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United States General Accounting Office:

September 2003:

GAO:

Report to Congressional Requesters:

GAO-03-1047:

GEOSPATIAL Information:

Technologies Hold Promise for Wildland Fire Management, but Challenges 
Remain:

GAO Highlights:

Highlights of GAO-03-1047, a report to congressional requesters 

Why GAO Did This Study:

Over the past decade, a series of devastating and deadly wildland 
fires has burned millions of acres of federal forests, grasslands, and 
deserts each year, requiring federal land management agencies to spend 
hundreds of millions of dollars to fight them. GAO was asked to assess 
opportunities to improve the way agencies manage fires through the use 
of geospatial information technologies, specifically, to (1) identify 
key geospatial information technologies for addressing different 
aspects of managing wildland fires, (2) summarize key challenges to 
the effective use of geospatial technologies in managing wildland 
fires, and (3) identify national opportunities to improve the 
effective use of geospatial technologies. 

What GAO Found:

Geospatial information technologiessensors, systems, and software 
that collect, manage, manipulate, analyze, model, and display 
information about locations on the earths surfacecan aid in managing 
wildland fires by providing accurate, detailed, and timely information 
to federal, state, and local decision makers; fire-fighting personnel; 
and the public. This information can be used to help reduce the risk 
that a fire will become uncontrollable, to respond to critical events 
while a fire is burning, and to aid in recovering from fire disasters. 

However, there are multiple challenges to effectively using these 
technologies to manage wildland fires, including challenges with data, 
systems, infrastructure, staffing, and the effective use of new 
products. The National Wildfire Coordinating Groupcomposed of 
representatives from the five land management agencies and from other 
federal, state, and tribal organizationshas several initiatives under 
way to address specific challenges, but progress on these initiatives 
has been slow, and not all of the challenges are being addressed. A 
root cause of many of these challenges is the lack of an overall 
strategy guiding interagency management of information resources and 
technology. To improve interagency management of information resources 
and technology, different teams within the Coordinating Group plan to 
establish an interagency geospatial strategic plan, a strategy for 
information resources management, and an interagency enterprise 
architecturea blueprint for operational and technical change in 
support of wildland fire management. However, these efforts lack the 
senior-level endorsement and detailed plans and milestones necessary 
for success. Until effective interagency management of information 
resources and technology is a priority, the wildland fire community 
will likely continue to face challenges in effectively using 
geospatial information technologies.

Effectively using geospatial information is of interest beyond the 
wildland fire management community. Detailed, accurate, and accessible 
geospatial information is critical in addressing homeland security and 
national preparedness, supporting our transportation infrastructure, 
and managing natural resources, among other activities. For decades, 
the federal government has tried to reduce duplicative geospatial data 
collection by coordinating activities inside and outside the federal 
government. Most recently, Geospatial One-Stop, one of 25 high profile 
e-government initiatives sponsored by the Office of Management and 
Budget, was initiated to develop national geospatial data standards 
and an Internet portal for locating geospatial data. While this and 
other initiatives hold promise, achieving a nationwide network of 
geospatial data remains a formidable challenge.

GAO focused on the five federal agencies that are primarily 
responsible for wildland fire management: the Department of 
Agricultures Forest Service and the Department of the Interiors 
National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife 
Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

What GAO Recommends:

GAO is making a series of recommendations to address specific 
challenges in effectively using geospatial information technologies 
and to improve the management of information resources and 
technologies in the interagency wildland fire management community.

Commenting on a draft of this report, the Departments of Agriculture 
and the Interior agreed with the reports conclusions and 
recommendations. 

Note: The graphics in this report are in color and are best viewed 
electronically.

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-1047

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

GAO-03-1047:

Letter:

Results in Brief:

Background:

Numerous Geospatial Technologies Can Be Used to Address Different 
Aspects of Wildland Fire Management:

The Wildland Fire Community Faces Numerous Challenges in Using 
Geospatial Information Technologies Effectively; More Must Be Done to 
Address These Challenges:

New National Efforts to Improve the Use of Geospatial Information Are 
Promising, but Challenges to Effective Data Sharing Remain:

Conclusions:

Recommendations:

Agency Comments:

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:

Appendix II: Major Wildland Fire Policies, Plans, Reports, and 
Initiatives:

Appendix III: Federal, State, and Local Entities with Land Management, 
Technology, or Other Fire-Related Roles:

Federal Departments and Agencies:

State, Local, and Other Associations and Committees:

Appendix IV: Remote Sensing Systems:

Appendix V: Examples of Applications with Geospatial Components 
Supporting Wildland Fire Management:

Appendix VI: Comments from the Departments of Agriculture and the 
Interior:

Appendix VII: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments:

GAO Contacts:

Acknowledgments:

Glossary:

Figures:

Figure 1: Wildland Fire Management Activities:

Figure 2: Acres of Land Managed by Federal Land Management Agencies:

Figure 3: National Wildfire Coordinating Group: Member Organizations:

Figure 4: Members of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council:

Figure 5: Overview of the Flow of Data Among Key Geospatial Information 
Technologies and Resulting Products of These Technologies:

Figure 6: Vegetation Map, Rocky Mountain Region, Colorado, August 1999:

Figure 7: Fire Hazard Map, Rocky Mountain Region, Colorado, August 
1999:

Figure 8: National Wildland Fire Outlook:

Figure 9: Fire Danger Map:

Figure 10: Satellite Images of Fires in the Northwestern United States, 
July 21, 2003:

Figure 11: Satellite Image Showing Early Fire Perimeters for the Rodeo 
and Chediski Fires, Arizona, June 2002:

Figure 12: An Aerial Infrared Image and Resulting Fire Perimeter Map, 
September 2001:

Figure 13: Output of a Fire Behavior Model:

Figure 14: Internet-Based Maps of Active Fires:

Figure 15: Burn Severity Map, Hayman Fire, June 2002:

Tables:

Table 1: Key Geospatial Technologies:

Table 2: Characteristics of Selected Remote Sensing Systems:

Table 3: Examples of Operational Applications:

Table 4: Examples of Developmental Applications:

Abbreviations:

BIA: Bureau of Indian Affairs:

BLM: Bureau of Land Management:

FGDC: Federal Geographic Data Committee:

FS: Forest Service:

FWS: Fish and Wildlife Service:

GIS: geographic information system:

IRM: information resource management:

IT: information technology:

MODIS: Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer:

NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration:

NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

NPS: National Park Service:

NWCG: National Wildfire Coordinating Group:

USGS: U.S. Geological Survey:

Letter:

September 23, 2003:

The Honorable Mark Udall 
House of Representatives:

The Honorable Joel Hefley 
House of Representatives:

Over the past decade, there has been a series of devastating and deadly 
wildland fires on federal lands. Fires like these burn millions of 
acres of forests, grasslands, and deserts each year, requiring federal 
land management agencies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to 
fight them. Wildland fires also threaten communities that are near 
federal lands. During the 2002 fire season, approximately 88,458 
wildland fires burned about 6.9 million acres and cost the federal 
government over $1.6 billion to suppress. These fires destroyed timber, 
natural vegetation, wildlife habitats, homes, and businesses, and they 
severely damaged forest soils and watershed areas for decades to come. 
The 2002 fires also caused the deaths of 23 firefighters and drove 
thousands of people from their homes. Only 2 years earlier, during the 
2000 fire season, approximately 123,000 fires had burned more than 8.4 
million acres and cost the federal government over $2 billion.

Geospatial information technologies--sensors, systems, and software 
that collect, manage, manipulate, analyze, model, and display 
information about locations on the earth's surface--can aid in managing 
wildland fires by providing accurate, detailed, and timely information 
to federal, state, and local decision makers; fire-fighting personnel; 
and the public. This information can be used to help reduce the risk 
that a fire will become uncontrollable, to respond to critical events 
while a fire is burning, and to aid in recovering from fire disasters.

Concerned with recent wildland fires, you asked us to assess 
opportunities to improve the way agencies manage fires through the use 
of geospatial information technologies. Specifically, our objectives 
were to (1) identify key geospatial information technologies for 
addressing different aspects of wildland fire management, (2) summarize 
key challenges to the effective use of geospatial technologies in 
wildland fire management, and (3) identify national opportunities to 
improve the effective use of geospatial technologies.

To accomplish these objectives, we focused our review on the five key 
federal agencies that are primarily responsible for wildland fire 
management on public lands: the Department of Agriculture's Forest 
Service and the Department of the Interior's National Park Service, 
Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of 
Indian Affairs. To address the final objective, we also reviewed 
national efforts to improve the use of geospatial information, 
undertaken by the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal 
Geographic Data Committee. We conducted our work between October 2002 
and September 2003 in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards. Appendix I contains further details on our 
objectives, scope, and methodology. Key terms are defined in the 
glossary.

Results in Brief:

Numerous geospatial information technologies are currently available, 
in use, or under development that can aid in wildland fire management. 
These technologies include remote sensing systems, the Global 
Positioning System, geographic information systems (GIS), and 
specialized software for modeling and visualizing locations and events. 
Land management agencies are using geospatial technologies in a number 
of different ways, ranging from mapping vegetation and dangerous 
accumulations of fuel, to identifying the perimeter and behavior of 
active fires, to mapping burned areas for rehabilitation. However, the 
extent to which these technologies are currently being used is not 
fully known.

There are multiple challenges to effectively using geospatial 
technologies--all complicated by the fact that wildland fire management 
extends beyond a single agency's responsibility and requires a 
collaborative interagency approach. Key challenges include issues with 
the following:

* Data: Geospatial data are not consistently available and are not 
compatible across different agencies, states, and local entities. As a 
result, decision makers often lack the timely, integrated information 
they need to make sound decisions in managing different aspects of 
wildland fire.

* Systems: Agencies have developed multiple, duplicative systems to 
address local or agency-specific needs. As a result, many similar 
systems are not interoperable. Also, there is no single comprehensive 
inventory of the systems used to support wildland fire management.

* Infrastructure: GIS specialists do not consistently have access to 
the equipment, communications infrastructure, and Internet when and 
where they need them to address wildland fires. As a result, these 
specialists often have difficulty in obtaining and manipulating 
geospatial data and in producing geospatial maps at remote fire sites.

* Staffing: The training and qualifications of the GIS specialists who 
work on wildland fires are not consistent, resulting in major 
differences in these individuals' capabilities.

* New products: While new products and services are available to 
support wildland fire management, commercial vendors expressed concern 
that the fire community is not aware of these products. Land management 
agencies noted that the cost of commercial products can be prohibitive 
and that licensing restrictions can keep local land units from sharing 
data with others in the wildland fire community.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group--comprising representatives 
from the five land management agencies and from other federal, state, 
and tribal organizations--has several initiatives under way to address 
specific challenges to using geospatial information technologies, but 
progress on these initiatives has been slow, and these initiatives do 
not address all of the challenges. A root cause of many of these 
challenges is the lack of an overall strategy guiding interagency 
management of information resources and technologies. Currently, 
different teams within the Coordinating Group are planning initiatives 
to improve the interagency management of information resources and 
technology. Focusing specifically on geospatial technologies, one 
interagency team has proposed developing an interagency strategic plan 
for using geospatial technologies to support wildland fire management. 
Another interagency team developed a draft Information Resource 
Management (IRM) strategy that provides high-level objectives for 
interagency IRM management. At a broader level, another interagency 
team plans to develop an enterprise architecture--a blueprint for 
operational and technological change in support of wildland fire 
management. However, these efforts lack the senior-level endorsement 
and the detailed plans and milestones necessary for success. Until 
effective interagency management of information technologies becomes a 
priority, the wildland fire community will likely continue to face 
challenges in effectively using geospatial technologies.

