U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

95–275 2016

S. HRG. 114–331 

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S ROLE IN WILDFIRE 

MANAGEMENT, THE IMPACT OF FIRES ON 

COMMUNITIES, AND POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE IN FIRE OPERATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE 

COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 5, 2015 

( 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://fdsys.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

AL FRANKEN, Minnesota 

JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia 

MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine 

ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts 

KAREN K. BILLUPS, Staff Director 

PATRICK J. MCCORMICK III, Chief Counsel 

LUCY MURFITT, Senior Counsel and Natural Resources Policy Director 

ANGELA BECKER-DIPPMANN, Democratic Staff Director 

SAM E. FOWLER, Democratic Chief Counsel 

BRYAN PETIT, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman, and a U.S. Senator from Alaska .................. 1 

Cantwell, Hon. Maria, Ranking Member, and a U.S. Senator from Washington .................................................................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Tidwell, Thomas, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture .. 15 

Pyne, Dr. Stephen, Regents’ Professor, Distinguished Sustainability Scholar, 

School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University ............................................. 23 

Hood, Dr. Sharon, Post-Doctoral Researcher, College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana ....................................................................... 28 

Eisele, Robert, Watershed and Fire Analyst, County of San Diego, California 

(Retired) ................................................................................................................ 38 

Hallin, Bruce, Director, Water Rights and Contracts, Salt River Project .......... 53 

ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED 

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 125 

Cantwell, Hon. Maria 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 2 

Calkin et al, Forest Ecosystems 2015 Review ................................................ 4 

Caplin, Michael 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 127 

Eisele, Robert 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 38 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 40 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 119 

Hallin, Bruce 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 53 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 55 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 123 

Hood, Dr. Sharon 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 28 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 30 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 115 

Murkowski, Hon. Lisa 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 1 

Partner Caucus on Fire Suppression Funding Solutions 

Letter for the Record ........................................................................................ 185 

Placer County Water Agency 

Statement for the Record ................................................................................. 190 

Pyne, Dr. Stephen 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 23 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 25 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 108 

Tidwell, Thomas 

Opening Statement ........................................................................................... 15 

Written Testimony ............................................................................................ 17 

Responses to Questions from Senator Risch 

Chart entitled ‘‘U.S. Forest Service Regions 1 and 4: Projects in Designated Insect and Disease Areas in Idaho thru FY 2019/20’’ .................. 79 

Page

IV 

Tidwell, Thomas—Continued 

Chart entitled ‘‘Projects in Idaho Occurring within Section 602 Designated Landscapes FY 2015–2019’’ ............................................................ 82 

Responses to Questions for the Record ........................................................... 94 

(1) 

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S ROLE IN 

WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT, THE IMPACT OF 

FIRES ON COMMUNITIES, AND POTENTIAL 

IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE IN FIRE OPERATIONS 

TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in Room 

SD–366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa Murkowski, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. We will call to order the Energy 

Committee hearing this morning. Welcome everyone. 

We are discussing logistics here because we theoretically have a 

vote at 10:15. It is my intention to offer my opening statement and 

then turn to the Ranking Member for hers. If in fact they have 

called a vote at that point in time, I think what we will do is just 

take a quick break and go vote, so we can come back and hear the 

testimony from our witnesses this morning. 

Obviously this is a very important issue to all of us around the 

country. We are here to examine our wildfire management policies 

including the impacts of wildfire on communities and our current 

fire operations. Unfortunately today may be a day where we struggle to find a whole lot that is positive about all of this. 

Over the last 50 years we have seen a rapid escalation in the 

size, frequency and severity of wildfires. The most often cited 

causes are severe drought, a changing climate, hazardous fuel 

buildup due in part to decades of fire exclusion, insect and disease 

infestation and an explosion of non-native invasive species. 

These are big problems. They are daunting problems, and they 

are problems that are not easily going away. 

We have already seen the consequences unfold firsthand in my 

home state of Alaska. Last May we had the Funny River Fire just 

about this time actually, mid-May. It burned through the Kenai 

National Wildlife Refuge and spread smoke as far away as Fairbanks, more than 500 miles away. 

The fire burned nearly 200,000 acres, or 300 square miles, before 

it was finally extinguished. It was the second largest ever recorded 

on the Kenai Peninsula. It threatened Kasilof, Sterling and lower 

2 

Skilak Lake forcing residents of those communities to evacuate. We 

are all thankful that there were no apparent fatalities. 

The Funny River Fire was likely started by human activity, but 

the area has also changed dramatically in the last 20 years due in 

part to mass spruce bark beetle kill. Grasses have replaced forests 

and those grasses are simply more susceptible to fire. More than 

half of the peninsula’s total forested land, nearly a million acres, 

has been lost which is, of course, a worrisome sign for the future. 

Already this year the concern back home is that we will have an 

aggressive fire season. We have very low snowfall throughout the 

state, and it is dry. I was in Fairbanks this weekend, and I cannot 

recall a time on the first of May when not only the rivers are out 

but there is no snow pack anywhere. 

The same factors that we are seeing up north and in the peninsula that are increasing the size, frequency and severity of 

wildfires are also driving up wildfire suppression costs both in actual dollars and as a portion of the total budget of the Forest Service. Beyond that the expansion of the Wildland Urban Interface, 

the WUI, and fire operation strategies and tactics cannot be overlooked. According to a recent USDA Inspector General report, 50 

to 95 percent of Forest Service suppression costs were attributable 

to the defense of private property, much of which is located in the 

Wildland Urban Interface. 

It is looking more and more like the Forest Service is morphing 

into an emergency fire service that throws everything that it has 

at every wildfire whether effective or not. Last year was a good example. The Forest Service spent $200 million more on suppression 

than it spent on average over the last ten years despite there being 

less than half the number of fires, less than half the number of 

acres burned and less than half the number of homes burned. 

We need to see a paradigm shift from fire control at all costs to 

actual fire management. It is my hope that we can implement a 

wildfire policy that responsibly funds wildfire suppression needs, 

ends the unsustainable practice of fire borrowing, helps Fire Wise 

our communities and makes the necessary investments in a full 

suite of fuel treatments. 

These will be my policy goals here in the Committee. It will not 

be easy to achieve them, but if we do I think we create fire resilient 

landscapes in which wildfires can occur without such devastating 

consequences for our lands, our communities and for our budgets. 

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses here this morning. Thank you all. 

Senator Cantwell, we will now turn to you for your comments. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for 

calling this important hearing. I, too, want to thank the witnesses 

for joining us today. 

The fire season is upon us, and we are looking to you as experts 

to tell us how we can better prepare for this year’s fire season. 

For some time now the Committee has heard time and again 

that our fires are getting noticeably worse. The extreme weather 

conditions, the amount of hazardous fuel in our forests, suboptimal 

3 

management schemes and an increasing inter urban wildland 

interface, as the Chair was saying, are combining to produce more 

lethal fires. So the people in my state are all too familiar with this 

and want to know what we can do to better prepare. 

Throughout the country we saw fires, but, I think, the State of 

Washington was probably the most hard hit. I see Chief Tidwell 

nodding his head. We had more than twice the average in number 

of acres burned across the northwest. Last July Washington suffered the Carlton Complex Fire. We spent a lot of time talking to 

people in the community. This fire alone burned 149,000 acres in 

a single day. It burned an average of five acres per second for 24 

hours straight. So with the combination of extreme weather and 

this fire, over 353 homes were lost. 

Despite many efforts for people to coordinate resources, the people in those towns lacked the power of communication for weeks. 

Because of downed telephone lines, homeowners were not able to 

call to warn about the continued encroaching fires. Instead police 

had to drive around from town to town calling for evacuation from 

their vehicles using a megaphone. 

One thing that I will be calling for is better coordination between 

the Forest Service and FEMA on communication responses during 

these natural disasters. If they are becoming worse, we need better 

memorandums of understanding that require communications be 

set up right away so that our communities can continue to deal 

with these disasters. 

I know that we can get ahead of these issues, and as the Chair 

mentioned, we need more hazardous fuel reduction in the wildland 

urban interface. We need to figure out how to use resulting biomass to offset these costs. I know we are going to hear testimony 

about that today, and I look forward to it. 

I am also eager to hear from the witnesses on more prescribed 

fire burns. Also we need to address fresh ideas on how to fund Forest Service efforts to protect our communities. Senator Wyden, as 

we know, has introduced legislation on this. I am happy to be a cosponsor, and I look forward to discussing that. 

The science is clearly telling us that wildfires are not behaving 

the same way they have in the past decades. The witnesses will 

talk more about why this is, but I want to make sure that we discuss today what our response is going to be to this evolving problem. 

Researchers from the Forest Service, just last week, published a 

major scientific report. The report made it clear that if we were 

ever going to get ahead of the problem, the Forest Service needs 

to respond to wildfires in a fundamentally different way. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

4 


Insert offset folio 001 here 95275.001
5 


Insert offset folio 2 here 95275.002
6 


Insert offset folio 3 here 95275.003
7 


Insert offset folio 4 here 95275.004
8 


Insert offset folio 5 here 95275.005
9 


Insert offset folio 6 here 95275.006
10 


Insert offset folio 7 here 95275.007
11 


Insert offset folio 8 here 95275.008
12 


Insert offset folio 9 here 95275.009
13 


Insert offset folio 10 here 95275.010
14 

To quote the report: ‘‘Our modern wildfire problems derive from 

a self-reinforcing cycle of counter-effective actions.’’ 

We cannot keep using the same tired approaches that we have 

for the last 100 years. We need to make sure we are focusing on 

getting different results. 

Common sense tells us that a response needs to be modified now 

that the problem is different. The Forest Service report does a 

great job of summing up what the Forest Service needs to do. The 

report says that altering the current trajectory will require a total 

system transformation. It bluntly states that maintaining the status quo will actually increase wildland fires, increase the losses we 

suffer from wildfires, and significantly affect the Forest Service’s 

ability to meet its core mission. 

So we need new solutions. I am certainly going to work with the 

Chair and my colleagues here on the Committee over the next few 

months to find some of those solutions. I see four areas ripe for us 

to work on. 

First, we need to do what we can to reduce the probability of catastrophic fires. We need to see at least double the amount of hazardous fuel treatments and double the amount of prescribed fire. 

Second, fighting large wildland fires is becoming very expensive. 

Since 2000 the Federal Government has spent nearly $24 billion 

just fighting the large wildfires. We need to ensure that Federal 

agencies have the money necessary to protect our communities, and 

we need to treat large wildfires differently in our budget. 

Third, we need to make sure that spending and the management 

on the ground is being done to ensure accountability. We have seen 

questions about spending practices in the media, and we need to 

make sure that we are incentivizing the right kind of cost savings 

in the budget. 

Finally, but most importantly, as I mentioned earlier, the assistance communities receive after the wildfire has started needs to be 

different. The assistance needs to show up quicker, and the assistance needs to be tailored to the issues that are being raised. 

The Federal Government is responding to a new type of disaster 

where these events are blowing up in greater degree and reaching 

communities with unbelievable lightning speed. We need to have 

more proactive, upfront coordination with our Federal agencies— 

the Forest Service and FEMA, for example—in delivering real time 

communications and making sure that the resources, and I know 

the Chief will address this, are actually on the ground. 

The fire season forecast came out last week, and it’s particularly 

troubling for our state. I hope the Forest Service is ready to help, 

and I hope FEMA will work to stage things like generators and assistance equipment closer to these areas so that they can respond 

more quickly. 

Again, Madam Chair, thank you so much for this hearing. I look 

forward to the witnesses, and I look forward to working with our 

Committee to try to institute some new approaches. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. 

Let’s go ahead and get started with our witnesses. Depending on 

what happens with the vote we may just keep powering through 

or we may take a pause in the hearing. 

15 

I would like to welcome all of our witnesses before the Committee, particularly you, Chief Tidwell. I appreciate your leadership 

at the U.S. Forest Service. Next to Chief Tidwell we have Dr. Stephen Pyne who is a Regents’ Professor at the School of Life 

Sciences at Arizona State University. Dr. Sharon Hood is with us 

this morning, and she is a post-doctoral researcher at the College 

of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. We 

also have Mr. Bob Eisele. Am I pronouncing that correct? 

Mr. EISELE. Eisele. 

The CHAIRMAN. Eisele, okay. Mr. Eisele is the Watershed and 

Fire Analyst at the County of San Diego, California. I understand 

you are retired, so it is great to have you with us. Finally, we have 

Mr. Bruce Hallin, who is the Director of Water Rights and Contracts at the Salt River Project. 

Chief, if we can begin with you. To each of the witnesses, we 

would ask that you try to limit your testimony to five minutes. 

Your full statement will be included as part of the record, but we 

look forward to your comments and the opportunity to ask questions afterwards. 

