footnote 7] were in place and provided 
the framework to guide personnel in the local dispatch center in Grants 
Pass, Oregon, who were responsible for acquiring firefighting resources 
for the Biscuit Fire. Guided by these policies and procedures, dispatch 
centers use a three-tiered dispatching system--local, regional, and 
national--to locate and send resources to wildland fires. During the 
initial attack phase of a fire, these policies also permit dispatch 
centers to contact neighboring dispatch centers directly for resources, 
including resources in adjacent regions, before elevating resource 
requests to a higher level. For the Biscuit Fire, the Grants Pass 
dispatch center did not have sufficient resources available and took 
steps to locate needed resources to fight what began as five separate 
fires in the Siskiyou National Forest. Grants Pass dispatchers 
contacted their regional dispatch center in Portland about the 
availability of resources, including helicopters, on the first day of 
the Biscuit Fire. In making resource inquiries, Grants Pass personnel 
did not request resources from the Fortuna dispatch center, a 
neighboring center located in the adjoining dispatch region in Northern 
California. Grants Pass personnel believed that Fortuna had no 
available resources, based on daily fire situation reports, because 
Northern California was also fighting numerous fires. Concerns were 
later expressed by state and local officials in California that a 
helicopter, under the control of the Fortuna dispatch center, was 
fighting fires in Northern California, just across the border from the 
first of the five Biscuit fires, and could have been provided to fight 
it. Forest Service and state dispatchers working in the Fortuna 
dispatch center expressed differing viewpoints on whether they could 
have provided a helicopter for the Biscuit Fire, had Grants Pass 
requested it.

National Policies and Procedures Provide the Framework for Acquiring 
Firefighting Resources:

The National Interagency Mobilization Guide includes policies and 
procedures to help ensure the timely and cost effective mobilization of 
firefighting resources. Federal, state, tribal, and local firefighting 
agencies share their firefighting personnel, equipment, and supplies, 
following a standardized process to coordinate responses to fires and 
mobilize resources. When local dispatch center personnel are notified 
of a fire, they send available firefighting resources based on a 
preplanned response. If fire managers need additional resources, they 
send a request to the local dispatch center identifying the type and 
amount of resources needed. If the dispatch center personnel cannot 
fill a request locally, they can forward the request to the responsible 
regional dispatch center. If the regional center cannot fill the 
request with resources from within the region, the request is sent to 
the National Interagency Coordination Center in Boise, Idaho, the 
primary support center for coordinating and mobilizing wildland 
firefighting resources nationally. When requests exceed available 
resources, the fires are prioritized, with those threatening lives and 
property receiving higher priority for resources. To facilitate the 
swift suppression of new fires--called the "initial attack" phase of a 
fire--local dispatch center personnel can first contact neighboring 
dispatch centers directly, including those in adjacent regions, before 
elevating resource requests to the regional or national level. For 
resource sharing between neighboring dispatch centers in adjoining 
regions, a formalized agreement, such as a mutual aid agreement and 
local operating plan, is needed.

Existing policies and procedures encourage the sharing of resources 
between local dispatch centers. The national guidance states that local 
dispatch centers should use mutual aid agreements whenever possible to 
obtain resources directly from neighboring units. In the case of the 
Biscuit Fire, a regional mutual aid agreement between the state of 
California and federal agencies in California, Nevada, and Oregon 
establishes the protocols for interagency coordination and cooperation 
for wildland fire protection in California, which includes the areas 
along the Nevada and Oregon borders.[Footnote 8] Local, state, and 
federal agencies jointly develop local operating plans that identify 
the specific resources that can be shared under the mutual aid 
agreement and the provisions for cost sharing. One of these plans 
allows the Grants Pass dispatch center in Oregon and the Fortuna 
dispatch center, located in the neighboring region in Northern 
California, to request resources directly from each other. (See fig. 
4.) The Grants Pass dispatch center operates under a contract between 
the Siskiyou National Forest and the Oregon Department of Forestry 
(ODF). ODF operates and staffs the center, and the Forest Service 
reimburses the department for a portion of the center's operating 
costs, according to a Siskiyou official. The Fortuna dispatch center is 
operated by the Six Rivers National Forest and the California 
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) and is staffed by 
personnel from both agencies.

Figure 4: Illustration of the Flow of Resource Requests between the 
Local Dispatch Centers Involved in the Initial Attack of the Biscuit 
Fire:

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

Grants Pass Dispatch Center Personnel Sought a Variety of Firefighting 
Resources for the Initial Attack of the Biscuit Fire:

When the first two fires were found on the afternoon of July 13, 2002, 
the Grants Pass dispatch center did not have the firefighting resources 
needed locally to fight the fires. Many resources, including the 
helicopter normally stationed at Grants Pass, had been sent to other 
higher priority fires that were threatening lives and property. The 
fires, located in the Siskiyou National Forest, were initially small--
two trees and 1 acre. Biscuit 1 was a few miles north of the 
California-Oregon border, and the Carter Fire was about 12 miles north 
of Biscuit 1. Figure 5 provides information about the initial attack on 
the fires.