Effectively using geospatial information is of interest beyond the 
wildland fire management community. Detailed, accurate, and accessible 
geospatial information is critical in addressing homeland security and 
national preparedness, supporting our transportation infrastructure, 
managing natural resources, and carrying out the national census--among 
other activities. For decades, the federal government has tried to 
reduce duplicative geospatial data collection by coordinating GIS 
activities within and outside the federal government. Most recently, 
the E-Government Act of 2002 called for common protocols for geographic 
information systems in order to reduce redundant data collection and 
information and to promote collaboration and use of standards for 
government geographic information.[Footnote 1] To improve the use of 
geospatial data, the Office of Management and Budget initiated 
Geospatial One-Stop, a project to develop an Internet portal for 
locating geospatial data and to develop national geospatial data 
standards. While this and other initiatives hold promise, achieving the 
vision of a nationwide network of geospatial data remains a formidable 
challenge. We recently reported that a much more substantial effort 
will be required to attain the broader vision of seamless integration 
of GIS data nationwide--and that this effort will probably have to 
continue over an extended period of time.[Footnote 2]

We are making recommendations to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the 
Interior to address specific challenges in effectively using geospatial 
technologies and to improve the management of information resources and 
technologies in the interagency wildland fire management community. In 
commenting on a draft of this report, the departments agreed with the 
report's conclusions and recommendations, and noted that staff from the 
two departments will be tasked with developing an action plan to 
address our findings and the broader issue of geospatial needs for 
wildland fire management.

Background:

Wildland Fire Management Life Cycle: An Overview:

Effectively managing wildland fires can be viewed in terms of a life 
cycle--there are key activities that can be performed before a fire 
starts to reduce the risk of its becoming uncontrollable; other 
activities that can take place during a fire to detect the fire before 
it gets too large and to respond to it; and still others that can be 
performed after a fire has stopped in order to stabilize, rehabilitate, 
and restore damaged forests and rangelands. Prefire activities can 
include identifying areas that are at risk for wildland fire by 
assessing changes in vegetation and the accumulation of fuels 
(including small trees, underbrush, and dead vegetation), as well as 
these fuels' proximity to communities; taking action to reduce fuels 
through a variety of mechanisms (including timber harvesting, 
management-ignited or prescribed fires, mechanical thinning, and use of 
natural fires); and monitoring fire weather conditions. Other 
activities during this phase can include providing fire preparedness 
training and strategically deploying equipment and personnel resources 
to at-risk areas.

Activities that take place during a fire include detecting fires, 
dispatching resources, planning the initial attack on the fire, 
monitoring and mapping the fire's spread and behavior, and planning and 
managing subsequent attacks on the fire--if they are warranted. 
Postfire activities can include assessing the impact of the fire; 
providing emergency stabilization of burned areas to protect life, 
property, and natural resources from postfire degradation, such as 
flooding, contamination of a watershed area, and surface erosion; 
rehabilitating lands to remove fire debris, repair soils, and plant new 
vegetation; and monitoring the rehabilitation efforts over time to 
ensure that they are on track. Other activities--such as enhancing 
community awareness--can and should take place throughout the fire 
management life cycle. Figure 1 depicts a fire management life cycle, 
with key activities in each phase.

Figure 1: Wildland Fire Management Activities:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Federal Land Management Responsibilities:

Five federal agencies share responsibility for managing the majority of 
our nation's federal lands--the Department of Agriculture's Forest 
Service (FS) and the Department of the Interior's National Park Service 
(NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service 
(FWS), and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). While each agency has a 
different mission and responsibility for different areas and types of 
land, they work together to address catastrophic wildland fires, which 
often cross agency boundaries. In addition, state, local, and tribal 
governments and private individuals own thousands of acres that are 
adjacent to federal lands and are similarly susceptible to wildland 
fires. Figure 2 shows the number of acres of land managed by each of 
the five federal agencies.

Figure 2: Acres of Land Managed by Federal Land Management Agencies:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

The National Fire Plan:

After years of catastrophic fires, in September 2000, the Departments 
of Agriculture and the Interior jointly issued a report on managing the 
impact of wildland fires. This report forms the basis of what is now 
known as the National Fire Plan--a long-term multibillion-dollar effort 
to address the nation's risk of wildland fires. The plan directs 
funding and attention to five key initiatives:

* Hazardous fuels reduction--investing in projects to reduce the 
buildup of fuels that leads to severe fires.

* Firefighting--ensuring adequate preparedness for future fires by 
acquiring and maintaining personnel and equipment and by placing 
firefighting resources in locations where they can most effectively be 
used to respond to fires.

* Rehabilitation and restoration--restoring landscapes and rebuilding 
ecosystems that have been damaged by wildland fires.

* Community assistance--working directly with communities to ensure 
that they are adequately protected from fires.

* Accountability--establishing mechanisms to oversee and track progress 
in implementing the National Fire Plan, which includes developing 
performance measures, processes for reporting progress, and budgeting 
information.

A key tenet of the National Fire Plan is coordination between 
government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to develop 
strategies and carry out programs. Building on this goal of 
cooperation, the five land management agencies have worked with state 
governors and other stakeholders to develop a comprehensive strategy 
and an implementation plan for managing wildland fires, hazardous 
fuels, and ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation on federal and 
adjacent state, tribal, and private forest and rangelands in the United 
States.Appendix II provides a summary of the major federal policies, 
plans, reports, and initiatives on managing wildland fires and how they 
are related. In developing these integrated plans and initiatives, the 
land management agencies identified other federal agencies that have 
roles in wildland fire management: agencies that manage other federal 
lands, including the Department of Defense and Department of Energy; 
agencies that research, manage, or use technologies that can aid in 
wildland fire management, including the Department of the Interior's 
U.S. Geological Survey, the National Aeronautical and Space 
Administration, the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense's National 
Imagery and Mapping Agency; and agencies with other fire-related 
responsibilities, including the Department of Homeland Security's 
Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection 
Agency. The integrated plans also identify key state and local 
organizations that may collaborate on wildland fire management. 
Appendix III identifies key federal, state, and local organizations and 
their roles in wildland fire management.

An Interagency Framework Supports the National Fire Plan:

Over the past four decades, the Departments of Agriculture and the 
Interior have established an interagency framework to handle wildland 
fire management--a framework that currently supports the National Fire 
Plan. In 1965, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management 
established the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. The 
Fire Center is the nation's principal management and logistical support 
center for wildland firefighting and now includes the five land 
management agencies, the National Weather Service, and the Department 
of the Interior's Office of Aircraft Services. The Department of 
Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency and the 
National Association of State Foresters also have a presence at the 
center. Working together, representatives from this mix of 
organizations exchange fire protection information and training 
services and coordinate and support operations for managing wildland 
fire incidents while they are occurring, throughout the United States.

In 1976, the departments established the National Wildfire Coordinating 
Group to coordinate government standards for wildland fire management 
and related programs, in order to avoid duplicating the various 
agencies' efforts and to encourage active collaboration among entities. 
This group comprises representatives from the five land management 
agencies and from other federal, state, and tribal organizations. 
Figure 3 identifies these member organizations. The coordinating group 
seeks to foster more effective execution of each agency's fire 
management program through agreements on common training, equipment, 
and other standards; however, each agency determines whether and how it 
will adopt the group's proposals. The group is organized into 15 
working teams, which focus on issues that include information resource 
management (IRM), fire equipment, training, fire weather, and wildland 
fire education. Most recently, the coordinating group established the 
IRM program management office to further support the IRM working team 
by developing guidance and products. In addition, the IRM working team 
has established two subgroups to focus on specific issues involving 
geospatial information and data administration.

Figure 3: National Wildfire Coordinating Group: Member Organizations:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

In recent years, we have reported that despite these interagency 
efforts, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior had not 
established clearly defined and effective leadership for ensuring 
collaboration and coordination among the organizations that respond to 
wildland fires.[Footnote 3] Further, the National Academy of Public 
Administration recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the 
Interior establish a national interagency council to achieve more 
consistent and coordinated efforts in implementing national fire 
policies and plans.[Footnote 4] In response to these concerns, in April 
2002, the departments established the Wildland Fire Leadership Council. 
This council comprises senior members of both departments and of key 
external organizations; it is charged with providing active, visible 
interagency leadership and coordination and consistent, integrated 
policy direction to the land management agencies regarding wildland 
fire management. Figure 4 identifies members of the Leadership Council.

Figure 4: Members of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Accurate information about specific locations is critical to all of the 
activities in wildland fire management. To manage information that 
extends beyond organizational boundaries in support of a common 
mission--such as the wildland fire mission--it is useful to view these 
activities within the context of the information technology management 
discipline of enterprise architecture management.

Enterprise Architecture: A Brief Description:

If properly developed, an enterprise architecture provides a clear and 
comprehensive picture of an entity, whether it is an organization (for 
example, a federal department, agency, or bureau) or a functional or 
mission area that cuts across more than one organization (for example, 
grant management, homeland security, or wildland fire management). 
These architectures are recognized as essential tools for effectively 
and efficiently engineering business operations and the systems and 
databases that are needed to support these operations.

Enterprise architectures are systemically derived and captured 
blueprints or descriptions--in useful models, diagrams, and narrative-
-of the mode of operation for a given enterprise. This mode of 
operation is described in both (1) logical terms, such as interrelated 
business processes and business rules, information needs and flows, 
data models, work locations, and users, and (2) technical terms, such 
as hardware, software, data, communications, and security attributes 
and performance standards. They provide these perspectives both for the 
enterprise's current, or "as is," environment and for its target, or 
"to be," environment, as well as a transition plan for moving from the 
"as is" to the "to be" environment.

Using enterprise architectures is a basic tenet of effective 
information technology (IT) management, embodied in federal guidance 
and commercial best practices.[Footnote 5] We recently issued an 
executive guide for improving enterprise architecture 
management.[Footnote 6] When developed and used properly, these 
architectures define both business operations and the underlying IT 
infrastructure that supports these operations in a way that optimizes 
interdependencies and interrelationships. They provide a common frame 
of reference to guide and constrain decisions about the content of 
information asset investments in a way that can ensure that the right 
information is available to those who need it, when they need it. 
Employed in concert with IT investment management practices designed to 
ensure that new investments are compliant with the architecture, 
enterprise architectures can greatly increase an organization's 
likelihood of making successful and effective technology 
investments.[Footnote 7] Our experience with federal agencies has shown 
that investing in information technology without the context of an 
architecture often results in systems that are duplicative, not well 
integrated, and unnecessarily costly to maintain and 
interface.[Footnote 8]

Numerous Geospatial Technologies Can Be Used to Address Different 
Aspects of Wildland Fire Management:

Geospatial information technologies--sensors, systems, and software 
that collect, manage, manipulate, analyze, model, and display 
information about positions on the earth's surface--can aid in managing 
wildland fires by providing accurate, detailed, and timely information 
to federal, state, and local decision makers; fire-fighting personnel; 
and the public. This information can be used to help reduce the risk 
that a fire will become uncontrollable, to respond to critical events 
while a fire is burning, and to aid in recovering from fire disasters.

