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82–710 PDF 2002

S. HRG. 107–755

IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL FIRE PLAN

IN COLORADO

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON THE

IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL FIRE PLAN

MAY 18, 2002

GOLDEN, CO

(

Printed for the use of the

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

(II)

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico, Chairman

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota

BOB GRAHAM, Florida

RON WYDEN, Oregon

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana

EVAN BAYH, Indiana

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, Alaska

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

DON NICKLES, Oklahoma

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho

BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado

CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

CONRAD BURNS, Montana

JON KYL, Arizona

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

GORDON SMITH, Oregon

ROBERT M. SIMON, Staff Director

SAM E. FOWLER, Chief Counsel

BRIAN P. MALNAK, Republican Staff Director

JAMES P. BEIRNE, Republican Chief Counsel

KIRA FINKLER, Counsel

FRANK GLADICS, Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

STATEMENTS

Page

Cables, Rick, Regional Forester, Rocky Mountain Region, Forest Service, Department of Agriculture ....................................................................................... 6

Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado ............................ 1

Hubbard, James E., Colorado State Forester ........................................................ 12

Tombolato, Michael, Chief, Cherryvale Fire Protection District, Boulder, CO .. 21

Udall, Hon. Mark, U.S. Representative from Colorado ........................................ 33

Wells, Scott, Director, Critical Incident Response, Jefferson County Sheriff’s

Office, Golden, CO ................................................................................................ 23

(1)

IMPLEMENTATION OF NATIONAL FIRE PLAN

IN COLORADO

SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCE,

Golden, CO.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in Forest

Service Region 2 Auditorium, 740 Simms Street, Golden, Colorado,

Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL,

U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO

Senator CAMPBELL. Good morning. I think we’re going to go

ahead and start this committee hearing in session, even though I’m

the only one. Welcome this morning. I wish we were here under

different circumstances and a little better year in terms of forest

fires, but we’re doing this committee hearing so I can gather information for the full committee, and everything will be a matter of

public record. And you’re welcome to turn in any written testimony,

too, but we intend to share this with our colleagues when I get

back to Congress.

I don’t have to tell you what a bad year it is. I’m sure most of

you already know that, but as I understand it, we’ve already had

283 fires this year up from 54 we had last year, which was considered the worse fire season in Colorado’s history. I requested this

hearing because we are at a time when we have seen our surplus

disappear. We’re going to be moving into a year of deficit again,

and we need to continue to prioritize the fire, the mechanism which

we provide funds to fight fires from the congressional level, but

clearly, we don’t seem to be able to prevent them, we seem to be

getting worse every year. I’d like to, when we have the professionals testify, learn more about that.

But I note with interest that most of our people in the audience

are the professionals, or they have some close relationship to the

problem we face, and not too many just private citizens whose lives

or property may be affected because of the disastrous fire.

Clearly, though, fire affects all types of lands and all walks of

life. It doesn’t stop at Federal or State or private boundaries. And

that’s why we have a cross-section of the fire-fighting community

here to testify for us today. We have Mr. Jim Hubbard, the Colorado State forester. We’re also pleased to have the U.S. Forest

Service Rocky Mountain Regional Forester, Mr. Rick Cables, to

help us look at this complex issue from a Federal standpoint.

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And making sure that we know what’s actually happening on the

ground and as our Nation reviews strategies and how to best implement and coordinate, we have Mr. Scott Wells, the director of

Jefferson County’s Criminal Incident Fire Response, and Mr. Mike

Tombolato, the District Chief of the Cherryvale Fire District too. So

thank you for being here. And I think that’s all the people that will

be testifying. But we’ll go through testimony. I’ll ask a few questions, and then we have a couple of open microphones set up, if

there’s anybody who would like to make a statement, we’ll keep a

portion of the time for you to be able to do that, too.

Through Wednesday of this week, we have lost over 603,644

acres of forest and range land to fires nationwide with over 25,900

of those being lost in the Rocky Mountain region. One only has to

look back through the national fire incident reports starting in

April through the first week of May to understand how fire is

changing all of our lives. We started out on April 19 with two fires

on the Pike/San Isabel National Forest and one in the ArapahoeRoosevelt National Forest, Topaz Mountain, Hewlett Gulch and

Cedar Mountain.

By April 21, the Hewlett Mountain fire had grown to 500 acres,

Topaz Mountain was up to 325 acres, and a new fire called the

Snake had started and burned 1,800 acres and two structures. On

May 4 and 5, the Hanover fire burned over 5,000 acres, and the

Black Mountain fire started near Clear Creek. Although, relatively

small by May 7, it was very close to town, and fire managers indicated that over 1,700 residents were endangered and many had to

evacuate.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And I’ve asked

staff to bring a couple of maps here to show you the difference of

what has happened the last few years. This first map, and I direct

you up here where my staffer Brandi is, that first map shows the

average moisture content and the vegetation of our Nation in late

April for the year 1996. As you can see, that was a very moist year

beginning in May, but still burned that year over 6.7 million acres.

You can also see that most of those acres were further in the

east, around the Mississippi Delta or some of the plain States, but

where we live in Colorado, look at the size of the snowpack. It was

good. Most of it’s green. A couple of the brown areas down in the

Southwest and the Southeast, but generally, it was a year that we

think was relatively good.

Now, Brandi, if you take that map, maybe, and hold it up next

to the next one, the next one is the year 2000, just 4 years later,

the year that Los Alamos burned. By the way, we had a very bad

start. By the end of May, we had burned over one million acres

with a total of 8.4 million acres for the year, and look how green

that vegetation is. Look at the difference between those two areas

of Colorado just in that amount of 2 years.

And we have a third one, too. And this one is 2002. And if you’ll

look at the lack of moisture we are facing this year, look at how

brown we are, and it’s only May. How little snowpack there is, too,

between even 2000 and 2002. It’s clearly, you know, when you read

the papers and you see the news about the great floods, they’re

sure not here. You can see how green it is in just around the Mississippi Valley area, Mississippi Delta area, but clearly, here in the

3

Rocky Mountain range from Canada to Mexico, it is a dry, dry

year. That doesn’t come as a surprise to anybody, but in the relative difference between what we had just a couple years ago and

now, that should give us a big indication of what we might be facing this summer.

One thing I don’t show, of course, on any of these maps is all the

new homes that are being built in high-fire areas as Colorado

grows in population. We’re the fourth fastest growing State, as you

know. And many of the people in our inward migration, they came

to this beautiful State because they want to be near the mountains,

and they want to be on some nice secluded dirt road right out there

where they land butts up right up to the national forest.

Sometimes they came to an area where it’s a 10-minute response

for the local fire department, if anything goes wrong. And I think

many of them probably fail to recognize that they may be an hour

or even two away from getting a response to their house if it’s in

an area that they picked for their future home.

Now, of course, that doesn’t lessen our responsibility to try to do

what we can in terms of saving lives and saving property, too. And

in my view, we are doing a pretty good job, but this hearing, of

course, is to try to find out how we can do a better job.

And I expect our witnesses today will tell us that this could be

the worst fire year in decades. But the main reason is, as I mentioned already, I’m really more interested in how we’re going to coordinate and use the resources we have and what we can do in

Congress to make it a little better.

Some time ago, the Government Accounting Office reviewed how

well the Government has worked at implementing the National

Fire Plan. The results of that study were, frankly, pretty bad. The

committees had a hearing on that issue recently, so I don’t want

to revisit that whole thing, but I only want to mention a couple of

conclusions that were reached.

First, over half of the Federal land management units still do not

have a fire management plan meeting the requirements of the 1995

National Fire Management Plan. Therefore, these units cannot

fully determine the level of personnel or equipment that they need.

Furthermore, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior have not developed performance measures to determine the extent to which the additional resources have resulted in more effective fire-fighting. Therefore, any new money we put in the appropriation process in Congress necessarily isn’t being used well if we

don’t have a plan on how to use it.

From 1952 to 1997, net annual soft growth has more than doubled in the West, and I think sometimes we call this the ‘‘politics

of fire.’’ And the politics of fire means the push and pull about

whether we should glean the forests or whether we shouldn’t, and

how it relates to decision-makers and their decision-making ability.

But it also means that in our national forests alone, about 73 million acres are now at risk from wildlife fires which could affect

human safety.

Unnaturally dense forests also tend to be a breeding ground for

all manner of insects, pests and pathogens that make trees even

more prone to fire damage. And I’m sure I’m not telling that to

anyone in the room that’s a professional that it doesn’t come as a

4

surprise to them. But in order to make our forests more manageable and to prevent wildfires from raging out of control, we need

to thin the unnaturally dense forests. There are only two acceptable ways that I know of, though you may enlighten me if there

are more, to get that mission done, one is through prescribed

burns, and the other is through some kind of manual thinning of

the forests of excess trees that could become fuel.

There is a third way, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s really an

acceptable way, and that’s to let these things get away and rage

out of control into some kind of an inferno that threatens everybody, including all of us in this room.

Managing prescribed burns provides a whole host of challenges.

However, administering prescribed burns under severe drought

conditions like Colorado’s currently facing is practically impossible,

or at least very difficult, because so many of them risk getting out

of control and, of course, that’s what we saw in New Mexico last

year with the Los Alamos fire; it was supposed to be a prescribed

burn.

Therefore, the option we’re left with under conditions such as

this year, I believe, is thinning the forests. Clearing the excess

small density timber from the forests not only improves forest

health and diminishes the likelihood of damaging wildfires, but it

can also be a boon to the local business. But it is not cheap. It costs

anywhere from $150 to $500 an acre to remove and destroy trees.

And, in fact, in some roadless areas, it can be a lot more expensive

than that.

I have heard of using helicopters that take them out. I’ve heard

of dragging them out with teams of horses in roadless areas. All

that is much more expensive than using mechanized tools. Those

costs could be offset in some ways by enlisting the private sector

that uses what would have normally been thrown away, and that

is the trees that are gleaned out of the forest.

Congress and the Federal Government recognize the multiplier

benefits of the forest to taxpayers and to local businesses by providing what was called ‘‘stewardship contracting’’ authority to Federal

agencies, which is basically the Federal agency signing a contract

with private people who would take dead trees out.

Over the last several months, we have addressed forests and forest health risk during the debates over the energy bill and the

farm bill, in fact, both of them. During each debate or conference,

some of our members in Congress worked and, in fact, did eliminate programs that would help our Federal land managers deal

with the overstocked forests from which we now suffer, and so our

stewardship contracting is literally at a halt.

First, during debates on the energy bill, we saw an attempt to

diminish the potential of the Renewable Energy Program by defining biomass that comes from the national forest as only brush and

slash and precommercial trees. Properly defined, the biomass provision would be a win-win situation for our energy needs and the

community needs and our forest if that was broadened.

In the farm bill, opponents killed a proposal to approve a stewardship contracting and biomass energy grant program during the

bill conference. And why? Well, very simply, in short, most of the

5

extreme views in the environmental groups in this country simply

do not want timber harvested from the national forest.

Fully 54 percent of our national forest timberlands are stocked

with trees that are less than 13 inches in diameter. That’s over 52

million acres out of the more than 96 million acres of national forest lands that are considered to be forest. These are the forests

that are overstocked with hundreds and sometimes even thousands

of trees per acre.

One hundred years ago, we had roughly 40 to 50 trees per acre.

These are the very same areas, the very same stands where we

used to have small, low-intensity fires that the forests and communities could deal with. These are the very forests that our experts

tell us that we must salvage. These are the ones that have sometimes three to 500 trees in the same area.

And that is why the Western Governors developed a collaborative

10-year strategy for reducing wildlife fire risk to communities and

the environment. That strategy was signed in last August of last

year by the Western Governors and the Secretary of the Interior

and Agriculture. I cosponsored a concurrent resolution with Senator Craig and Senator Feinstein that calls for the full implementation of that policy and will introduce a copy into the record this

morning.

But we know fire is an indiscriminate killer of man and property.

And all the experts, science, and facts show us that the build-up

of hazardous material in our forests is severely jeopardizing our

ability to prevent and control fires. Then why do we continue attempts to prohibit responsible forest management, incorporating

forest thinning and stewardship contracting? Well, it relates, of

course, as I mentioned, to the politics of fire, but we simply do not

have the political will of Congress yet to do more.

And I would just recommend to those people who have always

opposed any thinning, opposed any cutting, that maybe they ought

to come out here for a while in the dry west and live out there near

the forest for a while and have the unfortunate experience that

some people in Colorado have had.

I don’t have to tell the people in Colorado who watched the 1999

fire when it devastated the Buffalo Creek drainage that the notouch approach is not working. One only has to go up Buffalo

Creek, and I have not been there myself, but my staff has, they tell

me the devastation of the watershed that was brought on with

thunderstorms after that fire was a terrible thing. And I’m sure the

city of Denver and those communities that have to do the dredging

of the water storage areas that fill up with silt understand the catastrophic result of it, too.

It’s simply unfair to expect our firefighters and communities

across the country to face worsening fire situations when we do

know how to change, when we do know how to fix it. And I submit

we’re simply not going to improve the health of the Nation’s forest

by just letting it build up and build up more and more.

Well, let me stop there and welcome our people that are going

to testify today. And with that, maybe, let’s see, why don’t we just

start from left to right? Or maybe we should start with the Federal

level first. Maybe we’ll start with Rick first and work our way

6

down to the local. Rick, why don’t you go ahead. Thank you for

being here.

