Testimony 

Before the Subcommittee on Public Lands 

and Forests, Committee on Energy and 

Natural Resources, U.S. Senate 

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery 

Expected at 2:30 p.m. EDT 

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 WILDLAND FIRE 

MANAGEMENT 

Progress and Future 

Challenges, Protecting 

Structures, and Improving 

Communications 

Statement of Robin M. Nazzaro, Director 

Natural Resources and Environment 

GAO-05-627T 
 

 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-627T.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Robin M. 

Nazzaro at (202) 512-3841 or 

nazzaror@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-05-627T, a testimony 

before the Subcommittee on Public Lands 

and Forests, Committee on Energy and 

Natural Resources, U.S.Senate 

April 26, 2005

WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT

Progress and Future Challenges, 

Protecting Structures, and Improving 

Communications 

Wildland fires are increasingly 

threatening communities and 

ecosystems. In recent years, they 

have become more intense due to 

excess vegetation that has 

accumulated, partly as a result of 

past suppression efforts. The cost 

to suppress these fires is increasing 

and, as more people move into fireprone areas near wildlands, the 

number of homes at risk is 

growing. During these wildland 

fires, effective communications 

among the public safety agencies 

responding from various areas is 

critical, but can be hampered by 

incompatible radio equipment. 

This testimony discusses 

(1) progress made and future 

challenges to managing wildland 

fire, (2) measures to help protect 

structures, and (3) the role of 

technology in improving responder 

communications during fires. It is 

based on two GAO reports: 

Wildland Fire Management: 

Important Progress Has Been 

Made, but Challenges Remain to 

Completing a Cohesive Strategy

(GAO-05-147, Jan. 14, 2005) and

Technology Assessment: Protecting 

Structures and Improving 

Communications during Wildland 

Fires (GAO-05-380, Apr. 26, 2005). 

In its report, GAO recommended 

that the Departments of Agriculture 

and the Interior develop a plan for 

completing a cohesive strategy that 

identifies options and funding 

needed to address wildland fire 

problems. The departments agreed. 

Over the last 5 years, the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture 

and land management agencies in the Department of the Interior, working 

with the Congress, have made important progress in responding to wildland 

fires. Most notably, the agencies have adopted various national strategy 

documents addressing the need to reduce wildland fire risks, established a 

priority to protect communities in the wildland-urban interface, and 

increased efforts and amounts of funding committed to addressing wildland 

fire problems. However, despite producing numerous planning and strategy 

documents, the agencies have yet to develop a cohesive strategy that 

identifies the long-term options and related funding needed to reduce excess 

vegetation that fuels fires in national forests and rangelands. Reducing these 

fuels lowers risks to communities and ecosystems and helps contain 

suppression costs. As GAO noted in 1999, such a strategy would help the 

agencies and the Congress to determine the most effective and affordable 

long-term approach for addressing wildland fire problems. Completing this 

strategy will require finishing several efforts now under way to improve a 

key wildland fire data and modeling system, local fire management planning, 

and a new system designed to identify the most cost-effective means for 

allocating fire management budget resources, each of which has its own 

challenges. Without completing these tasks, the agencies will have difficulty 

determining the extent and location of wildland fire threats, targeting and 

coordinating their efforts and resources, and resolving wildland fire 

problems in the most timely and cost-effective manner over the long term. 

The two most effective measures for protecting structures from wildland 

fires are (1) creating and maintaining a buffer around a structure by 

eliminating or reducing trees, shrubs, and other flammable objects within an 

area from 30 to 100 feet around the structure and (2) using fire-resistant 

roofs and vents. Other technologies—such as fire-resistant building 

materials, chemical agents, and geographic information system mapping 

tools—can help in protecting structures and communities, but they play a 

secondary role. Many homeowners, however, are not using the protective 

measures because of the time or expense involved, competing values or 

concerns, misperceptions about wildland fires, or lack of awareness of their 

shared responsibility for home protection. Federal, state, and local 

governments and others are attempting to address this problem through a 

variety of educational, financial assistance, and regulatory efforts. 

Technologies exist and others are being developed to address 

communications problems among emergency responders using different 

radio frequencies or equipment. However, technology alone cannot solve 

this problem. Effective adoption of these technologies requires planning and

coordination among federal, state, and local agencies involved. The 

Department of Homeland Security, as well as several states and local 

jurisdictions, are pursuing initiatives to improve communications. 
Page 1 GAO-05-627T 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss two GAO reports that reviewed 

several wildland fire issues—one issued in January 2005 that reviews the 

status of the federal government’s efforts to address our nation’s wildland 

fire problems and another, being released today, that discusses ways to 

help protect homes and improve communications during such fires. Each 

report is presented separately below. 

Wildland fire is a natural process that plays an important role in the health 

of many fire-adapted ecosystems, but it also can cause catastrophic 

damages to communities and ecosystems. The trend of increasing 

wildland fire threats to communities and ecosystems that we reported on 5 

years ago has been continuing. The average acreage of lands burned by 

wildland fires annually from 2000 through 2003 was 56 percent greater 

than the average amount burned annually during the 1990s. Also, since 

2000, wildland fires have burned an average of 1,100 homes each year in 

the United States, according to the National Fire Protection Association. 

In 2003 alone, more than 3,600 homes were destroyed by wildland fires in 

Southern California and resulted in more than $2 billion in insured losses. 

Experts believe that catastrophic damages from wildland fires probably 

will continue to increase until an adequate long-term federal response, 

coordinated with other levels of government, is implemented and 

individuals living in at-risk areas take preventive measures to protect their 

homes from wildland fires. 

First, let me summarize the findings of GAO’s January 2005 report that 

discusses the progress the federal government has made over the last 5 

years and key challenges it faces in developing and implementing a longterm response to wildland fire problems.1

 This report is based primarily 

on over 25 reviews we conducted in recent years of federal wildland fire 

management that focused largely on the activities of the Forest Service in 

the Department of Agriculture and the land management agencies in the 

Department of the Interior, which together manage about 95 percent of all 

federal lands. 

 1

GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges 

Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy, GAO-05-147 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2005). 