Figure 5: Key Events on July 13 and 14, 2002, Related to the Biscuit 
Fire:

[See PDF for image] 

Note: For the Oregon air reconnaissance, ODF personnel used a Siskiyou 
National Forest reconnaissance aircraft.

[End of figure] 

Biscuit 1 was the first fire found. At 3:17 p.m. on July 13, a Siskiyou 
Forest Service aircraft being used by ODF personnel to perform 
reconnaissance spotted Biscuit 1. The aerial observer reported the fire 
to Grants Pass dispatch. At 3:53 p.m., air reconnaissance spotted the 
Carter Fire 12 miles north of Biscuit 1.

Soon after Grants Pass and Siskiyou officials became aware of the first 
fire, firefighting personnel in California also spotted the fires. At 
3:51 p.m., a CDF reconnaissance airplane, assisting the Six Rivers 
National Forest, spotted smoke columns to the north while circling a 
fire in Northern California. The airplane was directing the activity of 
a CDF helicopter and crew of six firefighters assigned to a fire in the 
Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, just south of the 
California-Oregon border. At the request of a Six Rivers National 
Forest official, the CDF airplane flew north to investigate the smoke 
in Oregon. Reconnaissance personnel reported Biscuit 1 and the Carter 
Fire to the Six Rivers official and to the Fortuna dispatch center--an 
interagency center staffed by CDF and Six Rivers National Forest 
personnel. Since the helicopter and crew were close to finishing up 
their assignment in California, the CDF reconnaissance personnel 
suggested to Fortuna dispatch that the helicopter and crew could next 
take action on the fire in Oregon. The Forest Service dispatcher at 
Fortuna informed the reconnaissance airplane to continue patrolling 
while, in accordance with normal dispatching protocol, Fortuna notified 
the Grants Pass dispatch center about the fire. Grants Pass told 
Fortuna that it already had reconnaissance aircraft in the area. 
Because of the lack of communications between the CDF and Oregon 
aircraft, the Fortuna dispatch center advised the CDF airplane to leave 
the area to ensure air safety. At 4:15 p.m., CDF air reconnaissance 
reported another three lightning-caused fires in Northern California, 
and at 4:36 p.m., the CDF helicopter and crew were sent to fight these 
fires. Figure 6 shows the new fires found in southern Oregon and 
Northern California on July 13 and 14.

Figure 6: New Fire Starts Identified in the Vicinity of the Biscuit 
Fire on July 13 and 14, 2002:

[See PDF for image] 

[End of figure] 

At the request of Siskiyou National Forest officials, Grants Pass 
dispatch personnel began to try to locate needed firefighting 
resources. At 4:30 p.m., Grants Pass dispatch personnel requested a 
helicopter (with a bucket for water drops) from the dispatch center in 
Portland, Oregon. Shortly after 5 p.m., Siskiyou officials asked the 
Grants Pass dispatch center to check on the availability of smoke 
jumpers, rappellers, helicopters, and air tankers. Dispatchers checked 
with the regional dispatch center in Portland and were told that no 
helicopters or air tankers were available. Dispatchers contacted the 
Central Oregon dispatch center and were told that no smoke jumpers or 
rappellers were available for the Biscuit Fire for 48 to 72 hours 
because of higher priority fires elsewhere. Grants Pass personnel 
relayed this information to Siskiyou officials.

By the next morning, July 14, the fires had grown. Shortly after 10:10 
a.m., Siskiyou Forest officials directing firefighting efforts departed 
on a reconnaissance flight. They flew over the Carter Fire and decided 
to staff this fire as soon as possible because of its proximity to a 
trail that would allow access to the fire and because there were 
natural safety zones for firefighters. A type 2 crew began to hike to 
the Carter Fire later that afternoon. Siskiyou officials next flew over 
Biscuit 1 and found it was about 7 acres. They also spotted a third 
fire, named Biscuit 2, which was about 20 acres and located about one-
half mile from Biscuit 1. Siskiyou Forest officials believed that the 
Biscuit 1 and 2 fires would burn together in the afternoon and had a 
high probability of getting significantly larger. Due to safety 
concerns, limited accessibility, wind and fire behavior, and 
insufficient firefighting resources, forest officials decided not to 
staff Biscuit 1 and Biscuit 2 at that time. Siskiyou officials 
requested that Grants Pass dispatch personnel order additional 
firefighting resources, including a type 2 incident management team, 
air tankers, and other equipment for the fires. However, due to higher 
priority fires elsewhere, many of these resource orders could not be 
filled by the regional dispatch center in Portland for several days or 
longer, and the request for air tankers was never filled.

Shortly before noon, a CDF helicopter and crew were on duty in Northern 
California performing reconnaissance and responding to reported fires. 
A Six Rivers Forest official helping to direct the helicopter crew's 
activities requested that the crew check the fire in Northern 
California they had worked the previous day to ensure it was out. She 
also requested that the crew, on the way, fly by a campground near the 
Biscuit 1 and Biscuit 2 fires to ensure no campers were there. None 
were seen. The helicopter then landed near the site of the fire they 
had worked the previous day in Northern California, and the crew hiked 
to the fire to ensure it was extinguished. At 2:17 p.m., the CDF 
helicopter reported the fire was cold, and the helicopter was assigned 
to another incident in California.