Chief, good morning. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS TIDWELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST 

SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

Mr. TIDWELL. Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member, 

members of the Committee. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be here and especially with the other panel members 

today to be able to talk about not only our upcoming fire season 

but the things that we’re currently doing and the things that we 

need to continue to do to address this issue. 

As you both have already shared, the predictions for this coming 

fire season are similar to what we had last year with definitely a 

much more, more than an active fire season, primarily out in the 

West. And as the summer develops that’s going to just continue to 

expand up to the northwest and then over into parts of Utah, Idaho 

and even into Montana. 

You know, that being said, I can’t stress enough that the fire seasons we’re seeing today, these are the normal fire seasons. And so 

we can look at it and say, yes, they’re more active than they were 

a decade ago, but it’s important for us to understand that today 

this is the fire seasons that we’re going to continue to have. 

Once again, we have the resources. We made sure that we’re 

going to have an adequate number of large air tankers to respond 

to these fires. The helicopters that we have, we already have 100 

for our exclusive use and we can bring up another 200 helicopters 

if we need them. We’ll have our fire fighters, our type one crews, 

over 900 engines just for the Forest Service. And then as always 

we have the MAFFs airplanes from the Air National Guard and 

the Air Force Reserve that are ready to come on when we hit those 

surge times of the year. 

We are making a difference with the field treatments. When I 

look at the past, the millions of acres that we’ve been treating and 

the combination of managing a natural fire in the back country 

using prescribed fire and then our fuels treatments, primarily in 

the wildland urban interface, we are making a difference. 

16 

This year we plan to treat another 2.5 million acres of hazardous 

fuels in FY’15, and our FY’16 budget is calling for that same level. 

And every year and I can point back to the Slide Fire from just last 

year where these fuel treatments are making a significant difference to allow our fire fighters to more safely be able to suppress 

these fires. It reduces the severity, has less impact on the watershed and less impact on our communities. 

Our challenge remains to be able to find more ways so that we 

can continue to increase the pace and scale of this work. 

I want to thank the Committee for your support for our budget 

this year with that considerable increase in hazardous fuels funding. If we can maintain that going forward I think it will allow us 

to continue to increase this pace and scale along with the new authorities that we have with the Farm bill. As we move forward to 

being able to use that work, to be able to work closer and increase 

our coordination with the states and other partners to be able to 

get additional work accomplished. 

The other thing I need to stress and it was pointed out already, 

the wildland urban interface. Not only are our fire seasons longer, 

hotter and drier, they’re another 60 to 80 days longer than what 

they were just 15 years ago. We have over 50 million acres of 

wildland urban interface that we have to deal with. 

And Madam Chair, as you pointed out in your statement, often 

the first thing we have to do with every fire is take the actions to 

be able to protect that community before we can even take on really suppressing these large wildfires. 

Now, we continue to suppress 98 percent of the fires that we take 

initial attack on. That doesn’t include the ones that we manage in 

the back country for the benefits, so I need to stress that. But even 

with 98 percent there’s that one to two percent that escape. They’re 

the ones that we see on the news. The ones that create the large 

costs. So again, I appreciate the support from members of this 

Committee to find a solution to deal with the cost of fire suppression. 

Once again this year we’re predicting there’s a 90 percent chance 

that we will not have enough money. We will have to look at transferring funds. It is really past time. I know some of you are tired 

of listening to me talk about this, but it’s really past time for us 

to find a solution and to be able to move on and to stop this disruptive practice of shutting down operations in the fall to be able to 

transfer money. 

I think there is no question that one percent, this concept of one 

percent of our fires, should be considered natural disasters. And 

again last year the ten largest fires, the ten most costly fires, 

equaled about over $320 million which really tracks with what 

we’ve been talking about, one percent, 30 percent of the cost. 

So thank you again for having the opportunity to be here, and 

thank you again for the support you’re providing us, not only to increase the work we’re getting done, but also to find a solution to 

dealing with the cost of fire suppression. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:] 

17 


Insert offset folio 11 here 95275.011
18 


Insert offset folio 12 here 95275.012
19 


Insert offset folio 13 here 95275.013
20 


Insert offset folio 14 here 95275.014
21 


Insert offset folio 15 here 95275.015
22 


Insert offset folio 16 here 95275.016
23 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Chief. I think if there is one thing 

that we would agree on as members of this Committee is that we 

have got to figure out a way to stop the fire borrowing, because as 

we talk about all of the other things that go on within the Forest 

Service mission it comes back to the fact that you do not have the 

funds if you are using all of your budget to deal with these catastrophic fires. 

I think what I would like to do in deference to the other members of the panel so that we can all hear your important testimony 

is just take a quick, three minute break. We are going to race fast 

to go vote and come back. 

Senator CANTWELL. You are fast. 

The CHAIRMAN. A minute and half there and back. 

We stand adjourned for three minutes. 

[RECESS] 

The CHAIRMAN. We will come back to order. That is three minutes in Senate time. [Laughter.] We apologize for that break, but 

again, I think there are enough members here who wanted to hear 

the testimony from all the witnesses and as a courtesy to you we 

have made you hold over for a little bit longer. 

Dr. Pyne, why don’t we turn to you for your comments this morning? Again, thank you for your indulgence on time. 

STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN PYNE, REGENTS’ PROFESSOR, 

DISTINGUISHED SUSTAINABILITY SCHOLAR, SCHOOL OF 

LIFE SCIENCES, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY 

Dr. PYNE. Well, good morning and thank you for the opportunity 

to speak. 

After the great fires of 1910 we spent 50 years trying to remove 

fire from the land. Call it a strategy of resistance. It sought to 

eliminate threats before they could become serious. That doctrine 

failed because it excluded good fires as well as bad ones. 

We then tried to put good fire back in, and called this a strategy 

of restoration. Well, this strategy has now run its own 50 year 

course and the prospects and problems of its foundational doctrine, 

fire by prescription, are better understood. 

Which leads to a consideration of what might the next 50 years 

hold. A strategy seems to be congealing in the West that we might 

label, resilience, that seems to make the best of the hand that we 

are being dealt. 

So let me consider these strategies in turn. 

Resistance. There remains an old guard who would like to return 

to the former order, and there are more progressive thinkers who 

want to upgrade that tradition into an all hazard, emergency service model, effectively urban fire departments in the woods or in a 

national sense, a kind of Coast Guard for the interior. Well, this 

makes sense if your primary land use is urban or ex urban, but it’s 

expensive and it has not shown it can manage fires. If it retains 

the strengths of fire suppression it also magnifies suppression’s 

weaknesses. 

Restoration. Restoration too, has upgraded its mission from the 

simple hope that prescribed fire might substitute for wildfires. It 

now embraces complex collaborations, supplements prescribed 

burning with other treatments and tries to operate on the scale of 

24 

landscapes but determination endures, however, to get ahead of the 

problem. Yet the vision has proved costly, not only in money but 

in political and social capital. There is little reason to believe that 

the country will muster the will to rehabilitate at the rate or the 

scale required the tens of millions of acres believed out of whack. 

Resilience. In the West a strategy is emerging that accepts that 

we are unlikely to get ahead of the problems coming at us. Instead 

it allows for the management of wildland fires to shift, where feasible, from attempts at direct control to more indirect reliance on 

confining and containing outbreaks. Of course there are some fires 

that simply bolt away from the moment of ignition and there are 

some that threaten people or critical sites right from the onset, but 

many fires offer opportunities to back off and burn out. These are 

not let burns rather fire officers concentrate their efforts at point 

protection where assets are most valuable. Elsewhere they will try 

to pick places, draw boxes, which they hold with minimum expenses, risks and damages. 

While this strategy is compatible with Federal policy and in 

many respects moves in directions long urged by critics, though it 

can look like a mash up and the outcomes will be mixed because 

the fires are patchy, some patches will burn more severely than we 

would like. Some patches may hardly burn at all, but the rest will 

likely burn within a range of tolerance. Such burn outs may well 

be the future of prescribed fire in the West. 

So without wishing to push an analogy too closely, we might 

liken the resistance strategy to a rock, the restoration strategy to 

scissors and the resilience strategy to paper. At any given time and 

place one trumps another and is in turn, trumped. We need all 

three. We need rocks around our prized assets and communities 

when they are threatened by going fires. We need scissors to buffer 

against bad burns and nudge toward good ones, and we need paper 

because the ideal can be the enemy of the good and a mixed strategy that includes boxing and burning may be the best we can hope 

for. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Pyne follows:] 

25 


Insert offset folio 17 here 95275.017
26 


Insert offset folio 18 here 95275.018
27 


Insert offset folio 19 here 95275.019
28 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Pyne. 

Dr. Hood, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF DR. SHARON HOOD, POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER, COLLEGE OF FORESTRY AND CONSERVATION, 

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 

Dr. HOOD. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me here today. 

My name is Sharon Hood. I’m a post-doctoral researcher at the 

University of Montana. Previously I worked as a U.S. Forest Service ecologist prior to earning my Ph.D. in organismal biology and 

ecology at the University of Montana in 2014. 

Fire and native bark beetles have huge impacts on conifer forests 

across our country. Today my testimony focuses on my research 

showing that fire and thinning can increase Ponderosa Pine resistance to Mountain Pine Beetle, but also that thinning is not a substitute for fire. 

Ponderosa Pine has adapted to survive frequent, low severity 

fire, a type of fire that burns through the forest understory, but 

generally causes little mortality to larger trees; however, lack of 

fire since the late 1800’s has increased tree density and change 

species composition in many areas. We continue to actively suppress the majority of wildfires today; however, there is recent acknowledgement such as the 2014 National Action Plan for the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy that we must 

allow more fires to burn to promote healthy forests, resilient to 

wildfire, insects, disease and drought. 

To achieve the goal of allowing more fires to burn we must accept 

the critical role of fire as a natural ecological process. My research 

supports the need for frequent, low severity fire in Ponderosa Pine 

forest in three ways. 

One, low severity fire increases resin ducts. These ducts are used 

by trees to make resin, or pitch, that helps resist bark beetle attacks and trees with more ducts are more likely to survive attack. 

Two, when frequent low severity fires were moved from Ponderosa Pine forests resin duct defenses decline over time. 

And three, low severity fire acts as a natural thinning agent to 

reduce forest density. This also promotes an increase in resin duct 

defenses that increases resistance to Mountain Pine Beetle. 

I examined the effects of thinning and fire on resistance to a 

Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak at a long term study site in Western Montana. These treatments were originally designed to study 

how to effectively restore Ponderosa Pine forest and increase resilience to wildfire. They were implemented five years before the outbreak began. Resin ducts increased after thinning with and without 

burning and remained higher than the control and burn only treatments throughout the length of the study. Mortality for Mountain 

Pine Beetle differed markedly between treatments. In the control 

50 percent of the Ponderosa Pine was killed in an outbreak compared to 20 percent in the burn only and almost no mortality in 

the thin only and thin burn combination treatments. 

High levels of Douglas Fir in both the control and burn only 

treatments due to over 100 years of fire exclusion, coupled with a 

29 

high pine mortality from bark beetles has reduced stand resilience 

beyond the ability to return to a Ponderosa Pine dominated system 

and the absence of further disturbance or management. 

My results applied a dry pine, Ponderosa Pine, forest in the inland Northwest. A forest type where there is strong, scientific support that frequent low and mixed severity fires were once common. 

Further research is needed to determine if fire increases tree defenses in other fire dependent, pine forest types throughout the 

U.S. I found thinning with and without prescribed fire increased 

resistance to a Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak, greatly reducing 

tree mortality. 

In the long term, however, thinning with prescribed fire created 

the most resilient forest by stimulating tree defenses and through 

the beneficial effects of killing understory vegetation. These and 

other critical ecological effects of fire cannot be replicated by 

thinning alone. While thinning is a very useful and oftentimes necessary restoration and management tool, fire is crucial for long 

term maintenance of low to mid elevation fire of Ponderosa Pine 

forests through both impacts of forest structure and composition 

and by stimulating defenses that can increase tree survival from 

bark beetle attacks. 

There is no one size fits all approach to restoring fire dependent 

forests. Proactive restoration treatments should aim to increase forest resilience to a multitude of stressors and foster conditions that 

allow wildfires to burn under more natural intensities. 

While my study is just one example, these findings are supported 

by other scientific literature showing the critical role of fire in creating resilient Ponderosa Pine forest. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hood follows:] 

30 


Insert offset folio 20 here 95275.020
31 


Insert offset folio 21 here 95275.021
32 


Insert offset folio 22 here 95275.022
33 


Insert offset folio 23 here 95275.023
34 


Insert offset folio 24 here 95275.024
35 


Insert offset folio 25 here 95275.025
36 


Insert offset folio 26 here 95275.026
37 


Insert offset folio 27 here 95275.027
38 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Hood. 