Specific examples of geospatial technologies include remote sensing 
systems, the Global Positioning System, and geographic information 
systems. In addition, specialized software can be used in conjunction 
with remote sensing data and geographic information systems to 
manipulate geographic data and allow users to analyze, model, and 
visualize locations and events. Table 1 describes key geospatial 
technologies.

Table 1: Key Geospatial Technologies:

Technology: Remote sensing systems; Description: Remote sensing 
systems observe data that are 
either emitted or reflected by the earth and the atmosphere, collecting 
these data from a distance--such as from a satellite or an aerial 
platform. Remote sensing systems involve different observing 
technologies, including cameras, scanners, radar and sonar systems, 
radiometers, lasers, and thermal devices--to name a few--and are 
capable of collecting data from one or more bands of the 
electromagnetic spectrum.[A] Data from different bands provide 
different kinds of information. For example, data observed in the 
infrared band can identify heat sources that are not observable in the 
visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum. When data are collected 
from multiple bands, a more sophisticated analysis can be performed. 
Key factors that differentiate one sensor from another include the 
type(s) of data collected, the resolutionb of the images, the width (or 
swath) of area covered on the ground, and the rate at which the 
sensor's platform revisits an area on the ground. Appendix IV provides 
more detail on types of sensors and identifies the characteristics of 
several remote sensing systems.; After being observed, remotely sensed 
data need to be processed--a function that can include referencing the 
data to a position on earth, calibrating them, and then transforming 
them into a usable format. The resulting product can be an image or a 
quantitative data product, which can in turn be used as an input to 
other geospatial technologies, including geographic information 
systems and specialized software.

Technology: Global Positioning System; Description: The Global 
Positioning System is a 
constellation of orbiting satellites that provides navigation data to 
military and civilian users around the world. These satellites orbit 
the earth every 12 hours, emitting continuous navigation signals. With 
the proper equipment, users can receive these signals and use them to 
calculate time, location, and velocity. Receivers have been developed 
for use on aircraft, ships, and land-based vehicles, as well as via 
mobile hand-held units. Data from the Global Positioning System can be 
used to reference remotely sensed aerial images or ground-based human 
observations to specific geographic coordinates, a process called geo-
referencing.

Technology: Geographic information systems; Description: A geographic 
information system (GIS) 
is a system of computer software, hardware, and data used to 
manipulate, analyze, and graphically display a potentially wide array 
of information associated with geographic locations. These systems can 
receive input from remotely sensed images from satellites and aerial 
platforms, as well as from other sources, including human observation, 
tabular data, and maps. These systems are capable of relating multiple 
layers of data (such as roads, vegetation, structures, and utilities) 
concerning the same geographical location and representing these 
multiple layers of information as one composite result.

Technology: Specialized software; Description: Specialized software 
for modeling, decision 
support, and visualization complements the sensing, positioning, and 
GIS technologies described above by allowing analysts and managers to 
analyze data and explore different scenarios--and thereby make better 
informed decisions. For example, fire behavior specialists use such 
software to model fire behavior. Inputs to these models come from 
satellite images as well as weather data, tabular data, and on-the-
ground observations.

Source: GAO.

[A] A spectral band is a set of adjacent wavelengths in the 
electromagnetic spectrum. Examples include the ultraviolet, visible, 
near-infrared, mid-infrared, and thermal infrared bands.

[B] Spatial resolution is a measure of the size of the smallest feature 
that can be distinguished in an image. That is, in a 30-meter 
resolution image, one can discern objects 30 meters and larger. Images 
with smaller discernable objects are considered to have higher 
resolutions.

[End of table]

While individual technologies can be used to obtain information and 
products, the integration of these technologies holds promise for 
providing even more valuable information to decision makers. For 
example, remote sensing systems provide images that are useful in their 
own right. However, when images are geo-referenced and combined with 
other layers of data in a geographic information system--and then used 
with specialized software--a more sophisticated analysis can be 
performed, and more timely and sound decisions can be made. Figure 5 
provides an overview of the relationships among the different 
technologies and some resulting products.

Figure 5: Overview of the Flow of Data Among Key Geospatial Information 
Technologies and Resulting Products of These Technologies:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Federal Land Management Agencies Are Using Geospatial Technologies to 
Support Wildland Fire Management:

The geospatial information technologies mentioned above--remote 
sensing systems, the Global Positioning System, geographic information 
systems, and specialized softwareare being used to some extent in 
managing wildland fires. These technologies are used throughout the 
wildland fire management life cycle. Key examples follow.

Examples of Geospatial Technology Use: Prefire:

Before a fire starts, local and regional land managers often use 
vegetation and fuels maps derived from remote sensing data in 
conjunction with a geographic information system to understand 
conditions and to identify areas for fuels treatments. Some land 
management offices have also developed software to help them assess 
risk areas and prioritize fuels treatment projects. For example, figure 
6 depicts a vegetation map, and figure 7 depicts a map showing areas 
with increased risk of fires. Interestingly, an area that the map 
identified as being at high risk of fire later burned during the Hayman 
fire of 2002.

Figure 6: Vegetation Map, Rocky Mountain Region, Colorado, August 1999:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Figure 7: Fire Hazard Map, Rocky Mountain Region, Colorado, August 
1999:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Land management agencies also use geospatial products related to the 
weather to aid in fire planning, detecting, and monitoring activities. 
Weather-based products are derived from ground-based lightning 
detection and weather observing systems, as well as from fire-related 
weather predictions from the National Weather Service. Figure 8 depicts 
a seasonal fire outlook, and figure 9 depicts a fire danger map that is 
based on daily weather predictions.

Figure 8: National Wildland Fire Outlook:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Figure 9: Fire Danger Map:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Examples of Geospatial Technology Use: During Fire:

During a fire, some fire responders use satellite and aerial imagery, 
in combination with Global Positioning System data, geographic 
information systems, and specialized fire behavior modeling software, 
to obtain information about the fire and to help plan how they will 
respond to it. For example, the Forest Service uses satellite data to 
produce images of active fires. Also, the National Interagency Fire 
Center manages an aerial infrared program that flies aircraft equipped 
with infrared sensors over large fires to detect heat and fire areas. 
These images contribute to the development of daily fire perimeter 
maps. Figure 10 depicts a satellite image of active fires. Figure 11 
depicts a satellite image of a fire perimeter, and figure 12 depicts an 
aerial infrared image and a fire perimeter map based on that image. 
Some incident teams also use fire growth modeling software to predict 
the growth of wildland fires in terms of size, intensity, and spread, 
considering variable terrain, fuels, and weather. Using this 
information, incident managers are able to estimate short-and long-term 
fire behaviors, plan for potential fires, communicate concerns and 
needs to state and local governments and the public, and request and 
position resources. Figure 13 shows the output of a fire behavior 
model.

Figure 10: Satellite Images of Fires in the Northwestern United States, 
July 21, 2003:

[See PDF for image]

Note: Images from NASA's Aqua satellite, Moderate Resolution Imaging 
Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

[End of figure]

Figure 11: Landsat Satellite Image Showing Early Fire Perimeters for 
the Rodeo and Chediski Fires, Arizona, June 2002:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Figure 12: An Aerial Infrared Image and Resulting Fire Perimeter Map, 
September 2001:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Figure 13: Output of a Fire Behavior Model:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

Geospatial technologies are also used to provide information on active 
fires to the general public. The wildland fire community and the U.S. 
Geological Survey established an Internet Web site, at www.geomac.gov, 
to provide access to geospatial information about active fires. This 
site allows visitors to identify the location of wildland fires on a 
broad scale and then focus in to identify information on the location 
and status of specific fires. Figure 14 shows images from the Web site.

Figure 14: Internet-Based Maps of Active Fires:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

It is important to note that there are many commercial products and 
services available for use during a fire--ranging from high-resolution 
aerial and satellite imagery, to handheld Global Positioning System 
devices, to enhanced visualization models, to on-site geographic 
information systems, equipment, and personnel. Incident commanders 
responsible for responding to fires often choose to purchase commercial 
products and services to supplement interagency resources.

Examples of Geospatial Technology Use: Postfire:

After a fire occurs, burned-area teams have recently begun to use 
remote sensing data in conjunction with geographic information systems 
to determine the extent of fire damage and to help plan and implement 
emergency stabilization and rehabilitation efforts. Typical products 
include burn severity and burn intensity maps. Figure 15 depicts a 
satellite image and a burn severity map showing areas that have a high 
priority for emergency stabilization measures. Geospatial technologies 
also aid in monitoring rehabilitation efforts for years after a fire to 
ensure that restoration plans are on track.

Figure 15: Burn Severity Map, Hayman Fire, June 2002:

[See PDF for image]

[End of table]

New Uses of Geospatial Information Technologies to Aid in Wildland Fire 
Management Are under Development:

The Forest Service and Interior are researching and developing new 
applications of geospatial information technologies to support business 
needs in wildland fire management. In addition, the Joint Fire Science 
Program, a partnership of the five land management agencies and the 
U.S. Geological Survey, funds numerous research projects each year on 
fire and fuels management. Once again, these initiatives vary greatly-
-ranging from research on remote sensing systems to the development of 
interagency information systems with geospatial components, to 
improvements in existing software models. Examples of these efforts 
include the following:

* Sensor research. Several new research projects are under way on LIDAR 
and hyperspectral sensors.[Footnote 9] For example, a BLM state office 
is researching the use of high-resolution hyperspectral and LIDAR 
imaging technologies for improving the identification of vegetation; 
planning hazardous fuels projects; and monitoring wildland urban 
interface projects, the effects of wildland fires, and fire 
rehabilitation efforts. Additionally, the Forest Service is exploring 
the use of mobile LIDAR systems for assessing smoke plumes, and it is 
conducting research on using LIDAR data, satellite data, and modeling 
techniques to forecast air quality after a fire.

* Vegetation data and tools. The five land management agencies and the 
U.S. Geological Survey are working together to develop a national 
geospatial dataset and a set of modeling tools for wildland fire 
planning. This effort, called LANDFIRE, is to provide a comprehensive 
package of spatial data layers, models, and tools needed by land and 
fire managers. The system is expected to help prioritize, plan, 
complete, and monitor fuel treatment and restoration projects on 
national, regional, and local scales. A prototype of the system covers 
central Utah and Northwestern Montana and is expected to be completed 
by April 2005.

* Interagency information systems. The five land management agencies 
are developing information systems for use by Interior and Forest 
Service offices to track efforts under the National Fire Plan. The 
National Fire Plan Operations and Reporting System is an interagency 
system designed to assist field personnel in managing and reporting 
accomplishments for work conducted under the National Fire Plan. It is 
a Web-based data collection tool with GIS support that locates projects 
and treatments. It consists of three modules--hazardous fuels 
reduction, restoration and rehabilitation, and community assistance. 
While the agencies are currently using the system, it will not be fully 
operational until 2004. Another information system, the Fire Program 
Analysis system, is an interagency planning tool for analysis and 
budgeting to be used by the five federal wildland fire management 
agencies. The first module--preparedness--is scheduled for 
implementation in September 2004 and will evaluate the cost-
effectiveness of alternative initial attack operations in meeting 
multiple fire management objectives. Additional system modules are 
expected to provide geospatial capabilities and to address extended 
attack, large fires and national fire resources, hazardous fuels 
reduction, wildland fire use, and fire prevention.