At 6:40 p.m., in response to the July 13 request for a helicopter, a 
regional dispatch official in Portland working with officials in the 
Northern California regional dispatch center in Redding, the Fortuna 
dispatch center, and the Grants Pass dispatch center arranged for a CDF 
helicopter with a water bucket to respond to the Biscuit fires, as 
allowed under the provisions of the mutual aid agreement. The 
helicopter had been working on fires in Northern California. However, a 
few minutes later, as the helicopter was en route to Oregon, Siskiyou 
officials canceled the request because at that point the fires had 
spread to more than 300 acres, and officials stated that the helicopter 
would have been of limited use on a fire that size. Officials explained 
that without ground resources available to fight the fire, water drops 
alone are usually of limited value.

On July 15, the last two fires that would make up the Biscuit Fire--
Sourdough and Florence--were discovered. The Sourdough Fire was found 
near Biscuit 1 and Biscuit 2. The Florence Fire was located almost 30 
miles north of these fires. Siskiyou officials requested the Grants 
Pass dispatch center to order numerous resources on July 15, including 
helicopters, engines, and crews. Most of these requests were not able 
to be filled for several days or longer. By July 16, the Northwest's 
Multi-Agency Coordination Group in Portland, Oregon, which is 
responsible for prioritizing fires and allocating firefighting 
resources in the region, ranked the Biscuit Fires as priority 12 out of 
18 large fires in the region. The Florence Fire went on to burn almost 
250,000 acres before merging with the other fires on August 7.

Concerns were later expressed by state and local officials in 
California that a CDF helicopter, fighting fires in Six Rivers National 
Forest on July 13, just across the state border from Biscuit 1, could 
have been provided earlier to assist on the Biscuit Fire. Grants Pass 
personnel explained that they did not request assistance from the 
Fortuna dispatch center on July 13 because, based on the daily fire 
situation reports, they believed no resources would be available due to 
the fires in Northern California. California was also fighting numerous 
fires ignited by the same lightning storm that passed through Oregon. 
When we asked the Fortuna dispatch center about this issue, the Forest 
Service and state of California dispatchers working there expressed 
differing viewpoints on whether they could have provided a helicopter 
on the first day of the Biscuit Fire if such a request had been made. A 
CDF dispatcher working at the Fortuna dispatch center said that if the 
Grants Pass dispatcher had requested the helicopter at that time to 
launch an initial attack on the Biscuit Fire, he believed he would have 
provided it to them. However, a Forest Service official also working at 
Fortuna to dispatch firefighting resources had a differing opinion, 
saying that even if Fortuna had sent the helicopter to Oregon, he 
believes that it likely would have been diverted back to California to 
suppress other higher priority fires in Fortuna's direct protection 
area. Because Grants Pass dispatch did not request assistance from 
Fortuna on the first day of the Biscuit Fire, there was no discussion 
at that time about whether this would have been the best use of the 
helicopter. In the final analysis, it is unclear what the outcome of 
such a request would have been.

Reduced Availability of Key Personnel Hampered the Ability to 
Effectively Fight the Biscuit Fire:

Following the initial attack of the Biscuit Fire, delays in obtaining 
needed personnel hampered efforts to effectively fight the Biscuit Fire 
in three key ways. First, neither a management team with adequate 
experience to strategically plan and manage firefighting efforts nor 
sufficient highly trained crews to carry out the plans were initially 
available for the Biscuit Fire due to their need on higher priority 
fires. By the time a highly experienced management team became 
available and was assigned to the Biscuit Fire in late July, the fire 
had increased from a few hundred acres to almost 200,000 acres. Second, 
key supervisors needed to direct the tactical efforts of firefighting 
crews and equipment were unavailable at critical points in July and 
August as the fire was growing in size and intensity. As a result, the 
ability to implement aggressive fire suppression tactics was 
compromised due to concerns about the safety of fire crews. Finally, 
some fire support positions, such as contracting technical 
representatives, also were unavailable to play a key role in monitoring 
contracted crews.

Delayed Availability of a Top Management Team Affected Initial 
Firefighting Efforts:

Siskiyou Forest officials directing the firefighting effort had 
difficulty obtaining both a highly trained incident management team 
with the necessary level of experience to plan and direct firefighting 
efforts on the Biscuit Fire, as well as needed crews to carry out such 
plans. Within one day after the initial fires were discovered, Siskiyou 
district fire managers determined that the fire would likely grow 
larger and require a more experienced incident management team to 
direct the firefighting effort than was currently available at the 
forest. They requested a type 2 team and numerous type 1 crews and 
other firefighting resources during the initial days. However, because 
of the high level of fire activity both in the Pacific Northwest, as 
well as in other Western states, higher priority fires meant that no 
type 2 incident management teams or highly experienced crews were 
immediately available for assignment to the Biscuit Fire. Siskiyou 
officials' request for a team was not filled for 7 days, by which time 
the acres burned had grown from about 700 to more than 5,000.