Mr. Eisele, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT EISELE, WATERSHED AND FIRE 

ANALYST, COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA (RETIRED) 

Mr. EISELE. Good morning, Senator Murkowski, Senator Cantwell and the members of the Committee. It’s an honor for me to 

be here to share my experience with you today. 

I’ve been involved with fire my entire life. I started with the volunteer fire fighter to prescribed burner for the County of San 

Diego, fire behavior analyst on a Federal incident management 

team for 15 years, and I like to think of myself as a student of fire. 

I’ve learned in Southern California that we will always have extreme fire weather. We will always have a drought, but there will 

always be ignitions and ignitions are plentiful and they are random 

so the driver of the entire system is fuel. A young fuel does not 

burn very well and doesn’t burn very fast even under extreme conditions. Old fuel conversely burns extremely hot and extremely 

well, extremely fast. 

For example, the origin and the age of the fuel of origin, at origin 

of fires in Southern San Diego County in the past, since 1950, the 

average age of the fuel where the fires, the big fires start, was 71 

years. And we don’t find any fires starting in fuels less than 20 

years old go to become major fires. 

The fire problem in San Diego County has gotten worse and it’s 

kind of leading the nation. Again, California is not a good spot to 

be in the lead, but what we’ve seen in California in the past 50 

years is becoming the norm in the Western United States. 

So I see two main issues with the fire. Fire and cost. 

We recognize that the fire problem is the fuels. We’re now treating close to two percent of the hazardous fuels which is a 50 year 

rotation cycle which means that as we’re doing a great job we’re 

not even getting close. So we need to be doubling at least our fuel 

treatment and it has to be mechanical and fire because it is, the 

forests, have overgrown to the point that the fire will not thin 

them. It has to be thinned and then maintain thin with the fire. 

We need projects that are picked by Forest Service multi-disciplinary teams of people not just fire, but forest health people and sociologists and risk assessments to pick the ones that are going to get 

us the big bang for the buck because we don’t have enough money 

to do it all. We need to spend our dollars wisely. 

We need to look at NEPA. San Bernardino National Forest is on 

its fourth year of a one-year NEPA proposal or EIS for 20,000 acre, 

general EIS document. People are gaming the system on NEPA, 

and NEPA is a good idea. We need to be doing it, but we’re not 

building a shopping center or freeways. We’re mitigating the damage to the forests. 

The budget process, I’d point out that there is a FEMA does a 

plan for state and local and tribal governments when the fires meet 

a certain criteria, FEMA picks up 75 percent of the costs. It seems 

like they could do that for the Federal agencies also or somewhat 

similar. 

We can reduce the cost of fires by managing them better, and I 

think there’s a technological asset here. We need to be able to have 

39 

the guy on the ground with a laptop computer that can predict 

where the fire is going and then measure the results of what 

they’re doing based on that. 

We need to know where the fire is. It’s hard to believe that we 

don’t know where the fire is on some of these fires because we can’t 

see them through the smoke and we can’t map them. And they 

need to map them in the first day, not three days later. 

So that kind of technology is, I believe, it’s going to go a long way 

to managing things like managing the fire and then managing the 

air assets. We can model where our aircraft are good and effective 

and where they’re not so good, and we can then let the fire managers make those kinds of decisions based on sound science. 

A safety issue with our fire fighters is every so often we wind up 

having a disaster like Yarnell Hill. We need to know where the fire 

is. We need to know where the fire fighters are, and the people 

that are supervising those fire fighters need to have a map in their 

hand that shows them where everybody is on the ground. That’s totally doable. It would have to be satellite-based, but just knowing 

where they are doesn’t help. It’s the guy in charge of them that 

needs to know where they are. 

So I put a bunch of other suggestions inside my testimony, and 

I appreciate the opportunity to comment today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eisele follows:] 

40 


Insert offset folio 28 here 95275.028
41 


Insert offset folio 29 here 95275.029
42 


Insert offset folio 30 here 95275.030
43 


Insert offset folio 31 here 95275.031
44 


Insert offset folio 32 here 95275.032
45 


Insert offset folio 33 here 95275.033
46 


Insert offset folio 34 here 95275.034
47 


Insert offset folio 35 here 95275.035
48 


Insert offset folio 36 here 95275.036
49 


Insert offset folio 37 here 95275.037
50 


Insert offset folio 38 here 95275.038
51 


Insert offset folio 39 here 95275.039
52 


Insert offset folio 40 here 95275.040
53 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Eisele. 

Last we will go to Mr. Hallin, welcome to the Committee. 

STATEMENT OF BRUCE HALLIN, DIRECTOR, WATER RIGHTS 

AND CONTRACTS, SALT RIVER PROJECT 

Mr. HALLIN. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell 

and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify before you today. My name is Bruce Hallin, and I’m the Director of Water Rights and Contracts for Salt River Project, or SRP. 

For over 100 years the Salt River Project has provided a reliable 

water supply to metropolitan Phoenix. To fulfill this responsibility 

SRP operates seven dams, 1,300 miles of canals and numerous 

ground water wells. Importantly we’re also dependent on the 

health of a 13,000 square mile watershed to provide a renewable 

water supply and protecting these headwaters has been a priority 

of SRP since its founding. 

Around the turn of the 20th century watershed protection efforts 

focused on setting aside lands in the Federal forest system to ensure development in timber harvest were conducted in a way that 

preserved a sustainable water supply for Arizona. 

Today, the unhealthy state of these national forests are causing 

catastrophic wildfires that threaten the sustainability and quality 

of drinking water for millions in Arizona. This situation is not 

unique to Arizona. We are working closely with the National Water 

Resources Association and others who are facing similar threats to 

their headwaters. 

Catastrophic fires have severe and long term impacts to watersheds which are felt far beyond the area directly impacted by the 

fire. Unlike the low intensity fires seen in healthy forests, the 

aftermath from the severe fires we are experiencing as a result of 

the unnatural forest conditions increase sediment loads and debris 

that reduce storage capacity at our reservoirs and affect the predictability of runoff. 

Water quality is deteriorating as a result of fire activity on our 

watershed. Increased organics and sediment in the SRP water supply have led to increased capital and operational costs at city water 

treatment plants. These treatment facilities have been upgraded to 

handle the increased levels at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

We know from science and experience exactly what needs to be 

done to mitigate these impacts. We know that we need to act quickly to thin overcrowded and unhealthy forests. We know we need to 

reestablish a forest products industry to carry out treatments and 

create an economy around forest restoration, and we know we need 

public policy at all levels of government to facilitate and invest in 

forest restoration. 

SRP is actively involved in efforts to expedite forest restoration 

by committing resources in all of these areas. Few are engagement 

in public/private partnerships. For example, we have started the 

Northern Arizona Forest Fund in partnership with the National 

Forest Foundation to raise funds and invest in forest restoration 

projects that protect our watershed. We are also involved in a 

project with the Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, City of 

54 

Payson and the National Forest Foundation to treat the 64,000 

acre watershed that drains into the CC Cragin Reservoir. 

The projects that we are currently involved with highlight the 

need to improve Federal policy to more efficiently make progress in 

restoring our forests and protecting our watersheds. Specifically 

there is a need to improve both fire suppression budgeting and the 

planning and compliance process for restoration projects. 

The CC Cragin Project I mentioned is a perfect example of why 

we need to address both of these issues at the same time. We 

greatly appreciate the priority the Forest Service and the Department of Interior has placed on this project; however, despite the 

significant funding and staff dedicated to undertake the project, it 

is expected to take at least two, if not three, years before any 

thinning can be done on the ground. 

This is too long to simply hope that a fire doesn’t destroy the 

Cragin Watershed. We must find a way to move forward more 

quickly on critical projects like this by utilizing the significant data 

and knowledge that already exists within the Forest Service. 

My written testimony includes some additional policy suggestions 

but I wanted to highlight one issue related to fire borrowing. As 

the Committee continues to address fire suppression budgets it is 

also important that the provisions include a dedicated and secure 

funding stream for forest restoration in order to promote the certainty needed to encourage private sector investment. 

The greatest risk to our forests is catastrophic wildfire, and we 

need to rebalance the requirements placed on these types of 

projects to reflect that reality. The problems, the solutions and the 

consequences of inaction are clear. I look forward to working together with this Committee on our shared goals of protecting the 

forests and watersheds our communities rely on and enjoy. 

Thank you, again, and I look forward to answering any questions 

you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hallin follows:] 

55 


Insert offset folio 41 here 95275.041
56 


Insert offset folio 42 here 95275.042
57 


Insert offset folio 43 here 95275.043
58 


Insert offset folio 44 here 95275.044
59 


Insert offset folio 45 here 95275.045
60 


Insert offset folio 46 here 95275.046
61 


Insert offset folio 47 here 95275.047
62 


Insert offset folio 48 here 95275.048
63 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Hallin. Thank you to all of our 

witnesses here this morning. As I mentioned after the Chief’s testimony, I think we would all agree we have to figure out how to stop 

this fire borrowing because when we are talking about how we deal 

with treatment, how we work to mitigate the risk here, it takes 

dollars. When you spend all of your dollars on suppression, it does 

not leave much room for further treatments. 

The concern here is that these suppression costs are out of control. Chief, I know you are very supportive of a wildfire cap adjustment, but from what we have heard from just about everybody here 

this morning, it is not necessarily the silver bullet to address the 

skyrocketing costs of wildfire suppression spending. How we deal 

with that is something that I would like to focus on this morning. 

Both you, Mr. Hallin, and Mr. Eisele, to a certain extent, have 

described the hazardous fuel reduction projects that are critical to 

protecting whether it is the watersheds that you have noted, the 

Cragin Watershed or other areas there. The comment that you 

made, Mr. Hallin, that we know what it is that we need to do and 

yet we can’t get to that point, and it takes two to possibly three 

years to implement these projects. We talk a lot about analysis/paralysis around here where we have endless process. Again, we hope 

that there is not going to be a lightning strike that is going to 

bring about disaster. Chief, can you speak to this? I mean, are we 

in a situation where we are more worried about checking the boxes 

in making sure that we have gone through a critical process or are 

we acting with a level of urgency that I think you have heard from 

everybody here at this table with regards to these critical projects 

that will help us from the preventive perspective? I think we would 

agree that if we can prevent these in the first place we can get a 

better handle on these suppression costs. What is our problem with 

the process that seems to be slowing things up when we are dealing with treatment of hazardous fuels? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Madam Chair, one of the issues we dealt with in 

the past is needing to do a large enough project where it actually 

makes a difference, and that’s where we’ve moved to taking a more 

landscape-scale approach. 

In the past the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which you passed 

a few years ago which gave us the streamlined NEPA process, was 

a very good tool. The problem with that is that it was limited to 

certain criteria. And so when we looked at larger landscapes we 

could use that authority on a piece of the project but it wouldn’t 

apply to these tens of thousands of acres. 

Now with the Farm bill authorities with insect and disease it 

gives us some more flexibility to be able to use that approach looking at just one action alternative and a no action so we can streamline the process. 

But the key is—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you about that if I—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. To look at these larger landscapes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you about that because when we 

were going to vote Senator Stabenow, who is not able to return 

back to the Committee, raised this issue with me saying that in the 

Farm bill there were additional authorities that were given to do 

64 

just exactly as you have said. Are these additional authorities 

being utilized at this point and are they making a difference? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We’re beginning to utilize, especially the CE authority in the Farm bill. We have projects that are going forward 

with that. And you’ll see, especially in FY’16, many of our projects 

we’ll be implementing will be using these new authorities. But we 

often take a year of planning and going through NEPA before we 

implement, so you’ll see those projects being implemented in ’16. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think that has been the concern here is that 

we have got this process that we have to go through. Is this what 

you were speaking to Mr. Eisele and Mr. Hallin? Is there any way 

to expedite that, in your view? You know what you have to do. 

Mr. HALLIN. One of the difficulties that we’ve had with the 

Cragin Watershed, we do appreciate the opportunity to utilize the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act as an alternative to full scale restoration. We would prefer full scale restoration, but at this point 

we decided to move forward with the Healthy Restoration Act. 

The Forest Service personnel have over 25 years in understanding the types of fires that have occurred on this watershed 

where the endangered species are located and the extent of the watershed itself on those areas that are highly susceptible to wildfire 

risk. The problem is they have to go through an entire EIS process 

that essentially is designed, from what I gather in watching staff, 

is designed to essentially avoid litigation. 

We know what the issue is, we know that these forests need to 

be thinned, we know that the greatest threat to the species that 

the EIS is designed to protect is catastrophic wildfire, but unfortunately we have to go the same process another two years before we 

can ultimately get in there and thin those forests. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, we hear this story so often that what we are 

attempting to do is to avoid litigation and in the meantime lightning strikes and we are paying the cost. 