WILDLAND FIRE 

MANAGEMENT: 

Forest Service and 

Interior Need to 

Specify Steps and a 

Schedule for 

Identifying Long-Term 

Options and Their 

Costs 
Page 2 GAO-05-627T 

In the past 5 years, the federal government has made important progress in 

putting into place the basic components of a framework for managing and 

responding to the nation’s wildland fire problems, including 

• establishing a priority to protect communities near wildlands—called the 

wildland-urban interface; 

• increasing the amount of effort and funds available for addressing firerelated concerns, such as fuel reduction on federal lands; 

• improving data and research on wildland fire, local fire management plans, 

interagency coordination, and collaboration with nonfederal partners; and 

• refining performance measures and results monitoring for wildland fire 

management. 

While this progress has been important, many challenges remain for 

addressing wildland fire problems in a timely and effective manner. Most 

notably, the land management agencies need to complete a cohesive 

strategy that identifies the long-term options and related funding needed 

for reducing fuels and responding to wildland fires when they occur. A 

recent Western Governors’ Association report also called for completing 

such a cohesive federal strategy. The agencies and the Congress need such 

a strategy to make decisions about an effective and affordable long-term 

approach for addressing problems that have been decades in the making 

and will take decades more to resolve. However, completing and 

implementing such a strategy will require that the agencies complete 

several challenging tasks, including 

• developing data systems needed to identify the extent, severity, and 

location of wildland fire threats to the nation’s communities and 

ecosystems; 

• updating local fire management plans to better specify the actions needed 

to effectively address these threats; and 

• assessing the cost-effectiveness and affordability of options for reducing 

fuels. 

In our January 2005 report, we recommended that the Secretaries of 

Agriculture and the Interior provide the Congress, in time for its 

consideration of the agencies’ fiscal year 2006 wildland fire management 

budgets, with a joint tactical plan outlining the critical steps the agencies 

Summary 
Page 3 GAO-05-627T 

will take, together with related time frames, to complete a cohesive 

strategy that identifies long-term options and needed funding for reducing 

and maintaining fuels at acceptable levels and responding to the nation’s 

wildland fire problems. The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior 

have said that they will produce such a joint tactical plan by August 2005. 

Wildland fire triggered by lightning is a normal, inevitable, and necessary 

ecological process that nature uses to periodically remove excess 

undergrowth, small trees, and vegetation to renew ecosystem productivity. 

However, various human land use and management practices, including 

several decades of fire suppression activities, have reduced the normal 

frequency of wildland fires in many forest and rangeland ecosystems and 

have resulted in abnormally dense and continuous accumulations of 

vegetation that can fuel uncharacteristically large and intense wildland 

fires. Such large intense fires increasingly threaten catastrophic ecosystem 

damage and also increasingly threaten human lives, health, property, and 

infrastructure in the wildland-urban interface. Federal researchers 

estimate that vegetative conditions that can fuel such fires exist on 

approximately 190 million acres––or more than 40 percent––of federal 

lands in the contiguous United States but could vary from 90 million to 200 

million acres, and that these conditions also exist on many nonfederal 

lands. 

Our reviews over the last 5 years identified several weaknesses in the 

federal government’s management response to wildland fire issues. These 

weaknesses included the lack of a national strategy that addressed the 

likely high costs of needed fuel reduction efforts and the need to prioritize 

these efforts. Our reviews also found shortcomings in federal 

implementation at the local level, where over half of all federal land 

management units’ fire management plans did not meet agency 

requirements designed to restore fire’s natural role in ecosystems 

consistent with human health and safety. These plans are intended to 

identify needed local fuel reduction, preparedness, suppression, and 

rehabilitation actions. The agencies also lacked basic data, such as the 

amount and location of lands needing fuel reduction, and research on the 

effectiveness of different fuel reduction methods on which to base their 

fire management plans and specific project decisions. Furthermore, 

coordination among federal agencies and collaboration between these 

agencies and nonfederal entities were ineffective. This kind of cooperation 

is needed because wildland fire is a shared problem that transcends land 

ownership and administrative boundaries. Finally, we found that better 

accountability for federal expenditures and performance in wildland fire 

Background 
Page 4 GAO-05-627T 

management was needed. Agencies were unable to assess the extent to 

which they were reducing wildland fire risks or to establish meaningful 

fuel reduction performance measures, as well as to determine the costeffectiveness of these efforts, because they lacked both monitoring data 

and sufficient data on the location of lands at high risk of catastrophic 

fires to know the effects of their actions. As a result, their performance 

measures created incentives to reduce fuels on all acres, as opposed to 

focusing on high-risk acres. 

Because of these weaknesses, and because experts said that wildland fire 

problems could take decades to resolve, we said that a cohesive, longterm, federal wildland fire management strategy was needed.2

 We said that 

this cohesive strategy needed to focus on identifying options for reducing 

fuels over the long term in order to decrease future wildland fire risks and 

related costs. We also said that the strategy should identify the costs 

associated with those different fuel reduction options over time, so that 

the Congress could make cost-effective, strategic funding decisions. 

The federal government has made important progress over the last 5 years 

in improving its management of wildland fire. Nationally it has established 

strategic priorities and increased resources for implementing these 

priorities. Locally, it has enhanced data and research, planning, 

coordination, and collaboration with other parties. With regard to 

accountability, it has improved performance measures and established a 

monitoring framework. 

Over the last 5 years, the federal government has been formulating a 

national strategy known as the National Fire Plan, composed of several 

strategic documents that set forth a priority to reduce wildland fire risks to 

communities. Similarly, the recently enacted Healthy Forests Restoration 

Act of 2003 directs that at least 50 percent of funding for fuel reduction 

projects authorized under the act be allocated to wildland-urban interface 

areas. While we have raised concerns about the way the agencies have 

 2

GAO, Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address Catastrophic 

Wildfire Threats. GAO/RCED-99-65. Washington, D.C.: Apr. 2, 1999. 