When a type 2 management team assumed command of the Biscuit Fire on 
July 21, they quickly realized that the fire had grown beyond the scope 
of a type 2 team and that a more experienced type 1 team was needed to 
handle the increasingly complex situation. A type 1 team was ordered on 
July 22, but the Northwest's Multi-Agency Coordination Group in 
Portland prioritized the Biscuit Fire, on this day, as priority 6 of 15 
fires burning in the region. This was largely because the Biscuit fires 
were not threatening lives and property. As a result, most requests for 
management, crews, and equipment for the Biscuit Fire went unfilled.

In the case of the management team, rather than assigning the type 1 
team requested, two other type 2 management teams were assigned in late 
July to assist in managing firefighting efforts on the southern 
fire,[Footnote 9] including the portion that had crossed into 
California. As these teams tried to direct the firefighting efforts of 
crews and equipment, the fires--especially the Florence Fire in the 
north--grew rapidly. Winds and low humidity contributed to the fires' 
intensity. Between July 27 and August 1, the size of the Florence Fire 
grew from 18,000 acres to 164,000 acres, and the size of the southern 
fire--the Sour Biscuit Fire--grew from 7,000 acres to 38,000 acres. 
Finally, on July 31, 9 days after first requested, two type 1 
management teams arrived and assumed command of fighting the Biscuit 
Fire. Type 1 firefighting crews and many other resources continued to 
be listed as critical resource needs throughout August. Figure 7 shows 
the dates management teams were requested or assumed command, the 
personnel and equipment assigned to the fire, and the growth of the 
fires.

Figure 7: Fire Size on Key Dates When Fire Management Teams Were 
Requested and Received:

[See PDF for image] 

Note: The fire size information was not available for July 14.

[End of figure] 

The first type 2 incident commander assigned to the Biscuit Fire said 
that not having a type 1 management team and other needed resources 
slowed the progress of the firefighting effort. He said that while he 
understood the Portland group's decision not to assign a type 1 team at 
that time, it nonetheless was difficult to effectively fight fires 
located almost 30 miles apart with the limited resources available. The 
available management and other resources were split between the fires. 
He added that the type 2 team's firefighting strategies were the same 
as those of a type 1 team--initially to improve access to the site of 
the fires. However, without needed resources, tactics had to be 
modified, and progress was slower. His operations section chief said 
that the complexity of the fire, coupled with:

the lack of a type 1 management team, type 1 crews,[Footnote 10] and 
equipment, meant that firefighters could not attack the fire directly 
and had to use more indirect methods, such as using bulldozers to build 
a firebreak, in an effort to slow the spread of the fire. The incident 
commander and operations section chief said that generally, when a fire 
is a high priority and qualifies for a type 1 management team, it is 
also more likely to be assigned other needed firefighting resources. In 
the case of the Biscuit Fire, a type 1 team and additional type 1 crews 
and other resources might have improved the chances of stopping the 
fire before it burned southeast to an area called Oak Flat, according 
to the incident commander. However, Forest Service headquarters 
officials said that in a severe fire season such as 2002, difficult 
decisions have to be made about where to assign limited resources. 
Fires are prioritized, and those presenting the greatest threat to life 
and property receive firefighting resources first.

Reduced Availability of Supervisors Slowed Biscuit Fire Suppression 
Efforts:

Even as top management teams and increasing numbers of crews and 
equipment were assigned to the Biscuit Fire, some critical supervisory 
positions were not filled as quickly as needed or remained unfilled at 
the end of the fire. In all, over 200 requests for supervisory 
positions were never filled. The primary cause for reduced availability 
of supervisory personnel was the demand for these staff to work more 
than 30 other large fires throughout the nation, including other fires 
in Oregon. Fire managers and a Forest Service review[Footnote 11] of 
the Biscuit Fire stated that delays in obtaining needed supervisors 
affected their ability to implement aggressive fire suppression tactics 
or use equipment until sufficient supervision became available. Federal 
officials, however, did take some action to mitigate these problems, 
including obtaining personnel from Australia and New Zealand to fill 
certain supervisory positions. Officials emphasized that the 
difficulties in obtaining personnel to serve as supervisors was not a 
problem unique to the Biscuit Fire and that such issues have affected 
numerous fires in recent years.

Biscuit Fire managers identified a number of key supervisory positions 
that went unfilled for a period of time in July or August when the fire 
was rapidly growing and that were critical for effective fire 
suppression efforts. These included government managers of contracted 
helicopters and bulldozers (known as helicopter managers and dozer 
bosses); government supervisors directing tactical operations for a 
division or segment of crews (known as strike team leaders); and 
government supervisors (known as division supervisors) directing the 
activities of strike team leaders.

Although it was not possible to measure the specific effect on fire 
suppression efforts, such as the number of additional acres burned, 
from unfilled supervisory positions, Biscuit Fire managers provided a 
number of examples to illustrate the difficulty they faced in carrying 
out plans without sufficient supervisors for aircraft or for equipment 
and firefighting personnel. For example, an incident commander and an 
incident business advisor working at the fire said that some bulldozers 
sat idle for a few days and could not be used on fire suppression 
efforts because of the lack of a dozer boss to manage and direct the 
equipments' use. Interagency requirements state that one dozer boss is 
required to safely manage the operations of each dozer. However, dozers 
and dozer bosses are ordered separately and may arrive at a fire at 
different times. If a dozer arrives first, it may sit idle until a 
dozer boss is available to supervise its operation. According to an 
interagency Fire and Aviation Safety Team Review,[Footnote 12] it was 
appropriate to not use all available resources, including dozers, if 
safety would have been compromised because of insufficient supervision.