Senator Cantwell? 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, thank 

you to the witnesses. 

Dr. Hood, thank you for your testimony, and thank you for your 

work in this area. It is very important. 

Your key point was about the fact that thinning and prescribed 

fire created the most long term resilient forest to future disturbances, so I want to drill down on that because I think that is a culmination of your conclusions which is very important in looking at 

all these options. 

Chief Tidwell, your testimony stated that the Forest Service has 

identified about 12 million acres that really need hazardous fuel reduction treatment, but the budget year after year only requests 

about $300 million for those treatments. Is that sufficient funding 

for those highest priority areas and what do we need to do to get 

a more realistic number? Sorry to put all this out there, but that 

is the best way to get all the answers we need and some of them 

you can give me in writing too. 

Secondly, regarding this whole issue of, you know, do we have 

the best communication that we need for communities during these 

fires? Do we need more coordination with FEMA? Should FEMA be 

a permanent part of the incident command team? What can we do? 

65 

Do we need to get an MOU, memorandum of understanding, between you and FEMA to ensure you can communicate while with 

the community responsibilities—you are busy fighting fires? If the 

communication infrastructure does not exist anymore, then how 

are we making sure that we do not have to wait two weeks to communicate about the ongoing crisis, given the level of huge fire increases that we are seeing? 

Third, does your agency have a permanent agreement with the 

FAA on an application with them on drones? I would like to see 

this not be an issue where every state that has a fire and then 

wants to know whether the drones can be deployed to get a better 

understanding of the fire or mapping or what have you. I would 

just like it to be a natural course between the Forest Service so 

that we do not have delays, because I think they are providing us 

very, very vital information about these fires. 

Mr. TIDWELL. I’ll start with the last question there. 

We’re working very closely with FAA to be able to use the unmanned aircraft to be able to collect the information, and we have 

a team that’s gone, put in place this year to be able to explore. 

The challenge for us is to be able to understand what information we need and when we need it so that because the potential 

there is there’s so much data that’s available, but we’ve got to be 

able to prioritize it so we can quickly be able to use that. So we’re 

going to be moving forward this year. We’ll be working, not only 

with FAA, but also with the states to work very closely to be able 

to start to use this information, probably simply mapping is one of 

the simple and looking for hot spots, especially outside the line 

where we’ve had success in the past. 

Senator CANTWELL. But you’ll do a permanent application so you 

won’t have to keep going back and forth all the time? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we’re going to be working in that direction 

so that it’s automatic. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And that under these conditions we can use the 

aircraft. 

Your question about what happened with the aftermath there or 

even during the Carlton Fire—it really stresses how we need to do 

a better job with our preplanning. We do a good job and work with 

communities so they’re ready for the fire, but based on that experience we need to do a better job to also deal with things like communications. The things that we need to make sure communities 

have an emergency communication system that’s in place so that 

when that happens that those, whatever it takes, that we’re going 

to be able to maintain communications. 

From when I was up there visiting with the homeowners, especially, one of the things they stress is that they didn’t know. They 

didn’t know what was going on. They had no way to contact anyone, I can’t imagine that level of stress that would come from that 

situation, so it’s one of the things that we’ve learned. We need to 

get that in place. 

We need to actually do a better job than we have been with utility companies. They’re always great to step right in and ready to 

roll, but we need to include them also in our preplanning meetings. 

So that when the next Carlton happens, yes, we’ll have the fire to 

66 

deal with, but at the same time we can provide a higher and better 

level of support to those communities to be able to eliminate some 

of the impact and get their services restored faster. 

Senator CANTWELL. Does FEMA need to be a permanent part of 

the equation? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, FEMA definitely needs to be working with us. 

They are a part of the solution, and we’ll continue to work with 

them. 

Senator CANTWELL. I just want to point out for my colleagues, 

because this is after 149,000 acres burned, the Winthrop/Twist Valley area was without communication and yet fires were still all 

around them. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL. Without any communication because the 

broadband burned up, no one had any way to communicate with 

people other than, as I said, trying to go through the town. I think 

this and Oso taught me that we need—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL. Communities need to be able to get a mobile, 

broadband unit more easily deployed as opposed to waiting for two 

or three weeks for the state to apply for a FEMA declaration. 

If this is all about who is going to pay for this in the end and 

we are hesitating, our constituents are without the vital communications in a disaster. If this is what we are seeing because of the 

impacts of these drastic events because of weather, I think we need 

to look at these events and say we need better communication response in the aftermath and to figure out how to do that for these 

communities. 

So thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Senator Daines? 

Senator DAINES. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chief Tidwell, let me first start by saying I share your support 

for a solution to the wildfire funding challenge. I have spent a lot 

of time traveling across Montana hearing from conservation 

groups, sportsmen groups, the timber industry. I think we have a 

great, broad spectrum of agreement that something has to change 

in the way wildfires are funded or wildfire fighting is funded, and 

I am hoping that we resolve it this year. I am going to do everything I can to make that happen. 

Your office provided me information that indicated over seven 

million Federal acres in Montana are at high or very high risk of 

wildfire, most of which are managed by the Forest Service. That is 

approximately one in four Federally-controlled acres in Montana. I 

was further told that nearly two million of these acres are most in 

need of treatment because they are near populated communities or 

watersheds. 

Unfortunately I was informed that the Forest Service did hazardous fuels treatment on only about 52,000 of those acres in the 

last Fiscal Year out of two million that are needed. I have no doubt 

that the work that was done there was important, but the current 

pace of treatment is simply not acceptable. Certainly our communities, our watersheds, our wildlife habitat, our access to recreVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:50 Nov 04, 2016 Jkt 095275 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\95275\D95275.TXT D95275
67 

ation, all of these critical Montana treasures are at real risk to 

wildfire. 

More than ten years ago Congress provided enhanced authorities 

to the Forest Service to reduce hazardous fuels through the 

Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). You mentioned that, but 

as noted these authorities are clearly not adequate and the HFRA 

clearly has shortfalls. What, in your view, are the barriers to getting more done there? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well as I shared earlier the Healthy Forest Restoration Act continues to be a good authority for us, but it is limited to certain areas based on the criteria that’s required and that 

is having community wildfire protection plans. You need to have a 

hazardous fuel component. And we really need to be looking at the 

entire landscapes, the full restoration work, not only the hazardous 

fuels work next to the community, but what we need to do in the 

entire watershed. And as we pointed out from, you know, some of 

the witnesses that is a much better approach. 

And so we look at Healthy Forest Restoration Act and now with 

the new Farm bill authorities that allow us to be able to use the 

similar type of NEPA approach, but also address where it has insect and disease. By putting those together it’s going to allow us 

to take more of a total landscape approach to be able to look at everything that needs to be done on that landscape and to be able 

to look at not thousands of acres, we just have to be looking at tens 

of thousands to hundreds of thousands of acres at a time. And to 

be able to have the NEPA in place so for the next ten years we can 

be able to get in there and do the work that needs to be done. 

Those are the things that are really going to make the difference. 

Senator DAINES. Well, I truly appreciate your commitment to 

finding solutions that will improve forest health and also increase 

responsible timber harvest in Montana, and we really look forward 

to further discussions with you to achieve that goal. 

I want to ask Dr. Hood a question. Dr. Hood, first of all welcome 

to our nation’s capitol. It is good to have another Montanan in the 

room, and it is great to have the perspective of someone who intimately knows the challenges facing our national forests in Montana. 

Your testimony focused largely on the role of fire and the role of 

fire management on increasing resistance of the bark beetle. I remember seeing this when I was a kid back in the 70’s, and now 

we are seeing it again and my children are seeing it now in Montana as well. 

I know your research was primarily focused in the Rocky Mountain region, but as you know Montana has millions of acres that 

are damaged by beetle kill. I am pleased that Congress recently 

gave the Forest Service new authorities to tackle this huge challenge in Montana. Based on your research how could increased 

management, including thinning and prudently removing dead timber, be used to improve the health of forests in Montana and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire? 

Dr. HOOD. So in order to increase the health of our forests 

thinning should be a valid or a good management tool. 

My research also showed that having prescribed fires and low severity naturally occurring wildfires stimulates tree defenses. So 

68 

having that combination of thinning and prescribed burning and 

then areas that we have treated to allow, naturally, allowing to 

consider allowing ignitions to burn, allow fires to burn, further perpetuates a healthy forest that could be resistant to bark beetles. 

I think we’re always going to have some level of bark beetles. 

They’re native insects to our forests, but having/doing such treatments and promoting a patchy landscape can certainly help reduce 

the severity of those outbreaks. 

Senator DAINES. Thanks, Doctor. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Franken? 

Senator FRANKEN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chief Tidwell, you and I have talked before about the role of climate change in all of this, and we have talked about the removal 

of hazardous fuel as we have been talking about today in different 

ways. 

One of the ways that I think that we could, possibly, and I want 

to ask anybody about this, to remove more hazardous fuel and be 

able to do it in a way that it costs less is by monetizing that biomass. By monetizing it, by using it, burning it, to create electricity 

and in combined heat and power which is something that the Chair 

and I have talked about. There is a lot of, obviously, areas in Alaska where this hazardous fuel, after all biomass is, as we can argue, 

is zero carbon footprint, we can solve a lot of things at the same 

time. 

There is obviously a lot of challenges to this in terms of remoteness and moving the stuff and using it, but we are talking about 

the wildland urban interface so there are, obviously, areas where 

this is near/in a populated area. What are some of the challenges 

standing in the way of more utilization of this tremendous resource, and this is for anyone, and what are your recommendations 

for overcoming these challenges or are these challenges? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well I’ll start, Senator. 

You know, the challenge is to be able to demonstrate that it’s 

economically viable. And so to be able to create these markets and 

we need to continue to make the investments to help people to do 

the business case analysis before they make the investment. We 

need to continue to use our authorities like the BCAP Authority 

where we can subsidize, actually, the transportation of this biomass material to a facility, and to be able to get more and more 

demonstration projects. 

At the same time we need to continue our research, not only to 

increase the efficiency of these systems, but also for things like 

with pellet production to be able to find a more efficient way to develop a pellet to increase the BTUs to increase the economics on 

it. 

I think we also need to just factor in the consequences if we 

don’t. What’s this cost avoidance? And if we could ever capture a 

way to really consider that, I think it would really help with the 

economics of this. 

If we think about by thinning out these forests the reduction of 

risk that’s occurred and then by being able to use the material for 

either to use it into a wood product material or for energy consumption. If we could factor in the cost avoidance benefit on that, 

I think that the economics would sell itself on this. 

69 

But we’re going to have to continue with our research, continue 

with demonstration projects and to be able to also have a guaranteed supply of biomass. If you’re going to make an investment, 

you’re going to need to have the bank loan money. And so we’ve 

got to use more of our stewardship authority where we can show 

that’s a ten year contract. And you can take that to the bank that 

without any question material is going to be there. So those are 

some of the things we need to continue to work on. 

Senator FRANKEN. I agree with you, and I think there is a cost 

to not doing this. Are we doing the pilot projects? Are we exploring 

this enough? And do we need to do anything here in this Committee and in Congress to facilitate overcoming this challenge so 

we can do something, especially with energy storage and the more 

use of distributive energy? How we can make this a piece so that 

you will have the ability to remove hazardous fuel because it is 

monetized so we can do more of it and make it make sense? Anybody? Yes, Mr. Hallin. 

Mr. HALLIN. Thank you for the question, Senator. 

At Salt River Project there is a biomass plant that we actually 

buy half of the power at that facility. One of the challenges, as 

Chief Tidwell mentioned, was the fact of ensuring that you have 

material at that plant so we don’t need any undue delays to ensure 

that there is material available at the biomass plant. I think, second, there’s another added value benefit. By going in and thinning 

these forests there’s essentially an avoided release of carbon. When 

you have these catastrophic wildfires there’s a major release of carbon into the air. 

Senator FRANKEN. Sure. 

Mr. HALLIN. So there’s another benefit associated with utilizing. 

Senator FRANKEN. Better to release it as energy that we use for 

electricity rather than just go up into the atmosphere. 

Mr. HALLIN. Yes. 

Senator FRANKEN. Yes. 

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to continue. Every 

time you testify I bring this a little bit further, but I really want 

to keep exploring that and especially with the Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Franken. 

Senator Flake? 

Senator FLAKE. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Thank you for the testimony. It is nice to have a couple of Arizonans here. Dr. Pyne and Bruce, it is good to see you. I know we 

have talked on a number of occasions, and I appreciate the testimony from those who know so much on this. 