STATEMENT OF RICK CABLES, REGIONAL FORESTER, ROCKY

MOUNTAIN REGION, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE

Mr. CABLES. Well, good morning, and welcome to the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Office. We’re really pleased

to be able to host this, and we’re really pleased that you decided

to have a field hearing right here in our backyard. It certainly

makes it convenient for us. I’ve prepared written testimony which

we’ve submitted, I know you have copies, and there are some more

copies over there on the table for anyone else who’d like a copy.

Senator Campbell, I want to express our appreciation to you and

the committee for allowing us to have this hearing here in Lakewood and discuss the National Fire Plan. I also would like to thank

you and members of the committee for your support of the National

Fire Plan and the Fire Management Program, but more importantly, for your support of the fire-fighting community. Our firefighters do an impressive job under extraordinarily adverse conditions, and they deserve our appreciation, gratitude, and admiration

for the services they provide to the public.

The issue of fire management in the Rocky Mountain region in

Colorado is of the highest urgency, as you’ve already pointed out,

with the drought conditions we have this year. We’ve already had

four large fires, two of them right here outside of Denver over the

past month alone that have threatened life, property and watersheds.

I would also like to thank Governor Owens and his cabinet officers and the State agencies and, particularly, the State forester,

Jim Hubbard, the county sheriffs, the volunteer firefighters and all

the city council, county, State, Federal, and tribal firefighters for

their hard work in providing for a safe and efficient initial attack

on wildfires.

When it comes to fire-fighting, the color of the uniform doesn’t

matter. What matters is our joint capability to respond quickly, decisively and safely. Colorado is fortunate to have our Interagency

Unified Incident Command leadership for these catastrophic

events, and I believe this is one of the places where we have the

best coordination in the Nation, and we’re going to talk about that

a little bit.

So thank you for the opportunity. I’m going to take just a few

minutes and, you mentioned the Buffalo Creek fire, and share with

you, 6 years ago today, the Buffalo Creek fire started, May 18,

1996. I was with my daughter at a soccer game in Denver. At that

time, she was 10 years old, and we had a real hot, dry spell. I remember we were spraying the girls with mist to keep them from

overheating.

At about 1 o’clock, we started heading home. At that time, I was

the forest supervisor on the Pike and San Isabel National Forest

which is where the Buffalo Creek area is. We started driving down

the interstate to Colorado Springs, and I looked over to the west,

and I could see this plume of smoke coming up over that country

on the Pike around Buffalo Creek. And from the time I left that

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soccer game to the time I got to Colorado Springs, which was about

an hour and 15 minutes, I would guess that fire went from about

a 50-acre fire to probably 5,000 acres.

Senator CAMPBELL. In how long?

Mr. CABLES. In just an hour, hour and 15 minutes. It was cranking. You could see this plume of smoke that was just phenomenal.

And, of course, I knew the minute I saw the initial plume that we

were in trouble, because the winds were up, we had an extended

dry period. I grabbed my fire gear, turned around, and headed back

up here, and in this very room, we staged our fire teams and did

the war-planning for that fire.

It was too windy to fly that day. We couldn’t get our air tankers

up. We couldn’t put any slurry on the fire. Our hotshot crew from

the Pike National Forest, the Pike Hotshots, got to Buffalo Creek,

the community and the subdivisions, fortunately, ahead of the fire

and, with the local fire department and volunteers, were able to

protect most of the structures. We lost structures on the Buffalo

Creek fire, but not nearly what we could have. Miraculously, no

one was killed or injured that day seriously, but by the time that

fire was done and it was one burning period from about noon to

6 p.m., it had consumed 12,000 acres.

I remember about 3 days later standing in front of a public meeting in a community center in Buffalo Creek, and I been working

for the Forest Service about 25 years, and this was the most difficult public meeting I’ve ever been to, because you had folks there

that had been evacuated from their homes. We had people there

that had lost their homes, hadn’t slept for days, angry, upset,

afraid, demanding accountability, which I can appreciate, and we

had to host this public meeting in this community center and listen

to these concerns, and folks were mad. They said, how did it happen? Who started the fire? And, you know, of course, fingers were

pointing, and it was very difficult.

But that fire was started by a campfire that got away. It was a

man-caused fire, and it was just one of those situations where, once

we got a start, that we were not going to catch the fire that day.

That very community center where we had that meeting, about

2 months later, was washed down the river in the ensuing flood

that we had. And we had multiple flood events, as you pointed out,

filled up Stauntia Springs reservoir, which is the last holding reservoir for Denver water on the South Platte drainage. And if you

go to South Platte, or if you go to the Buffalo Creek fire area, even

today, we’ve got invasive species problems. We’ve got a sea of black

sticks that are there where once we had a forest, and it’s not a very

pleasant sight. And it’s been extremely expensive. We estimate

we’ve probably spent $25 million over the course of time between

fire-fighting efforts, rehabilitation, the Denver water dredging reservoir and so on and so forth.

And I guess if there were ever a place where you could look at

where all these factors come together that you just talked about,

it would be the Buffalo Creek fire area. And I guess the most compelling thing to me was, I was responsible, felt responsible. Our

agency felt responsibility for helping prevent the fire, to get crews

on the fire, to put the forest in a condition to prevent it. And, of

8

course, we weren’t there. We didn’t start the fire, that was just

something that happened.

But when you’re in these jobs like some of us are in, you feel the

responsibility when those kind of events occur. And that could be

the end of the story, but, in fact, it was really just the beginning,

because from that fire, we cooperated with the Colorado State Forest Service and built the red zone, what we call the Red Zone Assessment in Colorado where we looked at fire risk, fire hazard and

values, and basically, that’s just a bunch of jargon to say, where

are houses in the forest? Where do people live inside the forest?

We built an assessment in 1996, it’s been updated, and those two

maps to the left show that. And I’m sure Jim Hubbard will touch

on that some more. If you look at this map over here, we’ve got all

the National Fire Plan projects across all the agencies in Colorado.

Down here, we’ve got all the different agencies that were involved

with us, State, local, Federal. Colorado has one of the most comprehensive integrated approaches to the fire plan of any State

probably in the Union, in my view, anyway.

So then in the year 2000, we had the Bobcat and Hi Meadows

fires right up here outside the Front Range, and that was kind of

the last feat with the bitter root fires that put in place the National

Fire Plan. And the political will, everything lined up, it seemed to

help fund the National Fire Plan which has been a tremendous

help to us in not only having firefighters, but also dealing with the

hazardous fuels you referred to.

And when we get into maybe some question and answers, I’ll go

through some of the things we’ve done. But I just want to reinforce,

this is a personal thing, I think, to those of us that have to be accountable when we’re standing there with folks that have their

homes threatened or you’re standing with people that have evacuated their homes and they’re afraid. And we take it very seriously.

And we’re really trying to make the best use of the dollars that

Congress has allocated through the fire planning.

The other thing I’d say, the BLM in Colorado, and again, if you

look at that map, all the yellow is BLM lands, has been a tremendous partner, so we’re working really closely with Interior, and our

Forest Service research folks, and John Tolver is here from Rocky

Mountain Research Station, sitting right behind me, have initiated

several research programs with dollars available through the National Fire Plan to help us look at the issues around fire. So with

that, I’ll stop. I’ll be pleased when the questions come to answer

whatever questions you may have. And again, thank you for being

here.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cables follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICK CABLES, REGIONAL FORESTER, ROCKY MOUNTAIN

REGION, FOREST SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee: Thank you for the opportunity to

meet with you today. I am Rick Cables, Regional Forester for the Rocky Mountain

Region, USDA Forest Service.

At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and members of the committee

for your support of the National Fire Plan and fire management program and, most

importantly, for your support of our firefighting community. Our firefighters do an

impressive job under adverse conditions and they deserve our thanks and admiration.

9

Today, I will talk about the potentially severe fire season now underway, and how

the land-managing agencies and our partners in the Rocky Mountain area are making preparations. While we prepare to fight fire this season as best we can, fighting

wildland fires is only one aspect of the work we must do to protect communities and

restore ecosystems.

Fires in recent years, especially those that have occurred in the Front Range,

have heightened our collective awareness for firefighter and public safety. The Buffalo Creek Fire, started six years ago today, when I was the Pike/San Isabel Forest

Supervisor, clearly illustrated the impact and cost of the offsite effects of wildfire

as experienced by the effects of sedimentation on Strontia Reservoir. The Hi Meadow Fire in June 2000 showed us not only the impact of losing homes, it also demonstrated that vegetation management along with the use of prescribed fire can

make a difference in the reducing the severity and spread of wildland fire.

THE FIRE SITUATION AND OUTLOOK

The outlook is for a severe fire season this year. As you know, we have already

experienced a number of wildland fires in Region 2. The Interior West continues to

experience severe drought conditions. Our below average snow packs and early runoff have affected a wide cross section of users and communities. For us, it means

that fuel moistures in the forests have not recharged and in many areas are at

lower levels than 2000, a very difficult fire year.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise has provided us with a

long range weather outlook for later this summer and fall that calls for generally

warmer than normal temperatures in the West. Rainfall, however, is predicted to

be near normal through this period. The high temperatures and near normal precipitation coupled with the extended drought conditions increases the fire potential

in the Rockies this summer and fall.

WILDLAND FIRE PREPAREDNESS

Each year, the interagency effort in Region 2 works to provide an overarching effort in all elements of the fire management programs. These include prevention and

public activities, preparation and initial attack, large fire support, fuels reduction

programs and effective support of communities in a host of cooperative efforts. Interagency cooperation has long been the cornerstone of effective wildland fire fighting.

In Colorado, this has been evident with the excellent working relationships between

Federal, Tribal, State, Local governments and a host of dedicated volunteers. The

cooperation is most evident in Colorado State Forest Service’s sponsorship of the annual Wildland Fire Academy. This interagency effort continues to be anchored in

providing standards for safety and coordination, offers a variety of wildland fire

training courses and is attended by well over 900 firefighters. The effort has

spawned similar efforts in New York and Texas.

We in the Rocky Mountain Region consciously focus on safety. We have taken a

pledge ‘‘never to forget’’. The legacy of the South Canyon Fire in Glenwood Springs

remains with us and continues to guide us in our efforts. Firefighting is a high risk,

high consequence activity, and the Forest Service has always had strong firefighter

safety and training programs. This year, however, following the Thirty-Mile Fire

tragedy in July 2001, where four firefighters lost their lives, nationally we have redoubled our efforts. The Thirty-Mile tragedy prompted an examination of the programs to identify areas needing improvement. The areas identified include managing firefighter fatigue, reinforcing use of the 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18

Watch Out situations, and developing training to avoid entrapment by fire. All of

these improvements in training and safety are in place for this fire season.We are

committed to doing everything we can to improve firefighter safety.

We have also purchased and maintained firefighter personal protection gear and

engines, other vehicles, and contracted for helicopters and airtankers services. Preparedness also includes assisting other Federal agencies, Tribes and States with fire

training programs, planning assistance, shared equipment use contracts, and support for interagency fire coordination centers.

In 2001, we made a great start toward increasing our preparedness resources,

thanks to the National Fire Plan funding. In Region 2, the Forest Service treated

over 58,000 acres to reduce fuel loads and protect priority communities at risk. We

will continue this success in FY 2002 and are funded to treat approximately 70,000

acres. We are in the process of completing another revision of the ‘‘Red Zone’’ assessment for Colorado in cooperation with the Colorado State Forester and Department

of the Interior agencies. We are completing a similar assessment in Wyoming in

partnership with the Wyoming State Forester and our Interior counterparts in WyoVerDate 11-SEP-98 09:26 Nov 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 J:\DOCS\82-710 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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ming. These kinds of assessments will help us prioritize preparedness and fuel

treatments in those States.

In FY 2001, we hired approximately an additional 182 new permanent employees

and 289 seasonal firefighters that brought our firefighting workforce to near 800

permanent and seasonal employees. We also acquired 13 additional engines. That

figure includes an additional 20 person hotshot crew (the Roosevelt Hotshots in Fort

Collins). In 2002, we are bringing on an additional hotshot crew on the San Juan

NF, bringing the Region’s total to 5 hotshot crews. Our additional investments in

upgrading airtanker bases have already proven to be effective investments, both in

initial attack and for large fire support. We continue to monitor fire conditions and

this year have already fought fire as early as January. We have been proactive with

the use of severity funding and brought additional resources such as helicopters and

airtankers on early. In addition, we are working hard at bringing on fire personnel

early and where appropriate adjusted training to insure that all personnel meet currency standards before being assigned. The Snaking Fire and the Black Mountain

Fire, both with high potential for damage in the wildland urban interface, demonstrated lessons learned with increased coordination and improved tactical operations among cooperating fire fighting agencies.

Interagency coordination and oversight with Interior agencies and State and local

agencies is active in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota and to a lesser

degree in Kansas. Coordination taskforces and teams meet regularly to evaluate

programs and identify priorities. Their collective focus is on effective planning and

program delivery at the local level. In Colorado for example, the interagency effort

is focused on working with Colorado Counties Incorporated to prepare county-wide

fire management plans. In addition, we have co-sponsored an innovative approach

to public education and fire prevention in a cooperative effort with the Red Cross.

The Interior agencies and the Forest Service have established teams in Wyoming

and Colorado to expedite consultation required by the Endangered Species Act.