In the case of helicopters, fire officials told us that for one or two 
days several helicopters may have sat idle due to insufficient 
helicopter managers. However, fire records indicate, and agency 
officials agreed, that the major reason helicopters did not fly was due 
to poor visibility as a result of weather or smoke. To minimize the 
impact of helicopter manager shortages, fire officials used a waiver 
system so that, under certain circumstances, one helicopter manager 
could manage two type 1 or type 2 helicopters rather than only one, as 
permitted by interagency policy.[Footnote 13] Using this waiver 
process, six waivers were granted for helicopter managers working at 
the Biscuit Fire. In addition, National Interagency Fire Center 
officials requested and received numerous supervisors from Australia 
and New Zealand, including eight helicopter managers.

The inability to fill government strike team leader positions also 
resulted in delays in fire suppression actions, according to a Biscuit 
Fire operations manager. In one effort to mitigate this shortage, three 
qualified staff were transferred from a hot shot crew to work as strike 
team leaders supervising contracted crews, according to the division 
supervisor. The supervisor said, however, this move lowered the 
firefighting effectiveness of the hot shot crew. In another case, a 
shortage of division supervisors resulted in the inability to provide 
adequate supervision in two of the four fire zones for about one week, 
according to an operations section chief. The lack of needed 
supervision resulted in the inability to use crews to carry out planned 
actions, and as a result, fire suppression progress was delayed.

Our findings on the reduced availability of personnel to fill critical 
staff positions were confirmed by an internal Forest Service review of 
the Biscuit Fire as well as Forest Service reviews of other wildland 
firefighting efforts. The Forest Service review of the Biscuit Fire 
concluded that opportunities to halt the spread of the fire had to be 
abandoned because of limited resources, and as a result, the fire grew 
larger and threatened more communities on both the western and eastern 
perimeters. The Forest Service's January 2000 report, An Agency 
Strategy for Fire Management, highlighted the shortage of federal staff 
for both fire suppression and fire support positions. Also, during July 
2002, the Northwest Multi-Agency Coordination Group in Portland, 
Oregon, reviewed ongoing fires in the Pacific Northwest, including the 
Biscuit Fire, and the effects of the reduced availability of personnel 
to fill critical supervisory positions for fire suppression. The group 
noted that some crews and equipment had been suspended from fire 
suppression efforts because of a lack of appropriate supervision.

Shortage of Personnel to Effectively Monitor Contractors Working on the 
Biscuit Fire:

Contracted resources played a key role in the Biscuit Fire--at its peak 
over 1,600 contracted firefighters and over 400 pieces of contracted 
equipment and helicopters were assigned to the fire. Interagency fire 
managers acknowledged, however, that there was little, if any, 
monitoring of private contractors to ensure that contracted crews 
assigned to the Biscuit Fire met established training and experience 
requirements. Instead, fire managers generally relied on contractors to 
certify that their crews met these requirements, as stated in their 
contract. Despite contractors' assurances that their crew met all 
requirements, Biscuit Fire officials told us that some insufficiently 
trained or inexperienced contracted crews negatively impacted 
firefighting efforts because these crews were not always able to carry 
out planned operations. In contrast, contracted engines and other 
equipment had fewer problems.

Fire managers participating on the Biscuit Fire said that poorly 
trained and inexperienced contracted crews presented significant 
operational concerns. They cited examples of contracted crews that were 
unable to carry out planned firefighting operations. Managers said that 
they postponed or changed some tactical firefighting operations because 
it was not safe using these crews in more aggressive fire operations. 
Crews that could not be used as planned were assigned minimal 
firefighting responsibilities, such as "mop up" activities at a 
considerable distance from intensive fire activity. Although the 
limitations on how the crews could safely be used likely affected 
progress of firefighting, the actual effect cannot be measured.

Communication to and between crews also adversely impacted the use of 
contracted crews on the Biscuit Fire. There were instances where crew 
and squad bosses for contracted crews were unable to communicate in 
English with government supervisors, as required in the interagency 
crew agreement. The lack of fluency in English caused safety concerns 
and resulted in crews being assigned to far less technical tasks than 
planned. Fire managers told us that, even when assigned minimal fire 
tasks, some private crews required above normal supervision, which in 
turn resulted in supervisors having less time available to plan and 
implement higher priority fire suppression tasks.