I appreciate the work of Chief Tidwell. I think it is important to 

acknowledge some of the positive developments that we have seen 

recently related to forest management. Last month I think all of 

us were encouraged to learn that Phase One, 4FRI, the record of 

decision was signed. That will allow us, the Chief talked about, 

large scale management rather than just a couple of thousand 

acres here or there, the paltry 3,000-plus acres that have so far 

been treated is emblematic of the pace that we have that is simply 

too slow. We have to do it on a much, much larger scale. 

Chief, you have noted, 58 million acres, are at high or very high 

risk. We have to move on a larger scale, so we all recognize achievVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:50 Nov 04, 2016 Jkt 095275 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\95275\D95275.TXT D95275
70 

ing reduction in hazardous fuels is critical. And we have got to find 

a way to solve this fire borrowing issue. I like some of the proposals that have been put forward. Myself, Senator McCain, Senator Barrasso, and others have put forward some as well. 

By way of disrupting these activities, in terms of suppression, we 

are putting hazardous fuels reduction on hold. We are also putting 

communities and fire fighters at risk as we know all too well in Arizona. As Bruce talked about today, we are also increasingly creating challenges for maintaining a healthy watershed and for what 

that does to drinking water supplies. 

For all these reasons I am, obviously, supportive of efforts to resolve the fire borrowing issue by allowing a limited adjustment to 

statutory budget caps under specific circumstances or scenarios. 

For example, when the Forest Service and DOI exceed 

anticipatable or those that we can forecast, wildfire suppression 

costs. There is no doubt that wildfires are disastrous. They have a 

tremendous impact on communities that derive their livelihood 

from the national forest on water quality and on wildlife. But we 

cannot let the disastrous nature of wildfire make us lose sight of 

many of the costs of fighting fires and that we can’t anticipate 

them. 

Let me be clear about that. Many of the costs of both preventing 

as well as fighting fires can be anticipated like municipal fire departments that budget for expected personnel and incident response costs. I believe that we can do much the same here. I would 

agree on the significance of the problems that wildfires present, but 

where there is some disagreement is dealing with these so called 

anticipatable costs. 

I would support efforts to recognize that in some years there will 

be large fires that drive the wildfire suppression costs well above 

those that were anticipated. In those years if the agencies have 

been appropriated 100 percent of the anticipated costs, I think that 

limited budget cap adjustments to allow the agencies to fight fire 

without borrowing from other sources would make sense. 

If they have been fully budgeted for what is easily anticipated as 

a realistic cost of suppression then that would apply. Frankly I 

would like to see sufficient funds on the front end. I think we all 

would like to see that put into suppression activities as well. Sound 

budgeting requires dealing with both preventable symptoms as well 

as resulting disasters. 

What I disagree with is the notion that we should simply move 

30 percent of those anticipated costs off budget because it is convenient nor because it creates additional flexibility for increased 

spending under the statutory budget caps, paying for one disaster 

while furthering our current fiscal disaster does not make sense. 

We need to be realistic here about what we can do. We need to deal 

with the House as well, and be realistic about what we can budget 

for and what we can’t. 

There is a solution to be found on the issue I believe that involves flexibility but only after 100 percent of those anticipatable 

suppression costs have been expended. Let’s not confuse disasters 

with unanticipated costs. We need to plan for what is likely to 

occur to take steps necessary to prevent those disasters from occurVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:50 Nov 04, 2016 Jkt 095275 PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\95275\D95275.TXT D95275
71 

ring, and then use flexibility in those rare years where we go over 

those costs. 

I hope that my colleagues and the Administration will come together and find a solution, a long term solution, on this issue. 

I did not want to use all my time speaking here, but I believe 

I have. So thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Flake, I think this is a key part of what 

this Committee will be grappling with is exactly how we deal with 

this. I, too, hope we can find that agreement here, but we have to 

be realistic in terms of what we are facing and it has to be a solution that is more lasting than what we are dealing with right now 

which is, kind of, an interim stop gap and again, borrowing that 

hurts everybody. So know that we will be working with you on this. 

Senator Heinrich? 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you. 

Chief, at the beginning I think you apologized for bringing up 

fire borrowing. Once again, I think, most of us up here would say 

don’t apologize and keep bringing it up until we find a workable 

way forward on this because it is, sort of, the elephant in the room 

here. We have to fix that piece of all of this one way or the other 

to be able to really scale these projects up to the kind of landscape 

levels that you were talking about. 

Mr. Hallin, I wanted to ask you if you would go into a little more 

detail about the kinds of projects that you are doing and the partnerships. I know in New Mexico we started to look at this, so we 

have a couple of different things going. One in the Santa Fe watershed, the Santa Fe water fund which uses contributions from water 

uses to match up with Forest Service funding and treat the watershed above Santa Fe. In addition the Rio Grande water fund is now 

doing a similar partnership on a much larger geographic area of 

the Rio Grande’s watershed, south of Colorado in Northern New 

Mexico. 

If you would tell us a little bit more about those partnerships 

and how we might be able to learn from those things and scale 

them to other regions to get some of those benefits that we see 

when we are able to connect downstream water users effectively to 

the health of their watershed which may be hundreds and hundreds of miles away. 

Mr. HALLIN. Thank you, Senator, for the question. 

We found very quickly that there was a definite disconnect with 

many of the businesses and water users in the valley. And when 

I’m talking about the valley, the Phoenix metropolitan area disconnect between a healthy forest and a healthy watershed. To 

begin getting the subject matter to a broader base group of individuals we decided to work together with some of our larger power 

customers and other customers that receive energy from SRP. 

Many of those organizations have green initiatives and other initiatives that if they’re looking at spending money to improve, not only 

their products that they’re delivering but also to improve their 

image. 

We sat down and realized that there are opportunities within our 

watershed to link this issue with end users, so we established this 

Northern Arizona Forest Fund together with the National Forest 

Foundation. Now the National Forest Foundation is congressionally 

72 

authorized to use private funds as a 501(c)(3) organization. We 

didn’t want end users to think that there was something in this for 

the Salt River Project. It’s actually something in it for the watershed. 

So this Northern Arizona Forest Fund, essentially, we identified 

projects and partnership with the Forest Service that are outside 

of these large, full scale restoration projects, but they’re smaller 

projects that have a begin date and an end date so that when you 

invest your money, you know specifically what you’re investing in 

as a result of that project. 

Senator HEINRICH. I think that is really key. Connecting up 

these users who do not or have not in the past had an intuitive 

connection to where their water comes from. In Santa Fe’s case, 

they can actually see their watershed. But for someone, say, in Albuquerque or in Phoenix, that watershed may be a long way away 

and connecting those things together is a pretty powerful tool. 

Chief, I want to just ask you a quick question with my remaining 

time. We heard a lot from Dr. Hood about the benefits of using 

these treatments together if not just having stove pipes around, 

mechanical treatment and then prescribed, low intensity fire but 

using them in combination having by far the best results. Are you 

able to do that as you scale up these landscape level fuel treatments? Are you able to plan both the prescribed and natural fire 

piece and the mechanical thinning piece together in concert? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. A lot of places it’s necessary for us to have 

at least two entries into these areas. So the first year we’ll come 

in and do the thinning. 

Senator HEINRICH. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. To reduce the total biomass and then follow it up, 

you know, with prescribed fire. And that is the right approach, especially in our dry forest types. And then once you have that 

thinning done, then you can continue to run that fire through 

there, either prescribed fire or with our natural fire. 

Senator HEINRICH. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. But often we need to do that mechanical treatment 

first, the timber harvest, to reduce the stand down to a level of biomass that we can then handle when we do have a fire. 

Senator HEINRICH. And probably a more historical level, at least 

within the Ponderosa Pine dry forest of the West. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator HEINRICH. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Heinrich. 

Senator Barrasso? 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chief Tidwell, as a doctor I appreciate the adage that an ounce 

of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I am concerned with the 

ever increasing need to fire borrow money from fire prevention activities in the declining health of our national forests. The Administration seems intent on wanting more money for a fire cure while 

refusing to engage, I believe, in any serious land management fire 

prevention reforms. The Administration is set on maintaining the 

failed status quo policies and the culture of litigation surrounding 

forest management. As I said to Under Secretary Bonnie last 

month, the Forest Service has, I believe, lost its direction and its 

73 

purpose. The Forest Service has become a bureaucracy of bureaucratic agency emphasizing internal processes over real results and 

improvements on the ground. It is my view that if we are going to 

increase fire prevention activities that Congress needs to direct and 

mandate results and outcomes. 

Does either the Administration proposal of S. 235, the Wildfire 

Disaster Funding Act, contain language guaranteeing that funds 

actually go to prevention activities such as hazardous fuels reduction and does either proposal contain the language providing legislative reforms aimed at streamlining active management and reducing litigation? 

Mr. TIDWELL. No, it only eliminates the need to transfer and 

eliminates the stoppage of work in the fall. 

Senator BARRASSO. I look at this and say we must prevent the 

practice of fire borrowing and prioritize funding for treatment activities to reduce future wildlife suppression costs. That is why I 

co-sponsored Senator McCain’s bill, S. 508, the FLAME Act amendments of 2015. 

I think we also have to streamline the way forest management 

activities are approved, meaningful policy reforms. S. 508 also includes innovative ideas like arbitration to get the Forest Service 

out of the courtroom back into the forests. We need to solve the 

challenges facing our national forests in a financially responsible 

way. Is the Forest Service willing to work with this Committee and 

the sponsors of the different bills to find solutions? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Senator, we’re, of course, very interested in working with the Committee to find those solutions. And as we’ve discussed in the past, this concept of arbitration, it’s something that 

I’m interested in trying. I’d like to see us take on a pilot approach 

on to that, and part of that is I need to see that it’s a better solution. It sounds good in concept, but I really think we need to, kind 

of, move into that, do some pilot approaches and just to see where 

that can take us. But I think it’s one of the things we want to continue to work with you on. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Hallin, so often those who oppose active 

management of our forests claim hazardous fuel projects, timber 

production or thinning activities will destroy watershed health and 

wildlife habitat. Your testimony paints a different picture of what 

is threatening watersheds, wildlife and the sustainability of high 

quality drinking water. 

In your view what are the primary roadblocks to improving watershed health and wildlife habitat? 

Mr. HALLIN. In our experience to date it’s been partially the process associated with NEPA. If we can find opportunities to accelerate NEPA we see that as an opportunity to move more rapidly 

forward. 

I think secondly, too, there is a need, and we’re seeing this begin 

to change when it comes to the attitude of the Forest Service that 

to be in the project management business, to manage those forests 

and to refocus their efforts on the reason why many of those forest 

reserves were created, essentially, to protect the water supply. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Eisele, thinking about your professional 

career, one of your responsibilities was to protect and improve watersheds. You described the National Environmental Policy Act, 

74 

NEPA, as a weapon in the hands of a few. In your testimony you 

talk about the amount of time it is taking to complete the Santa 

Ana Watershed Environmental Impact Statement. I think you said 

it took over three years to undertake an action that is prudent and 

necessary for economic health and the protection of life and property is a misapplication of the intent of the law. How often do you 

see NEPA being used as a weapon or a barrier to actually improving watershed health? 

Mr. EISELE. I think it’s common. It’s a long process and the 

whole deal is to avoid litigation from people that are obstructionists, in my view. 

Senator BARRASSO. So in your view if we do nothing, what are 

the consequences of, you know, what is happening with fires then? 

Mr. EISELE. Well to do nothing is catastrophic fires and continuing catastrophic fires and having unhealthy forests and all the 

other things we’ve talked about today. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hirono? 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all 

for testifying. 

I wanted to note for the record, Madam Chair, that Hawaii has 

a fire problem also. It is estimated that 0.5 percent of land in Hawaii burns each year, a percentage that is equal to or higher than 

what is experienced in Western states. Given that Hawaii’s native 

ecosystems are not fire adapted, we are losing an alarming amount 

of native flora and fauna to wildfires often to be replaced by nonnative grasses and other invasive species that then fuel future 

fires. In fact, the non-native grasses and shrub lands cover some 

24 percent of Hawaii’s land creating landscapes that are flammable 

and highly susceptible to wildfires, so clearly this issue touches 

every single state. 

Chief Tidwell, you talked about the Healthy Forest Restoration 

Act. It sounded as though you have thought about making some or 

asking for some amendments to this law that would enable the 

Forest Service to, as you put it, take a total landscape approach, 

not just looking at thousands of acres, but to be able to look at tens 

of thousands of acres. Do you have some suggestive language that 

would provide more flexibility for the Forest Service to deal with 

this problem? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well Senator, with the passage of the Farm bill 

and thank you, again, for the 2014 Farm bill, it did expand the use 

of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act to deal with these insect and 

disease. So if you combine that authority plus what we have with 

the original Healthy Forest Restoration Act, it does really expand 

on our ability to use that more efficient NEPA process on much 

larger landscapes. One thing that may be helpful is if we just had 

one authority instead of the two so that would be a little, I think, 

a little easier for folks or communities to understand. 