In addition to our federal firefighting crews, we call upon many other firefighting

forces for assistance. Our working relationship with our State and local partners has

never been stronger. Often, State and local firefighters are the first to respond to

fire incidents.q04

COMMUNITY ASSISTANCEQ01

In Region 2, the Forest Service provided over $9 million to states, volunteer fire

departments, and local communities to assist firefighting activities in 2001 and

2002. With these grants our State and local government partners purchased fire

equipment for volunteer fire departments, Rural Fire Departments and developed

hazard mitigation plans and projects. Agreements have been made and grants

awarded to provide a wide range of fuels activities with efforts ongoing and still underway. In addition, we have contributed to community fire planning, developed

market utilization of small diameter material removed through thinning activities,

and conducted fire prevention and fire education training.

It is important to note that we and other land management agencies have updated fire management plans to be consistent with Federal wildland fire policy, with

a goal to have all plans updated in 2004, if not sooner. Region 2 has updated approximately 50% of our plans and will complete the remainder before 2004. The fire

management plans are important because they are the major link to land and resource management plans and provide the guidance for fire management officers,

line officers and incident commanders to plan for fire management programs, and

to make decisions when an incident occurs, as to the appropriate techniques and

tactics for effective wildland fire response.q01

2002 FIRE SEASON READINESSQ01

With the forecast for a severe wildland fire season, Region 2 began early and continues to bring fire readiness capacity to its highest level. We currently have approximately 715 permanent and seasonal firefighters available Region-wide. We are

also currently recruiting additional firefighting resources and expect to have 50

more firefighters by the end of June.

When we realized the severity of the wildland fire outlook, we began to hire seasonal firefighters early and we are working to place firefighting crews and equipment in locations where they can be mobilized quickly and effectively.

When local areas anticipate or experience above normal fire activity, we have the

authority, through what is known as ‘‘severity funding’’, to provide suppression

funds to those units so that they can bring in additional staff and equipment to improve initial and extended attack response capabilities and increase prevention activities. Already this year, the Forest Service has approved authority of over

11

$800,000 for severity assistance for Region 2. Federal wildland fire agencies have

enhanced initial attack capabilities by pre-positioning resources ranging from

airtankers, to hand crews, to engines in strategic locations.

REDUCING FUEL LOADS

Fighting wildland fire is only one part of addressing the long-term buildup of hazardous fuels in our forests and grasslands. Reducing the risks and consequences of

severe wildland fires is a high priority for the Administration. Bipartisan Congressional support has provided the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior

with the necessary funding to increase the amount of acreage treated to reduce risks

to communities and ecosystems. The importance of reducing fuel loads has been recognized for some time as an important issue in Region 2. The Rocky Mountain Region maintains an active internet website to track and display information about the

National Fire Plan. This site provides the viewer with a spatial view of fuels

projects along with project descriptions and key contacts. You can sort projects by

state, congressional district, county and forest.Also, in Colorado, we have utilized

the Colorado ‘‘Good Neighbor’’ Agreement process to allow the Colorado State Forest

Service to work on National Forest System lands to aid in conducting hazardous

fuel treatment projects that affect both agencies.

Nationally, the Departments are beginning this year to develop a common interagency fire budget planning process that will better refine wildland fire management readiness resources. The process will provide all agencies with a uniform, performance-based system for identifying the preparedness resources necessary to deliver a cost effective fire management program.This system will be deployed by the

2004 fire season and will influence readiness decisions for the 2005 fire season. Region 2 will be part of this effort.

RESTORATION AND REHABILITATION

In addition to preparedness and hazardous fuels reduction, the Region has a number of extensive restoration and rehabilitation projects that were the result of the

fires of 2000 and 2001. The Region received over $7 million in FY 2001. This funding was used to complete restoration projects on land impacted by fires such as Jasper on the Black Hills National Forest, Hi Meadows on the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and the Bobcat Fire on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests.

Projects funded and completed included noxious weed control, hazard tree mitigation along roads and trails, erosion control measures, and private property corner

re-establishment. In FY 2002 the region received over $5 million to continue the restoration activities on the fires of 2000 and do additional work on 2001 fires.

RESEARCH

The Rocky Mountain Research Station, headquartered in Fort Collins, is active in

National Fire Plan research across 13 states of the Interior West. Station scientists

received $8.2 million of National Fire Plan funds for fuels and fire research in the

Rockies and West. Their studies will provide valuable information to support implementation of the National Fire Plan by our forest managers in Region 2 and other

states. In Colorado alone, station scientists received over $1.3 million to support

studies designed to:

• provide effective alternatives for managing fuels in fire-prone and fire-dependent ecosystems in Colorado and the Black Hills;

• provide ways for the Forest Service and the public to better understand and

build consensus on fire management strategies;

• use satellite imagery to determine how insects, diseases and other disturbances

may create fire hazards and influence the incidence and spread of wildfire;

• use high-resolution satellite imagery to provide models for forecasting fire

weather and the impacts of smoke from fires.

• determine patterns of regeneration of white pine trees after fire and the effect

these patterns may have on the spread of white pine blister rust disease.

These studies are coordinated with scientists at Colorado State University, the

University of Colorado, Colorado School of Mines, and state and federal land management agencies.

In addition, station scientists are conducting long-term monitoring of the Jasper

Fire recovery in the Black Hills and assessing alternatives for managing the South

Platte River watershed here in Colorado.

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SUMMARY

As stated earlier, the outlook is for a potentially severe fire season this year. The

Forest Service in partnership with the other federal land-managing agencies and

with our partners at the State and local level are doing all that we can to be prepared for this fire season. We will continue to do everything we can to ensure the

safety of firefighters, communities, and resources. We will continue to cooperate and

communicate among Federal agencies, States, local governments, Tribes and interested groups and citizens to ensure the long-term safety and health of communities

and resources in our care.

This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any

questions you and the members of the committee may have.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you. You mentioned some of the effects, as I did in my opening statement, but the thing I didn’t mention, you didn’t either, and that is the long-term healing that has

to take place. I lived down by Durango this year, and I know Rick,

and sometimes I drive up to Silverton. There’s a sign by the road

up there near an old fire area that’s called Line Creek Burn, maybe

you know that, I think it was 120 years ago, and you can still see

the effects of the fire.

A lot of the young trees have grown back and brush and so on,

but there’s still, you know, charred remains of old stumps there,

120 years later. So when these things happen, you know, the immediate tragedy is obvious for literally everybody to see. The longterm tragedy is you won’t see them in your lifetime like they were,

that’s for sure.

As you know, I had a couple opportunities when I was a youngster, we’ve talked about this, to be on the fire lines, and it gives

you a whole different perspective of what you face when you’re out

there. I was just a boy, and that was the day before we had so

many politically correct things done and before, you know, everybody was so much into civil rights, they used to come right into the

communities with the trucks, in the theaters, where I remember,

and load you up. You had a choice: You can go fight the fire or you

had to go to jail, that was it, if you were big enough to pick up a

shovel or an axe. I don’t remember anybody ever refusing.

I mean, when we were young, I only went two or three times, but

I was ready to go, and everybody else was, too, because we all

knew of the threat. And I think one of the things that’s happened

now is that we tend to look to somebody else to fix it for us. It’s

somehow not my fault, and I’m not responsible for getting out there

myself unless it’s my house, but I’m not responsible for that next

town or that next guy’s house or something else, that’s supposed

to be done by some agency, so why aren’t you county guys or State

guys or so on taking care of this?

I mean, it’s almost a form of displacing our anger when we used

to sort of accept the responsibility. We all had to get out there. So

I think attitudes are changing, too, about it. That’s just, I just

throw that out for no reason at all, but you were probably aware

of it. Okay. Let’s go to—just to get it off my chest. Jim? Let’s go

with Jim Hubbard, State Forester.

STATEMENT OF JAMES E. HUBBARD,

COLORADO STATE FORESTER

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Senator Campbell. I appreciate you

being here and holding this hearing and bringing your staff with

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you so that they can learn something about this, too. I know they

already know. I probably could just defer to your opening statement for my testimony. I agree with what you said. Maybe I can

elaborate a little bit.

Colorado is not unlike a lot of the interior West. We’ve got a forest condition that’s ready to burn. Most of our forest was created

by disturbance, and it’s about to be recreated by disturbance, and

originally, that was mostly fire. And that forest is 120, 150 years

old, and it’s at the end of that life-cycle. It has no fuel moisture

in those live trees, and so when we get fire, it’s more difficult to

control. It burns quicker. It burns hotter. It burns angrier. It’s a

difficult situation, and so initial attack becomes critical.

Add to that the drought that you’ve talked about. Colorado

snowpack this year is 27 percent of normal. That’s going to cause

all kinds of water problems. But for us, it causes fire problems. It

increases the likelihood of ignition. We’re dry up to 9,000 feet.

That’s a lot of exposure for this time of year, and we’ve already had

a number of fires, as you pointed out, four times the normal number for this time of year. And it’s moving into the interface.

For the rest of the season, we’re totally dependent upon frequency precipitation. The forest is dry, and everything else is dry.

If we don’t get rains on a regular basis to keep that ignition down,

we’ll have a lot of fire, and it will be large fire.

You add to that the people that have decided to make their

homes in the forests and growth rates in Colorado. We now have

nearly a million people living in those six million acres of high-risk

interface that we talked about. All 474,000 homes——

Senator CAMPBELL. One million, roughly one-fourth of the—or

no, we have 4 million people or thereabouts, so that’s about a

fourth of the State lives in high-risk areas, you’re saying?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes. And that’s continuing to grow. Douglas County is the best example. They’re growing very fast and spreading

into the interface everywhere. That creates hazards. We’ve already

talked about Buffalo Creek which was not exactly a wake-up call.

We knew the situation. But Buffalo Creek scared us. Buffalo Creek

burned 2 miles wide by 10 miles long in one afternoon.

And Jefferson County replotted the footprint of the Buffalo Creek

fire, a watershed to the north, similar conditions, similar terrain,

similar forest, and 840 homes would have been in the way. And

that scares us. So we’ve got to do something about this situation

in places, no question about it.

The most recent fires, the early-season fires that we’ve had west

of Denver, 3,500 people were evacuated from two fires. The Black

Mountain fire alone, 1,700 homes were evacuated for a 200-acre

fire. It’s getting that difficult to deal with. I’ll let some of these

local folks tell you more specifically what they have to do.

The after effects we can talk a lot about, but a lot of Colorado

has what we know as hydrophobic soils, so we get fires that are

that hot, it seals the surface. And a normal rainfall event produces

unusual run-off. A 2-inch rainfall event following Buffalo Creek

caused all the damage, and that single event put more sediment in

Stauntia Springs reservoir than the previous 12 years of its operation. So all kinds of other problems go with not dealing with the

restoration of these watersheds.

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The National Fire Plan came along. We welcome it. We thank

you for it and continued support. I think the basic premise that

said we need to look at preparedness, fuel treatment, watershed

restoration, and community assistance is sound. And it can work.

Most of our emphasis the first 2 years has been placed on firefighting and preparedness, and some on prevention, a lot on mitigation and getting acres treated, fuel treatments accomplished that

address this risk. Less emphasis has been placed on dealing with

fire-prone ecosystems, watershed restoration, and community assistance.

I would suggest that as we move forward, and it’s only been 2

years, but as we move forward, we might want to concentrate more

on the restoration and the community assistance, because I believe

long-term, that’s where the sustainable answer’s going to come

from.

We do have a collaborative process in Colorado, as Rick has mentioned. It’s based on dealing with the priorities identified by that

red zone hazard map. We have an implementation group of all the

agencies and the land management agencies and local government

representation, so we are making progress at how to do this together.

There’s been a press to produce acres, so concentration has been

on getting that work done, and a lot of effort has been put into that

as opposed to, let’s all get together and figure out what we’re going

to do first. So we pressed ahead, and NEPA was a factor. If we

wanted to get acres treated immediately, we had to use NEPA

projects on Federal land. So those weren’t always our highest priority projects, but we wanted to show that we could deliver for the

National Fire Plan.

We immediately, though, did begin a joint planning process so

that we could get 18, 24 months of NEPA clearance that’s required

to match the projects up on the Federal land and in the watershed

with the private State land projects in the interface. That’s happening. It’s happening at different paces in other places in the west,

but it is beginning to happen in Colorado. And it takes all those

ownerships, the private, the State, and the Federal, to work.

We do need leadership, and as you pointed out, the Secretaries

of Interior and Agriculture and the Western Governors got together. Their charge to us was to deal with all lands, to work together, and to view this as a long-term proposition.

Since then, the wildland Fire Leadership Council has been

formed, and that’s the Federal agency representatives from Interior

and Agriculture, and I would suggest that the Governors, the State

foresters, the counties and the tribes need to be added to that council. I believe that’s being considered. But that perspective, if we’re

going to do all lands, is necessary.

Cross-boundary is essential. Interface, of course, from a State

perspective, is our priority because we have so much at risk, life

and property at risk. But just to treat the interface won’t be

enough. In some cases, we’re going to have to look at a larger scale

and look at that watershed. Buffalo Creek coming roaring at you

out of a watershed is not, no matter what you’ve done in your subdivision, it’s probably not going to be enough. So there has to be

some treatment on the landscape in places.