Under a cooperative arrangement between the federal government and the 
states of Oregon and Washington, ODF has oversight responsibility for 
private crew contractors in the Northwest. Typically, the monitoring of 
crew qualifications should take place before the start of the fire 
season. An ODF official, however, said that insufficient funding and 
personnel have resulted in few, if any, evaluations of crews' 
qualifications prior to the start of the fire season. Alternatively, 
interagency support personnel, such as contracting officers or their 
technical representatives, can perform contract crew qualification 
assessments. We found that during the Biscuit Fire, however, these key 
support positions were identified as a critical, but unfilled, resource 
need. According to federal firefighting managers, about 90 individuals 
have been trained as technical representatives to work with 
firefighting management teams, but at any given time during recent fire 
seasons, only about 10 percent of these trained technical 
representatives were available to serve on incident management teams. 
The ODF official having oversight responsibility for contracted crews 
in the Northwest concluded that because of these shortages and the 
significant numbers of contracted crews, it is likely that there was 
minimal monitoring of contract crews at the fire. Finally, we noted 
that these shortcomings in the monitoring of contracted crews were not 
limited to the Biscuit Fire. The importance of monitoring crew training 
and experience was also cited in an interagency fire and aviation 
safety report issued in 2002.[Footnote 14] The review stated that 
deficiencies in the physical fitness and job skills of crews raised 
concerns about the validity of qualifications of some contracted 
resources.

Some Differences in Certification Standards Exist between State and 
Federal Firefighting Agencies, but No Effect Was Identified:

There are some differences in certification standards for personnel 
between state and federal wildland firefighting agencies, but these 
differences did not appear to have affected efforts to respond to the 
Biscuit Fire.

In 1993, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG)--an 
interagency group comprising federal and state representatives--
established minimum training and experience standards[Footnote 15] for 
personnel assigned to fight interagency wildland fires outside their 
home region. These standards, which were updated in 2000, have been 
adopted by five federal land management agencies, including the Forest 
Service.[Footnote 16] Five of the seven states that we contacted in and 
around the Northwest Region have also adopted these standards as the 
minimum requirements for all their firefighting personnel.[Footnote 17] 
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) meets these standards for 
personnel on interagency wildland fires outside the Northwest Region. 
For fires under state management and for interagency fires within the 
region,[Footnote 18] ODF has maintained its own certification 
standards. These standards are nearly identical to the 1993 version of 
NWCG standards.[Footnote 19] In 2000, NWCG added some course and 
experience requirements. ODF officials are currently working to 
incorporate many, but not all, of these changes into state standards. 
For example, ODF requirements for many positions rated type 2 or below 
will meet NWCG standards. For type 1 positions, including incident 
commander, some of the most advanced courses will not be required. An 
ODF official explained that he believed, for state-managed fires, these 
additional courses were not necessary. The California Department of 
Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) has maintained its own firefighting 
certification system for its firefighting personnel. CDF shares many of 
the same standards as those established by NWCG, including the 
combination of coursework and experience requirements for firefighting 
certification,[Footnote 20] but requires state-specific 
courses for some positions. Under an agreement with federal land 
management agencies, California state personnel assigned to interagency 
fires in supervisory roles within the state are required to be 
certified to a level equivalent to NWCG standards.[Footnote 21] For 
national mobilization, NWCG requires that participating agencies 
certify that their personnel meet the established interagency 
qualification standards. In the case of California, CDF officials 
stated that state certification requirements meet or exceed the 
standards established by NWCG. In addition, National Interagency Fire 
Center officials said they have no concerns about the adequacy of the 
standards used by CDF.

There was no apparent impact on the response to the Biscuit Fire as a 
result of different agency firefighting certification standards. As 
with other interagency fires, personnel that were dispatched to fight 
on interagency fires outside their home region were required to meet 
these standards. Within the Northwest Region, ODF maintains its own 
standards for state fires and interagency fires, although only NWCG-
qualified personnel were dispatched to the Biscuit Fire, according to 
an ODF official. While CDF utilizes an independent set of requirements, 
NIFC officials said they had no concerns about the adequacy of the 
certification system used by CDF. In addition, for the portion of the 
Biscuit Fire that was located in California, CDF supervisory personnel 
assigned to the fire were required by agreement to be certified to a 
level equivalent with NWCG standards. Finally, our review of relevant 
documents and discussions with knowledgeable federal, state, and local 
officials did not identify any evidence that the differences between 
these systems created difficulties during the response to the Biscuit 
Fire.

Conclusions:

The cornerstone of wildland fire policy is interagency cooperation and 
coordination among federal, state, tribal, and local firefighting 
agencies. Central to that cooperation and coordination is a system that 
includes managers and personnel from many different agencies and that 
crosses jurisdictional boundaries. Such a system is facilitated by good 
communication between personnel at all levels to help ensure clarity of 
firefighting goals, strategies, and tactics. Communication is also 
important for those working in various dispatch centers to obtain 
firefighting resources. These personnel must communicate in a timely--
sometimes immediate--fashion to other dispatch centers the resources 
they need to fight new or ongoing fires in their area. In the case of 
the Biscuit Fire, Grants Pass dispatch personnel did communicate 
resource needs to their regional dispatch center in Portland, but no 
resources were immediately available due to other higher priority fires 
in the region. However, personnel did not communicate the need for 
initial attack resources to a neighboring dispatch center in Fortuna, 
California, although this was an option available to Grants Pass 
personnel. Whether this would have resulted in any resources being 
provided for the initial attack of the Biscuit Fire is unclear because 
personnel in the Fortuna dispatch center disagree on whether any 
resources could have been spared, given that fires were also burning in 
Northern California at the time. Since no request was made, the 
priority of the Biscuit Fire relative to other ongoing fires within the 
Fortuna dispatch center's direct protection area was not discussed on 
the first day of the Biscuit Fire, and the outcome of such a request, 
had it been made, remains unclear.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture 
and of the Interior for review and comment. The Forest Service 
commented that the report appears to be accurate and the agency 
generally agrees with its contents. The Forest Service's comments are 
presented in appendix II. The Department of the Interior did not 
provide comments.