Important Progress 

Has Been Made in 

Addressing Federal 

Wildland Fire 

Management 

Problems over the 

Last 5 Years 

Progress in National 

Strategy: Priorities Have 

Been Clarified and 

Funding Has Been 

Increased for Identified 

Needs 
Page 5 GAO-05-627T 

defined these areas and the specificity of their prioritization guidance, we 

believe that the act’s clarification of the community protection priority 

provides a good starting point for identifying and prioritizing funding 

needs. Similarly, in contrast to fiscal year 1999, when we reported that the 

Forest Service had not requested increased funding to meet the growing 

fuel reduction needs it had identified, fuel reduction funding for both the 

Forest Service and Interior quadrupled by fiscal year 2004. The Congress, 

in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, also authorized $760 million per 

year to be appropriated for hazardous fuels reduction activities, including 

projects for reducing fuels on up to 20 million acres of land. Moreover, 

appropriations for both agencies’ overall wildland fire management 

activities, including preparedness, suppression, and rehabilitation, have 

nearly tripled, from about $1 billion in fiscal year 1999 to over $2.7 billion 

in fiscal year 2004. 

The agencies have strengthened local wildland fire management 

implementation by making significant improvements in federal data and 

research on wildland fire over the past 5 years, including an initial 

mapping of fuel hazards nationwide. Additionally, in 2003, the agencies 

approved funding for development of a geospatial data and modeling 

system, called LANDFIRE, to map wildland fire hazards with greater 

precision and uniformity. LANDFIRE—estimated to cost $40 million and 

scheduled for nationwide implementation in 2009––will enable 

comparisons of conditions between different field locations nationwide, 

thus permitting better identification of the nature and magnitude of 

wildland fire risks confronting different community and ecosystem 

resources, such as residential and commercial structures, species habitat, 

air and water quality, and soils. 

The agencies also have improved local fire management planning by 

adopting and executing an expedited schedule to complete plans for all 

land units that had not been in compliance with agency requirements. The 

agencies also adopted a common interagency template for preparing plans 

to ensure greater consistency in their contents. 

Coordination among federal agencies and their collaboration with 

nonfederal partners, critical to effective implementation at the local level, 

also has been improved. In 2001, as a result of congressional direction, the 

agencies jointly formulated a 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy with the 

Western Governors’ Association to involve the states as full partners in 

their efforts. An implementation plan adopted by the agencies in 2002 

details goals, time lines, and responsibilities of the different parties for a 

Progress in Local 

Implementation: Data and 

Research, Fire 

Management Planning, and 

Coordination and 

Collaboration Have Been 

Strengthened 
Page 6 GAO-05-627T 

wide range of activities, including collaboration at the local level to 

identify fuel reduction priorities in different areas. Also in 2002, the 

agencies established an interagency body, the Wildland Fire Leadership 

Council, composed of senior Agriculture and Interior officials and 

nonfederal representatives, to improve coordination of their activities with 

each other and nonfederal parties. 

Accountability for the results the federal government achieves from its 

investments in wildland fire management activities also has been 

strengthened. The agencies have adopted a performance measure that 

identifies the amount of acres moved from high-hazard to low-hazard fuel 

conditions, replacing a performance measure for fuel reductions that 

measured only the total acres of fuel reductions and created an incentive 

to treat less costly acres rather than the acres that presented the greatest 

hazards. Additionally, in 2004, to have a better baseline for measuring 

progress, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council approved a nationwide 

framework for monitoring the effects of wildland fire. While an 

implementation plan is still needed for this framework, it nonetheless 

represents a critical step toward enhancing wildland fire management 

accountability. 

While the federal government has made important progress over the past 5 

years in addressing wildland fire, a number of challenges still must be met 

to complete development of a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies 

available long-term options and funding needed to reduce fuels on the 

nation’s forests and rangelands. Without such a strategy, the Congress will 

not have an informed understanding of when, how, and at what cost 

wildland fire problems can be brought under control. None of the strategic 

documents adopted by the agencies to date have identified these options 

and related funding needs, and the agencies have yet to delineate a plan or 

schedule for doing so. To identify these options and funding needs, the 

agencies will have to address several challenging tasks related to their 

data systems, fire management plans, and assessing the cost-effectiveness 

and affordability of different options for reducing fuels. 

Progress in Accountability: 

Better Performance 

Measures and a Results 

Monitoring Framework 

Have Been Developed 

Agencies Face Several 

Challenges to 

Completing a LongNeeded Cohesive 

Strategy for Reducing 

Fuels and Responding 

to Wildland Fire 

Problems 
Page 7 GAO-05-627T 

The agencies face several challenges to completing and implementing 

LANDFIRE, so that they can more precisely identify the extent and 

location of wildland fire threats and better target fuel reduction efforts. 

These challenges include using LANDFIRE to better reconcile the effects 

of fuel reduction activities with the agencies’ other stewardship 

responsibilities for protecting ecosystem resources, such as air, water, 

soils, and species habitat, which fuel reduction efforts can adversely 

affect. The agencies also need LANDFIRE to help them better measure and 

assess their performance. For example, the data produced by LANDFIRE 

will help them devise a separate performance measure for maintaining 

conditions on low-hazard lands to ensure that their conditions do not 

deteriorate to more hazardous conditions while funding is being focused 

on lands with high-hazard conditions. 

In implementing LANDFIRE, however, the agencies will have to overcome 

the challenges presented by the current lack of a consistent approach to 

assessing the risks of wildland fires to ecosystem resources as well as the 

lack of an integrated, strategic, and unified approach to managing and 

using information systems and data, including those such as LANDFIRE, in 

wildland fire decision making. Currently, software, data standards, 

equipment, and training vary among the agencies and field units in ways 

that hamper needed sharing and consistent application of the data. Also, 

LANDFIRE data and models may need to be revised to take into account 

recent research findings that suggest part of the increase in wildland fire in 

recent years has been caused by a shift in climate patterns. This research 

also suggests that these new climate patterns may continue for decades, 

resulting in further increases in the amount of wildland fire. Thus, the 

nature, extent, and geographical distribution of hazards initially identified 

in LANDFIRE, as well as the costs for addressing them, may have to be 

reassessed. 

The agencies will need to update their local fire management plans when 

more detailed, nationally consistent LANDFIRE data become available. 

The plans also will have to be updated to incorporate recent agency fire 

research on approaches to more effectively address wildland fire threats. 