15

We have some tools in Colorado. We have one unique tool in Colorado that we’ve referred to as a ‘‘good neighbor treatment.’’ It was

authority granted on a 4-year basis by Congress for the State to act

as signature on Federal land. So we can cross the boundary widened amendment. The Federal agencies can cross the boundary

from Federal to private. With good neighbor authority, the State

can cross the boundary onto the Federal land. That helps facilitate

this all-ownership approach.

And so we have put the skills to use where we have the skills.

And if it’s from the Federal Land Management Agency doing the

work on private land, we do that. If it’s the other way, we do that,

too. We have a number of stewardship contracting pilots in Colorado, and I think we’ve learned how to make that work, if that becomes more than a pilot approach. And we have the South Platte

Large Scale Watershed Restoration project.

We’ve learned a lot. We’ve put a lot of concentration in the South

Platte, partly because of Buffalo Creek and what we saw there, but

partly because it makes a lot of sense if our high priorities are to

protect life and property and to work across that landscape together.

We understand that Congress is concerned about accountability,

and should be. It provided a lot of additional resources for us to

work with. I’m hopeful that the follow-up to the collaborative strategy that the Governors and secretaries agreed to, the implementation plan that goes with that, will be signed next week, May 23,

in Boise, and that will set out some performance measures that

even OMB might agree to, and we’ll begin to move ahead, then,

with the accountability and to focus on the right actions that need

to be taken to reduce this risk to life and property and to restore

the watersheds.

We’re going to continue, though, to have the reminders with

large fire. And hopefully, we’re better prepared to fight fire. Early

season in Colorado, to have this kind of fire activity, is unusual.

Early season usually catches us not quite prepared, and yet, out of

all of what we’ve been through, out of 3,500 people evacuated, only

two homes have been lost. I think that’s remarkable, and I think

that speaks to how we’ve learned to fight fire together.

But because of that forest condition in much of the West, this is

going to be a long-term proposition. We’ve got more acres out there

than we can ever treat. We will not need to treat every acre. It is

important to prioritize and decide which ones are most important

for us to deal with.

We’ve learned long ago in Colorado and elsewhere to fight fire together. Now, we’re learning how to mitigate hazard together. It’s

a little different proposition. We’ve got a lot more land management issues that are out there that haven’t been dealt with before,

and now they’ve become all of our issues. We are all dealing with

them together.

And you have individual home owners. You don’t have a lot of

home owners in the room today. My guess is if we’d have distributed notices west of Denver a little more vigorously, and they knew

you were in the audience, more would have been here, but their

memory is short, and it takes this kind of—it takes a close fire to

16

remind most home owners. And even then, everybody isn’t convinced.

Some go out immediately and mitigate the hazard around their

homes. Most do. Some say, no, I’m not willing to cut those trees.

I bought this property because of those trees, and I’m not going to.

I can lose my home, and I don’t expect any firefighter to take a risk

defending my home. And then there’s another category that expects

the public to be served. It’s taxpayer money. They want everything

to be taken care of, and that’s just not realistic. But we still deal

with all of those views.

Likewise, we have different opinions of what we ought to do in

the watershed: How far out do you go? What kind of areas do you

enter? What type of treatment do you apply? We’re working

through that in Colorado. The South Platte Large Scale Watershed

Restoration project is helping us take the lead on how we’re going

to make that happen in Colorado. And a lot of folks are paying attention to that, as they should be. We want to make this process

that we have enough buy-in and support from decision-makers and

interested parties.

It will eventually come down to communities and what the community wants to do and what the community capacity is to make

it happen and their will to stay with this long-term. We can help.

We can facilitate. We can prioritize. We can stimulate. We can add

additional resources, but that community eventually is going to

make the decision. So I would urge you, as we move forward, help

us pay to that community assistance element of the National Fire

Plan. It’s not a large element in terms of the fire plan. I wouldn’t

advocate community assistance at the expense of preparedness or

fuels treatment, but it does, I think, propose the hope for whether

our success will be realized. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hubbard follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES E. HUBBARD, COLORADO STATE FORESTER

I appreciate the invitation to present testimony on National Fire Plan coordination and federal programs to enhance state and local cooperation.

SITUATION—THE CONDITION OF COLORADO’S FORESTS

Forest condition, or health, is defined by the interaction between three components: resilience to disturbance, biological diversity, and ability to meet people’s

needs.

Several issues and influences contribute to the current condition of Colorado’s forest resources. Those of primary concern are trends in forest cover change, insect and

disease cycles, expansion of the wildland-urban interface, and watershed health.

The lack of large-scale disturbance is the single-most important factor related to

forest health. The majority of Colorado’s forested landscapes are considered to be

disturbance driven, which means they evolved with natural cycles of wildfire, insect

and disease infestations, flooding, avalanches, and windstorms. Changes in human

values and the resulting shift in land-management practices interrupted these disturbance cycles, primarily through fire exclusion and reduced harvesting activity on

public lands.

Without disturbances that periodically rejuvenate forest stands and ensure a variety of forest types, ages and densities, many of Colorado’s forests have become unnaturally crowded and concentrated in older age classes. This lack of diversity,

along with intense competition for resources such as water and light, has left many

forest stands vulnerable to insect and disease attack, catastrophic wildfire, and

other types of damage on a vast scale. Further complicating the situation is the

public’s resistance to cutting trees. All these factors combined create a formula for

disaster.

17

* Retained in committee files.

It took over a 100 years for forests to achieve this condition and it will take many

years of careful management, interagency collaboration, and continued funding to

improve forest conditions and reduce the risk of catastrophic fire in Colorado’s

wildland-urban interface.

GROWTH IN THE WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE

The rapid growth in the wildland urban-interface poses the additional challenge

of trying to manage natural resources while protecting lives and property. Currently, nearly 1 million Coloradoans reside in the interface, and the projected

growth in Colorado is expected to far exceed the national average. Over the next

five to twenty years, Colorado is expected to grow at a rate of two times the national

average. In Teller and Park counties, the growth rate in the next two decades is

predicted to be approximately 6 percent. Douglas County leads the rapid growth

with 191 percent change in population between 1990 and 2000, 60,391 to 175,766.

Many of these residents have built homes in the interface, valued at $181 million

in just the first quarter of 2002.

HAZARDS AND RISKS IN THE WILDLAND-URBAN INTERFACE

The risk of wildfire in Colorado’s wildland-urban interface poses a daunting challenge to public, safety, fiscal responsibility, and natural resource integrity in the

state. The 2000 fire season brought this challenge to the forefront of public attention

when four interface fires along Colorado’s Front Range destroyed 74 structures and

threatened thousands more, interrupted utility service, and impacted water and air

quality. The cost to state coffers for suppressing these fires was staggering, contributing to the most expensive wildfire season in Colorado’s history.

The large fires in Colorado this spring have cost $4,290,798 to suppress. The

Black Mountain fire caused the evacuation of residents from 1,700 homes. All indications are that it will continue to be unusually dry, adding to an already volatile

situation.

The cost of suppressing unnaturally large and destructive fires in the complex

wildland-urban interface environment often presses state and local resources beyond

their capacity. To address these critical needs, the Colorado State Forest Service,

in collaboration with federal, state, county, and local agencies, as well as private

landowners, is taking steps to mitigate the risks of catastrophic wildfire, particularly where lives and property are at greatest risk. Much of what is being accomplished is a direct result of the funding provided through the National Fire Plan.

NATIONAL FIRE PLAN (NFP) PROJECTS IN COLORADO

To identify communities at risk, Colorado’s Interface Red Zone map was used (attached).* The Red Zone is based on hazard (amount of fuel/condition of the forest),

risk (the potential for ignition), and value (number of homes). This assessment identified 1,609 communities with nearly 1 million residents and over 6 million acres

as being at risk from catastrophic wildfire. Figures include private and federally

owned acres. Colorado’s mix of ownership necessitates interagency collaboration to

address the problem.

NFP funding in federal fiscal year 2001 allowed the Colorado State Forest Service

to implement 67 projects that ranged from statewide fuel treatment awareness to

community based hazard fuels treatments; $1.5 million was used for fuel hazard

treatments, $167,000 for planning and assessment, and $366,460 for awareness. All

federal dollars were leveraged, some by as much as 10 to 1. Following are a few

examples of successful projects that have been implemented in Colorado.

The Baca Grande Mitigation Project received a $25,000 grant to reduce hazard

fuels. They developed a 5-acre demonstration area; treated 47 acres of defensible

space on 52 properties, and conducted wildfire information workshops for 54 property owners.

The Larimer County Slash Disposal Project received a $65,200 grant to reduce

hazardous fuels. They completed 198 miles of access improvement and fuelbreak

construction and created 21 acres of demonstration projects. The match for this

grant was $294,022.

Through a $16,561 grant, the Colorado State Forest Service reproduced and distributed 7,500 Burning Issues CDs, a high school fire ecology curriculum. Each

science teacher in 317 Colorado high schools received a lab pack for use in their senior high science classes. In addition, workshops were offered to train teachers about

the effects of fire on watersheds and communities.

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You will hear more about NFP assistance to local preparedness from the County

and Fire Department witnesses.

FEDERAL, LOCAL AND STATE COORDINATION

Colorado has chartered a NFP implementation group with representatives of the

land management agencies and local government. Through regular meetings this

body has coordinated identification of communities at risk, treatment projects, exchange of planning and monitoring information, assistance to communities, and a

common approach to delivery of prevention messages.

The land ownership pattern in Colorado and much of the west requires a cross

boundary landscape scale approach. All jurisdictions must be included to achieve

success. NFP emphasis has been focused on firefighting and fuel treatment. This is

appropriate for Colorado’s forest condition and interface risk.

As the NFP moves forward more attention needs to be given to community assistance. The sustainability of Federal investment will be dependent on local connection

and capacity. Through programs like State Fire Assistance, Volunteer Fire Assistance, Community Assistance, and Economic Action, local programs are enhanced.

From small beginnings, capacity grows and sustainability results. The NFP can play

an important role to help communities become an integral part of preparedness,

mitigation, watershed restoration and prevention.

On a national scale, creation of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council is a positive

move. Additional representation from Governors, State Foresters, Counties and

Tribes would provide useful perspective in addressing the coordination issues we

face in implementing the National Fire Plan.

Finally, through the efforts of the Western Governors, the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture have adopted a collaborative strategy to wildland fire management. This strategy should continue to remind us that reducing wildland fire risks

to communities and the environment will mean action across all lands, long-term

commitment and full involvement of all parties.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my views with you today.

Senator CAMPBELL. Okay. I’ve got a whole bunch of questions.

Let me just ask couple of them before we go on to the local concerns. When you say community assistance, what does that mean?

I mean, it’s after the fact; right? Money after the fact or resources

after the fact?

Mr. HUBBARD. Not entirely. There are several elements of that

in the budget. There’s the State fire assistance which provides the

State some help to work with the communities. There’s volunteer

fire assistance so that the fire departments get additional funds to

be prepared to fight fire.

Senator CAMPBELL. But you’re not thinking in terms of community assistance meaning, I don’t know, something like repaying for

a person’s home that lost his home, something of that nature.

Mr. HUBBARD. No, no, not that at all. There is an economic assistance element of that, but that’s aimed more at trying to find

uses for the small-diameter material.

Senator CAMPBELL. Let me ask maybe you or Rick or both, do

some of the things we have already in place in the Federal law inhibit your ability to fight fires? For instance, you don’t have to tell

me if this was true or not, but I did hear that that fire that got

away in Mesa Verde a few years ago that went so fast, I was told

that the firefighters were not allowed to come in and fight the fire

until they had an archeologist with them. Under some Federal law,

they couldn’t go in there and deal with it without an archeologist.

And they couldn’t find one. And it took them a day and a half or

something to find one. And during that amount of time, that fire,

it just went like pi squared. It just really expanded. It had a high

wind. As you mentioned, the speed, they can travel with high wind.

Did that actually happen? Was that true?

19

Mr. CABLES. I can’t speak to that. I wasn’t here. I’m not that familiar with that particular fire.

Mr. HUBBARD. In a place like Mesa Verde, I know that that’s a

concern. There are archeological sites that shouldn’t be disturbed.

It’s not the Federal law, though, that gets in our way, it’s how

we’re prepared to respond to it. And sometimes, we haven’t anticipated all of those issues. And that may have caused a delayed response in Mesa Verde, but I know we investigated that thoroughly,

and I don’t believe that’s the reason that the acres were lost. However, it did tell us, the next time, it might be, so we better be prepared to respond in the way that that won’t inhibit suppression activity.

Senator CAMPBELL. Have we had any trouble with other existing

laws? For instance, I remember the story about the man in California who had a home, and the fire was heading his way, and so he

cleared the brush near his home to prevent the fire from getting

his home, and it happened to be habitat for some kind of a rat that

was listed on the endangered species, or it was a habitat, and he

got fined a huge amount of money for that. Have we had any trouble like that, that you know of?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes.

Senator CAMPBELL. Yes? Why don’t you give me an example of

how we’ve been inhibited by that.

Mr. HUBBARD. Not so sure, I would say, inhibited, but in some

of our mitigation activities, and we had worry about this for private

land owners, especially when the State’s giving them advice to act,

that there may be some endangered species issues. And we have

run into that, and that has delayed projects. That has cancelled

some projects because of endangered species. But it isn’t that we

can’t still take action, we just have to take a different action or in

a different way.