As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce the 
contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 
30 days after the date of this letter. At that time, we will send 
copies of this report to other interested congressional committees. We 
will also send copies to the Secretary of Agriculture; the Secretary of 
the Interior; the Chief of the Forest Service; the Directors of the 
Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs; and other 
interested parties. We will make copies available to others upon 
request. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the 
GAO Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].

If you or your staff have any questions about his report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-3841. Key contributors to this report are 
listed in appendix III.

Signed by: 

Barry T. Hill: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:

[End of section]

Appendixes: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:

To determine whether policies and procedures were in place for 
acquiring needed firefighting resources during the initial days of the 
Biscuit Fire, and the extent to which these policies and procedures 
were followed when the fire was first identified, we reviewed national 
policies and procedures that included the National Interagency 
Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations and the National 
Interagency Mobilization Guide. We reviewed the interagency 
mobilization guides in 9 of the 11 regions.[Footnote 22] We also 
reviewed the local mobilization guide covering the Grants Pass dispatch 
center and the mobilization guides for three other local dispatch 
centers.[Footnote 23] We reviewed the mutual aid agreements governing 
resource sharing for the Siskiyou National Forest. We spoke with 
officials at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, 
Idaho; Forest Service headquarters in Washington, D.C.; Forest Service 
Regions 5 and 6 regional offices; Bureau of Land Management, Oregon 
State Office and the Medford District Office; the Siskiyou and Six 
Rivers National Forests; the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF); and 
the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). We 
visited three dispatch centers in Oregon (the Grants Pass Interagency 
Fire Center, the Medford Interagency Fire Center, and the Northwest 
Interagency Coordination Center in Portland) and one in California (the 
Fortuna Interagency Emergency Command Center) to discuss dispatch 
center operations. We also reviewed Biscuit Fire records stored at 
Siskiyou National Forest headquarters in Medford, Oregon, and records 
kept at Fortuna, including resource orders and transcripts of key radio 
transmissions during the initial days of the Biscuit Fire. The Forest 
Service provided the data used to generate the fire progression maps. 
We took steps to assess the reliability of the mapping data and 
determined that it was sufficiently accurate for our purposes.

To determine what resource management issues, if any, affected the 
ability of firefighting personnel to effectively fight the Biscuit 
Fire, we reviewed a variety of information, including resource orders 
and daily incident reports showing firefighting resources requested and 
obtained, incident action plans showing firefighting strategies and 
tactics, close-out reports discussing firefighting progress and 
problems, and Forest Service reviews of the Biscuit Fire. We 
interviewed a number of federal and state personnel knowledgeable about 
the Biscuit Fire, including officials from the Siskiyou and Six Rivers 
National Forests, ODF, and CDF, and the management teams and other key 
support staff that were assigned to the Biscuit Fire. We discussed 
resource management issues, their effect on the fighting of the Biscuit 
Fire, and the reasons for these issues or problems. We also reviewed 
assessments of other wildland fires to determine if the issues 
identified were limited to the Biscuit Fire or were more widespread.

To determine what differences, if any, existed in key personnel 
certification standards at federal and state agencies involved in 
fighting wildland fires--particularly in Oregon--we reviewed the 
interagency qualification standards established by NWCG. We also 
contacted officials from Oregon and California, where the Biscuit Fire 
burned, and five other states--Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, and 
Washington--to discuss the certification standards they use, and 
whether they differ from those established by NWCG. In addition, we 
reviewed state firefighting standards for ODF and CDF and compared them 
with those established by NWCG. To determine what effect any 
differences may have had on the response to the Biscuit Fire, we spoke 
with federal officials with NIFC, the Forest Service, the Bureau of 
Land Management, and the National Park Service; officials with the 
National Association of State Foresters; and state and local officials 
in Oregon and California, including officials from ODF, CDF, and the 
California Office of Emergency Services.

We conducted our work from April 2003 through February 2004 in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

[End of section]

Appendix II: Comments from the Forest Service:

United States Department of Agriculture
Forest Service
Washington Office
14TH & Independence SW 
P.O. Box 96090 
Washington, DC 20090-6090:

File Code:	1420 

Date: Apr 5, 2004:

Mr. Barry T. Hill:

Director, Natural Resources and Environment,
U.S. General Accounting Office:

441 G Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20548:

Dear Mr. Hill:

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the draft U.S. 
General Accounting Office (GAO) report entitled, "BISCUIT FIRE: 
Analysis of Fire Response, Resource Availability, and Personnel 
Certification Standards," GAO-04-426. In general, the Forest Service 
agrees with the contents of the draft report. Any issues or concerns 
raised previously have been adequately addressed. The report appears to 
be accurate and represents a substantial effort on the part of GAO. The 
report contains no recommendations for further action.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Sandy Coleman, 
Agency Audit Liaison, at 703-605-4940.