* Improvements in existing systems. There are multiple efforts planned 
or under way to improve existing systems or to add geospatial 
components to systems that are currently under development. For 
example, researchers at a federal fire sciences laboratory are 
exploring possible improvements to the Wildland Fire Assessment System, 
an Internet-based system that provides information on a broad area of 
national fire potential and weather maps for fire managers and the 
general public. Specifically, researchers are working to develop 
products that depict moisture levels in live fuels, which will aid in 
assessing the potential for wildland fires.

Extent to Which Geospatial Technologies Are Used to Support Wildland 
Fire Management Is Not Fully Known:

While many land management entities are using geospatial technologies 
in support of their wildland fire-related activities, the extent to 
which geospatial technologies and tools are being used in support of 
wildland fire management is not fully known. In an effort to get a more 
accurate picture of how extensively geospatial information technologies 
are being used, the Geospatial Task Group, a subgroup of the National 
Wildfire Coordinating Group's (NWCG) IRM working team, is conducting a 
survey of wildland fire personnel to determine what technologies are 
being used and how they are being used. Group members stated that this 
information would help them to develop interagency standards for 
equipment and training and would allow land managers to learn from 
others' experiences in using some of the geospatial information 
technologies. For example, some incident teams use fire modeling 
software during active fires, while some land management offices are 
using the software in planning prescribed fires. The group initiated 
its survey in June 2003 and expects to complete its assessment by 
September 2003.

The Wildland Fire Community Faces Numerous Challenges in Using 
Geospatial Information Technologies Effectively; More Must Be Done to 
Address These Challenges:

There are numerous challenges in using geospatial information 
technologies effectively in the wildland fire community. Key challenges 
involve data, systems, infrastructure, staffing, and the effective use 
of new products and technologies--all complicated by the fact that 
wildland fire management extends beyond a single agency's 
responsibility. NWCG has several initiatives under way to address 
specific challenges to using geospatial information technologies. 
However, progress on these initiatives has been slow, and the 
initiatives do not address all of the challenges.

A root cause of many of these challenges is the lack of an overall 
strategy guiding interagency management of information resources and 
technologies. Currently, different IRM-related teams within NWCG are 
planning initiatives to improve the interagency management of 
information resources and technology. Focusing specifically on 
geospatial technologies, the NWCG's IRM working team's geospatial task 
group has proposed developing an interagency strategic plan for using 
geospatial technologies to support wildland fire management. 
Additionally, the IRM working team has developed a draft IRM strategy 
to guide information technology development and use by the interagency 
fire community. At a broader level, NWCG's IRM program management 
office plans to develop an enterprise architecture to guide and 
integrate business operations for wildland fire management. However, 
these efforts lack the senior-level endorsement and the detailed plans 
and milestones necessary for success. Until effective interagency 
management of information technologies becomes a priority, the wildland 
fire community will likely continue to face challenges in effectively 
using geospatial technologies.

Many Challenges Affect the Usefulness of Geospatial Information 
Technologies:

As the use of geospatial information technologies has become more 
common in wildland fire management, the challenges to effectively using 
and sharing geospatial information have become more apparent. Key 
challenges include the following:

* Data issues. Users of geospatial information have noted problems in 
acquiring compatible and comprehensive geospatial data. For example, 
GIS specialists involved in fighting fires reported that they did not 
have ready access to the geospatial data they needed. They noted that 
some local jurisdictions have geospatial data, but others do not. 
Further, they reported that the data from neighboring jurisdictions are 
often incompatible. GIS specialists reported that the first days at a 
wildland fire are spent trying to gather the geospatial information 
needed to accurately map the fire. While concerns with data 
availability and compatibility are often noted during fire incidents, 
these issues are also evident before and after fire incidents. For 
example, we recently reported that the five land management agencies 
did not know how effective their postfire emergency stabilization and 
rehabilitation treatments were because, among other reasons, local land 
units do not routinely collect comparable information.[Footnote 10] As 
a result of unavailable or incompatible data, decision makers often 
lack the timely, integrated information they need to make sound 
decisions in managing different aspects of wildland fire.

On a related note, the development and implementation of data standards 
is a well-recognized solution for addressing some of the problems 
mentioned above, but there are currently no nationally recognized 
geospatial data standards for use on fires. GIS specialists frequently 
cited a need for common, interagency geospatial data standards for use 
with fires. They noted that the land management agencies and states do 
not record information about fires--such as fire location, fire 
perimeter, or the date of different fire perimeters--in the same way.

System issues. In 1996, NWCG reported that there was a duplication of 
information systems and computer applications supporting wildland fire 
management, noting that agencies were using 15 different weather-
related software applications, 9 logistics applications, and 7 dispatch 
applications.[Footnote 11] Since that time, the number of applications 
has grown--as has the potential for duplication of effort. Duplicative 
systems not only waste limited funds, but they also make 
interoperability between systems more difficult.

This issue is complicated by the fact that there is no single, 
comprehensive inventory of information systems and applications that 
could be of use to others in the interagency wildland fire community. A 
single comprehensive inventory would allow the wildland fire community 
to identify and learn about available applications and tools, and to 
avoid duplicating efforts to develop new applications. We identified 
five different inventories of software applications--including 
information systems, models, and tools--that are currently being used 
in support of wildland fire management. While these listings are not 
limited to geospatial applications, many of the applications have 
geospatial components. The most comprehensive listing is an inventory 
managed by NWCG. This inventory identifies 199 applications used in 
support of wildland fire, but even this inventory is not complete. That 
is, it did not include 45 applications that were included in the other 
inventories. Additionally, it did not include 24 applications that we 
had identified. Appendix V provides information on applications with 
geospatial components.

Infrastructure issues. Many GIS specialists noted that there are 
problems in getting equipment, networking capabilities, and Internet 
access to the areas that need them during a fire. For example, at a 
recent fire in a remote location, these specialists reported that they 
were unable to produce needed information and maps because they had 
problems with networking capabilities. Again, this issue is critical 
during a fire, when incident teams try to set up a command center in a 
remote location. However, it is also an issue when federal regional 
managers try to obtain consistent information from the different land 
management agencies' field offices before or after fires. The majority 
of local field offices have equipment to support geospatial information 
and analysis, but some do not.

Staffing issues. GIS specialists noted that the training and 
qualifications of the GIS specialists who support fire incidents is not 
consistent. Specifically, officials noted that skills and 
qualifications vary widely among those who work with geographic 
information systems. For example, some GIS specialists are capable of 
interpreting infrared images as well as developing maps, but others are 
not. Some have experience working with GIS applications but are not 
specifically trained to develop GIS maps for fires.

Use of new products. While many commercial vendors are developing 
geospatial products and services that could be of use to the wildland 
fire community--including advanced satellite and aerial imaging; GIS 
software and equipment; and advanced mapping products, including 
analyses, visualization, and modeling--many have expressed concern that 
the wildland fire community is not aware of these advancements or has 
little funding for these products. Land managers acknowledged the value 
of many of these products, but noted that acquiring these products 
needs to be driven by business needs. Agency officials also expressed 
concern that the cost of these products and services can be prohibitive 
and that licensing restrictions could keep them from sharing the 
commercial data and products with others in the wildland fire 
community.

National Wildfire Coordinating Group Has Initiated Efforts to Address 
Some Geospatial Challenges, but Progress Has Been Slow and Not All 
Challenges Are Being Addressed:

Different NWCG teams (including the IRM working team, the IRM program 
management office, the IRM working team's geospatial task group, and 
the IRM working team's data administration working group) are 
undertaking efforts to address specific challenges to effectively using 
information technologies. Specifically:

* Focusing on geospatial data issues, NWCG teams are working to share 
geospatial data and to define geospatial data standards. To date, an 
NWCG team has established an Internet site where geospatial data can be 
provided and obtained. NWCG teams have also begun developing data 
standards for daily and final fire perimeters with a goal of 
implementing these standards across the land management agencies.

* Recognizing the large number of systems supporting fire management, 
an NWCG team is managing the development of five new interagency 
systems to replace several similar systems that are currently being 
used by different agencies. For example, the team has developed a 
resource ordering and status system to replace four existing systems 
and is developing an integrated system for tracking the qualifications 
of individuals assigned to fire incidents (such as incident commanders 
and firefighters), which should replace separate tracking systems that 
are currently used by the five land management agencies. NWCG is also 
working to improve the inventory of information systems and 
applications that are used to support wildland fire management. This 
team is seeking validation of the information already in the inventory 
and adding new items to the inventory as they become known.

* Focusing on the development of GIS specialists' skills, an ad hoc 
group not associated with NWCG developed a training course for GIS 
technical specialists who work on fires, to provide them a minimum set 
of qualifications, with the intent of obtaining a consistent level of 
GIS skills among the specialists. An NWCG team is evaluating this 
training for use throughout the wildland fire community. Also, this 
NWCG team has proposed a minimum set of qualifications for GIS 
specialists who work on fires.

However, progress on these geospatial initiatives has been slow. 
Although these initiatives have been under development for over 14 
months, senior NWCG IRM officials have not yet endorsed proposals for a 
data standard on fire perimeters, the GIS specialists' qualifications 
for incident support, or the GIS specialists' training. NWCG officials 
were unable to estimate when they would evaluate or implement these 
proposals; they explained that they have multiple competing priorities.

Further, these initiatives do not address all of the challenges to 
effectively using geospatial information technologies. The initiatives 
do not address issues associated with infrastructure and the use of new 
technologies, and they do not comprehensively address all of the issues 
with data, systems, and staffing. For example, other geospatial data 
standards are needed to achieve consistency in the geospatial data used 
to support wildland fire management.

Effective Interagency IT Management Could Help Address Challenges:

Effective interagency IT management could help address the challenges 
faced by the wildland fire community in using geospatial information 
and technologies. Such an approach could address the implementation and 
enforcement of national geospatial data standards for managing wildland 
fires, an interagency strategic approach to systems and infrastructure 
development, a plan for ensuring consistent equipment and training 
throughout the wildland fire community, and a thorough evaluation of 
user needs and opportunities for meeting those needs through new 
products and technologies.

Acknowledging many of the geospatial and information management 
challenges, in September 2002 the National Academy of Public 
Administration reported that a national information technology/
information management framework is needed to guide future development 
and deployment of systems and information sources to support more cost-
effective fire suppression.[Footnote 12] Such a framework would provide 
an architecture for systems, applications, data, and networks, based on 
user-identified needs. The academy recommended that the agencies 
involved work together under the guidance of the Wildland Fire 
Leadership Council to describe what the desired system and data sources 
should accomplish in fire management and how individual components and 
data sources can become functioning parts of the overall system. The 
academy also recommended that the framework provide uniform data 
policies and standards to ensure the interoperability needed among 
federal, state, and local systems to maximize the utility and 
maintenance of available geographic information.