For example, a 2002 interagency analysis found that protecting wildlandurban interface communities more effectively—as well as more costeffectively—might require locating a higher proportion of fuel reduction 

projects outside of the wildland-urban interface than currently envisioned, 

so that fires originating in the wildlands do not become too large to 

suppress by the time they arrive at the interface. Moreover, other agency 

research suggests that placing fuel reduction treatments in specific 

Completing and 

Implementing the 

LANDFIRE System Is 

Essential to Identifying 

and Addressing Wildland 

Fire Threats 

Fire Management Plans 

Will Need to Be Updated 

with Latest Data and 

Research on Wildland Fire 
Page 8 GAO-05-627T 

geometric patterns may, for the same cost, provide protection for up to 

three times as many community and ecosystem resources as do other 

approaches, such as placing fuel breaks around communities and 

ecosystems resources. Timely updating of fire management plans with the 

latest research findings on optimal design and location of treatments also 

will be critical to the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of these plans. 

The Forest Service indicated that this updating could occur during annual 

reviews of fire management plans to determine whether any changes to 

them may be needed. 

Completing the LANDFIRE data and modeling system and updating fire 

management plans should enable the agencies to formulate a range of 

options for reducing fuels. However, to identify optimal and affordable 

choices among these options, the agencies will have to complete certain 

cost-effectiveness analysis efforts they currently have under way. These 

efforts include an initial 2002 interagency analysis of options and costs for 

reducing fuels, congressionally-directed improvements to their budget 

allocation systems, and a new strategic analysis framework that considers 

affordability. 

The Interagency Analysis of Options and Costs: In 2002, a team of Forest 

Service and Interior experts produced an estimate of the funds needed to 

implement eight different fuel reduction options for protecting 

communities and ecosystems across the nation over the next century. 

Their analysis also considered the impacts of fuels reduction activities on 

future costs for other principal wildland fire management activities, such 

as preparedness, suppression, and rehabilitation, if fuels were not 

reduced. The team concluded that the option that would result in reducing 

the risks to communities and ecosystems across the nation could require 

an approximate tripling of current fuel reduction funding to about $1.4 

billion for an initial period of a few years. These initially higher costs 

would decline after fuels had been reduced enough to use less expensive 

controlled burning methods in many areas and more fires could be 

suppressed at lower cost, with total wildland fire management costs, as 

well as risks, being reduced after 15 years. Alternatively, the team said that 

not making a substantial short-term investment using a landscape focus 

could increase both costs and risks to communities and ecosystems in the 

long term. More recently, however, Interior has said that the costs and 

time required to reverse current increasing risks may be less when other 

vegetation management activities—such as timber harvesting and habitat 

improvements—are considered that were not included in the interagency 

team’s original assessment but also can influence wildland fire. 

Ongoing Efforts to Assess 

the Cost-Effectiveness and 

Affordability of Fuel 

Reduction Options Need to 

Be Completed 
Page 9 GAO-05-627T 

The cost of the 2002 interagency team’s option that reduced risks to 

communities and ecosystems over the long term is consistent with a June 

2002 National Association of State Foresters’ projection of the funding 

needed to implement the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy developed by 

the agencies and the Western Governors’ Association the previous year. 

The state foresters projected a need for steady increases in fuel reduction 

funding up to a level of about $1.1 billion by fiscal year 2011. This is 

somewhat less than that of the interagency team’s estimate, but still about 

2-1/2 times current levels. 

The interagency team of experts who prepared the 2002 analysis of 

options and associated costs said their estimates of long-term costs could 

only be considered an approximation because the data used for their 

national-level analysis were not sufficiently detailed. They said a more 

accurate estimate of the long-term federal costs and consequences of 

different options nationwide would require applying this national analysis 

framework in smaller geographic areas using more detailed data, such as 

that produced by LANDFIRE, and then aggregating these smaller-scale 

results. 

The New Budget Allocation System: Agency officials told us that a tool for 

applying this interagency analysis at a smaller geographic scale for 

aggregation nationally may be another management system under 

development—the Fire Program Analysis system. This system, being 

developed in response to congressional committee direction to improve 

budget allocation tools, is designed to identify the most cost-effective 

allocations of annual preparedness funding for implementing agency field 

units’ local fire management plans. Eventually, the Fire Program Analysis 

system, being initially implemented in 2005, will use LANDFIRE data and 

provide a smaller geographical scale for analyses of fuel reduction options 

and thus, like LANDFIRE, will be critical for updating fire management 

plans. Officials said that this preparedness budget allocation 

systemwhen integrated with an additional component now being 

considered for allocating annual fuel reduction funding—could be 

instrumental in identifying the most cost-effective long-term levels, mixes, 

and scheduling of these two wildland fire management activities. 

Completely developing the Fire Program Analysis system, including the 

fuel reduction funding component, is expected to cost about $40 million 

and take until at least 2007 and perhaps until 2009. 

The New Strategic Analysis Effort: In May 2004, Agriculture and Interior 

began the initial phase of a wildland fire strategic planning effort that also 

might contribute to identifying long-term options and needed funding for 
Page 10 GAO-05-627T 

reducing fuels and responding to the nation’s wildland fire problems. This 

effortthe Quadrennial Fire and Fuels Reviewis intended to result in an 

overall federal interagency strategic planning document for wildland fire 

management and risk reduction and to provide a blueprint for developing 

affordable and integrated fire preparedness, fuels reduction, and fire 

suppression programs. Because of this effort’s consideration of 

affordability, it may provide a useful framework for developing a cohesive 

strategy that includes identifying long-term options and related funding 

needs. The preliminary planning, analysis, and internal review phases of 

this effort are currently being completed and an initial report is expected 

in 2005. 

The improvements in data, modeling, and fire behavior research that the 

agencies have under way, together with the new cost-effectiveness focus 

of the Fire Program Analysis system to support local fire management 

plans, represent important tools that the agencies can begin to use now to 

provide the Congress with initial and successively more accurate 

assessments of long-term fuel reduction options and related funding 

needs. Moreover, a more transparent process of interagency analysis in 

framing these options and their costs will permit better identification and 

resolution of differing assumptions, approaches, and values. This 

transparency provides the best assurance of accuracy and consensus 

among differing estimates, such as those of the interagency team and the 

National Association of State Foresters. 