Sincerely,

Signed for: 

DALE N. BOSWORTH, Chief:

cc: Laura L Perrett, Sandra Cantler, Alice R Forbes, Ron Knowles:

[End of section]

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:

GAO Contact:

Barry T. Hill, (202) 512-3841 or h [Hyperlink, hillbt@gao.gov] 
[Hyperlink, hillbt@gao.gov] illbt@gao.gov:

Staff Acknowledgments:

Andrea W. Brown, John Delicath, Cliff Fowler (retired), Janet Frisch, 
Molly Laster, Paul E. Staley, Stanley G. Stenersen, Amy Webbink, and 
Arvin Wu made key contributions to this report.

(360319):


FOOTNOTES

[1] Federal agencies select names for wildfires based upon nearby 
geographic features. For example, the Biscuit Fire started near Biscuit 
Creek in southern Oregon.

[2] There are 11 regional dispatch centers nationwide, called 
geographic area coordination centers, each of which serve a specific 
geographic portion of the United States. 

[3] In the case of the Biscuit Fire, the local dispatch center was the 
Grants Pass Interagency Fire Center in Grants Pass, Oregon. The 
Siskiyou National Forest has contracted with the Oregon Department of 
Forestry (ODF) to operate this center. ODF personnel staff the center, 
but the operating costs are shared between ODF and the Forest Service. 
The regional dispatch center responsible for the Biscuit Fire was the 
Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, Oregon. 

[4] The Fortuna Interagency Emergency Command Center, which we will 
refer to as the Fortuna dispatch center, is an interagency center 
staffed by Forest Service and California Department of Forestry and 
Fire Protection (CDF) personnel. The center serves Six Rivers National 
Forest, Redwood National Park, the CDF Humboldt-Del Norte Unit, and the 
Hoopa Indian Reservation. 

[5] The Siskiyou National Forest and the Rogue River National Forest 
are separate forests but are administered jointly. However, because the 
Biscuit Fire burned only in the Siskiyou Forest, we will only refer to 
the Siskiyou National Forest.

[6] Fire managers may order more experienced leadership immediately 
based on the initial assessment if it appears that the fire will become 
a more complex incident. 

[7] National Interagency Mobilization Guide (Feb. 1, 2002).

[8] This mutual aid agreement, the Cooperative Fire Protection 
Agreement, involved the Bureau of Land Management, California and 
Nevada; National Park Service, Pacific West Region; Forest Service, 
Regions 4, 5, and 6; and California Department of Forestry and Fire 
Protection.

[9] The southern fire resulted from the merging of the Biscuit 1, 
Biscuit 2, and Sourdough Fires. The southern fire was named the Sour 
Biscuit Fire.

[10] A crew normally consists of 20 persons.

[11] Final Draft Biscuit Fire Review, USDA Forest Service, PNW Region 
(Jan. 31, 2003).

[12] Final Report: Fire & Aviation Safety Team Review of Northwest 
Geographic Area (July 19 through Aug. 1, 2002).

[13] According to the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide (January 
2002), two type 1 or type 2 helicopters may be designated as "limited 
use" and managed by one qualified helicopter manager when (1) a second 
qualified helicopter manager is on order, and there are active efforts 
to fill the position; (2) both helicopters are physically side-by-side 
at the same helibase; (3) a helibase manager is assigned; (4) aerial 
supervision is provided; and (5) approval has been granted by the 
appropriate agency aviation manager.

[14] Final Report: Fire & Aviation Safety Team Review of Northwest 
Geographic Area (July 19 through Aug. 1, 2002). 

[15] This system is the Wildland and Prescribed Fire Qualifications 
System, commonly referred to as 310-1. 

[16] The Forest Service has supplemented NWCG (310-1) standards with 
additional requirements that apply only to Forest Service personnel.

[17] We spoke with wildland firefighting officials in California, 
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

[18] A 1998 agreement between Oregon, Washington, and federal land 
management agencies recognizes each agency's standards as reasonable, 
prudent, and acceptable for firefighting on lands under private, state, 
or federal protection.

[19] Although Oregon standards differ from those set by NWCG, 
approximately 70 percent of the state's roughly 600 permanent 
firefighting personnel are certified in one or more interagency 
incident command positions, according to an ODF official. In addition, 
another roughly 300 seasonal employees are brought in each year that, 
by their job duties, must be interagency certified.

[20] California's Office of Emergency Services coordinates the sharing 
of local emergency personnel, including wildland firefighters, through 
the state's municipal aid program. The standards used are based on NWCG 
standards, and these personnel are shared with interagency efforts.

[21] A May 2002 agreement between California and federal land 
management agencies specifies that supervisory personnel responding to 
interagency fires in the state and some adjacent areas shall meet 
either NWCG training requirements or those of the California Incident 
Command Certification System, which is based on NWCG standards. The 
agreement also provides recommended qualifications for engine crews. 

[22] These were the Northwest, Northern California, Southern 
California, Western Great Basin, Eastern Great Basin, Southwest, 
Northern Rockies, Rocky Mountain, and Eastern regions.

[23] These dispatch centers were the Central Washington Interagency 
Communications Center, the Casper Interagency Dispatch Center, and the 
North Dakota Interagency Dispatch Center.

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