National Wildfire Coordinating Group Plans to Improve Interagency IT 
Management, but Efforts Lack Senior-Level Endorsement and Detailed 
Plans and Milestones:

Three different teams within NWCG are planning initiatives to improve 
the interagency management of geospatial information and information 
resources and technology. However, these initiatives lack the senior-
level endorsement and detailed plans and milestones necessary for 
success.

Focusing specifically on geospatial technologies, the Geospatial Task 
Group (a subgroup of NWCG's IRM working team) has proposed developing 
an interagency strategic plan for using geospatial technologies to 
support wildland fire management. Officials proposed that this 
geospatial strategic plan would evaluate the use of technologies in 
support of the wildland fire mission, assess the need for these 
technologies, explore opportunities to improve these technologies, and 
contribute to developing an interagency geospatial infrastructure. 
However, NWCG has not approved funding for this initiative, and as a 
result, there is as yet no schedule for developing this geospatial 
strategic plan.

Focusing on IRM management, NWCG's IRM working team developed a draft 
IRM strategy to help guide information technology development and use 
by the interagency fire community. However, this plan has been in draft 
form since March 2002, and officials could not estimate when it would 
be finalized. Further, the draft plan includes high-level objectives, 
but does not include detailed action items or schedules for 
accomplishing these objectives. For example, the draft IRM strategy 
lists objectives such as leveraging existing technologies, 
incorporating emerging technologies, and developing and obtaining a 
workforce that is fully trained and skilled in the use of IRM 
applications. However, the plan does not identify any activities or 
schedules for accomplishing these objectives.

At a broader level, NWCG's IRM program management office plans to 
develop an interagency enterprise architecture to guide and integrate 
business operations for wildland fire management. According to federal 
guidance on developing enterprise architectures, one of the most 
important initial steps is to obtain and demonstrate senior-level 
support for the architecture effort.[Footnote 13] Another critical 
element is to demonstrate a clear plan, or roadmap, for developing the 
architecture. Such a plan would include critical steps, deliverables, 
and estimated time frames for the deliverables. Critical activities in 
the plan would include a description of the current IT environment 
(hardware, software, data, communications); an assessment of user needs 
and technological opportunities for meeting those needs; a target 
environment; and a transition plan to get to the target environment. 
Finally, for an enterprise architecture to be effective, it needs to be 
tied to investment processes and controls. That way, decision makers 
can ensure that new investments in technology are consistent with the 
target environment.

NWCG's IRM program management office is beginning to work on an 
interagency enterprise architecture. To date, the office has 
established a goal of developing an enterprise architecture for the 
interagency wildland fire community and has designated an IRM program 
manager, data architect, and applications architect to help build it. 
Further, the data and applications architects expect to be certified in 
the development of federal enterprise architectures by October 2003.

However, the planned interagency enterprise architecture lacks senior-
level support, detailed plans and milestones, and a link to investment 
control processes. The Wildland Fire Leadership Council was established 
in April 2002 to provide senior-level leadership in the wildland fire 
community. However, the Leadership Council has not formally endorsed 
NWCG's interagency enterprise architecture effort. Without this senior-
level support, the interagency wildland fire community runs the risk 
that its components will continue to invest in duplicative "stovepiped" 
systems and will perpetuate the existing situation of limited 
interoperability and unnecessarily costly operations.

Additionally, although the IRM program management office has 
established the goal of developing an enterprise architecture, it has 
not yet defined exactly what it will deliver and by when. NWCG 
officials could not provide estimates for when they would develop a 
thorough understanding of the current "as is" interagency environment, 
identify user needs and technological opportunities for meeting those 
needs, identify a target architecture, or complete a plan for 
transitioning to that target architecture. NWCG officials explained 
that "to successfully implement anything across two departments, five 
federal agencies, and 50 states is difficult and takes years of 
planning and preparation.":

Further, once it is developed, it is not clear how this enterprise 
architecture would be linked to the interagency geospatial strategic 
plan, the interagency IRM strategy, or the different agencies' 
investment control processes.

Given the complexity of interagency wildland fire operations, it is 
clear that effectively managing IT (including geospatial IT) in support 
of the wildland fire mission is a challenging task. However, it is also 
clear that without senior-level endorsement and clear plans for 
achieving results, efforts to address geospatial IT challenges and to 
improve IT management may never be successful. Until effective 
management of information resources and technology in support of the 
wildland fire mission becomes a management priority, the wildland fire 
community will likely continue to face significant challenges in 
effectively using geospatial technologies.

New National Efforts to Improve the Use of Geospatial Information Are 
Promising, but Challenges to Effective Data Sharing Remain:

Effectively using geospatial information is of interest beyond the 
wildland fire management community. Detailed, accurate, and accessible 
geospatial information is critical in addressing homeland security and 
national preparedness, supporting our transportation infrastructure, 
managing natural resources, and performing the national census--among 
other activities--and the federal government has long recognized 
problems in duplicative collections of geospatial data.

We recently reported that the federal government has tried for years to 
reduce duplicative geospatial data collection by coordinating 
geospatial activities both within and outside the federal 
government.[Footnote 14] In 1953, the Bureau of the Budget first issued 
its Circular A-16, encouraging expeditious surveying and mapping 
activities across all levels of government and avoidance of duplicative 
efforts. In 1990, the Office of Management and Budget revised this 
circular to establish a Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), 
chaired by the Department of the Interior, to promote coordinated use, 
sharing, and dissemination of geospatial data nationwide. In 1994, an 
executive order called for coordinating geographic data acquisition and 
access through a National Spatial Data Infrastructure.[Footnote 15] The 
order defined this infrastructure as the technology, policies, 
standards, and human resources necessary to acquire, process, store, 
distribute, and improve the utilization of geospatial data. In 2002, 
the Office of Management and Budget issued revised guidance for 
agencies that create, use, or store geospatial data and established a 
coordinated approach to the National Spatial Data 
Infrastructure.[Footnote 16] Additionally, the E-Government Act of 2002 
called for common protocols for GIS in order to reduce redundant data 
collection and information, and to promote collaboration and use of 
standards for government geographic information.[Footnote 17] Most 
recently, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance on 
implementing the act.[Footnote 18]

Various efforts are now under way to implement this guidance and 
legislation. Under the framework of the National Spatial Data 
Infrastructure, the FGDC coordinates efforts to develop national 
standards for geospatial data, develop a national framework for sharing 
geospatial data collections, and establish a portal on the Internet--
called the Geospatial One-Stop initiative--for accessing geospatial 
information.

The status of these efforts follows.

* Geospatial Data Standards. FGDC is developing standards for data 
documentation, collection, and exchange so that data can be shared 
across state and local boundaries on many different hardware platforms 
and with many different software programs. To date, FGDC has 
established 20 different standards, including standards for classifying 
vegetation and for documenting information about the collected data, 
called metadata.

* National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse. The clearinghouse is a 
decentralized system of Internet servers that contain field-level 
descriptions or metadata of available digital geospatial data. The 
clearinghouse allows individual agencies, consortia, and 
geographically defined communities to coordinate and promote the use of 
their available geospatial data. Currently, the FGDC Clearinghouse 
server connects to over 250 nodes around the world.

* Geospatial One-Stop. One of 25 high-profile Office of Management and 
Budget-sponsored e-government initiatives, this project builds upon the 
data clearinghouse to develop an Internet portal for one-stop access to 
geospatial data. This effort is expected to develop national geospatial 
data standards, increase the inventory of data holdings, and encourage 
greater coordination among federal, state, and local agencies about 
existing and planned geospatial projects. The Department of the 
Interior expects to complete this initiative in early 2004.

While these initiatives hold promise, much remains to be done to 
achieve effective sharing of geospatial data. We recently reported that 
progress has been made on these initiatives, but that achieving the 
goals of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure remains a formidable 
challenge.[Footnote 19] Despite a series of mandates and directives 
over many years requiring the use of standards and cooperation among 
federal agencies and other entities, not all governmental entities are 
fully cooperating on a nationwide basis. As a result, significant 
geographic data standardization and data sharing have not been 
realized. We also noted that a much more substantial effort will be 
required to attain the vision of seamless integration of GIS data 
nationwide. Specifically, existing draft standards may need further 
revision, and more extensive coordination efforts may be required to 
ensure broad adoption of the standards at all levels of government. 
Further, attaining this goal is likely to require a continuing effort 
over an extended period of time. Clearly, compliance with the mandate 
of the E-Government Act will advance the goal of obtaining standardized 
geographic data.

Although these national efforts are not at the level of detail that the 
wildland fire community needs for fire-related geospatial data 
standards, it will be important that the efforts are coordinated. As 
the interagency wildland fire community moves forward with its plans to 
develop an overall strategy for geospatial information technology and 
data standards, it will be important to incorporate national data 
standards, to participate in national initiatives such as the 
Geospatial One-Stop, and to comply with the purpose and requirements of 
the E-Government Act.

Conclusions:

The federal wildland fire management community is using a variety of 
different geospatial technologies for such activities as identifying 
dangerous fuels, assessing fire risks, detecting and fighting fires, 
and restoring fire-damaged lands. These technologies run the gamut from 
satellite and aerial imaging, to the Global Positioning System, to 
geographic information systems, to specialized fire models.

Local land managers and incident teams often acquire, collect, and 
develop geospatial information and technologies to meet their specific 
needs, resulting in a hodgepodge of incompatible and duplicative data 
and tools. This problem is echoed throughout the fire community: Those 
who work with different aspects of fire management commonly cite 
concerns with unavailable or incompatible geospatial data, duplicative 
systems, lack of equipment and infrastructure to access geospatial 
information, inconsistency in the training of GIS specialists, and 
ineffective use of new products and technologies. These challenges 
illustrate the need for a new, integrated, strategic approach to 
managing information systems and data in the wildland fire community. 
Different teams within the National Wildfire Coordinating Group have 
proposed developing an interagency geospatial strategy to help define 
and plan how to address geospatial challenges, drafted an interagency 
IRM strategy to identify high-level goals, and proposed developing an 
interagency enterprise architecture to more effectively manage 
information resources and technology. However, the plan to develop a 
geospatial strategy has not been approved, and the draft IRM strategy 
lacks detailed activities and schedules for accomplishing key 
objectives. Further, the NWCG team responsible for developing the 
architecture has not yet begun the effort, and the initiative lacks the 
senior management endorsement, the detailed plans and schedules, and 
the link to an investment control process that are critical to any 
architecture's success.

Looking beyond the wildland fire community, effective use of geospatial 
information is a national priority. The federal government has been 
working for years to use geospatial data more effectively and 
efficiently. New initiatives to develop nationwide standards, a 
geospatial data clearinghouse, and an Internet portal for accessing 
geospatial data holdings offer much promise. However, significant 
challenges remain. It will be important, as NWCG moves forward with its 
efforts to develop an interagency geospatial strategy, an interagency 
IRM strategy, and an interagency enterprise architecture, that these 
efforts comply with the requirements of the E-Government Act and 
incorporate national standards for geospatial data.