And in Colorado, the Fish and Wildlife Service has been very active and working with us to make sure that we don’t run into that

problem where we’re doing interface hazard reduction. Now, they’re

looking at their laws to see how far they can go, and we’re operating under a one-year agreement with Fish and Wildlife to protect

those land owners who take action in the interface. And they may

discover that there are some statutory changes that would be necessary, but they’ve been very good at working with us to avoid

that.

Mr. CABLES. And Senator Campbell, just to add to that, when

there’s an emergency, when the fire’s coming over the mountain,

we’ve got a lot of discretion to move quickly. The key is, I think,

to have the preplanning and foresight. And you down in Mesa

Verde, I would assume, because one of the fundamental values that

that park protects is archeological sites, so the purpose that—I

think the way to get at this, and this is why these fire management plans are so important, if you do the fire management plan

on an area like that, clearly, and on the national forest down in

southwestern Colorado, we have a lot of archeological sites, we

need to anticipate those and plan for that and say, when the fire

bell rings, if the fire’s coming over the hill with certain conditions

and we have to suppress it, we’ve just got to have some ability to

get in there and move quickly to deal with the fire situation.

20

So I think that applies there. It also could apply with endangered

species, where we have them, and those kinds of things. So I think

it’s, again, as we get better at this, anticipating those kind of issues

ahead of time, getting the agreements in place and the understanding, that’s a solution to that, not when the fire’s coming over the

mountain. But we do—I don’t believe we have any authorities inhibiting us when we have that emergency.

Senator CAMPBELL. So you can take, say, mechanized equipment

into a roadless area if there’s an emergency fire?

Mr. CABLES. If there’s an emergency fire that we believe is

threatening life and property, we can make that decision.

Senator CAMPBELL. That also made me think, too, when you

spoke about the evacuation, a number of people had to evacuate,

a lot of these homes on this area, the red areas, are in areas that

are just kind of private driveways or very—two-lane or something

of that nature. If you have to evacuate, the congestion alone on the

routes that you need to go in to fight the fire, doesn’t that complicate your ability to get equipment in that you need to fight the

fire?

Mr. CABLES. I think, without question, it does. And I believe

these two gentlemen that represent the local view probably could

talk to that real specifically.

Senator CAMPBELL. Okay. I’ll get them. Let me maybe ask another one before I move on, too. You spoke of the high speed the

fire moved and the winds, Rick. If a wind, if you have a hot fire

and the wind is traveling a hundred miles an hour, can you then

assume that the flames will probably be jumping and moving at

the same speed, a hundred miles an hour?

Mr. CABLES. Well, the flames can move at the speed of the wind,

yes. And again, there are certain situations, you reference that you

were up on the Black Hills a couple years ago when we had the

Jasper fire, there are certain times with certain weather conditions

where we’re not going to stop the fire. And even in areas where

we’ve thinned, we’re not going to stop the fire.

But the thinning of the vegetation and putting the forest in a

condition where it’s not as prone to these catastrophic fires for, you

know, a big percent of the fire behavior we deal with, we could

catch the fire if we had the forest treated, but there are certain instances, and I think Buffalo Creek may be one of those times,

where we would have had a hard time catching that fire.

Senator CAMPBELL. There was nothing that could stop it, yeah.

Mr. CABLES. But even on Buffalo Creek, we had a flank of that

fire where we had thinned, and we had a flank of that fire where

we had done a prescribed fire just the year before, the fire laid

down and got on the ground in those areas. The fire still carried,

but it wasn’t in the crowns of the trees.

So no question, there are things we can do to put these forests

in a kind of condition where we can improve the safety of our firefighters and also keep the land from being completely denuded

when the fire’s finished.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you. Now we’ll hear from Mike

Tombolato, please.

21

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL TOMBOLATO, CHIEF, CHERRYVALE

FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, BOULDER, CO

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today

to discuss the National Fire Plan as it pertains to the existing Colorado State Fire Assistance Program, and to the Wildland/Urban

Interface Cooperative Fire Protection Program. The intent of these

programs is to provide cooperative grants, competitive grants to

local entities to implement community fire risk reduction activities.

The components include reduction of long-term wildfire costs

through prevention, hazardous fuels reduction and fire planning for

the Wildland/Urban Interface.

And I’d like to kind of speak to it from a local entity’s perspective, and how we’ve dealt with it. Cherryvale Fire initiated funding

for a wildland mitigation crew in 1997 and has been a grant recipient from the Colorado State Fire Assistance Program for 4 years.

Cherryvale Fire Protection District is one of three known Colorado

departments that funds a full-time wildland mitigation crew which

implements year-round hazard fuel reductions for the constituents

of its districts. The State Fire Assistance Program enables

Cherryvale to increase staffing levels to better meet the outstanding needs that we are currently receiving from home owners in our

area.

To date, Cherryvale has performed an average of 35 defensible

space projects per year, and also treats more 100 acres of wildland

urban interface lands with prescribed fire annually. These same

crews that provide those services also do home hazard awareness

and education with the home owners, too.

The quantity of acres treated and homes treated per year seem

fairly low compared to a Federal level, but when we’re treating

acres with prescribed fire in the backyards, actual backyards of the

homes, it takes a little bit more coordination, so you can’t move

quite as fast. They’re a little more complex in that way, so we’re

literally going in, after we mechanically thin those communities, or

the homes, and actually doing under-story burns right next to the

home, and in some cases, right up next to them.

Anyway, Cherryvale’s wildland mitigation crew also compiles and

maintains the district’s Wildfire Hazard Identification and Mitigation Systems database. The WHIMS program is a GIS ARC INFO

based program that analyzes data including building materials,

topographic influences, fuel loading, access, utilities, and water

supplies in order to assess each structure’s ability to resist ignition

from a wildland fire. This information is then given to the home

owners so that they can identify things that they can do to help

reduce their hazard to their home from a wildland fire.

This database was relied upon during the Eldorado fire of September 2000, in order to brief arriving fire resources and the Federal overhead team members regarding each individual structure’s

hazard assessment in the community. So we’re preplanning ahead

of the fire instead of once the fire occurs. We know which one’s

going to hit the red rock and the green rock right off the bat. And

the home owners actually know it, too. They’ve been informed of

this information long before the fire occurs. It gives them an opportunity to make a choice, if they want to move forward with mitigaVerDate 11-SEP-98 09:26 Nov 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\82-710 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
22

tion and help reduce their hazards or if they’re willing to accept the

hazards that their home is in currently.

The mitigation crew also provides first line of initial attack services to the community. So instead of having the 10- to 20-minute

normal responses that you would have in the communities in the

mountains, we have crews that are there during the main part of

the burn periods to be able to initially attack those fires quickly

and effectively.

In recent years, Cherryvale Fire, along with the city of Boulder

and Boulder Mountain Fire Authority, all three of these entities

have and do receive State fire assistance funding, have combined

their paid mitigation crews in order to accomplish larger mitigation

projects. And that has been an important role for all three crews.

Sometimes, these projects get so large that we’re trying to accomplish that it takes too long to try to get them done, so we’ve been

combining our efforts to try to get these things done in each one

of our districts.

Cherryvale has been able to develop and support its wildland/

urban interface fire mitigation efforts with the funding and support

of the Colorado State Fire Assistance Program. Cherryvale has

sought to develop and facilitate local coordination and reciprocity,

as well, in these areas. Although tremendous innovations and partnerships definitely have developed as a result, continued Federal

support is essential for the continuation of these efforts on both the

State and Federal and local levels. Thank you.

Senator CAMPBELL. Did I understand you to say that you had a

response time?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. There are those types of response times that do

occur in the mountains, it’s just because of the permanent location

of the fire resources to where the fires are located.

Senator CAMPBELL. Yeah, scattered homes all over the place, it’s

not like a city block where you just drive down one street and you

have the proximity to a bunch of houses. Number one, I would

think that the resources, if you got a hundred houses scattered all

over the countryside, you can’t send a truck to every house, which

means, it would seem to me, that you have a lot slower response

time. So a 20-minute response time, is that considered fast?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Well, our response time is considerably shorter

than that, but that would be our, that would probably be an average response time in some of the mountain communities, I would

assume. I know at least in Boulder County, that would be a respected response time if it was 20 minutes.

Of course, locations and identifying where these things are, from

our perspective, we identified our suppression actions to be quick

and effective. We try to get there as quickly as we can while the

fires are small where we can catch them. Of course, once they get

large, suppression efforts become pretty ineffective. But the real

key there is trying to reduce the amount of fuels in those areas to

be able to manage those fires in a lower intensity situation so we

can actually suppress them so we can actually get up there and

deal with them.

Senator CAMPBELL. Years ago, in my dad’s older years, he had

a cabin on our property in California that he set on fire by accident, and I still remember the response time. It was about 20 minVerDate 11-SEP-98 09:26 Nov 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\82-710 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
23

utes, pretty fast, I thought, but the darn thing burned down in 15,

so it didn’t help much. I mean, when they got there, it was gone,

you know. He did it himself, and to my chagrin, he forgot to renew

the insurance policy, too, by the way.

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Sorry to hear that.

Senator CAMPBELL. Scott.

STATEMENT OF SCOTT WELLS, DIRECTOR, CRITICAL INCIDENT RESPONSE, JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE,

GOLDEN, CO

Mr. WELLS. Thank you for having me here this morning to

speak, Senator. I work for the Jefferson County sheriff’s office, and

that’s significant in that in Colorado, the county sheriff is the fire

warden for forest and prairie fire. That responsibility would probably mean different things to different sheriffs throughout the

State, but in Jefferson County, we take the role both seriously and

aggressively in our approach to the wildfire response.

As you can see up here on the map here, this Jefferson County

area, a good portion of it is comprised of Pike National Forest lands

down at the south end of the county. As you look over here on the

other map here, if I can hit it here, in the red zone map, a good

portion of Jefferson County falls within what’s known as the red

zone.

Senator CAMPBELL. High density?

Mr. WELLS. And we estimate that approximately 60 percent of

Jefferson County land mass is within mountain areas, and that

would be out of a land mass of about 187 square miles.

Jefferson County is home to about 530,000 residents. We have 25

fire departments and fire protection districts within Jefferson

County, and we have approximately 1,400 firefighters within Jefferson County proper.

My testimony that I believe your staff has focuses on the impact

to local governments for wildfire in the wildfire urban interface.

And the impact of local governments can be significant, and, of

course, that is driven by the size and complexity of the fire itself.

But the impact will run the range from the continuity of services

when the wildfire breaks out, and by that I mean that as public

safety officials are beginning their response to the wildfire, they

still have an obligation to continue relevant services and relevant

public safety services within their jurisdictions. So just because the

fire is going does not mean that other calls for service are not going

to continue to come into the local dispatch centers.

There are many things which drive the severity of the impact to

the local governments, among them are the conditions of the fuels

and the topography of the area that is burning, its relationship to

home owners and businesses and so forth. You have your weather

conditions, that will drive the severity of the impact and so forth.

One thing also that would drive that severity is the accessibility

of fire-fighting officials to get to residences to perform structure

protection activities and so forth. Coordination of public safety officials would have an effect on the impact and so forth. And then,

preincident mitigation by the various property owners also has an

effect on how the local governments are impacted in their response

to these wildfires.

24

I don’t think that my colleagues here would argue that in Colorado, at least in Jefferson County, we consider a wildfire to be a

year-round problem. It’s something that we are aware of and are

continually dealing with on a year-round basis now.

I was in my current position when the Hi Meadow fire broke out

in June 2000. That was a rather devastating fire in terms of acreage burned and homes that were lost. Fires such as that, of course,

are always a threat to human life, and the effects can be devastating, and as everyone has said here this morning, far-reaching in

their impacts.

Just recently within the last month, there have been two fires

that have been very close to Jefferson County, the Snaking fire,

which was north and east of the town of Bailey, burned approximately 2,300 acres, and many people had to be evacuated, as well

as the town of Bailey itself.

The recent Black Mountain fire, although it was only about 200

acres, had an impact of evacuation on approximately 1,700 people

or 1,700 residences. When that occurs, those evacuations, there’s

many impacts to other local governments, school districts and so

forth, to provide sheltering and those sorts of activities. There’s impacts to other arms of local governments in terms of information

technology for mapping and so forth, public information, public

works and those various arms of local government.

Of course, the mission of public safety, fire, law enforcement, and

emergency medical services is to provide for the safety of life, and

our secondary mission is to provide for the protection of property,

as you’re well aware.

I guess I would close up by saying that there is an existing partnership between State, local, and Federal authorities as it relates

to wildfire suppression in Jefferson County and, I believe, beyond

that. And good things have come to Jefferson County from the National Fire Plan. The funds have been appropriated and provided

for training as well as the purchase of equipment, and it’s through

programs such as the National Fire Plan that we have helped there

at the local level in sustaining our efforts to provide the wildfire

suppression effort that we all do. And that would conclude my presentation.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wells follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SCOTT WELLS, DIRECTOR, CRITICAL INCIDENT RESPONSE,

JEFFERSON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE, GOLDEN, CO

Critical incidents can have a profound impact on local governments whether they

are man made or naturally occurring. Colorado has been home to several large and

devastating wildfires in recent years. Among these catastrophic wildfires were:

• The South Canyon Fire in 1994. 14 firefighters lost their lives in this fire.

• The Buffalo Creek Fire in 1996. This fire burned more than 10,000 acres and

destroyed several residences.