In November 2004, the Western Governors’ Association issued a report 

prepared by its Forest Health Advisory Committee that assessed 

implementation of the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, which the 

association had jointly devised with the agencies in 2001.3

 Although the 

association’s report had a different scope than our review, its findings and 

recommendations are, nonetheless, generally consistent with ours about 

the progress made by the federal government and the challenges it faces 

over the next 5 years. In particular, it recommends, as we do, completion 

of a long-term federal cohesive strategy for reducing fuels. It also cites the 

need for continued efforts to improve, among other things, data on 

hazardous fuels, fire management plans, the Fire Program Analysis system, 

 3

Report to the Western Governors on the Implementation of the 10-Year Comprehensive 

Strategy, Western Governors’ Association Forest Health Advisory Committee (Denver, 

Colo.: 2004). 

A Recent Western 

Governors’ 

Association Report Is 

Consistent with 

GAO’s Findings and 

Recommendation 
Page 11 GAO-05-627T 

and cost-effectiveness in fuel reductions––all challenges we have 

emphasized today. 

The progress made by the federal government over the last 5 years has 

provided a sound foundation for addressing the problems that wildland 

fire will increasingly present to communities, ecosystems, and federal 

budgetary resources over the next few years and decades. But, as yet, 

there is no clear single answer about how best to address these problems 

in either the short or long term. Instead, there are different options, each 

needing further development to understand the trade-offs among the risks 

and funding involved. The Congress needs to understand these options 

and trade-offs in order to make informed policy and appropriations 

decisions on this 21st century challenge. 

This is the same message we provided in 1999 when we first called for 

development of a cohesive strategy identifying options and funding needs. 

But it still has not been completed. While the agencies are now in a better 

position to do so, they must build on the progress made to date by 

completing data and modeling efforts underway, updating their fire 

management plans with the results of these data efforts and ongoing 

research, and following through on recent cost-effectiveness and 

affordability initiatives. However, time is running out. Further delay in 

completing a strategy that cohesively integrates these activities to identify 

options and related funding needs will only result in increased long-term 

risks to communities, ecosystems, and federal budgetary resources. 

Because there is an increasingly urgent need for a cohesive federal 

strategy that identifies long-term options and related funding needs for 

reducing fuels, we have recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture 

and the Interior provide the Congress, in time for its consideration of the 

agencies’ fiscal year 2006 wildland fire management budgets, with a joint 

tactical plan outlining the critical steps the agencies will take, together 

with related time frames, to complete such a cohesive strategy. 

In an April 2005 letter, Agriculture and Interior said that they will produce 

by August 2005, for the Wildland Fire Leadership Council’s review and 

approval, a .joint tactical plan that will identify the steps and time frames 

for developing a cohesive strategy. 

Conclusions 
Page 12 GAO-05-627T 

Next, I would like to summarize the findings of our second report, being 

released today, that discusses ways to help protect homes and improve 

communications during wildland fires. Although wildland fire is a natural 

process that plays an important role in the health of many fire-adapted 

ecosystems, it has the potential to damage or destroy homes located in or 

near these wildlands, in the area commonly called the wildland-urban 

interface. Since 1984, wildland fires have burned an average of 850 homes 

each year in the United States, according to the National Fire Protection 

Association. However, losses since 2000 have risen to an average of 1,100 

homes annually. In 2003, more than 3,600 homes were destroyed by 

wildland fires in Southern California and resulted in more than $2 billion 

in insured losses. 

Many homes are located in the wildland-urban interface nationwide, and 

the number is growing, although the risk to these homes from wildland fire 

varies widely. In California, for example, an estimated 4.9 million of the 

state’s 12 million housing units are located in or near the wildlands, and 

3.2 million of these are at significant risk from wildland fire.4

 As people 

continue to move to areas in or near fire-prone wildlands, the number of 

homes at risk from wildland fire is likely to grow. When a large highintensity wildland fire occurs near inhabited areas, it can threaten 

hundreds of homes at the same time and overwhelm available firefighting 

resources. Homeowners can play an important role in protecting their 

homes from a wildland fire, however, by taking preventive steps to reduce 

their home’s ignition potential. These preventive measures can 

significantly improve a home’s chance of surviving a wildland fire, even 

without intervention by firefighting agencies. 

Once a wildland fire starts, many different agencies may assist in the 

efforts to manage or suppress it, including the Forest Service (within the 

Department of Agriculture); land management agencies in the Department 

of the Interior; state forestry agencies; local fire departments; private 

contract firefighting crews; and, in some cases, the military. Effective 

communications among responders—commonly called communications 

interoperability—is essential to fighting wildland fires successfully and 

ensuring both firefighter and public safety. Communications 

interoperability can be hampered because the various agencies responding 

 4

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, The Changing California: Forest 

and Range 2003 Assessment (Sacramento, Calif.: 2003). 

WILDLAND FIRE: 

Protecting Structures 

and Improving 

Communications 
Page 13 GAO-05-627T 

to a fire may communicate over different radio frequency bands or with 

incompatible communications equipment. 

My testimony today summarizes key findings from our report released 

today5

 and addresses: (1) measures that can help protect structures from 

wildland fires, (2) factors affecting the use of these protective measures, 

and (3) the role that technology plays in improving firefighting agencies’ 

ability to communicate during wildland fires.6

 

In summary, we found the following: 

• The two most effective measures for protecting structures from wildland 

fires are: (1) creating and maintaining a buffer around a structure—often 

called defensible space—by eliminating or reducing trees, shrubs, and 

other flammable objects within an area from 30 to 100 feet around the 

structure and (2) using fire-resistant roofs and vents. Other technologies, 

such as fire-resistant windows and building materials, sprinkler systems, 

and chemical agents (gels and foams) that coat structures with a 

temporary protective layer can also help protect structures, but they play a 

secondary role. In addition, technologies, such as geographic information 

systems (GIS) are available or under development to assist in fire 

protection at the community level. 

• Although protective measures are effective and available, many 

homeowners do not use them for four main reasons: time or expense 

involved, competing values or concerns, misperceptions about wildland 

fires, and lack of awareness of homeowners’ shared responsibility for 

home protection. Federal, state, and local government agencies and 

nongovernmental organizations are taking steps to increase the use of 

protective measures through education, financial or direct assistance, and 

adoption and enforcement of laws requiring defensible space around 

structures and the use of fire-resistant building materials. 

 

• A variety of technologies exist, and others are being developed, to aid 

communications interoperability between emergency responders, 

including firefighters, but technology alone cannot solve this problem. In 

 5

GAO, Technology Assessment: Protecting Structures and Improving Communications 

during Wildland Fires, GAO-05-380 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 26, 2005).