The thing I want to stress is that the reason we are able to get 

more and more work done each year is the level of support we have 

through these collaborative efforts. And it’s been mentioned with 

the panelists here, we need to be looking at not just a hazardous 

fuel issue, but also the total restoration projects, the work that 

75 

needs to be done to restore the overall watersheds, reduce the hazardous fuels and create this resilient system. 

So it’s essential that we always recognize that need to be able 

to have the engagement with our communities, but being able to 

really reduce the number of alternatives that we need to address 

definitely speeds up the process and it keeps everybody at the table 

and allows us to get the work done sooner. 

Senator HIRONO. So are you saying that with the combination of 

the Farm bill provisions and what you have under the Healthy Forest Restoration Act that you have enough authority but it would be 

clearer if we could put it all in one—— 

Mr. TIDWELL. It’s one way just to simplify it to make it easier 

for, you know, the public to understand and that we have both of 

these authorities and now we can use it on a larger landscape. So 

it’s one thing that we’re thinking about if that’s something that 

would really help us. But we’ve had some discussion on it. 

Senator HIRONO. You talked about the need for collaborating 

with communities across the board. Do you have a state-by-state 

program or plan that would enable communities and fire departments and the state and counties to work collaboratively with the 

Forest Service to prevent these wildfires? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We—— 

Senator HIRONO. We have something for Hawaii. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. In the past we’ve done it more community-bycommunity with communities that developed a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. Now with the cohesive strategy that we’ve just 

put out, it allows us to take a much larger landscape approach. So 

it recognizes not only do we need to have fire adapted natural communities so we have these restored, resilient forests, but we also 

need to have fire adapted human communities so that we’re taking 

the actions around people’s homes and on private land so that 

we’re working together to reduce this threat. These two efforts 

along with the need to keep the suppression resources we have is 

really going to be, I think, very helpful for us to be able to move 

forward and address this problem that goes way beyond just the 

Federal land. 

Senator HIRONO. Chief, I am sorry I am running out of time, but 

you said that you work community-by-community? Are you working 

with any particular communities in Hawaii? You can get back to 

me. 

Mr. TIDWELL. I’ll have to get back to you on it. 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you. 

Mr. TIDWELL. But the point that you raised about the invasives 

that you’re dealing with in Hawaii, I mean, that’s what we’re doing 

with so many states. It’s what comes in after these fires, and so 

I appreciate you bringing that forward that you also, your state 

also deals with this issue. We’ll get back to you with the list of 

communities we’re working with. 

Senator HIRONO. We are basically the invasive species capital of 

the country. [Laughter.] 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Senator HIRONO. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Hirono. 

76 

Senator Gardner? 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to 

Chief Tidwell and the other witnesses for being here today. It is 

a timely hearing we are having. 

On Saturday Senator Bennet and I in Colorado are hosting a fire 

summit in Colorado Springs which is, of course, the site to the 

Black Forest fire a couple of years ago, the Waldo Canyon Fire and 

a number of other devastating events have occurred throughout the 

state. Over two dozen wildfire experts, community experts and 

mitigation experts will be joining us. I will ask you about that in 

a little bit. 

I wanted to follow up on some of your testimony. Where you 

talked about progress in retrofitting the HC31H aircraft that the 

service acquired from the U.S. Coast Guard. How many of these 

aircrafts will be ready to perform wildfire suppression missions this 

summer? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Senator, we’ll have one of those aircraft in the latter part of the fire season that we’re going to be putting the 

MAFFs tank in it to be able to start to use that this year. And then 

by the end of the year we expect to receive the second one. It will 

be 2019 before we’ll have probably all seven of them with the tanks 

built into the planes. 

Senator GARDNER. The timeline for completing it, that gives the 

timeline for completing the wing box and the tank work that is required to bring them into service is 2019? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, we’ll have all seven of them in operation by 

then. 

Senator GARDNER. Okay, very good, thank you. 

Do you have an update on the Forest Service ground water rule? 

What is the status of that right now? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We have withdrawn our initial proposed rule to 

allow us more time to continue to work with the states and the 

stakeholders to really address this issue. Our concern about making sure that we’re not impacting ground water. 

I’m working with our regional foresters to ensure that as we 

have to address these issues, especially on some large mines and 

oil and gas leases, is that the lack of having a systematic, consistent process doesn’t become a barrier from being able to move 

forward and address those projects. We’ve withdrawn for this time 

and we’re going to continue to work with the states to be able to, 

sometime in the future, to have a solution to this issue so that we 

do not become the barrier to implementing some of these projects. 

Senator GARDNER. One of the things I think you heard is a common theme for many members of the Committee is just continuing 

to talk about the litigation and the parent paralysis that sometimes 

that presents in terms of making sure that we are managing our 

forests in an appropriate way so we can avoid or prevent the catastrophic wildfire from happening in the first place. 

If there was one particular avenue of litigation or perhaps a 

piece of legislation that you could draft yourself to avoid some of 

the litigation that is stopping or holding up some of the forest management activities that are so needed around the country, what 

would it be? 

77 

Mr. TIDWELL. I would first start with looking at ways to 

incentivize collaboration. As I look at the success that we’re having, 

today verses earlier in my career, that is the one thing that’s making the difference, the level of support and understanding that we 

have to be able to do these projects. So any way we can continue 

to, you know, encourage that. I also think this concept of arbitration is something that I’m interested in exploring in a pilot fashion 

to see if that might be a better way. 

The other thing is also when we talk about our using the Farm 

bill authorities to be able to reduce the amount of analysis we have 

to do instead of looking at sometimes five and six alternatives, we 

look at two. That also allows us to be able to ensure that we’re addressing the issues around those alternatives verses having to look 

at a much broader piece of work. I think that will also help us to 

be more efficient and more effective. But those are the things that 

I’ve been thinking of. 

Senator GARDNER. Thank you. 

Talking about some of the FEMA and the disaster declarations, 

are you aware of some of the challenges we have after a fire when 

it comes to the FEMA declarations themselves? Has the Forest 

Service weighed in on any proposal to perhaps change our disaster 

declarations? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we work very closely with the states during 

the fire on those to be able to make sure that they’re getting, send 

those in as quickly as they possibly can and to be able to provide 

our interpretation. 

Senator GARDNER. I guess what I am talking about is long after 

the fire is out we have the ongoing flooding issues, we have landslide issues, hydrophobic soil conditions, and FEMA can sometimes 

leave the scene even though that creates secondary emergencies 

that then have to receive their own designation. Has the Forest 

Service weighed in on perhaps changing our national disaster declaration process so we can avoid some of the regulatory hurdles 

that are naturally occurring after a fire? 

Mr. TIDWELL. You know, we have not engaged on that, but we 

definitely recognize the problem. I think it’s another area that we 

need to work together to be able to find a way to be able to recognize that, yes, there’s the fire and then there’s the recovery afterwards. And often that’s more detrimental, more impacting than actually the fire itself, as you’ve seen, you know, in your state. 

I think it’s an opportunity where, I think, we can look at taking 

a different approach so that we can do a better job to work with 

our communities to be able to have a timely response that goes way 

beyond what we’re currently doing just with our area emergency 

rehab work. 

Senator GARDNER. I was on the Western Slope this past weekend 

and have just one final question. I was talking to an individual 

who manages a narrow gauge railroad. He has his own fire fighting 

fleet because, if there is a fire that is started by the railroad that 

creates, obviously, liability and substantial damage to his community. 

As a result of some conflict between Forest Service regulations 

he is sometimes limited in where he can send that fire fighting 

fleet out to actually put a fire out before it becomes a major fire 

78 

and there are some challenges with a helicopter that they have 

contracted to go in. I would love to work with you in terms of trying to find out a way that we could partner with the Forest Service 

and this fire fighting fleet. 

Both the Forest Service and this individual have the same goal 

in mind and that is to prevent the forest fire from happening in 

the first place, and perhaps we can make sure that we can get the 

regulations into place where we are able to put the fire out without 

finger pointing. 

Mr. TIDWELL. We’d be glad to work with you and the individual 

on that. I mean, that’s the sort of thing that through, especially 

working with the state foresters that we have the authorities to be 

able to do that. It may just be making sure that we’ve got everything in place, and then also we always share—have the concern 

with safety. 

Senator GARDNER. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. To make sure that whoever is responding to the 

fire has the equipment, has the knowledge and the skills so they 

can do it safely. 

Senator GARDNER. Right, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Risch? 

Senator RISCH. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chief Tidwell, you and I spoke just very briefly before the hearing about some correspondence that your office received from the 

State Land Board in Idaho. As you lived in Idaho you are well familiar with the State Land Board, and they oversee the state forest 

holdings and other holdings. They are concerned, as you and I have 

discussed and as you have discussed with many Members of Congress, and really focused on some optimism, hopefully around the 

provisions in the Farm bill, that are going to give us the opportunity to do some of these treatment projects that we have wanted 

to do. 

I do not think I need to tell you, but there is a lot of frustration 

out there that it is not moving as fast as we would like. I think 

maybe people had expectations raised beyond what is reality when 

you are dealing with the Federal Government, unfortunately, but 

I would urge you to continue. I think it is still untested. We are 

making some progress on it, but I would sure urge you that we continue to put one foot in front of the other and try to mature this 

process as rapidly as we can. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Senator, I agree with that. We will be glad to provide the Land Board out in Idaho and also to you and your staff, 

just a list of all the projects we have planned in Idaho using the 

Farm bill authorities. 

Senator RISCH. Okay. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

79 

All projects included in the attached list are occurring in the designated insect and disease areas (aka priority landscapes) and are 

using or have potential to use Farm Bill authorities. Projects that 

show ‘‘pre-Farm Bill’’ in the NEPA Process column were already in 

progress or completed prior to the 2014 Farm Bill and did not use 

Farm Bill authorities but are occurring in the priority landscapes. 

80 


Insert offset folio 46 here 95275A.046
81 


Insert offset folio 47 here 95275A.047
82 


Insert offset folio 045 here 95275A.045
83 

Mr. TIDWELL. And then later this summer we’ll finish the Paperwork Reduction Act requirements so we can move forward with the 

Good Neighbor Authority. 

We have taken some additional time to work with the state foresters to produce templates about how to use that. And because of 

taking out additional time and actually doing some scenarios with 

them, we call them Sand Table exercises, where you’d actually go 

through a process to see how would this actually play out to be 

able to work together to implement a project. Because of that we’ve 

made significant changes to template the feedback I’m getting from 

the state foresters that they feel that’s going to be a much better 

tool. So taking a little more time on it is going to, I think, really 

help us in the long run. 

Senator RISCH. I have spoken with Mr. Schultz, who I think you 

know, who heads our State Land Board. He is very anxious to see 

this move forward, and he is in agreement that this has some real 

potential if it is moved expeditiously and appropriately. I appreciate your efforts in that regard. 

Mr. Eisele, I was surprised to hear you say that you were short 

on the ground of overhead photography in a fire. When I was Governor we had a summer that there was a lot of fire on and every 

morning before it got light I had in hand a map of what the fire 

had done from satellite imagery and some other overhead imagery 

of what the fire had done the day before. I am surprised to hear 

you say that that is not available to you in San Diego. I am assuming you have satellite imagery in San Diego like we do in Idaho? 

What can you tell me about that? 

Mr. EISELE. So the process you’re referring to is the NIROPS program where the Forest Service airplane flies an infrared plane over 

all the fires burning in, basically, the Western United States. Then 

the fire teams have that information before six o’clock in the morning, and I do know where the fire is then. The issue is that fires 

change during the day. We now know where the fire was last night 

and we know where the fire was the night before. We don’t have 

real time information. 

Now the Forest Service research does have an airplane with a 

fire mapper program that can fly at above the altitude of the air 

tankers and all of the helicopters and now can continuously map 

that fire and send real time data down, but it’s a research program. 

Senator RISCH. So you are looking for hour-by-hour as opposed 

to what happened the day before? 

Mr. EISELE. Certainly or at least more than once every 24 hours. 

Senator RISCH. Sure, yes, that clearly makes sense. In today’s 

world with the technology we have it would seem to me that that 

would not be that difficult to do. Predictability obviously is important, and with weather changing and what have you, sometimes it 

is relatively predictable and sometimes not. 

Thank you very much, I appreciate it. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Risch. 

Senator Hoeven? 

Senator HOEVEN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Chief, it is good to see you again. Thanks for your recent visit 

to North Dakota. I would just like to follow up on that. 

84 

My first question goes to the environmental assessment and the 

allotment plan for the grazers. In both cases they wanted changes 

made proactively. Can you give me a status report on how you are 

coming with that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Senator, the follow up with that meeting our folks, 

our staff, are going to continue, we’re going to continue to work 

with the Grazing Association members to be able to address their 

concerns. I think I want to thank you for hosting that meeting, because I also think it helped to clarify a few issues to help us to be 

able to move forward and address their concerns. 