• The Hi Meadow Fire in 2000. This fire burned nearly 11,000 acres, and destroyed in excess of 50 homes and businesses.

• The Bobcat Fire in 2000. This fire burned in excess of 10,000 acres, and 22

structures were lost, including residences.

• The Bircher Fire in 2000. This fire destroyed a large portion (about half) of the

Mesa Verde National Park.

• The Walker Ranch Fire in 2000. This fire burned over 1,000 acres, and threatened many homes.

• The Snaking Fire this spring. This fire burned more than 2,300 acres, and

threatened many residences.

25

• The Black Mountain Fire this spring. The fire was only 200 acres in size, but

there was a tremendous threat to lives and property. In excess of 1,000 homes

were evacuated during this fire.

Wildfires that can be suppressed during the initial attack phase will have less of

an impact than those fires that move into the extended attack phase. Therefore, this

paper will address those wildfires that are large (greater than 100 acres) and are

not suppressed during initial attack.

Wildfire(s) occurring in the wildland urban interface (WUI) impact local governments in a variety of ways. Many functions of local government are effected. Some

of these functions are: Closure of public schools in order that they can be used as

shelters, the rescue and sheltering of a variety of animals, call back and re-direction

of public safety personnel resources, and the involvement of other arms of local government. Among the many factors that determine the severity of the impact on local

governments are:

• The time lag between the start of the fire and the first report to fire authorities.

Often, fires begin in remote areas and can smolder for days before being noticed. • The response time, and the response capability of the fire authorities having jurisdiction. • Existing weather conditions, such as wind, temperature, and relative humidity. • The topography and existing fuels in the fire area. • Accessibility of emergency equipment to the fire. • The location of the fire in relation to developed communities and recreational

sites. • Availability of, and safe conditions for the operation of, air attack resources. • Effective incident coordination of public safety resources (Fire, law enforcement,

and EMS). • Effective incident management, to include all of the public safety disciplines. • Effective recovery operations, and the return to normalcy, to include clean up. • Pre-incident mitigation by property owners.

Wildfire is a year round problem in Colorado. The large and complex wildfire

poses the highest day to day potential for impact to local governments. One such

impact is almost immediate. As public safety personnel begin to respond to such

wildfires, their ability to continue service levels in their respective jurisdictions can

be impaired. Continuity of public safety services is essential to the effective overall

management of any critical incident. The basic mission of the public safety community is to provide for the protection of life and property. With that mission in mind,

considerable effort is expended in alerting people and helping them get to safety.

Efficient and effective evacuation of people in danger is paramount. This is occurring as fire fighting authorities are attacking the fire.

Some of the other issues which local governments must address during large fires

in the WUI are:

• Emergency medical care for those in need.

• Food and housing for those evacuated.

• Providing traffic control and security for evacuated areas.

• Critical support from the non-public safety functions of local government, such

as public works, information technology, and public information.

• Proper staffing and functioning of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).

• Sustaining the overall response for up to 72 hours, or the duration of the event,

in the worst case scenario. (The worst case scenario is that a Type I or Type

II Incident Management Team is unavailable, or that the fire does not meet

their deployment criteria).

Properly trained and equipped public safety personnel are imperative to safe and

efficient fire suppression. Large wildfires in the WUI are time, personnel, and equipment intensive. The right equipment, and the right numbers of equipment, is necessary. However, equipment is of no value if there are not sufficient numbers of

properly trained personnel to operate the equipment. Personal protective equipment

(PPE) is a must for all wildland firefighters and law enforcement support personnel.

Communications equipment (radios and telephones) is always a necessity in any

critical incident. This is especially true in wildfires because of the difficult terrain.

Satellite phones can provide a vital communications link between the incident and

support agencies. As the number of people living in the WUI, particularly the ‘‘Red

Zone,’’ continues to increase, these needs become more pronounced.

Enough cannot be said about effective local incident management. Command and

control are essential to assure a safe, efficient, and coordinated response to these

incidents. The training and operations of a local incident management team is time

26

consuming. The impact to the fire departments, law enforcement agencies, and the

many other participants, is substantial. At the local level, the best incident management is achieved through interagency participation (local, state, and federal).

The financial drain on local governments during these critical incidents can be

enormous. On large fires some of the personnel and equipment costs are reimbursed

to the various entities by the state and federal government. However, other costs

are not reimbursed, and must be borne by the provider. Some of the costs that are

not reimbursed are: Regular time personnel costs, first operational period mutual

aid costs, and mileage costs for patrol and other local government vehicles. Sometimes, these costs can be significant.

The National Fire Plan has provided assistance to local governments in the form

of equipment and training grants. Equipment that has been received to date has

been invaluable in improving the response capability of local governments. Assistance has also been received in the form of WUI grants to help fund the Colorado

Mitigation and Wildfire Conference. Assistance such as this is appreciated, and

needs to be continued to sustain the interagency wildfire suppression effort.

To summarize, the impact to local governments of wildfires in the WUI is wideranging and often significant. The impact deepens as the fire behavior becomes

more complex, requiring the whole of the public safety response capability as the

head of the fire nears homes and other inhabited areas. Given the population

growth in the WUI, there is an ever-present need for personnel, equipment, and

training. Continued cooperation among local, state, and federal public safety authorities, as well as at risk property owners, will serve to ease the burden.

Senator CAMPBELL. Did I understand you to say there were 1,600

firefighters in Jefferson County?

Mr. WELLS. About 1,400, sir.

Senator CAMPBELL. Fourteen.

Mr. WELLS. Yes, sir.

Senator CAMPBELL. What number of those are volunteer?

Mr. WELLS. A significant number. I could get that number for

you if you would like it, but I don’t have it right now.

Senator CAMPBELL. And also do we have anything in place? You

mentioned the purchase of equipment. Do we have anything in

place that we transfer Federal equipment, has to do with police departments? You know, we have under CTAK, we can transfer different apparatus for local police departments.

Mr. WELLS. From time to time, there’s surplus transfers that

take place. I was trying to accomplish one last year, but it didn’t

materialize, but from time to time, yes, sir, there are.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you.

Mr. CABLES. And just to build on that, we have a program that

we work with the State on Federal excess property, so we’ll get,

like, excess Department of Defense property, large trucks, and they

will be retrofitted to carry water and that sort of thing.

Senator CAMPBELL. States and tribes both can get those through,

is it done through GSA, is it, or is it done right through the Forest

Service?

Mr. CABLES. We can do it through GSA, but really, we work with

the State and funnel that money through them, and they provide

grants to, like, VFDs and local fire protection districts to retrofit

that property, that equipment.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, let me start, since you have the mike

there, Rick, let me ask you a couple questions first. Give the committee an idea about the forest health in Colorado or the age class

distribution of the trees.

Mr. CABLES. Well, I think, as Jim said, Colorado forests are

ready to regenerate, and by that——

27

Senator CAMPBELL. What does that mean in laymen’s terms?

That means they’re almost ready to die?

Mr. CABLES. That means that they are ready to either have insect or disease kill the forest, the larger trees, the older trees, and

a new forest start, or fire are the two major disturbance agents. We

also have avalanches, wind and flood events. But really, insect and

disease and fire are the two largest.

The average age of forests in Colorado are over a hundred years.

And for some of the species, for example, like Aspen, Aspen is not

a long-lived species.

Senator CAMPBELL. Eighty something, right?

Mr. CABLES. Yeah, it’s—80 years it starts getting old, and you

get rot and that sort of thing. So about 88 percent of the national

forests in Colorado are a hundred years or older, and only about

2 to 3 percent of the forests in Colorado are 30 years or younger.

So we’ve got an old forest——

Senator CAMPBELL. And so would those mostly be considered category 2 and 3, high-risk fire lands or areas where those forests are?

Mr. CABLES. Not necessarily, but we have—let me see. I think

I actually have that information. In Colorado, condition class 3,

which is the highest condition class for catastrophic fire, statewide,

we’ve got over 7 million acres, 7.3 million acres, that’s all lands.

The Forest Service part of that is 3.2 million acres in category 3.

And I would just mention and maybe submit this for the record,

if Jim doesn’t, the State of Colorado put together this 2001 report

on condition of Colorado forests, it’s an excellent document, and it

kind of lays out the situation in Colorado with respect to the forests.

Senator CAMPBELL. Why don’t you turn that in. We’ll have that

included in the record for the committee.

Mr. CABLES. Okay.

Senator CAMPBELL. Of those areas that are category 2 or even

more so, category 3, how much of those are in wilderness or

roadless areas or other reserves, which would make it very difficult

to thin or harvest or to reduce the fire levels?

Mr. CABLES. The information that we have is, of the Forest Service category 3 acres, 3.2 million, about a third of those acres are

wilderness or roadless, and that’s .9 million acres, 900,000 acres.

Of category 2 lands, we’ve got 4.3 million acres in category 2 on the

U.S. Forest Service lands, and about 470,000 acres are wilderness

or roadless. And I would say the bulk of those are wilderness.

Senator CAMPBELL. The bulk?

Mr. CABLES. Yeah.

Senator CAMPBELL. Maybe go to Jim now, Jim Hubbard. Is the

National Fire Plan making a significant difference in Colorado?

Has there been any noticeable real improvement between State,

Federal, and local authorities?

Mr. HUBBARD. We already had a good arrangement working in

Colorado, but yes, it’s made a noticeable improvement. This implementation group for the National Fire Plan that’s been formed

meets on a regular basis, usually once a month, and it brings all

the agencies together, and that’s not something we’ve done before.

We haven’t looked at coordinating our land management practices

together. That’s a big difference.

28

We would not have gotten through the recent fires and only lost

two homes and not had more damage if it hadn’t have been for the

National Fire Plan and the additional suppression resources that

were immediately available. Yes, we used severity to preposition

those resources, but we had the air supports, and we had the

crews, and we had the engines that we would not have had had

we not had the National Fire Plan.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, Mike Tombolato had mentioned some of

the things that they have at county level that helps people prepare

or prevent or, I’m not sure what the words he used, but do we have

that also at State level?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes. Thanks for asking that. I should have commented. One of the things that the National Fire Plan has stimulated is the coordination, especially with the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and the State Forest Service, on coordinating our prevention message, not only delivering a consistent

message, but to use all of our resources, all of our field operations

to do that. And that’s made a big difference.

Senator CAMPBELL. If there’s some property that is on State land

and it joins property, private land, and the fire starts on State land

and goes to private land, spreads to private land, does a great deal

of damage, what is the State’s liability?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, Scott would like to tell that you we ought

to pay for that suppression cost.

Senator CAMPBELL. I’m sure the home owners would, too.

Mr. HUBBARD. Yeah, right. The way that Colorado law is set up,

that is a county responsibility. The suppression of wildland fire belongs to the county. The State assists when it’s beyond the county’s

capability. And the counties pretty much take care of 90 percent of

initial attack, and that’s using those local departments and those

volunteers. So it’s a critical element of fire suppression in Colorado.

But in terms of financial liability, it does belong to the county,

but every governor I’ve worked for where that is beyond county capability has assisted.

Senator CAMPBELL. What about if a fire goes the other way, it

starts on a private land and goes to State land, and as one fire,

I forgot which one it was, it might have been set accidentally by

a couple of youngsters, what is the liability in that case? Are the

families liable?

Mr. HUBBARD. Possibly. I can’t interpret that part of the law.

And typically, local jurisdictions make some public example for

awareness purposes. I don’t know if any money actually changes

hands.

Senator CAMPBELL. So if there’s a lot of destruction of, I guess,

if it’s private property and spreads to another private property and

burns a guy’s house down, it’s a civil problem then, I suppose.

Mr. HUBBARD. Correct. Yes.

Senator CAMPBELL. Okay. I mentioned in my statement some of

the smaller trees that seemed to be growing in numbers on all of

our acreage that sometimes it’s called the small stem trees. Is that

causing much of a problem to State forest health? Or I might ask

that of Rick and you, both.

Mr. HUBBARD. Oh, absolutely. That’s our major problem. And it’s

not just——

29

Senator CAMPBELL. How do you deal with it?

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, as best we can. What happens is that drives

up that cost per acre for treatment. So whereas you might use prescribed fire in some places for as little as $10 an acre, you may

spend as much as $1,000 an acre for the same treatment where you

have the small-diameter material and interface that together.

Senator CAMPBELL. Are you using the word ‘‘treatment’’ and

‘‘prescribed burn’’ sort of interchangeably?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yeah, except that where you have a concentration

of heavy fuels, typically small-diameter material, you can’t use prescribed fire without using mechanical treatment first.

Mr. CABLES. And it’s a twofold problem, not only do you have the

younger trees which can carry the fire and we call ladder fuels

which carry fire and then it gets up into the crowns of the larger

trees, but then, it’s also difficult to find markets to, if we can do

mechanical treatment or some sort of thinning, to find a viable

market for that material——

Senator CAMPBELL. All the mills are closed down, yeah.

Mr. CABLES. And oftentimes, even the mills we had weren’t able

to deal with that small material, so that’s why some of the initiatives around biomass, and some of the work we’ve done here, we’ve

got a couple of pilots we’ve done here on the Front Range looking

at biomass, ethanol production, and also up in Wyoming, at least

in our region, Forest Service region, we’re looking at some potential

cogeneration for power, using this kind of fuel.