6

Our report also includes information on the use of military resources for wildland 

firefighting. 

Summary 
Page 14 GAO-05-627T 

the short-term, patchwork interoperability technologies, such as audio 

switches, can be used to link communication systems using different radio 

frequencies or equipment. In the long-term, technologies are available or 

under development to upgrade communications systems to provide 

increased interoperability. Effective adoption of any of these technologies, 

however, requires planning and coordination among federal, state, and 

local agencies that work together to respond to wildland fires and other 

emergencies. 

 

To understand how preventive steps can help protect homes from 

wildland fire requires an understanding of what wildland fire is, how it 

spreads, and how it can threaten homes. Fire requires three elements—

oxygen, heat, and fuel—to ignite and continue burning. Once a fire has 

begun, a number of factors—including weather conditions and the type of 

nearby vegetation or other fuels—influence how fast and how intensely 

the fire spreads. Any combustible object in a fire’s path, including homes, 

can fuel a wildland fire. In fact, homes can sometimes be more flammable 

than the trees, shrubs, or other vegetation surrounding them. If any one of 

the three required elements are removed, however, such as when 

firefighters remove vegetation and other fuels from a strip of land near a 

fire—called a fire break—a fire will normally become less intense and 

eventually die out. 

Wildland fire can threaten homes or other structures in the following 

ways: 

• Surface fires burn vegetation or other fuels near the surface of the 

ground, such as shrubs, fallen leaves, small branches, and roots. These 

fires can ignite a home by burning nearby vegetation and eventually 

igniting flammable portions of the home, including exterior walls or 

siding; attached structures, such as a fence or deck; or other 

flammable materials, such as firewood or patio furniture. 

• Crown fires burn the tops, or crowns, of trees. Crown fires normally 

begin as surface fires and move up the trees by burning “ladder fuel,” 

such as nearby shrubs or low tree branches. Crown fires create intense 

heat and if close enough—within approximately 100 feet—can ignite 

portions of structures even without direct contact from flames. 

• Spot fires are started by embers, or “firebrands,” that can be carried a 

mile or more away from the main fire, depending on wind conditions. 

Firebrands can ignite a structure by landing on the roof or by entering 

a vent or other opening and may accumulate on or near homes. 

Background 
Page 15 GAO-05-627T 

Firebrands can start many new spot fires or ignite many homes 

simultaneously, increasing the complexity of firefighting efforts. 

Recognizing that during severe wildland fires, suppression efforts alone 

cannot protect all homes threatened by wildland fire, firefighting and 

community officials are increasing their emphasis on preventive 

approaches that help reduce the chance that wildland fires will ignite 

homes and other structures. Because the vast majority of structures 

damaged or destroyed by wildland fires are located on private property, 

the primary responsibility for taking adequate steps to minimize or prevent 

damage from a wildland fire rests with the property owner and with state 

and local governments that can establish building requirements and landuse restrictions. 

When a wildland fire occurs, personnel from firefighting and other 

emergency agencies responding to it primarily use land mobile radio 

systems for communications. These systems include mobile radios in 

vehicles and handheld portable radios and operate using radio signals, 

which travel through space in the form of waves. These waves vary in 

length, and each wavelength is associated with a particular radio 

frequency.7

 Radio frequencies are grouped into bands. Of the more than 

450 frequency bands in the radio spectrum, 10, scattered across the 

spectrum, are allocated to public safety agencies. A firefighting or public 

safety agency typically uses a radio frequency band appropriate for its 

locale, either rural or urban. Bands at the lower end of the radio spectrum, 

such as VHF (very high frequency), work well in rural areas where radio 

signals can travel long distances without obstruction from buildings or 

other structures. Federal firefighting agencies, such as the Forest Service, 

and many state firefighting agencies operate radios in the VHF band. In 

urban areas, firefighting and other public safety agencies may operate 

radios on higher frequencies, such as those in the UHF (ultrahigh 

frequency) or 800 MHz bands, because these frequencies can provide 

better communications capabilities for an urban setting. When federal, 

state, and local emergency response agencies work together, for example 

to fight a fire in the wildland-urban interface, they may not be able to 

communicate with one another because they operate in different bands 

along the radio frequency spectrum. 

 7

Radio frequencies are measured in Hertz (Hz); the term kilohertz (kHz) refers to 

thousands of Hertz, megahertz (MHz) to millions of Hertz, and gigahertz (GHz) to billions 

of Hertz. 
Page 16 GAO-05-627T 

Managing vegetation and reducing or eliminating flammable objects—

often called defensible space—within 30 to 100 feet of a structure is a key 

protective measure. Creating such defensible space offers protection by 

breaking up continuous fuels that could otherwise allow a surface fire to 

contact and ignite a structure. Defensible space also offers protection 

against crown fires. Reducing the density of large trees around structures 

decreases the intensity of heat from a fire, thus preventing or reducing the 

chance of ignition and damage to structures. Analysis of homes burned 

during wildland fires has shown defensible space to be a key determinant 

of whether a home survives. For instance, the 1981 Atlas Peak Fire in 

California damaged or destroyed 91out of 111 structures that lacked 

adequate defensible space but only 5 structures out of 111 that had it. 

The use of fire-resistant roofs and vents is also important in protecting 

structures from wildland fires. Many structures are damaged or destroyed 

by firebrands that can travel a mile or more from the main fire. Firebrands 

can land on a roof or enter a home through an opening, such as an attic 

vent and ignite a home hours after the fire has passed. Fire-resistant 

roofing materials can reduce the risk that these firebrands will ignite a 

roof, and vents can be screened with mesh to prevent firebrands from 

entering and igniting attics. Combining fire-resistant roofs and vents with 

the creation of defensible space is particularly effective, because together 

these measures reduce the risk from surface fires, crown fires, and 

firebrands. 

Other technologies can also help protect individual structures from 

wildland fires. 

• Fire-resistant windows constructed of double-paned glass, tempered 

glass, or glass block help protect a structure from wildland fire by 

reducing the risk of the window breaking and allowing fire to enter the 

structure. 

• Fire-resistant building materials—such as fiber-cement, brick, stone, 

metal, and stucco—can be used for walls, siding, decks, and doors to 

help prevent ignition and subsequent damage from wildland fire. 