Senator HOEVEN. So you feel you will be, working with your state 

director, be able to make adjustments that should work for the 

grazing associations and the ranchers? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, I was optimistic after listening, you know, 

from the work there done at the university that I think we provide 

a slightly different approach, one that I think would work for both 

the ranchers and also address our needs. 

So that was the thing I left with that meeting is that a little different approach that was being proposed there that could help, I 

think, really once and for all, kind of, settled this one issue that 

we’ve had there. 

Senator HOEVEN. I appreciate that. 

The other thing I would like to emphasize is working with NDSU 

range scientists, particularly Dr. Souvik. I think that not only are 

they very knowledgeable and they focus on the science, but they 

also have a lot of credibility with the ranchers and their area. So 

I would emphasize that you work closely with NDSU and their 

range scientists, particularly on the three and a half inch visual obstruction reading. I think they can really help get to a solution that 

the ranchers feel is common sense and workable. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, and that’s the issue that the university and 

the doctor, he has come up with a different approach to really determine which areas actually have the capability to produce that 

stubble height. I think from the discussions we had there at your 

meeting and a little bit of follow up discussion, I left there being 

more optimistic than I’ve been for a while that hey, this is a better 

approach that the university is coming up with for us to be able 

to answer that question about which areas are capable or not. And 

it seems like that’s really been the issue. The ranchers can manage 

their livestock to be able to produce the stubble height we’d need. 

We just need to be able to understand which areas are actually capable and which ones are not. 

Senator HOEVEN. Right. 

Mr. TIDWELL. And I think once we can come to an agreement on 

that I’m optimistic that we can put this issue behind us and move 

forward. 

Senator HOEVEN. In order to continue the Dakota Prairie Grasslands demonstration project, does that require legislation or is that 

something you can do without legislation? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We can continue to work under that demonstration 

project. At this point we don’t need any additional legislation. 

Senator HOEVEN. Okay, It is important that we continue it. 

Let me switch to the fire piece. I know you are getting a lot of 

question on fires, but it looks like we are drier this year. We cerVerDate Nov 24 2008 13:50 Nov 04, 2016 Jkt 095275 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\TARSHA\HEARINGS\95275\D95275.TXT D95275
85 

tainly are drier this year starting out than we have been the last 

several, particularly in the West. 

So address for a minute your approach to the grasslands in 

terms of steps you are taking to be prepared for fires this season. 

Obviously we are very focused on the forests, but the grasslands 

have fire issues as well. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, well the grasslands are part of the national 

forest so it’s for when I talk about the national forest I’m always 

including the grasslands. 

What we’re doing there in the state is what we’re doing across 

the country is to be working with our cooperators, with the volunteer fire departments, so that we’re ready to go when the fire season which in your case has already started. If I recall the day I was 

up there just a couple days before we’d already had several fires 

in your state that people were explaining to me they just never see 

this level fire behavior occurring so early in the year. 

Those are the things to make sure that we have the resources 

we need, that people are ready and that if there’s anything that we 

need to address that we can take care of ahead of time. 

In your state, like many states, it’s those volunteer fire departments that are a big part of our initial attack resources. They’re 

responsible for being able to get there quickly and be able to suppress so many of the fires. And so it’s like in your state and the 

rest of the country, it takes all of us working together, the Federal 

Government, the State, counties and local fire to be able to deal 

with this. 

Senator HOEVEN. Then address the controlled burn issue for a 

moment too. Obviously I am particularly sensitive to this issue because it is dry, and we really want you working with the people 

on the ground, not just the land owners, but obviously volunteer 

fire departments and everyone else. So let’s touch on controlled 

burn for just a minute. Are you going to stay away from it this year 

because it is drier? What is your plan? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, definitely. When we have those conditions 

that we have up there we often are not going to get in prescription 

to begin with. But we’re only going to be doing prescribed burns 

where we have, you know, kind of the agreement and the support 

from the grazing associations where in part of your state it’s a little 

bit wetter. That association is very supportive of more fire. Other 

parts that are drier we don’t have that, at least that agreement at 

this point. So we’re not going to be using a lot of prescribed fire 

in those areas until we have the right conditions and the level of 

agreement so that everyone’s together on what’s the value of this 

and make sure that we’re factoring in the risk to avoid the situation we had a couple years ago. 

Senator HOEVEN. Thanks again, Chief. I appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Hoeven. 

We were discussing about how we get the accurate imaging of 

the fire. During the Funny River fire that we had last year on the 

peninsula the state was able to use drones to determine where that 

hot spot was and found it very effective, because it was one of those 

situations where the smoke was so thick you did not know what 

was happening and there was no real way to pinpoint it at that 

86 

time. So the technologies that are out there, I think, that can clearly help to make a difference as we try to battle these fires. 

Mr. Eisele, you mentioned the significance of having an app 

where people know who is where and from a safety perspective, 

making sure that those who are fighting our fires have some tools 

that, perhaps, we have not had in the past. 

We have not really had much discussion this morning about the 

wildland urban interface and the fact that 50 to 95 percent of Forest Service’s fire suppression costs are incurred protecting private 

property, and we all know about the Fire Wise program. We certainly see the benefits of when a homeowner takes very proactive 

steps to ensure a level of safety through clearing around their 

areas. 

I remember flying over the Kenai Peninsula some years ago after 

horrible fires, and you would see just nothing but charred blackness and then there would be this little island of green where they 

had created defensible space. Just because of the education that 

goes on with the Fire Wise program I think we recognize that we 

can reduce the cost of suppression if the homeowners as well take 

an active role in management. 

Chief, can you speak to what we are doing to encourage that end 

of it? Again, it is preventive, but are we using sufficient resources 

to allow for an understanding, a training and an education for folks 

so that they too are making a difference? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Madam Chair, we are making, I think, even more 

and more progress each year. Especially with our cohesive strategy 

that we put together working very closely with the states, the counties, the boroughs and you know, with cities to come up with an 

understanding of really what’s it’s going to take and then the tools 

to be able to create that level of awareness, especially with the private land owners. And then to be able to set up demonstration 

projects around the country to be able to show the difference that 

we’re making. We’re also prioritizing some of our fuels money so 

that it’s going to those areas where the state, the private land 

owner is doing the work on their land and so that we can make 

a more effective treatment area. So those are the things that we’re 

continuing to do, and I think it encourages more people to maybe 

do the right thing with their private land than to have those demonstration projects where they can see the difference that it makes 

and what it really takes, because some folks think they have to like 

completely clear all of their land of all trees and brush and we 

don’t need to do anything to that level. Those demonstration 

projects are really helping the private land owners to be able to 

see, okay, this is really what I need to do. 

We’re working very closely with our state foresters through our 

state fire assistance programs to help provide some funding to be 

able to do this work not only on the national forests, but also on 

the private land together. Through this cohesive strategy I do believe that it’s going to really help us to move forward in a bigger 

way than we have in the past. I’ve never seen this level of support 

and understanding from our partners, from the states and the 

counties, the boroughs and the cities that I have based on this cohesive strategy. 

87 

The CHAIRMAN. If you are looking for demonstration projects I 

would just suggest you put people in an airplane and fly over some 

of these areas where you see the blue tarps that arc. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Where you still have surviving structures, again, 

amidst some pretty tough devastation here. 

I was up in Iqaluit, Nunavut territory for the Arctic Ministerial 

meeting with Secretary Kerry, and one of the frameworks that was 

discussed there at the Arctic Council was a focus on an effort to 

reduce black carbon emissions in the Arctic. The Council’s action 

is probably more focused on manmade black carbon, but the reality 

is that the largest contributor to black carbon is really the wildfire. 

I would just ask if the Forest Service is going to have any role at 

all in this black carbon initiative with the Council? If you do not 

know you can get back to me or submit your answer for the record, 

but I do want to put that on your radar screen because it is something that, I think, we have not really talked about. We are talking 

about the manmade, but, I think, again, the issue of wildfire is 

where we see the vast majority of that black carbon. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Madam Chair, I’ll follow up, but I do know that we 

have a couple of our research scientists that are working with that 

group. The point that you bring up about the carbon that’s released 

from these fires, we can make a difference if we can reduce the 

level of severity and the catastrophic size of some of these fires as 

far as the total release verses doing it through more of a prescribed 

fire and a much lower severity. 

So those are the things that, as we really look at this problem, 

we need to be factoring in all of the benefits that come in from having an approach that can restore these forests and at the same 

time take suppression where we need to take suppression to protect our communities. 

The CHAIRMAN. One last question, very quickly. 

In the Fire Potential Outlook Alaska’s highest risk of significant 

wildfire potential is in the May time period, and it is my understanding that we are seeing fire season earlier and earlier. I mentioned to you, just my own personal view, from flying into the interior this weekend. Do we track that so that we can actually identify 

that the fire season has started in places like Alaska even earlier 

than traditionally seen? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, we track the changing conditions to make 

sure that if we need to bring on resources earlier than what we 

normally would do that we bring those, that we have those resources available. 

The CHAIRMAN. That was specifically what I was going to ask because you basically budget for this. You have got your assets that 

are on standby, but if in fact we are seeing our fires start earlier 

do we have them co-located in areas that we can be responsive or 

do we wait until the calendar says fire season begins in Alaska? 

Mr. TIDWELL. We do not wait. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. TIDWELL. We—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That is what I need to know. 

Mr. TIDWELL. We reposition our resources where they’re needed. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

88 

Senator Cantwell? 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Chief Tidwell, I wanted to go back to you on the question that 

I asked before. I did not think we got a chance to get to that, and 

that was the amount of funding that is available versus the 

amount of need that we have on the wildland urban interface. 

Where do you think we need to go in terms of getting resources and 

what do you think the advent of a biomass program might be able 

to do to help? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well first, with the increase in funding that we received this year for hazardous fuels and where the majority of our 

work is in the wildland urban interface, that is going to allow us 

to be able to expand that program and be able to treat more acres. 

For instance, we’re having 2.5 million acres as our target for this 

year, and out of that 2.1 of that is going to actually occur in these 

highest priority areas. The second part of it is with finding more 

use for the biomass and whether it’s through an integrated wood 

product that can expand markets or to be able to use it for energy 

conversion and substitute that for other energy sources. I think 

those are the things we have to continue to work on. 

I think where we’ve been able to use the BCAP authorities that 

subsidize the transportation of biomass, it’s allowed for new facilities to come online to be able to provide some additional support 

for those new businesses. Those are the things we just need to continue to be able to work on, and then the program that we have 

to help folks be able to receive grants to do the economic analysis, 

to put a business case together, so that they’re in a much better 

place before they make the decision to make that investment. 

The last point that’s been brought up a couple times is the certainty. It’s essential that we provide some level of certainty, especially for these new operations, so that that’s the one thing they 

don’t have to worry about that there is going to be x amount of biomass that’s guaranteed to be available for at least a ten year period. 

Senator CANTWELL. Why do I think of the set aside issue when 

you say that? The notion that the Forest Service needs to adhere 

to the set aside for small businesses? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well it’s one of the things, with our stewardship 

contracting, it’s one of the issues that once, thank you again for 

making that permanent for us, but we’re working with the Small 

Business Administration to be able to go through rulemaking to address that issue. 

Senator CANTWELL. Okay. We definitely want to see us make 

progress. And if you’re saying that part of this is getting, you know, 

a flow of the biomass to create these businesses. 

Of the, you said $300 million, what do you think that represents 

as far as addressing need? Do you think there is a number that is 

double or triple that that you could easily do if you had the resources? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well I would respond with what we requested in 

our budget for FY’16 to maintain the increase in hazardous fuels 

that we received last year to be able to expand the collaborative 

forest landscape restoration work, to be able to get more funding 

for our basic forest restoration work and then also some additional 

89 

funding to work with the states to be able to expand the work that 

they’re doing. 

Those are the things that we asked for in our budget, along with 

recognizing that our ten year average for fire suppression went up 

$115 million again just this last year. So when you total those 

numbers together, our budget request plus what we’re asking, 

needing for fire suppression and ten year average, it’s, I think it 

actually comes out to a little over $300 million. 

Senator CANTWELL. When you say what you’ve said today in your 

testimony and questions, it sounds to me more, I am not saying 

status quo, but it is sounding more like we are on the right trajectory. Then when I see this research report from your organization 

it says something different. So where are you on that research report because it is within the Forest Service? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yeah, I just was reading that at the start of the 

hearing. You know, the research I think, identifies really what 

we’re focused on and the shifts that we’ve made over the last few 

years to recognize the need for us to manage fire, not only the natural fire in the back country, but we’ll have our fires where we’re 

taking very active suppression on part of that fire and then at the 

same time allowing another portion of that fire to be able to burn, 

to be able to reduce fuels. 