Recommendations:

In order to better manage the use of geospatial information in support 
of wildland fire management, we recommend that the Secretaries of 
Agriculture and the Interior direct the Wildland Fire Leadership 
Council to endorse and oversee the National Wildfire Coordinating 
Group's efforts to develop an interagency geospatial strategy for 
effectively using geospatial information technologies in all phases of 
wildland fire management. We also recommend that this geospatial 
strategy:

* address challenges to effectively using geospatial technologies, 
including issues associated with data, systems, infrastructure, 
staffing, and the use of new products;

* establish deliverables and milestones for completing key initiatives; 
and:

* be incorporated in interagency efforts to improve IT management, 
including the interagency IRM strategy and the interagency enterprise 
architecture effort.

In order to ensure effective interagency IT management, we recommend 
that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior immediately 
endorse development of an interagency IRM strategy and an enterprise 
architecture for wildland fire management. Further, we recommend that 
the Secretaries ensure senior-level oversight by directing the Wildland 
Fire Leadership Council to oversee the National Wildfire Coordinating 
Group's efforts to:

* establish detailed plans and schedules for implementing the 
interagency IRM strategy for wildland fire management;

* establish a detailed plan for developing the interagency enterprise 
architecture for wildland fire management, and ensure that it includes 
clear interim steps and implementation milestones;

* ensure that the interagency geospatial strategic plan and the 
interagency IRM strategy are integrated with the enterprise 
architecture for wildland fire management;

* establish a link between the architecture and the investment control 
processes at the land management agencies; and:

* ensure that the architecture incorporates E-Government Act 
requirements and national standards for geospatial data.

Agency Comments:

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture 
and the Interior for review and comment. The departments provided a 
consolidated, written response to our draft report, signed by the Under 
Secretary, Natural Resources and the Environment, Department of 
Agriculture, and the Assistant Secretary, Policy, Management and 
Budget, Department of the Interior. The departments' response is 
included in appendix VI of this report. The departments agreed with the 
report's conclusions and recommendations, and noted that developing an 
interagency IRM strategy and interagency enterprise architecture is an 
ambitious undertaking. They stated that it makes sense to incorporate 
our recommendations into ongoing agency and departmental e-government 
enterprise architecture strategies, and that doing so will enable them 
to modernize various lines of business in manageable components. The 
departments also stated that as a result of these initiatives, the 
agencies will gain incremental integration of information and shared 
use of information technology, but noted that these improvements will 
be both time and resource intensive.

The departments commented that our findings will be discussed by the 
Wildland Fire Leadership Council at their October 2003 meeting and 
that, based on that discussion and direction provided by the Council, 
staff from the two departments will be tasked with developing an action 
plan to address our findings and the broader issue of geospatial needs 
for wildland fire management. The departments also stated that the 
recommendations we provided will help the departments move forward to 
establish a better coordinated, interagency architecture for geospatial 
wildland fire management information requirements. The departments also 
provided technical corrections, which we have incorporated as 
appropriate.

We are sending notification of this report to the Chairman and Ranking 
Minority Members of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, 
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources; the Subcommittee on 
Forests and Forest Health, House Committee on Resources; and other 
interested congressional committees. We will also send notification of 
this report 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, and the Fish and 
Wildlife Service; the Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Indian Affairs; 
the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other interested 
parties. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on 
GAO's Web site at www.gao.gov.

If you have any questions on matters discussed in this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-9286 or Colleen Phillips, Assistant Director, 
at (202) 512-6326. We can also be reached by E-mail at pownerd@gao.gov 
and phillipsc@gao.gov, respectively. Other contacts and key 
contributors to this report are listed in appendix VII.

David A. Powner 
Director (Acting), Information Technology Management Issues:

Signed by David A. Powner: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology:

Our objectives were to (1) identify key geospatial information 
technologies for addressing different aspects of wildland fire 
management; (2) summarize key challenges to the effective use of 
geospatial technologies in wildland fire management; and (3) identify 
national opportunities to improve the effective use of geospatial 
technologies. To accomplish these objectives, we focused our review on 
five key federal agencies that are responsible for wildland fire 
management on public lands: the Department of Agriculture's Forest 
Service and the Department of the Interior's National Park Service, 
Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of 
Indian Affairs. To address the final objective, we also reviewed 
national efforts to improve the use of geospatial information by the 
Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Geographic Data 
Committee (FGDC).

To identify key geospatial information technologies for addressing 
different aspects of wildland fire management, we assessed policies, 
plans, and reports on wildland fire management and technical documents 
on geospatial technologies. We assessed information on Forest Service 
and Interior efforts to develop and use geospatial technologies. We 
also interviewed officials with the Forest Service and the Interior, 
interagency organizations, commercial vendors, and selected states to 
determine the characteristics and uses of different geospatial 
technologies in supporting different phases of wildland fire 
management. In addition, we met with officials of other federal 
agencies, including the Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological 
Survey, the Department of Defense's National Imagery and Mapping 
Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the 
Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, and the Department of Homeland Security's Federal 
Emergency Management Agency, to identify their efforts to develop 
geospatial information products in support of wildland fire management.

To compile a list of geospatial applications used in support of 
wildland fire management, we identified five inventories of software 
models, applications, and tools used to support wildland fire 
activities. We combined the five inventories to compile a more complete 
list of applications, and we added geospatial applications that were 
not on any of the inventories. We learned about these other 
applications through discussions with agency officials and by searching 
Forest Service and Interior Web sites. Additionally, Forest Service and 
Interior officials provided input on which applications have geospatial 
components and provided supporting information where it was available. 
We did not validate the accuracy of the information in the five 
separate inventories.

To summarize key challenges to the effective use and sharing of 
geospatial technologies, we reviewed key reports and studies on these 
challenges. These include the following:

Burchfield, James A., Theron A. Miller, Lloyd Queen, Joe Frost, Dorothy 
Albright, and David DelSordo. Investigation of Geospatial Support of 
Incident Management. National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis at the 
University of Montana. November 25, 2002.

Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, Disaster Management Support 
Group. The Use of Earth Observing Satellites for Hazard Support: 
Assessments & Scenarios. National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration, n.d.

Department of Agriculture (Forest Service) and Department of Interior. 
Developing an Interagency, Landscape-scale Fire Planning Analysis and 
Budget Tool. n.d. [December 2001].

Fairbanks, Frank, Elizabeth Hill, Patrick Kelly, Lyle Laverty, Keith F. 
Mulrooney, Charlie Philpot, and Charles Wise. Wildfire Suppression: 
Strategies for Containing Costs. Washington, D.C.: National Academy of 
Public Administration, September 2002.

Fairbanks, Frank, Henry Gardner, Elizabeth Hill, Keith Mulrooney, 
Charles Philpot, Karl Weick, and Charles Wise. Managing Wildland Fire: 
Enhancing Capacity to Implement the Federal Interagency Policy. 
Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Public Administration, December 
2001.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wildland Fire 
Management: Some Information Needs and Opportunities. Working paper, 
National Hazards Information Strategy, July 2002.

National Wildfire Coordinating Group. Information Resource Management 
Strategy Project: Wildland Fire Business Model. National Interagency 
Fire Center. August 1996.

National Wildfire Coordinating Group, Information Resource Management 
Working Team, Geospatial Task Group. Geospatial Technology for Incident 
Support: A White Paper. April 12, 2002.

We also interviewed federal officials from interagency wildland fire 
groups, including the national fire directors, the National Wildfire 
Coordinating Group's (NWCG) Information Resource Management (IRM) 
working team, NWCG's IRM program management office, the IRM working 
team's geospatial task group, and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council 
to discuss challenges and ongoing efforts to address these challenges. 
In addition, we reviewed postfire reports on the Hayman, Biscuit, and 
Cerro Grande fires to identify how geospatial technologies were used on 
these fires and to evaluate any challenges the incident teams may have 
encountered in using these technologies. We attended federal and 
commercial conferences on geospatial information technologies, 
interviewed representatives from selected states and commercial 
vendors, and observed group discussions on challenges in effectively 
using these technologies and plans for addressing them.

To identify national opportunities to improve the effective use of 
geospatial technologies to address wildland fire management, we 
identified key national efforts to set geospatial data standards, to 
reduce duplication of effort, and to increase collaboration among the 
federal government, states, and private entities. Specifically, we 
evaluated the history of legislation and guidance from the Office of 
Management and Budget on geospatial information, and identified the 
status and plans of efforts under the National Spatial Data 
Infrastructure, including FGDC's efforts to develop geospatial data 
standards, a data clearinghouse, and an Internet portal (called 
Geospatial One-Stop). We discussed the status of these initiatives with 
the Office of Management and Budget and committee officials. We also 
reviewed the land management agencies' progress in implementing and 
enforcing key elements of these national efforts by assessing the FGDC 
progress reports and by determining the status of the agencies' efforts 
to adopt geospatial data policies.

We conducted our review at the federal agencies' headquarters in 
Washington, D.C.; the Forest Service's Remote Sensing Applications 
Center and Geospatial Service and Technology Center in Salt Lake City, 
Utah; the U.S. Geological Survey's Rocky Mountain Mapping Center in 
Denver, Colorado; the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Resources 
Observation Systems Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; the 
National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho; and the Forest 
Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory in 
Missoula, Montana. We conducted our work between October 2002 and 
September 2003 in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards.

Appendix II: Major Wildland Fire Policies, Plans, Reports, and 
Initiatives:

The following table provides a chronology of the policies, plans, 
reports, and initiatives that form the national approach to wildland 
fire management over the past decade.

[See PDF for image]

Sources: Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture.

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

[End of table]

Appendix III: Federal, State, and Local Entities with Land Management, 
Technology, or Other Fire-Related Roles:

Under the National Fire Plan, five federal land management agencies 
lead the efforts to develop wildland fire policies and initiatives. 
However, many other federal agencies and nonfederal associations also 
have a role in wildland fire management. The federal entities include 
agencies that manage other federal lands; agencies that research, 
manage, or use technologies that can aid in wildland fire management; 
and agencies with other fire-related responsibilities. The nonfederal 
entities include key state, local, and international organizations, 
which collaborate with the federal agencies on wildland fire 
management. Key federal, state, and local organizations and their roles 
in wildland fire management are identified below.

Federal Departments and Agencies:

Five federal agencies have key responsibilities for managing more than 
90 percent of all federal lands.[Footnote 20]

* The Department of Agriculture's Forest Service manages 191 million 
acres of national forests and grasslands; its mission is to sustain the 
health, diversity, and productivity of these areas to meet the needs of 
present and future generations.

* The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management manages 
261 million acres of public domain lands. Its mission is to sustain the 
health, diversity, and productivity of these public lands for the use 
and enjoyment of present and future generations. Most of the land 
managed by Bureau of Land Management is located west of the 
Mississippi.

* The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs administers 
and manages 56 million acres of land that is held in trust by the 
United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska natives. 
Its mission includes developing forestlands, leasing assets on these 
lands, directing agricultural programs, protecting water and land 
rights, developing and maintaining infrastructure, providing for 
health, human services, and economic development.

* The Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service manages 93 
million acres of national wildlife refuges and wetland areas. Its 
mission is to work with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, 
wildlife, and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of 
the American people.

* The Department of the Interior's National Park Service administers 
over 80 million acres of national parks, monuments, historic sites, 
natural areas, and other federal lands. Its mission is to preserve the 
natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system 
for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of present and future 
generations.