Senator CAMPBELL. There is a section of the new farm bill, you

know, that deals with biomass under a grants program. You probably knew that. And speaking of salvage, Jim, when you have a fire

on State land, is it the general practice of the State to try to commercially market the material, the dead trees?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes.

Senator CAMPBELL. Same problem of finding a taker is not easy,

I guess, particularly the small trees?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes. Our base industry, forest products industry

in Colorado has declined considerably. So now that we have resources to practice, implement practices on more acres, sometimes

we’re having trouble finding the contractors to do it. And we certainly are having all kinds of problems with the market to support

it.

Senator CAMPBELL. I don’t know if this is true, either, and maybe

Rick can tell me, but I understood that when the Mount St. Helen’s

eruption took place, and it just killed, whatever it was, 100,000

acres of trees, it was a huge amount, that by the time the dead

trees could be salvaged, there was so much Federal red tape to get

through that, in fact, there was bug infestation and most of them

were lost, they went to no use, anyway; is that true?

Mr. CABLES. I don’t know. I know that——

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, then, let me ask Jim, are there any

Federal impediments that slow down the process of marketing

those dead trees that make it unlikely you could do it within a time

to save them, or save the wood?

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, I think the NEPA process, and if there’s objection in that process, it slows it down.

30

Mr. CABLES. I can think of some examples where we’ve had dead

standing timber or blow-down timber where we were really in a

pinch, not Mount St. Helen’s, but other cases, to get approval to go

in and take that wood out before you had blue stain or some other

insect and disease problems, so——

Senator CAMPBELL. What is the time? I guess it depends on the

type of tree, oak or fir, pine or so on, but is there a ballpark figure

that, once you leave trees down, if you don’t do something with

them, that bugs or something moves in, blue stain or so on?

Mr. CABLES. For example, on Ponderosa Pond, and this example

is freshest in my mind, up in the Black Hills, after the Jasper fire,

which you mentioned you are aware of, trying to get in there and

do some salvage before blue stain sets in, it’s got to be done within

a matter of months.

Senator CAMPBELL. Within months?

Mr. CABLES. Yeah.

Senator CAMPBELL. Let me move to Scott, now. Given the fires

at Springs, Scott, give maybe a local assessment of the cooperation

between Federal, State, and the local departments, and don’t worry

about hurting anyone’s feelings if it’s not good enough.

Mr. WELLS. Not a problem. In Jefferson County, I consider the

cooperation to be very good.

Senator CAMPBELL. You’re better off with the National Fire Plan

than without it?

Mr. WELLS. Well, the National Fire Plan, of course, augments

our abilities and allows us to do more things, but the cooperation

is wide-ranging. We have very many fire cooperators in Jefferson

County to include U.S. Forest Service personnel, Bureau of Land

Management personnel, Colorado State Forest personnel, and then,

very many local fire departments and other entities that we consider our fire cooperators because we realize that that is a wideranging problem that we’re dealing with, and we need the help of

everyone.

Senator CAMPBELL. Let me also get a local perspective on this.

There’s a lot of devastating effects to a fire, but in an area like Colorado, it’s not just the potential loss of life and property, it’s also

a potential loss in our economy, because we have a big recreation

tourism economy.

It’s been said by some that they’d like to, you know, that the National Fire Plan should be just spent on prevention and stopping

fires and that nature. Others have said, given that recreation and

tourism is so important in a State like Colorado or Idaho or many

of our mountain States, that maybe that we should also try to use

some Federal money to mitigate the loss of jobs and recreation if

it’s been the result of a devastating fire. How do you feel about

that?

Mr. WELLS. We’ll, I have not seen any research or numbers on

that, but certainly, I would——

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, I don’t know if there is any. It’s just

been suggested by some of our colleagues. I don’t even know if

you’d have the money to do it in a deficit year, but——

Mr. WELLS. Well, I know that there certainly is that impact. And

these sorts of incidents can have, you know, very broad-ranging effects, and people can be affected from a livelihood standpoint. I

31

guess I wouldn’t be in a position to offer any sort of an answer for

you, Senator, on that.

Mr. HUBBARD. Senator, if I may?

Senator CAMPBELL. Yes, please.

Mr. HUBBARD. That’s where this, the suggestion I have of community assistance does come in, to a certain extent. There’s an element of the community assistance appropriation that provides the

local counties with the ability to do comprehensive fire management planning in that they not only address suppression response,

but they address mitigation, they address prevention, they address

fire use, they aid the areas that are most important to them to protect for recreation values, for wildlife habitat values. So they, in effect, develop what could be an economic protection plan for that

community, as well, tied to fire behavior.

So I think there’s—that’s happening in eight counties in Colorado

where they’re implementing where they did not before this comprehensive approach that looks at all those factors. Then you add

to it the economic action assistance that’s in the fire plan, and

they’re able to implement part of that on a small scale. They’re

able to figure out what to do with some of that small-diameter material. They’re able to create a few local jobs tied to the activity of

the National Fire Plan.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, certainly, you would, in gleaning the

dead timber. Let me ask maybe a couple of rhetorical questions of

Mike about maybe local feelings. I understood that there was a

questionnaire done in Jackson, Wyoming, about an either/or kind

of a questionnaire. If you only had limited resources, what’s more

important, putting out the fire on the homes or the forest? And a

good number of those people said it was preferable to save the forest and lose the homes. Boy, that’s sure liberal thinking in my perspective, but——

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Well, that’s a choice——

Senator CAMPBELL. If you had an either/or, what do you do

around here?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. That’s a choice that’s made both by fire managers on a regular basis. In fact, I’ve had to make it where I’ve

been incident commander myself. When you arrive, you have

homes that are threatened, you make a decision, usually, because

the resources——

Senator CAMPBELL. Save the home and use the resources there,

you let the——

Mr. TOMBOLATO. You have limited resources in county five, and

do I do the direct attack on the fire or am I going to stand back

here and defend the structures? And when you defend the structures, you don’t suppress the fire, you split the head of it and send

it around the house and continue the fire on to the next, wherever

it’s going.

Senator CAMPBELL. In this area here, if we had to measure fire

and then measure a thunderstorm afterward, would it affect

Golden’s, or any of the communities here, the water supply?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. I do not specifically know about Golden. I know

Denver water supply has been affected, as it’s already been said

here. But actually, you know, Buffalo Creek was only one. Every

fire has actually, it happened on the Front Range, has now affected

32

the Denver water supply. Denver water boards have many effects

from Hi Meadows fire. The fire that happened in my area in 2000

also, the Eldorado fire, affected that watershed. So I would assume

that we’ll see continued activities that are going to affect everyone’s

water supplies in large-scale fire activities with the unnatural level

of fire intensity that’s occurring at this point.

Mr. CABLES. And if I may, if you think about it, Colorado is the

headwaters of the Nation.

Senator CAMPBELL. Sure.

Mr. CABLES. This is the highest country we have on the continent.

Senator CAMPBELL. All but one river flow out.

Mr. CABLES. Any major fire we have in a watershed that destroys the integrity of that watershed has a major effect on water,

either a community——

Senator CAMPBELL. Have they tracked, if you have a major fire

in a watershed here that eventually goes into the Colorado or the

Rio Grande, have they tracked downstream implications, I mean,

way down? Have they been able to find sediment, for instance, in

Nevada or California that was the cause of something at the headwaters?

Mr. CABLES. I’m not aware of any studies that actually measure

what you just said, but certainly, locally, any time we lose a watershed, it’s going to effect someone’s water supply in this State.

That’s just the way it is.

Mr. HUBBARD. I think, Senator, when you open this up for the

audience, that John Tolber might be able to respond to that.

Senator CAMPBELL. Who would?

Mr. HUBBARD. John Tolber.

Senator CAMPBELL. I might say that one of my big concerns, too,

would be trying to find out how we could do a better job from the

Federal level of providing resources or through legislation or the

normal process we have there, so if, Mike, particularly, and Mr.

Wells, you have any additional thoughts, if you could put them

down in writing and get them to me, I would certainly appreciate

it.

And what I am going to do now is open it up to the community.

If there’s anybody who would like to speak to this, make comments

or ask questions of the people who are the four experts, I say four,

because I don’t pretend to be one, we’ll just take it first come, first

serve. If you’ll go to the microphone and state your name for the

record so we can get that down, if you have anything printed that

you would like to turn in, you’re welcome to do that, and I’ll take

that back to be shared with the full Committee, too. Is there anyone who would like to make a statement? Yes, sir. Just go ahead

over to the microphone. And if your name is complicated, more

than about three or four letters, spell it, too, for the record, if you

would.

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Senator. My name is Doug Young, and

I represent—I’m here representing Congressman Mark Udall, and

just wanted to welcome——

Senator CAMPBELL. Oh, we can find you.

Mr. YOUNG. So I just wanted to thank you for coming and thank

the committee for coming. Regrettably, the Congressman couldn’t

33

be here. I know he would have very much welcomed to be a part

of this and learned a lot from this conversation. I’ll certainly take

that back and share it with him. But I have brought with me, since

he couldn’t be here and regrets he couldn’t be here, a statement

that he’d like to share with you all and the committee and so——

Senator CAMPBELL. If you’ll turn that in, we’ll include that in the

hearing record.

Mr. YOUNG. I will. Thank you again for coming.

[The prepared statement of Representative Udall follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARK UDALL, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE

FROM COLORADO

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, I regret that I am unable to be

with you today. I am very glad you have come to Colorado for this hearing, because

our state has a vital interest in seeing the National Fire Plan implemented effectively.

That is because Colorado, like other Western states, has been experiencing ever

more growth and development in and near forested areas. We are seeing more people, structures and investments placed at risk.

It is this increasing risk to people and property—increasing because of growth as

well as because of the unnatural forest conditions that we have created in many forests in Colorado through decades of fire suppression policies—that led to my interest

in focusing on questions of wildfire management. And two particular things then

lead me to take action.

First, I took a tour of an area west of Boulder, Colorado, called Winiger Ridge.

It is near an area where there was a major forest fire in 1989. Following that fire,

a number of citizens, along with the Forest Service and Boulder County officials,

got together to find a way to reduce the danger of a repetition of such a dangerous

blaze. That group’s efforts ultimately lead to the identification of conditions that

lead to wildfire risks and the recommendation that some steps be taken to reduce

that risk. The Winiger Ridge area was chosen as a location to explore some of these

techniqueswhich involve some mechanical thinning and some controlled burning.

When I toured this area and learned of the issues and the proposed strategy, I was

struck by the condition of the forest—a condition of dense stands of small diameter

trees—and, more importantly, I was very concerned about the homes and families

that reside within this area. These homes and families are literally in the path of

a possible major fire that could be devastating.

It was important to identify this Winiger Ridge area because soon after my tour

of it, another fire arose there in the summer of 2000, called the Walker Ranch fire.

That fire threatened a number of mountain homes just west of Boulder. However,

no structure was damaged because treatment with prescribed fire and vegetative

thinning resulted in conditions that led the fire to drop to the ground and be more

easily controlled. Had this not been done in previous years, the fire could have been

much more devastating.

That fire, and other devastating fires in Colorado and throughout the west, was

the second event that strongly affected my thinking about this subject. I was interested in what I might do to address the problem and to try to lessen the dangers

to our communities in ways that still recognized the need for sound management

of forest lands and proper protection for their most sensitive areas.

An early opportunity came when the House took up the appropriations bill for the

Forest Service for fiscal year 2001. Reviewing the bill as it came to the floor, Representative Hefley and I were struck by the fact that the Appropriations Committee

was proposing to reduce the funding for the wildland fire management account by

some $4 million. In response, we offered an amendment to restore that funding that

was approved by the House by a solid vote of 364 to 55.

Then, after consulting a number of experts, I developed and introduced a bill intended to focus directly on our situation here in Colorado. It was cosponsored by

Representative Hefley and by Representatives Tancredo and DeGette as well. To put

it in its simplest terms, our bill was intended to promote and facilitate more efforts

like the Winiger Ridge project, and thus help reduce the risk of a repeat of this past

fire season, in the parts of Colorado that are at greatest risk of such disasters. That

bill was not enacted itself, but its main principles were included in the fuel-reduction part of the National Fire Plan. And I have continued to work to make sure that

this important fuel-reduction work was done the right way and in the right places.

34

Since then, I have strongly supported the appropriation of funds for this purpose—but I have been concerned Congress has not done enough to spell out appropriate guidelines for their use, such as staying away from wilderness and roadless

areas and ensuring that the projects are carefully targeted to protect the people who

are at greatest risk from wildfires.

We need to be very careful not to overcompensate for past shortcomings in working to reduce fuels. Fire is a natural part of our forests and eliminating fire from

the landscape—as we tried to do for many years—was a big part of what produced

the situation we now have. But the risks to people, property and the environment

from creating this unnatural condition should not be used to justify a wholesale return to nearly-unrestricted timber cutting, as some seem to want.

We need instead to have a careful, appropriate program of fuel reduction that is

based on good science and focused where it is most needed—on the at-risk communities in the wildland/urban interface.

And that is why I have been concerned about the way the fire plan has been implemented so far.

As we all know, the fire plan has several components. All are important. But in

terms of reducing the risks of red-zone communities, two stand out. One is assisting

property owners to make their homes less vulnerable, by fire-wise landscaping and

the like—also known as ‘‘defensible space.’’ The other is fuel-reduction, the removal

of brush, undergrowth, and mostly small-diameter trees from forest areas.