• Chemical agents, such as foams and gels, are temporary protective 

measures that can be applied as an exterior coating shortly before a 

wildland fire reaches a structure. Although these agents have 

successfully been used to protect homes, such as during the Southern 

California fires in 2003, they require that someone be available to apply 

Defensible Space and 

Fire-Resistant Roofs 

and Vents Are Key to 

Protecting Structures; 

Other Technologies 

Can Also Help
Page 17 GAO-05-627T 

them and, possibly, reapply or rewet them to ensure they remain 

effective. They can also be difficult to clean up. 

• Sprinkler systems, which can be installed inside or outside a structure, 

lower the risk of ignition or damage from wildland fires. Sprinklers, 

however, require reliable sources of water and, in some cases, 

electricity to be effective. According to firefighting officials, adequate 

water and electricity may not be available during a wildland fire. 

In addition to technologies aimed at protecting individual structures, 

technologies also exist or are being developed which can help reduce the 

risk of wildland fire damage to an entire community. 

• GIS is a computer-based information system that can be used to efficiently 

store, analyze, and display multiple forms of information on a single map.8

GIS technologies allow fire officials and local and regional land managers 

to combine vegetation, fuel, and topography data into separate layers of a 

single GIS map to identify and prioritize areas needing vegetation 

management. State and county officials we met with emphasized the value 

of GIS in community-planning efforts to protect structures and 

communities from wildland fire damage within their jurisdictions. 

• Fire behavior modeling has been used to predict wildland fire behavior, 

but these models do not accurately predict fire behavior in the wildlandurban interface. Existing models can help identify areas likely to 

experience intense wildland fires, identify suitable locations for vegetation 

management, predict the effect of vegetation treatments on fire behavior, 

and aid suppression by predicting the overall behavior of a given fire. 

These models do not, however, consider the effect that structures and 

landscaping have on wildland fire behavior. 

• Automated detection systems use infrared, ultraviolet, or temperaturesensitive sensors9

 placed around a community, or an individual home, to 

detect the presence of a wildland fire. On detecting a fire, a sensor could 

set off an audible alarm or could be connected via radio or satellite to a 

device that would notify homeowners or emergency personnel. Several 

 8

For additional information on how GIS can assist wildland fire management, see: GAO, 

Geospatial Information: Technologies Hold Promise for Wildland Fire Management, but 

Challenges Remain, GAO-03-1047 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2003). 

9

Infrared and ultraviolet technologies sense the electromagnetic radiation from a fire 

outside the visible band that humans can see. Temperature sensitive devices, such as heat 

sensitive resistant wires, do not sense radiation but react to temperature differentials. 
Page 18 GAO-05-627T 

such sensors could be networked together to provide broad coverage of 

the area surrounding a community. According to fire officials, sensor 

systems may prove particularly helpful in protecting communities in areas 

of rugged terrain or poor access where wildland fires might be difficult to 

locate. These systems are still in development, however, and false alarms 

are a concern. 

Many homeowners have not used protective measures—such as creating 

and maintaining defensible space—for four primary reasons: 

• Time or expense. State and local fire officials estimate that the price 

of creating defensible space can range from negligible, in cases where 

homeowners perform the work themselves, to $2,000 or more. 

Moreover, defensible space needs to be maintained, resulting in 

additional effort or expense in the future. Further, while fire-resistant 

roofing materials are available that are comparable in cost to more 

flammable options and, for a home under construction may result in 

no additional expense, replacing a roof on an existing home can cost 

thousands of dollars. 

• Competing concerns. Although modifying landscaping to create 

defensible space has proven to be a key element in protecting 

structures from wildland fire, officials and researchers have reported 

that some homeowners are more concerned about the effect 

landscaping has on the appearance and privacy of their property, as 

well as on habitat for wildlife. 

• Misconceptions about wildland fire behavior. Fire officials and 

researchers told us that some homeowners do not recognize that a 

structure and its surroundings constitute fuel that contributes to the 

spread of wildland fire or understand exactly how a wildland fire 

ignites structures. Further, they may not know that they can take 

effective steps to reduce their risk. 

• Lack of awareness of homeowners’ responsibility. Fire officials told 

us that some homeowners in the wildland urban interface may expect 

the same level of service they received in more urban areas and do not 

understand that rural areas may have less firefighting personnel and 

equipment and longer response times. Also, when a wildland fire burns 

near communities, so many houses may be threatened simultaneously 

that firefighters may be unable to protect all of them. 

Time, Expense, and 

Other Competing 

Concerns Limit the 

Use of Protective 

Measures for 

Structures, but Efforts 

to IncreaseTheir Use 

Are Under Way 
Page 19 GAO-05-627T 

Federal, state, and local agencies and other organizations are taking steps 

in three main areas to help increase the use of protective measures.10 First, 

government agencies and other organizations are educating people about 

the effectiveness of simple steps they can take to reduce the risk to homes 

and communities. The primary national education effort is the Firewise 

Communities program,11 which both educates homeowners about available 

protective measures and also promotes additional steps that state and 

local officials can take to educate homeowners. Education efforts help 

demonstrate that defensible space can be attractive, provide privacy, and 

improve wildlife habitat. 

Second, some federal, state, and local agencies are directly assisting 

homeowners in creating defensible space by providing equipment or 

financial assistance to reduce fuels near structures. Under the National 

Fire Plan12, for instance, federal firefighting agencies provide grants or 

otherwise assist in reducing fuels on private land. State and local 

governments have provided similar assistance. 

Third, some state and local governments have adopted laws that require 

maintaining defensible space around structures or the use of fire-resistant 

building materials. For example, California requires the creation and 

maintenance of defensible space around homes and the use of fireresistant roofing materials in certain at-risk areas. Officials of one county 

we visited attributed the relatively few houses damaged by the 2003 

 10In addition, some insurance companies also direct homeowners in high-risk areas to 

create defensible space. Historically, the insurance industry has not placed a high priority 

on wildland fire issues because of relatively low losses compared with other hazards, such 

as hurricanes or earthquakes. 

11Firewise Communities is jointly sponsored by the International Association of Fire Chiefs, 

National Emergency Management Association, National Association of State Fire Marshals, 

National Association of State Foresters, National Fire Protection Association, Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fire Administration, Forest Service, Bureau of 

Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National 

Park Service. Numerous state and local fire and forestry officials also participate in 

Firewise program activities. 