In addition to the five federal land management agencies, three other 
federal departments manage extensive tracts of federal land.

* The Department of Defense manages about 38 million acres at bases and 
installations around the country and has fire management responsibility 
for these lands.

* The Bureau of Reclamation manages about 9 million acres of land.

* The Department of Energy manages about 2.4 million acres of land.

Other federal entities research, manage, or use technologies that can 
aid in wildland fire management.

* The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, through its Earth 
Science Enterprise research and development efforts, partners with 
federal agencies with fire management responsibilities to provide 
satellite remote sensing images and other science and data products.

* The Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration operates satellites, manages the daily processing and 
distribution of data and images produced by these satellites; conducts 
research, develops innovative technologies and observation systems, and 
prepares weather and fire weather forecasts--all of which provide 
useful information to fire management officials who plan and manage 
wildland fires.

* The Department of Defense's National Imagery and Mapping Agency 
provides imagery and geospatial information in support of the national 
security objectives of the United States. At the request of the 
National Interagency Fire Center, through the Forest Service, the 
agency uses multiple sources of imagery and geospatial data to provide 
map products to assist the fire community with fire suppression 
efforts.

* The Department of the Interior's U.S. Geological Survey contributes 
to wildland fire management by conducting fire-related research to meet 
the varied needs of the fire management community and to understand the 
role of fire in the landscape. This research includes fire management 
support, studies of postfire effects, and a wide range of studies on 
fire history and ecology. In addition, the U.S. Geological Survey 
supports the wildland fire community by providing earth science 
information through (1) receipt and archiving of remotely sensed land 
data and (2) geographical scientific information that describes and 
interprets the nation's landscape.

Other federal entities also have fire-related responsibilities.

* The Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management 
Agency, the lead agency for emergency management in the federal 
government, provides financial assistance for the mitigation, 
management, and control of fires burning on publicly or privately owned 
forests or grasslands. The agency also provides maps of geologic and 
flood hazards to support fire management.

* The Environmental Protection Agency develops and enforces regulations 
regarding the environment, including the effects of wildland fire on 
air quality.

State, Local, and Other Associations and Committees:

Many state, local, international, and private organizations participate 
in wildland fire management.

* The National Association of State Foresters, the largest nonfederal 
firefighting partner, is a nonprofit organization that represents the 
directors of the state forestry agencies from all 50 states, 8 U.S. 
territories, and the District of Columbia. The state foresters provide 
management assistance and protection services for over two-thirds of 
the nation's forests. The association is a member of both the National 
Wildfire Coordinating Group and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council.

* The Intertribal Timber Council is a nationwide consortium of Indian 
Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, and individuals dedicated to 
improving the management of natural resources of importance to Native 
American communities. The Council is a member of both the National 
Wildfire Coordinating Group and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council.

* The National Fire Protection Association's mission is to reduce the 
worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by 
providing and advocating scientifically based consensus codes and 
standards, research, training, and education. The association's 
membership totals more than 75,000 individuals from around the world 
and more than 80 national trade and professional organizations.

* The Fire Control Officers Group is an umbrella organization 
consisting of fire control officers from the forest fire management 
agencies in all Australian states and New Zealand, with additional 
representation from industry, research, and education. The group 
develops and maintains international relationships with fire management 
agencies in the United States.

* The National Governors' Association deals with issues of public 
policy and governance relating to the states. The association's ongoing 
mission is to support the work of the governors by providing a 
bipartisan forum to help shape and implement national policy and to 
solve state problems.

* The National Association of Counties seeks to represent the nation's 
3,066 counties; its membership totals more than 2,000 counties, 
representing over 80 percent of the nation's population. As a member of 
the Wildland Fire Leadership Council and in working with the National 
Association of State Foresters, the association is a lead collaborator 
on such wildland fire issues as (1) assessing the training, equipment, 
and safety awareness of and services provided by rural, volunteer, and 
other firefighters who work in the wildland urban interface and (2) 
annually selecting fuel treatment and ecosystem restoration projects 
within jurisdictions.

* The Western Governors' Association, composed of the governors of 18 
states and 3 islands in the Pacific, addresses important policy and 
governance issues in the West--in particular wildland fire issues, 
because of the prevalence and severity of fires and grassland fires in 
these states.

* The International Association of Fire Chiefs is a network of more 
than 12,000 chief fire and emergency officers. The association's 
mission is to provide leadership to chief fire officers and managers of 
emergency services organizations. The International Association of Fire 
Chiefs also prepares awareness and training information on the use of 
minimum impact suppression activities.

* The National Volunteer Fire Council, a nonprofit membership 
association, represents the interest of the volunteer fire, emergency 
medical, and rescue services.

* The International Association of Wildland Fire is a nonprofit, 
professional association representing members of the global wildland 
fire community. The purpose of the association is to facilitate 
communication and provide leadership for the wildland fire community.

* The Nature Conservancy's mission is to preserve the plants, animals, 
and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on earth 
by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. One of the 
Nature Conservancy's five priority conservation initiatives is to play 
a leading role in restoring fire-altered ecosystems by working to 
counter the threats posed to both human and natural communities where 
the role of fire is severely out of balance.

* The Wilderness Society seeks to save, protect, and restore America's 
wilderness areas through the combination of scientific expertise, 
analysis, advocacy, and education. The Wilderness Society's Wildland 
Fire Program is an interdisciplinary program designed to return fire to 
fire-dependent ecosystems in a socially acceptable manner.

Appendix IV: Remote Sensing Systems:

Remote sensing systems observe data in one or more bands of the 
electromagnetic spectrum, including the visible, near-infrared, mid-
infrared, thermal infrared, and microwave bands. Data from different 
bands provide different kinds of information. For example, data 
observed in the thermal infrared band can identify heat sources that 
are not observable in the visible band of the electromagnetic spectrum. 
When data are collected from multiple bands or from multiple channels 
within a band, a more sophisticated analysis can be performed.

Remote sensors are often characterized by the type of observations they 
perform and their resulting products. Common types of sensors include 
panchromatic imaging sensors, multispectral imaging sensors, 
hyperspectral imaging sensors, radio detection and ranging (radar) 
sensors, and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) sensors. A definition 
of each type of sensor follows.

* Panchromatic imaging sensors collect data in a single band of the 
electromagnetic spectrum. These data are then processed to provide a 
black and white image.

* Multispectral imaging sensors collect data in multiple, 
noncontiguous, wide-wavelength bands, which are then combined to create 
color images.

* Hyperspectral imaging sensors collect data in multiple, contiguous, 
narrow-wavelength bands. Because different materials absorb and reflect 
light differently, analysis of detailed hyperspectral data can identify 
different materials, minerals, and species.

* Radar sensors emit a high-frequency radio wave to determine a remote 
object's velocity, position, or other characteristic by analyzing the 
radio wave reflected from the remote object. Radar sensors can acquire 
images through clouds, fog, and darkness.

* LIDAR sensors emit a light beam and analyze the reflected and 
scattered light that is returned to the collection instrument. This 
measured change enables LIDAR to penetrate a forest canopy to map the 
floor and can aid in the determination of topographic elevations.

Remote sensing systems can be placed on satellite and aerial platforms. 
These platforms can be government-owned or commercial. Currently, there 
are numerous government-owned and commercial remote sensing systems--
used on both satellite and aerial platforms. Table 2 identifies 
characteristics of several different remote sensing systems that are 
currently operational. Key characteristics that help distinguish one 
system from another include image resolution (the size of the objects 
that can be depicted in an image) and revisit rate (the rate at which a 
platform returns to an area).

Table 2: Characteristics of Selected Remote Sensing Systems:

[See PDF for image]

Sources: Forest Service, Remote Sensing Applications Center, GAO.

[End of table]

Appendix V: Examples of Applications with Geospatial Components 
Supporting Wildland Fire Management:

The following tables provide examples of different applications with 
geospatial information components that are used in support of wildland 
fire management activities. Table 3 provides examples of operational 
applications, and table 4 provides examples of developmental 
applications.

Table 3: Examples of Operational Applications:

[See PDF for image]

Sources: NWCG, FS, BLM, GAO.

[End of table]

Table 4: Examples of Developmental Applications:

[See PDF for image]

Sources: NWCG, FS, BLM, GAO.

[End of table]

Appendix VI: Comments from the Departments of Agriculture and the 
Interior:

THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE	THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR:

August 21, 2003:

David A. Powner:

Director (Acting), Information Technology Management Issues:

United States General Accounting Office 441 G. Street N. W.

Washington, D.C. 20548:

Dear Director Powner:

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the draft copy 
of GAO-03-1047, "Geospatial Information; Technologies Hold Promise for 
Wildland Fire Management, but Challenges Remain.":

Overall, the Departments agree with the report conclusions and 
recommendations. Minor factual and technical corrections were 
identified and conveyed to the GAO investigators during conference 
calls on August 20, 2003, for the Department of the Interior and on 
August 21, 2003, for the Department of Agriculture.

In reference to the conclusions and recommendations provided in the 
report, we offer the following comments:

* The GAO recommendations involve some ambitious undertakings, such as 
developing an interagency IRM strategy and interagency enterprise 
architecture. Both of these significantly support not only wildland 
fire management but also every other line of business in which the 
agencies and Departments are involved. It makes sense to incorporate 
the GAO recommendations into ongoing agency and Departmental e-Gov 
enterprise architecture strategies. This would enable us to modernize 
our various lines of business in manageable components, using 
enterprise architecture as a framework and tool. As a result, agencies 
would gain incremental enterprise-wide integration of information and 
shared use of information technology. These enhancements will, however, 
be both time and resource intensive.

* While the lack of comprehensive Information Technology (IT) and 
enterprise architecture contribute as potential barriers to more 
effective use of geospatial applications, experience demonstrates that 
core issues also include data availability and associated funding 
mechanisms. The use or non-use of specific technologies is not the 
issue. The 
central concern is whether the delivery of appropriate information can 
be made in a timely, cost effective manner to address specific business 
driven needs.

* Information technology and geospatial information management have 
evolved both independently of and within wildland fire management. The 
successful use of geospatial technologies in wildland fire management 
requires the existence of basic geospatial technologies, data, and 
skills within land management agencies. Geospatial information supports 
all disciplines within these agencies. The applicability and utility of 
these tools for aiding in decision-making and achieving wildland fire 
management objectives makes them essential.

Inconsistencies among agencies in terms of data content, availability, 
systems, and infrastructure are often beyond the control of the 
agencies' wildland fire management programs. This is particularly true 
with data standards. Wildland fire perimeter data standards will be 
easy to complete compared to interagency standards for roads, 
vegetation, and other crucial wildland fire mission data. There must be 
disciplined, purposeful cooperation outside of wildland fire management 
programs within the agencies, as well as with state and local 
governments, to have effective geospatial support for wildland fire 
management.

* Most of the recommendations listed in the report are currently under 
consideration by the wildland fire agencies. These GAO findings will be 
presented to the Wildland Fire Leadership Council at their October 
2003, meeting. Based upon discussions and:

direction provided by the Council, staff from the two departments will 
be tasked with developing an action plan to address the GAO findings 
and the broader issue of geospatial needs for wildland fire management.

