Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations and Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions
GAO-04-612
Published: Jun 02, 2004. Publicly Released: Jun 03, 2004.
Skip to Highlights
Highlights
In 2003, wildfires burned roughly 4 million acres, destroyed over 5,000 structures, took the lives of 30 firefighters, and cost over $1 billion to suppress. The substantial expense of fighting wildfires has exceeded the funds appropriated for wildfire suppression nearly every year since 1990. To pay for wildfire suppression costs when the funds appropriated are insufficient, the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior have transferred funds from their other programs. GAO was asked to identify (1) the amount of funds transferred and reimbursed for wildfire suppression since 1999, and the programs from which agencies transferred funds; (2) the effects on agency programs from which funds were taken; and (3) alternative approaches that could be considered for estimating annual suppression costs and funding wildfire suppression.
Recommendations
Matter for Congressional Consideration
| Matter | Status | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| To reduce the potential need for the Forest Service and Interior to rely on transferring funds from other programs to pay for wildfire suppression on public lands, the Congress may wish to consider alternative funding approaches for wildfire suppression, such as, but not limited to, establishing a governmentwide or agency-specific emergency reserve account. | H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act (FLAME Act), passed the House in July 2008. The FLAME Act would provide an alternative funding approach for wildland fire suppression, by establishing a fund to pay the costs of catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression activities that are separate from amounts annually appropriated to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior for the predicted annual workload for wildland fire suppression activities. The Senate is now considering this legislation, although it has not yet voted on it. |
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Agriculture | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to improve their methods for estimating annual wildfire suppression costs by more effectively accounting for annual changes in costs and the uncertainties associated with wildfires in making these estimates, so that funding needs for wildfire suppression can be predicted with greater accuracy. |
The agencies continue to use the 10-year average of fire suppression costs in estimating their annual fire suppression budget needs.
|
| Department of the Interior | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to improve their methods for estimating annual wildfire suppression costs by more effectively accounting for annual changes in costs and the uncertainties associated with wildfires in making these estimates, so that funding needs for wildfire suppression can be predicted with greater accuracy. |
The agencies continue to use the 10-year average of fire suppression costs in estimating their annual fire suppression budget needs.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to annually conduct a formal assessment of how the agencies' methods for estimating annual suppression costs and their monthly forecasting models performed in estimating wildfire suppression costs relative to actual costs, to determine if additional improvements are needed. |
Beginning in 2004, the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station has been conducting annual formal assessments of both the Forest Service's and Interior's forecasting models, comparing predicted to actual expenditures and identifying areas for improvement.
|
| Department of the Interior | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to annually conduct a formal assessment of how the agencies' methods for estimating annual suppression costs and their monthly forecasting models performed in estimating wildfire suppression costs relative to actual costs, to determine if additional improvements are needed. |
Beginning in 2004, the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station has been conducting annual formal assessments of both the Forest Service's and Interior's forecasting models, comparing predicted to actual expenditures and identifying areas for improvement.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to consistently track accomplishment shortfalls caused by funding transfers across all programs and include this information in annual accomplishment reports to provide agency decision makers and the Congress with better information for making wildfire suppression transfer and funding decisions. |
The Forest Service has taken significant steps toward tracking the impact of fire transfers and resulting accomplishment shortfalls. Citing GAO's report on fire transfers, and noting the need to "better understand and communicate the effect of the fire transfer on our projects and programs," the agency has issued guidance for standard reporting on the amount of funds transferred and the specific projects or activities that were curtailed because of the transfers. However, the agency has not included the resulting information in annual accomplishment reports, or otherwise provided such information to the Congress. Given that doing so was an essential element of our recommendation, we consider the recommendation closed/not implemented.
|
| Department of the Interior | To help minimize the impacts of wildfire funding transfers on other agency programs and to improve the agencies' budget estimates for wildfire suppression costs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior should direct the Forest Service and Interior agencies to work together to consistently track accomplishment shortfalls caused by funding transfers across all programs and include this information in annual accomplishment reports to provide agency decision makers and the Congress with better information for making wildfire suppression transfer and funding decisions. |
DOI does not track accomplishment shortfalls. An Interior official stated that the agency transfers funds from only two accounts--construction and land acquisition--and when funds are transferred from these accounts, there are little or no impacts because the funds are for long-term projects and likely would not have been spent during the current year. Further, there are no relevant performance measures for the construction and land acquisition accounts, meaning that shortfalls would be difficult to quantify.
|
| Department of Agriculture | In addition, to more accurately determine the amount of funds available to transfer for wildfire suppression, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to estimate remaining salary needs for the fiscal year by consulting with local forest officials to obtain more current, specific payroll information, so that the risk of programs going into deficit can be reduced. |
The Forest Service has changed its process for identifying funds available for transfer, and now relies on field officials such as Regional Foresters and Station Directors to identify available funds in their jurisdictions. In doing so, they are to consult with their local units (such as individual national forests) to ensure that the units' programs of work are appropriately considered in the fire transfer effort. While the guidance does not specifically mention payroll information, we believe that any consultation with local forest officials will, by nature, include consideration of salary needs. This recommendation is therefore closed as implemented.
|
Full Report
Public Inquiries
Topics
Appropriation accountsBudgetary reservesEmergency preparednessForest firesForest managementFunds managementFuture budget projectionsIntergovernmental fiscal relationsMission budgetingProgram managementReprogramming of appropriated fundsWildfiresWildland fires