12The National Fire Plan was developed by the Department of Agriculture and the 

Department of the Interior after severe wildland fires in 2000. In fiscal year 2001, Congress 

almost doubled funding for federal firefighting agencies to help meet the plan’s objectives 

to (1) increase fire suppression preparedness; (2) rehabilitate and restore lands and 

communities damaged by wildland fire; (3) reduce hazardous fuels; and (4) assist 

communities through education, hazard mitigation, and training and equipment for rural 

and volunteer fire departments. 
Page 20 GAO-05-627T 

Southern California fires in the county, in part, to its adoption and 

enforcement of laws requiring defensible space and the use of fireresistant building materials. Not all states or localities at risk of wildland 

fire, however, have required such steps. Some state and local officials told 

us that laws had not been adopted because homeowners and developers 

resisted them. Furthermore, to be effective, laws that have been adopted 

must be enforced, and this does not always happen. 

Technologies are available or under development to help improve 

communications interoperability so that personnel from different public 

safety agencies responding to an emergency, such as a wildland fire, can 

communicate effectively with one another. Short-term, or patchwork, 

interoperability solutions use technology to interconnect two or more 

disparate radio systems so that voice or data from one system can be 

made available to all systems. The principal advantage of this solution is 

that agencies can continue to use existing communications systems, an 

important consideration when funds to buy new equipment are limited. 

Patchwork solutions include the following: 

• Audio switches that provide interoperability by connecting radio and 

other communications systems to a device that sends the audio signal 

from one agency’s radio to all other connected radio systems. Audio 

switches can interconnect several different radio systems, regardless 

of the frequency bands or type of equipment used. 

• Crossband repeaters that provide interoperability between systems 

operating on different radio frequency bands by changing frequencies 

between the two radio systems. 

• Console-to-console patches that are not “on-the-scene” devices but 

instead connect consoles located at the dispatch centers where calls 

for assistance are received. The device links the dispatch consoles of 

two radio systems so that the radios connected to each system can 

communicate with one another. 

Other interoperability solutions involve developing and adopting more 

sophisticated radio or communications systems that follow common 

standards or can be programmed to work on any frequency and to use any 

desired modulation type, such as AM or FM. These include: 

• Project 25 radios, which must meet a set of standards for digital twoway radio systems that allow for interoperability between all 

Effective Adoption of 

Technologies to 

Achieve 

Communications 

Interoperability 

Requires Better 

Planning and 

Coordination 
Page 21 GAO-05-627T 

jurisdictions using these systems. These radios are beginning to be 

adopted by a variety of federal, state, and local agencies. 

• Software-defined radios that will allow interoperability among 

agencies using different frequency bands, proprietary systems from 

different manufacturers, or different modulation types (such as AM or 

FM). Software-defined radios, however, are still being developed and 

are not yet available for use by public safety agencies. 

• Voice over Internet Protocol that treats both voice and data as digital 

information and enables their movement over any existing Internet 

Protocol data network.13 No standards exist for radio communications 

using Voice over Internet Protocol, and, as a result, manufacturers 

have produced proprietary systems that may not be interoperable. 

Whether the solution is a short-term patchwork approach or a long-term 

communications upgrade, officials we spoke with explained that planning 

and coordination among agencies are critical for successfully determining 

which technology to adopt and for agreeing on funding sources, timing, 

training, maintenance, and other key operational and management issues. 

State and local governments play an important role in developing and 

implementing plans for interoperable communications because they own 

most of the physical infrastructure for public safety systems, such as 

radios, base stations, repeaters, and other equipment. In the past, public 

safety agencies have depended on their own stand-alone communications 

systems, without considering interoperability with other agencies. Yet as 

firefighting and other public safety agencies increasingly work together to 

respond to emergencies, including wildland fires, personnel from different 

agencies need to be able to communicate with one another. Reports by 

GAO,14 the National Task Force on Interoperability, and others have 

identified lack of planning and coordination as key reasons hampering 

communications interoperability among responding agencies. According 

to these reports, federal, state, and local government agencies have not 

worked together to identify their communications needs and develop a 

coordinated plan to meet them. Without such planning and coordination, 

new investments in communications equipment or infrastructure may not 

improve the effectiveness of communications among agencies. 

 13In some cases, this is the Internet; and in others, it is a private data network. 

14See GAO, Homeland Security: Challenges in Achieving Interoperable Communications 

for First Responders, GAO-04-231T (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 6, 2003). 
Page 22 GAO-05-627T 

In recent years, the federal government, as well as several states and local 

jurisdictions, have focused increased attention on improving planning and 

coordination to achieve communications interoperability. The Wireless 

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program (SAFECOM), within 

the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Interoperability and 

Compatibility,15 was established to address public safety communications 

issues within the federal government and to help state, local, and tribal 

public safety agencies improve their responses through more effective and 

efficient interoperable wireless communications. SAFECOM has 

undertaken a number of initiatives to enhance communications 

interoperability. For example, in a joint project with the commonwealth of 

Virginia, SAFECOM developed a methodology that could be used by states 

to assist them in developing a locally driven statewide strategic plan for 

enhancing communications interoperability. Several states have 

established statewide groups to address communications interoperability. 

For example, in Washington, the communications committee has 

developed a statewide public safety communication plan and an inventory 

of state government-operated public safety communications systems. 

Finally, some local jurisdictions are working together to identify and 

address communications interoperability issues. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased 

to answer any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee 

may have at this time. 

 15The Wireless Public Safety Interoperable Communications Program, otherwise known as 

SAFECOM, was first established as an Office of Management and Budget e-initiative in 

2001. 
Page 23 GAO-05-627T 

For further information on this testimony, please contact me at 

(202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov, or Keith Rhodes at (202) 512-6412 or 

rhodesk@gao.gov. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony 

included Jonathan Altshul, Naba Barkakati, David P. Bixler, William 

Carrigg, Ellen Chu, Jonathan Dent, Janet Frisch, Barry T. Hill, Richard 

Johnson, Chester Joy, Nicholas Larson, Steve Secrist, and Amy Webbink. 

GAO Contacts and 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

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