A good example of this was the Rim Fire a couple years ago in 

California. Aggressive suppression to keep the fire out of the communities, but at the same time we allowed that fire to burn up 

until Yosemite National Park where the park had been doing some 

prescribed burning. So those are the things that we need to continue to do. When I look at that research paper, for me, it describes 

really where we’re at, but we do need to expand. We’re going to 

need to be able to use more natural fire to manage more natural 

fire, we need to increase our prescribed fire, and we also need to 

increase our mechanical treatments, especially in those places that 

we need to do that work before we can put fire into the landscape. 

The other challenge we have, and it’s pointed out in this paper, 

is for our communities to really understand what needs to occur. 

When we’re managing fire in the back country there’s still a lot of 

concern. And at times I think some of our communities, that 

they’re scared or worried about where that fire is going to go verses 

if they know that they see the planes flying and the resources and 

stuff. So we need to do a better job to work with our communities 

so that they understand the actions we’re going to take and that 

they recognize the work that we’ve done to reduce the threat to 

their communities but to build more support for it. 

The other thing, and it hasn’t been mentioned yet at the hearing, 

we’re going to have to work together with the states to be able to 

address smoke management. There are times when we’re going to 

have to, I think, put up with a little more smoke from a managed 

fire, a low severity fire, to reduce those catastrophic situations. 

It’s something I think we’re going to have to work together to be 

able to provide that flexibility so that there is less impact, not only 

to our communities but I think about the loss of tourism, the loss 

of economic activity when we have these large fires. You saw it in 

your own state with the Carlton that those communities, there was 

90 

nobody going up there to go fishing or float the rivers, etcetera, 

when that fire was going on. 

That’s another reason why we need to increase our pace and 

scale with this work, and I think an incremental approach like 

what we’re taking with our FY’16 budget is the right way so we 

can continue to ramp this up. 

I know I’m way over time, but I just have to mention, like the 

Salt River. The partnerships that are coming together from communities or water companies that recognize that it’s a good investment to be able to change the conditions so that they don’t have 

to deal with the aftermath of a more catastrophic fire.We’re seeing 

that spring up across the country where people are willing. Communities, water companies, and water boards are willing to make 

that investment to be able to change the conditions on our landscape. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Dr. Pyne, I see you listening intently to every word that Chief 

Tidwell was saying. Do you have any comments about that? 

Dr. PYNE. No, I’m currently admiring his mastery of the venue 

and his material. 

I think the only comment I would add to some of the observations you made is on the wildland urban interface issue. We’ve 

tended to define that as a wildland problem that affects communities, but you can pick up the other end of that stick. Isn’t this 

an urban fire problem with wildland landscaping? If you think of 

it that way then we know how to keep houses from burning. We’ve 

solved that problem before. So in some ways it’s a definitional 

issue. If we start thinking about these as little fragments of cities 

then we start applying the same solutions we’ve had, and we can 

solve it technically. 

Senator CANTWELL. Even in these extreme situations like 

Carlton because it was such a blow up, because of weather and 

wind and everything? 

Dr. PYNE. Yes, I think you can. We know how to harden those 

communities. We know how to solve some of that. Under truly extreme conditions you’re going to have some damage. You’re not 

going to stop everything, but think of it as a kind of hurricane 

event. We know how to prepare and take action. So in some ways, 

I think, we’re mis-defining it. 

I’m struck how often with aerial photos of these communities 

that have been burned the houses are reduced to the concrete slab, 

but you still see so many trees around it, surviving. And you’re 

struck by this is a house, an urban fire problem with funding landscaping not just a wildland fire problem. So we need to do both. 

But I would put more resources, thinking about the other half of 

that equation. 

Senator CANTWELL. So you are definitely describing Pateros because those houses, in a matter of minutes, burned down to the 

foundation. 

Dr. PYNE. Yes. 

Senator CANTWELL. But why were you saying that there are 

trees? 

Dr. PYNE. Well, I’m not familiar enough with the Carlton complex. I know there was a lot of disperse stuff. But I’m thinking of, 

91 

we had comments from Colorado earlier, the Black Forest fire, 

Waldo Canyon, some of these others. Looking at the overviews of 

these and repeatedly that’s what you see in forest situations, communities. The fire is going house to house. It’s going along the 

ground of these, and you’re wondering why are some of these communities burning? That’s a house problem. That’s an urban fire 

problem or an ex-urban fire problem, not just a wildland fire problem. 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. 

Chief, I am not going to go back to Fairbanks and tell them that 

they have got to suffer through more smoke. As you know, we have 

just some extraordinary summers where there is no soccer that is 

being played, there is a health alert every morning, and some 

mornings it is so dense you literally need to have your headlights 

on during the summertime. It is an issue that we deal with. Fairbanks has some of the poorest air quality during the winter because of inversion issues, but during the summer it is because of 

the wildland fires that are all around. It is something that we 

struggle with most certainly. 

I listened to some of what you said in terms of the average that 

we spent last year. I think you said about $150 million more than 

it has been on average over the last ten years. I have seen something that says almost $200 million more spent on average. But 

what we have seen is that there have been less than half the number of fires, less than half the number of acres burned and less 

than half the number of houses burned. 

So again it speaks to the issue that we have here where we are 

experiencing skyrocketing suppression costs. I think we get to a 

point where we cannot continue to throw everything that we have 

at every fire whether it is effective or not. You just cannot take a 

blank check approach to fighting the fires. It is not sustainable, 

economically or perhaps ecologically, so it is something that we 

must look at. 

I think we need to strategically address the fuel accumulation 

problem in our forests and integrate our fuels management objectives into the wildfire management operations. I do not think that 

we can have fire management divorced from land management, 

and I think we heard that from several of our witnesses here today. 

Clearly, we have got a great deal that we have to do. It sounds 

weak to say it, but I hope, for our sake, from a budget perspective 

that it is not going to be a bad fire season. I hope that for the sake 

of those who have properties or perhaps concerns about their own 

safety that it is not a bad fire season. I certainly hope for the men 

and women who, in the face of pretty serious danger, are willing 

to go out there and battle these forest fires. I hope for them it is 

not a bad fire season. 

But that is not a good policy to hope that we get lucky that we 

do not have a bad fire season. I think we are seeing things set up 

for a tough year this year with the drought in the West, low snow 

pack everywhere it seems except here in the East. So we have some 

real issues to deal with. 

92 

I think, again, you have got a real commitment to figure out how 

we can deal with this fire borrowing because we cannot get to the 

fuels treatments. We cannot get to the important aspects of what 

we can do on the preventive side if we do not have dollars in the 

budget, if they have been spent on these sky high suppression 

costs. So we have some work to do, and I think you have the commitment from many around this dais to work with you to find some 

solutions. 

To those of you who traveled far to be here with us this morning, 

you may not have gotten the bulk of the questions, but know that 

your testimony and your input is greatly appreciated as we look to 

resolve these issues that have considerable impact, particularly to 

those of us in the West. 

With that, we stand adjourned and thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.] 

(93) 

APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED 

94 


Insert offset folio 49 here 95275.049
95 


Insert offset folio 50 here 95275.050
96 


Insert offset folio 51 here 95275.051
97 


Insert offset folio 52 here 95275.052
98 


Insert offset folio 53 here 95275.053
99 


Insert offset folio 54 here 95275.054
100 


Insert offset folio 55 here 95275.055
101 


Insert offset folio 56 here 95275.056
102 


Insert offset folio 57 here 95275.057
103 


Insert offset folio 58 here 95275.058
104 


Insert offset folio 59 here 95275.059
105 


Insert offset folio 60 here 95275.060
106 


Insert offset folio 61 here 95275.061
107 


Insert offset folio 62 here 95275.062
108 


Insert offset folio 63 here 95275.063
109 


Insert offset folio 64 here 95275.064
110 


Insert offset folio 65 here 95275.065
111 


Insert offset folio 66 here 95275.066
112 


Insert offset folio 67 here 95275.067
113 


Insert offset folio 68 here 95275.068
114 


Insert offset folio 69 here 95275.069
115 


Insert offset folio 70 here 95275.070
116 


Insert offset folio 71 here 95275.071
117 


Insert offset folio 72 here 95275.072
118 


Insert offset folio 73 here 95275.073
119 


Insert offset folio 74 here 95275.074
120 


Insert offset folio 75 here 95275.075
121 


Insert offset folio 76 here 95275.076
122 


Insert offset folio 77 here 95275.077
123 


Insert offset folio 78 here 95275.078
124 


Insert offset folio 79 here 95275.079
125 


Insert offset folio 80 here 95275.080
126 


Insert offset folio 81 here 95275.081
127 


Insert offset folio 82 here 95275.082
128 


Insert offset folio 83 here 95275.083
129 


Insert offset folio 84 here 95275.084
130 


Insert offset folio 85 here 95275.085
131 


Insert offset folio 86 here 95275.086
132 


Insert offset folio 87 here 95275.087
133 


Insert offset folio 88 here 95275.088
134 


Insert offset folio 89 here 95275.089
135 


Insert offset folio 90 here 95275.090
136 


Insert offset folio 91 here 95275.091
137 


Insert offset folio 92 here 95275.092
138 


Insert offset folio 93 here 95275.093
139 


Insert offset folio 94 here 95275.094
140 


Insert offset folio 95 here 95275.095
141 


Insert offset folio 96 here 95275.096
142 


Insert offset folio 97 here 95275.097
143 


Insert offset folio 98 here 95275.098
144 


Insert offset folio 99 here 95275.099
145 


Insert offset folio 100 here 95275.100
146 


Insert offset folio 101 here 95275.101
147 


Insert offset folio 102 here 95275.102
148 


Insert offset folio 103 here 95275.103
149 


Insert offset folio 104 here 95275.104
150 


Insert offset folio 105 here 95275.105
151 


Insert offset folio 106 here 95275.106
152 


Insert offset folio 107 here 95275.107
153 


Insert offset folio 108 here 95275.108
154 


Insert offset folio 109 here 95275.109
155 


Insert offset folio 110 here 95275.110
156 


Insert offset folio 111 here 95275.111
157 


Insert offset folio 112 here 95275.112
158 


Insert offset folio 113 here 95275.113
159 


Insert offset folio 114 here 95275.114
160 


Insert offset folio 115 here 95275.115
161 


Insert offset folio 116 here 95275.116
162 


Insert offset folio 117 here 95275.117
163 


Insert offset folio 118 here 95275.118
164 


Insert offset folio 119 here 95275.119
165 


Insert offset folio 120 here 95275.120
166 


Insert offset folio 121 here 95275.121
167 


Insert offset folio 122 here 95275.122
168 


Insert offset folio 123 here 95275.123
169 


Insert offset folio 124 here 95275.124
170 


Insert offset folio 125 here 95275.125
171 


Insert offset folio 126 here 95275.126
172 


Insert offset folio 127 here 95275.127
173 


Insert offset folio 128 here 95275.128
174 


Insert offset folio 129 here 95275.129
175 


Insert offset folio 130 here 95275.130
176 


Insert offset folio 131 here 95275.131
177 


Insert offset folio 132 here 95275.132
178 


Insert offset folio 133 here 95275.133
179 


Insert offset folio 134 here 95275.134
180 


Insert offset folio 135 here 95275.135
181 


Insert offset folio 136 here 95275.136
182 


Insert offset folio 137 here 95275.137
183 


Insert offset folio 138 here 95275.138
184 


Insert offset folio 139 here 95275.139
185 


Insert offset folio 140 here 95275.140
186 


Insert offset folio 141 here 95275.141
187 


Insert offset folio 142 here 95275.142
188 


Insert offset folio 143 here 95275.143
189 


Insert offset folio 144 here 95275.144
190 


Insert offset folio 145 here 95275.145
191 


Insert offset folio 146 here 95275.146
192 


Insert offset folio 147 here 95275.147
193 


Insert offset folio 148 here 95275.148
194 


Insert offset folio 149 here 95275.149
195 


Insert offset folio 150 here 95275.150
196 


Insert offset folio 151 here 95275.151
197 


Insert offset folio 152 here 95275.152
198 


Insert offset folio 153 here 95275.153
199 


Insert offset folio 154 here 95275.154
200 


Insert offset folio 155 here 95275.155
201 


Insert offset folio 156 here 95275.156
202 


Insert offset folio 157 here 95275.157
203 


Insert offset folio 158 here 95275.158
204 


Insert offset folio 159 here 95275.159
205 


Insert offset folio 160 here 95275.160
206 


Insert offset folio 161 here 95275.161
207 


Insert offset folio 162 here 95275.162
208 


Insert offset folio 163 here 95275.163
209 

Æ 


Insert offset folio 164 here 95275.164