Because I had some questions about the way the Forest Service, the Bureau of

Land Management, and the other land-managing agencies have been implementing

this part of the fire plan, I joined a number of our colleagues in asking the General

Accounting Office (GAO) to review the steps the agencies have taken so far to see

if improvements should be made.

As you know, GAO now has completed that review and submitted a report that

includes a number of recommendations. I thought the recommendations were sound.

So I joined with the dean of our Colorado delegation, Representative Joel Hefley,

and our neighbor, Representative Tom Udall of New Mexico, in introducing a bill

to require that they be adopted.

The GAO highlighted the need for two things: more and better interagency coordination; and better focus on identifying and responding to the highest-risk communities in the wildland/urban interface area.

So, our bill called for establishment of an interagency coordinating council, and

I was encouraged by the Administration’s recent action to establish one.

But additional steps are needed, as called for in our bill, so that fuel-reduction

work will focus more tightly on protection of communities in the wildland/urban

interface. Last month the three of us wrote to the Secretary of the Interior and the

Secretary of Agriculture to urge that those steps be taken.

Our letter said that, first, the new coordinating council should agree on a common

definition of the ‘‘wildland/urban interface.’’ We strongly urged that the council use

the interface definition used in our bill: a geographic area where: (A) homes and

other structures are immediately adjacent to or intermixed with Federal public

lands containing flammable vegetation; (B) the conditions on such lands are conducive to large-scale disturbance events; and (C) there is a significant probability of

a fire ignition and a resulting spread of the disturbance event. This definition is

based on one used in Colorado by the Colorado State Forest Service, and we think

that it appropriately identifies the areas most in need of risk reduction.

Then, we said, the council should immediately begin work on development of consistent criteria to identify the communities within the interface that are most at

risk from severe wildfires. And, we urged that top priority be given to fuel-reduction

projects that will directly and immediately reduce the risks to those communities.

As a corollary to that point, we urged that projects not meeting that standard be

deferred at least until all qualifying projects have been completed, to ensure an efficient use of resources and will reduce the potential for controversies that could

delay effective action to reduce risks to the most endangered communities.

So far, Mr. Chairman, we have not received an answer to our letter. However,

I intend to persist in pressing for more focused implementation of the fire plan, and

in particular for deferral of other projects until all that needs to be done has been

done to reduce the risks to the most vulnerable communities in the ‘‘red zone’’ in

Colorado and other Western states. I hope you and your colleagues will join in that

effort.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you. Yes, sir? Just come on over here.

Mr. BRAMER. My name is Randy Bramer——

Senator CAMPBELL. B-r—for the record?

35

Mr. BRAMER. B-r-a-m-e-r. First of all, let me make a very significant disclosure. I’m a lawyer with the Office of General Counsel of

USDA upstairs and represent the Forest Service. However, I’m not

standing here in that capacity, but rather, in the capacity of a local

resident.

I live in Evergreen Park Estates in Evergreen, Colorado, which

most recently was in the news as part of the Black Mountain fire.

We were approximately 4 miles from that fire and, essentially, had

an open space and two mountains dividing us from that fire.

About a year and a half ago, I moved from Brook Forest Road

where I was in what was an evacuation area this year and had the

experience of having the Hi Meadows fire within 9 miles of that

property. So my comments here today are in response to your invitation to have residents talk.

And I guess I’d like to mention two points. First of all is the ability of the State, Federal or local governments to respond to

wildland fire. I was extremely impressed with what was done at

Black Mountain and what was done in Hi Meadows, and specifically with the ability of the Federal, State, and local governments

to coordinate their activities. Needless to say, we in the Federal

Government frequently have disputes with the States and the local

governments, however, in the area of fire, I think the communication has been especially good.

I did attend the close-out of the Snaking fire, and what I learned

from that, I think, is that the State, local, and Federal Governments have learned their lessons from Hi Meadows, and most any

mistakes that did occur there have largely been corrected.

In summary, I guess what I feel, what I advised our home owners association 2 nights ago is, I think we have the best urban firefighters in the urban interface that we could ever have. I think

they’re probably the best in the country. I think the technology is

good. I think the coordination efforts are excellent. I say that as a

citizen, not as a lawyer. And I truly do believe that. And I think

that word needs to get out. I think if you talk to people from Bailey

who were most recently involved in the Snaking fire, I think they’ll

feel the same way, and I think there was a lot of outpouring.

The second point I’d make would be going toward not fighting

the fire but preparing for the fire to come to you. And I’ve only

been in Idaho—or I came from Idaho, I’ve been in Colorado for 3

years. I’ve been through two of these fires. And let me tell you, it

was fine when I was in Idaho and I drove up through low land and

I saw the big low land burn and I saw all the black trees, and I

thought, wildfire is awful. It was bad enough when Hi Meadows

came nine miles away, but I thought, that’s nine miles away. Snaking fire, again, hit home. It was close.

Black Mountain was in my backyard. When that occurred, all of

a sudden, I was out taking 120 33-gallon bags of pine needles off

a half an acre of land. I was out bribing my garbage men to take

enough fuel to burn my house down out of my front yard.

And I think the experience has given me a couple thoughts. We

need to help home owners help themselves to get this stuff done.

Now, I know there’s a lot of criticism. We chose to live in a dangerous place, and there’s no question, you shouldn’t be buying your

houses because we have trees around them.

36

On the other hand, I think the one thing we can do is look more

toward outreach to home owners, more on how to protect your

house from wildland fire. We have lots of programs on that, but I

think library programs, big—as you go to Evergreen right now, and

if you put up a sign saying, we’re going to have a wildland-howto-protect-your-home program at Evergreen Public Library, right

now, in light of this fire, you’re going to turn out several hundred

people.

Now, again, the folks who have been doing this for years say it

ebbs and flows. Removal of slash, places to put stuff that we take

out of our own property, in other words, people say, I don’t have—

we go to transfer stations up there, $80 a pickup load, $60 a pickup

load, we might have 20 pickup loads of slash. Getting rid of the

materials, but again, the home owners being aware, here is the

danger, here is how to create a defensible space.

And the third thing, I guess, that has shocked me is people naively believe that they save all the houses. They will save your

house, no matter how little you have done. I don’t think the concept

of red tape across a driveway has really sunk into a lot of folks.

And I don’t think most people accept, burn my house down. I just

live here, that’s a fact of life. I think people just think they will

be taken care of, in response to your earlier point.

But again, the more we can educate people, the more we can help

them create defensible space through the State, the local, and the

Federal system. Hopefully, it will help us to better allocate our resource toward fighting the fires rather than simply having to spend

all our time protecting homes that we, the home owners, could

have done a better job protecting ourselves. Thank you.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you for that very nice statement.

Well, I guess the only two upsides I know of a disaster is, number

one, it brings people together, and, number two, it improves your

hindsight. But as I understood Mike Tombolato to say, there are

some educational programs now; is that correct, Mike? There are

some ways of——

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Yeah, there’s a number of State and county,

even local-level educational programs. We at Colorado State also

help sponsor what we—the Colorado State Wildfire Mitigation Conference every year that’s held in September, that’s been going on,

I believe, since the Buffalo Creek fire. And the attendance is very

good. And it’s been a wonderful conference.

Locally, though, I think, is where it really needs to occur first.

And I think the grassroots effort at the fire protection district level

and the county level is where it’s most important. And we’ve seen,

we have absolutely seen the effects of this. We’ve been doing it for

five full years. We were very aggressively doing awareness and

education in our mountainous communities, and it’s seen in a direct relationship to other projects outside the district area.

We are, of course, neighboring U.S. Forest Service land and other

State and county lands, too, and the ecosystem management and

fuel mitigation projects that are occurring on those lands have been

supported by our community because they are aware of the benefits

of it; whereas, in other communities nearby, there’s been much

more opposition to those types of projects occurring.

37

So we see those effects, plus, we also see almost, in our little district area, we got 80 percent compliance on mitigation on defensible

space on our properties.

Senator CAMPBELL. 80 percent?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. 80 percent, which is pretty much unheard of.

But again, it has to do with a little bit of hindsight, too, because

they’ve had fire occur. We haven’t lost homes, but we were able to

prove on our large fire in 2000 very, very drastically that if it

wasn’t for the area that the fire burned into that was treated, we

would have never been able to suppress it and hold it in that place,

and we probably would have lost homes. So we’ve had those indicators in our communities seen very closely.

Senator CAMPBELL. And I don’t know how it works at local government, but I know at the Federal level, two things kind of happen; one is that if there’s not sort of constant reminders, apathy

sets in. We haven’t had a fire out here in 20 years, why are they

doing that? You know, that kind of a syndrome.

And maybe the other one is that in, apparently, you’re doing a

very good job of getting the message out, but I know at the Federal

level, we hear very often from people that, ‘‘We didn’t know that

program was available,’’ which means there’s a disconnect between

us putting it in place and the end guy who’s going to be able to

use it. And that’s, I think, partially our fault at government level,

any government. We’re not letting people know enough of what

they can avail themselves of to, or encourage them to do it.

Mr. TOMBOLATO. We spoil our constituents a little bit. I think

part of what we do is they don’t have to rely on anything. In fact,

unless they actually want to get involved, they don’t have to. We

provide all services for them. We cut the material, pile the material, burn it, and chip it without them lifting a finger.

Senator CAMPBELL. At county cost?

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Well, this is through our fire protection district.

And we believe—it was a commitment from the fire district that we

believe that the prevention will outweigh anything that we can——

Senator CAMPBELL. So if somebody calls you up and says, I got

this terrible brush problem around the house, I’m worried about a

fire, will you come out and help me clear it out, you can do that.

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Yes, we do. We go right to the homeowner. We

develop a plan for the entire property. And most of our acreage is

35 acres and above, so, you know, we have large acreage tract private particle cells in our district.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, that may be one of the reasons you

haven’t had more structures burn down because of that preparation.

Mr. TOMBOLATO. Well, we believe that’s the case. We think that

the prevention is more important than what we call crow men in

the fire stations, so we’ve dedicated a lot of our money to that.

Senator CAMPBELL. Now, anyone else in the audience, if you have

any statements, now is the time. We’re about done.

Mr. HUBBARD. While they’re deciding, Senator Campbell, may I?

Senator CAMPBELL. Yes, please, go ahead.

Mr. HUBBARD. A couple of National Fire Plan assistance to prevention, National Fire Plan supports the National Fire Protection

Association’s Fire Wise program, so that gives us a national standVerDate 11-SEP-98 09:26 Nov 14, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\DOCS\82-710 SENERGY3 PsN: SENERGY3
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ard to use and a consistent message across the country, and every

State endorses and uses Fire Wise as a prevention message.

In addition, the fire plan helps us employ what we call prevention teams. So when we have large interface fires, we’ll put a prevention team together in addition to the incident management

team, send them to the area to help residents understand what’s

going on, follow up after the fire with residents about what they

can do, so you capture that moment, and that comes from National

Fire Plan’s Fire Plan Support. We’re also in Colorado piloting an

experiment with the Red Cross. The Red Cross has made mitigation a more important part of their mission.

Senator CAMPBELL. So if people have to be housed in a local gymnasium for a while, you can count on Red Cross to help.

Mr. HUBBARD. They do that. But in addition, they’re delivering

the Fire Wise program locally through their chapters, and that’s a

huge assistance to us in getting that message out.

Senator CAMPBELL. Well, thank you. Well, I have no further

questions. I certainly appreciate the testimony of all of our four

witnesses and appreciate those of you who have come to even just

listen if you have no comments.

I guess I’m like every other American, I hate to see it happen,

but it does not look like it’s going to be a good year this year, and

I hope we’re well prepared, because even though fire has been one

of the greatest discoveries of mankind, it’s still, you know, when it’s

out of control, no man can stop it.

Well, thank you very much. All this testimony will be included

in the record and taken to our full committee, and we’ll keep the

record open 2 weeks if you have anything you want to send in that

you forgot to say. Yes, sir?

Mr. DAHL. In Mr. Cable’s absence, I’d like to just participate in

closing for the record to give you this and recognize your support.

Senator CAMPBELL. And I assume this is under the gift band

limit.

Mr. DAHL. And I want you to know, on the back is ‘‘Safety First,’’

and this is a fire hat for the National U.S. Forest Service.

Senator CAMPBELL. Safety First, do I have to wear that when I

ride my motorcycle?

Mr. DAHL. And I also would like to present you with, this a symbol of the wildfires and the fallen firefighters that we have.

Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you.

Mr. DAHL. And last, a symbol of our Smokey program.

Mr. CABLES. And also, the tanker-based dedication down in Durango, June 30.

Senator CAMPBELL. For those of you who don’t know, if I can just

brag slightly, I got some money put into our interior appropriations

bill a couple of years ago to build a new fire tanker station in

southwest Colorado. As it is now, a number of our national forests,

particularly the ones on the Western Slope and the southwest, to

get fire tanker service, they have to come out of Albuquerque, I believe, don’t they?

Mr. CABLES. Or Front Range.

Senator CAMPBELL. It means it’s an hour flight down, an hour to

load up, another hour back, and we’ve already heard how fast these

things can travel. We’re hoping that that base will be open this

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summer, and that will be of some benefit to help suppress the fires.

And what was that date again?

Mr. CABLES. June 30.

Senator CAMPBELL. June 30. Thank you. And with that, I appreciate your being here, and this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

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