The Departments continually evaluate new and emerging technologies in 
their attempt to apply the best practices to support their missions. 
This is particularly true in the wildland fire management program where 
public and firefighter safety and the health of forests and rangelands 
is highly dependant upon multiple layers of data that must be quickly 
and accurately translated into information for decision making.	In this 
effort, the wildland fire management community has been a leader. The 
recommendations provided by the GAO will help the Departments move 
forward to establish a better coordinated, interagency architecture for 
geospatial wildland fire management information requirements.

P. LYNN SCARLETT:
Assistant Secretary
Policy, Management and Budget: 
U.S. Department of the Interior: 

Mark Rey: 
Under Secretary
Natural Resources and the Environment: 
U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

Appendix VII: GAO Contacts and Acknowledgments:

GAO Contacts:

David A. Powner, (202) 512-9286, (303) 572-7316 or pownerd@gao.gov:

Colleen M. Phillips, (202) 512-6326 or phillipsc@gao.gov:

Acknowledgements:

In addition to those named above, Barbara Collier, Neil Doherty, Joanne 
Fiorino, Richard Hung, Chester Joy, Anjalique Lawrence, Tammi Nguyen, 
Megan Secrest, Karl Seifert, Lisa Warnecke, and Glenda Wright made key 
contributions to this report.

Glossary:

The following terms are used in the geospatial and wildland fire 
communities.

Aerial Photography: 
Taking photographs from the air, such as a photograph 
of part of the Earth's surface, with a camera mounted in an aircraft; 
usually involves taking strips of overlapping prints for mapping 
purposes.

Burn Severity: 
A qualitative assessment of the heat pulse directed toward 
the ground during a fire. Burn severity relates to soil heating, large 
fuel and duff consumption, consumption of the litter and organic layer 
beneath trees and isolated shrubs, and mortality of buried plant parts.

Burned Area Rehabilitation: 
The full range of postfire activities to rehabilitate and 
restore fire-damaged lands, including protection of public health and 
safety.

Digital Aerial Data: 
A computer representation of imagery acquired from 
an aircraft. This type of data is produced either by digitizing aerial 
photographs or through direct acquisition by electronic sensors such as 
digital cameras or Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) thermal imaging 
sensors.

Duff: The layer of decomposing organic materials lying below the litter 
layer of freshly fallen twigs, needles, and leaves and immediately 
above the mineral soil.

Fire Prevention: Activities, including education, engineering, 
enforcement and administration, that are directed at reducing the 
number of wildfires, the costs of suppression, and fire-caused damages 
to resources and property.

Fire Suppression: All work and activities connected with fire-
extinguishing operations, beginning with discovery and continuing until 
the fire is completely extinguished.

Fuel: Combustible material.

Fuel Condition: 
Relative flammability of fuel as determined by fuel type 
and environmental conditions.

Fuel Reduction: 
Manipulation or removal of fuels to reduce the likelihood 
of ignition, to lessen the potential damage and resistance to control, 
or both (e.g., lopping, chipping, crushing, piling, and burning).

Fuel Treatment: (See fuel reduction.):

Geographic or Geospatial Information: 
Information about a phenomenon that can be referenced to a specific 
location relative to the earth's surface.

Geographic Information System (GIS): A system of computer software, 
hardware, and data used to manipulate, analyze, and graphically 
display a potentially wide array of information associated with 
geographic locations. 
Typically, a GIS is used for handling maps of one kind or another. 
These maps might be represented as several different layers, where each 
layer holds data about a particular kind of feature (e.g., roads). Each 
feature is linked to a position on the graphical image of a map.

Geographic or Geospatial Information Technology: A broad term 
encompassing all forms of technology to gather, display, sample, and 
process geographic or geospatial information, including in particular 
GIS, remote sensing, and use of the Global Positioning System.

Global Positioning System (GPS): A system of navigational satellites 
operated by the U.S. Department of Defense and available for civilian 
use. The system can track objects anywhere in the world with an 
accuracy of approximately 40 feet.

Hyperspectral Imaging: Type of imaging that records many tens of bands 
of imagery at very narrow bandwidths.

Infrared Imaging: Producing images using the thermal infrared spectral 
band; used for fire detection, mapping, and hotspot identification.

Initial Attack: The actions taken by the first responders to arrive at 
a wildfire to protect lives and property, and prevent further extension 
of the fire.

LIDAR (From "light detection and ranging."): An instrument capable of 
measuring distance and direction to an object by emitting timed pulses 
of light in a measured direction based on the time between when a pulse 
is emitted and when its echo is received. Three-dimensional information 
is computed by relating these distances and direction measurements to 
the location and orientation of the instrument. Airborne LIDAR 
instruments are used to develop three-dimensional data, such as digital 
elevation models, tree and building heights, and feature geometry.

Multispectral Imaging: Acquiring optical images in more than one 
spectral band.

Preparedness: Condition or degree of being ready to cope with a 
potential fire situation.

Prescribed Fire: Controlled application of fire to wildland fuels, in 
either their natural or modified state, under specified environmental 
conditions, which allows the fire to be confined to a predetermined 
area and produces the fire behavior and fire characteristics required 
to attain planned fire treatment and resource management objectives.

Presuppression: Activities in advance of fire occurrence to ensure 
effective suppression action. Includes planning the organization, 
recruiting and training, procuring equipment and supplies, maintaining 
fire equipment and fire control improvements, and negotiating 
cooperative or mutual aid agreements.

Prevention: Activities directed at reducing the incidence of fires, 
including public education, law enforcement, personal contact, and 
reduction of fuel hazards (fuels management).

Radar(From "radio detection and ranging."): An instrument that emits a 
narrow beam of electromagnetic pulses (radio waves) in a specific 
direction and measures the time, intensity, or other characteristics of 
the energy that returns from targets or objects. Radar imagery can be 
obtained at night or through clouds and smoke. Radar images provide a 
unique visual impression, and advanced analysis of radar imagery 
usually requires specific experience, knowledge, and facilities.

Rehabilitation: The activities necessary to repair damage or 
disturbance caused by a wildfire or the wildfire suppression activity.

Remote Sensing: Process of determining properties of objects without 
contact, usually by measuring and recording images based on the 
electromagnetic energy that has interacted with the objects. Remote 
sensing also involves the manipulation of images to derive useful 
information. Remote sensing traditionally involves aerial photography 
but now includes many electronic sensors on both airborne and space-
based platforms.

Satellite: A space-based platform for sensors that measure, image, 
receive, and transmit data from an orbital path above the earth.

Spatial Resolution: Spatial resolution is a measure of the size of the 
smallest feature that can be distinguished in an image. That is, in a 
30-meter resolution image, one could discern objects 30 meters and 
larger. Images with smaller discernable objects are considered to have 
higher resolutions.

Suppression: All the work of extinguishing or confining a fire, 
beginning with its discovery.

Thermal Imaging: (See infrared imaging.):

Wildfire: A fire occurring on wildland that is not meeting management 
objectives and thus requires a suppression response.

Wildland: An area in which development is essentially nonexistent, 
except for roads, railroads, power lines, and similar transportation 
features, and structures, if any, are widely scattered.

Wildland Fire: Any fire occurring on the wildlands, regardless of 
ignition source, damages, or benefits.

(310353):

FOOTNOTES

[1] Sec. 216, P.L. 107-347, December 17, 2002.

[2] U.S. General Accounting Office, Geographic Information Systems: 
Challenges to Effective Data Sharing, GAO-03-874T (Washington, D.C.: 
June 10, 2003).

[3] U.S. General Accounting Office, The National Fire Plan: Federal 
Agencies Are Not Organized to Effectively and Efficiently Implement the 
Plan, GAO-01-1022T (Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2001); Severe Wildland 
Fires: Leadership and Accountability Needed to Reduce Risks to 
Communities and Resources, GAO-02-259 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 31, 
2002); Wildland Fire Management: Improved Planning Will Help Agencies 
Better Identify Fire-Fighting Preparedness Needs, GAO-02-158 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29, 2002).

[4] Frank Fairbanks, Henry Gardner, Elizabeth Hill, Keith Mulrooney, 
Charles Philpot, Karl Weick, and Charles Wise, Managing Wildland Fire: 
Enhancing Capacity to Implement the Federal Interagency Policy 
(Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Public Administration, December 
2001).

[5] For example, see Office of Management and Budget, Management of 
Federal Information Resources, Circular No. A-130 (Washington, D.C.: 
November 2000) and U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: 
Improving Mission Performance through Strategic Information Management 
and Technology: Learning from Leading Organizations, GAO/AIMD-94-115 
(Washington, D.C.: May 1994).

[6] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework 
for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 
1.1), GAO-03-584G (Washington, D.C.: April 2003).

[7] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment 
Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity 
(Exposure Draft), GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 (Washington, D.C.: May 2000).

[8] See, for example, U.S. General Accounting Office, DOD Business 
Systems Modernization: Improvements to Enterprise Architecture 
Development and Implementation Efforts Needed, GAO-03-458 (Washington, 
D.C.: February 2003); Information Technology: DLA Should Strengthen 
Business Systems Modernization Architecture and Investment Activities, 
GAO-01-631 (Washington, D.C.: June 2001); and Information Technology: 
INS Needs to Better Manage the Development of Its Enterprise 
Architecture, AIMD-00-212 (Washington, D.C.: August 2000). 

[9] LIDAR sensors measure the reflection of emitted light; 
hyperspectral sensors observe data in multiple contiguous channels of 
the electromagnetic spectrum. A more detailed discussion of these and 
other types of sensors is included in appendix IV.

[10] U.S. General Accounting Office, Wildland Fires: Better Information 
Needed on Effectiveness of Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation 
Treatments, GAO-03-430 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4, 2003).

[11] National Wildfire Coordinating Group, Information Resource 
Management Strategy Project: Wildland Fire Business Model (National 
Interagency Fire Center: August 1996).

[12] Frank Fairbanks, Elizabeth Hill, Patrick Kelly, Lyle Laverty, 
Keith F. Mulrooney, Charlie Philpot, and Charles Wise, Wildfire 
Suppression: Strategies for Containing Costs (Washington, D.C.: 
National Academy of Public Administration, September 2002). 

[13] Chief Information Officer Council, A Practical Guide to Federal 
Enterprise Architecture, Version 1.0 (February 2001).

[14] U.S. General Accounting Office, Geographic Information Systems: 
Challenges to Effective Data Sharing, GAO-03-874T (Washington, D.C.: 
June 10, 2003).

[15] Executive Order 12906, Coordination of Geographic Data Acquisition 
and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (Apr. 13, 1994).

[16] Office of Management and Budget, Coordination of Geographic 
Information and Related Spatial Data Activities, Circular A-16 Revised 
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 19, 2002). The Circular applies to any agency 
that collects, produces, acquires, maintains, distributes, uses, or 
preserves paper maps or digital geospatial data to fulfill its mission.

[17] Sec. 216, P.L. 107-347, December 17, 2002.

[18] Office of Management and Budget Memorandum, "Implementation 
Guidance for the E-Government Act of 2002," M-03-18 (Aug. 1, 2003). 

[19] GAO-03-874T.

[20] Several of these agencies also provide scientific research, 
technology, and products in support of the land management missions.

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