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58–243 2010

WILDFIRES AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON 

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE 

AND GLOBAL WARMING 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 1, 2007 

Serial No. 110–16 

( 

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on 

Energy Independence and Global Warming 

globalwarming.house.gov 


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SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE 

AND GLOBAL WARMING 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman 

EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut 

HILDA L. SOLIS, California 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, 

South Dakota 

EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri 

JOHN J. HALL, New York 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin, Ranking Member 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

DAVID MOULTON, Staff Director 

ALIYA BRODSKY, Chief Clerk 

THOMAS WEIMER, Minority Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement .................................................... 1 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 3 

Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Wisconsin, opening statement .............................................................. 5 

Hon. Earl Blumenauer, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, opening statement ...................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 7 

Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oregon, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 9 

Hon. Hilda Solis, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 10 

Hon. Candice Miller, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, opening statement ....................................................................................... 10 

Hon. Jerry McNerney, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement .................................................................................... 11 

Hon. Emanuel Cleaver II, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Missouri, Prepared statement ............................................................................. 12 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, Prepared statement .......................................................................... 13 

WITNESSES

First Panel: 

Ms. Abigail Kimbell, Chief, U.S. Forest Service ................................................... 15 

(Accompanied by Susan Conard, National Program Leader, Fire Ecology Research and Marc Rounsaville, Deputy Director for Fire and Aviation, U.S. 

Forest Service) ......................................................................................................

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 18 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 87 

Second Panel: 

Dr. Steven Running, Professor of Ecology, University of Montana ..................... 44 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 46 

Dr. Michael Medler, Associate Professor, Western Washington University, 

President-Elect, Association for Fire Ecology (Representing Firefighters 

United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology) ............................................................. 57 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 60 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 90 

Mr. Michael Francis, Director, Forest Programs, Deputy Vice President, The 

Wilderness Society (Accompanied by Mr. Tom DeLuca, Senior Scientist) ...... 66 

Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 68 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Dr. A.L. Westerling article of August 18, 2006, ‘‘Warming and Earlier Spring 

Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity’’, submitted by Mr. Inslee .... 38 

The San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management of 

November 2006, submitted by Mr. Medler ........................................................ 81 


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WILDFIRES AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

AND GLOBAL WARMING, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m. in Room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey 

[chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Markey, Blumenauer, Inslee, Solis, 

Sandlin, Cleaver, Hall, McNerney, Sensenbrenner, Walden, Miller, 

Blackburn. 

Staff present: Ana Unrun-Cohen, Stephanie Herring, Morgan 

Gray and Joel Beauvais. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good morning. This hearing is called to order. 

And we thank everyone for their participation. Our prayers and 

support go out to the people of southern California who have suffered so much in the recent deadly fires and are bracing for more 

this weekend, according to the latest forecasts. Last week’s 22 fires 

displaced a half million people and caused at least $1.5 billion in 

damages. Not since Hurricane Katrina slammed the Mississippi 

and Louisiana coasts have so many suffered from extreme weather. 

At least one of the smaller fires appears to have been caused by 

a young boy playing with matches. And California is rightly concerned with sorting out what started with arson from what started 

with lightning or power line collapse or other common causes of 

such fires. That is not what this hearing is about. 

Global warming does not cause an individual fire or hurricane, 

and global warming is not the cause of the California fires. Global 

warming’s contribution to wildfires is more subtle and more complex, and scientists and the fire fighting community are just beginning to tease out of this complex climate record those factors which 

may be influencing these natural disasters in unnatural ways. In 

fact, the impact of global warming on the West is more evident in 

places other than southern California where drought and fire appear to have been commonplace in the undisturbed ecosystem. 

There is no doubt that a century of stifling the natural fire regime of western forests and the increasing numbers of people living 

in fire-prone areas has made the impact of wildfires worse. The 

questions before us today are, how will wildfires change in a warming world? And what can we do to reduce their impact? We can 

learn something about a warmer future by looking at the recent 

past. As temperatures have risen in the West, the frequency, intensity and area burned by wildfires has increased. 


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Recent scientific studies have found that, since 1986, the western 

fire season is 78 days longer. There has been a fourfold increase 

in fires larger than 1,000 acres. There has been a sixfold increase 

in areas and acres burned. And over the last century, fire has increased to the point where the projections for the next century is 

that fire will probably burn two or three times as much land in the 

West as it does today. Some of the most dramatic increases in fire 

frequency and intensity are occurring in higher elevations where 

fire suppression has not historically been used, underscoring the 

influence of global warming rather than past forest policies on 

wildfires. 

Global warming influences wildfires in a variety of ways, through 

increased drought and reduced rainfall, earlier spring snow melt 

and better breeding conditions for insect infestations. These factors 

combine to create a longer and more extreme dry season, resulting 

in tinder box conditions ripe for ignition. It appears that global 

warming is stacking the wildfire deck, making it more likely that 

when an errant spark flies, we will be dealt a losing hand. And losing to mother nature can be expensive. 

As we learned in one of our first hearings, damages from extreme 

weather alone have likely cost our Nation $800 billion since the 

1980s. In addition to property losses, fires increasingly eat up the 

Forest Service budget, as they have to spend more and more to 

fight them. In 2006, it spent a record $2.5 billion just for fighting 

wildfires. 

Data points and dollar signs aren’t the only measure of the 

changing nature of fires in the West. The men and women on the 

fire line have experienced the impact of warming temperatures 

firsthand. Tom Boatner, a 30-year fire fighting veteran and chief 

of fire operations for the Federal Government said in a recent 

interview, ‘‘we have had climate change beat us over and over the 

last 10 or 15 years. We know what we are seeing.’’ 

What can Congress do to help cope with this increasing threat? 

Policies that improve forest management on the edge of communities and help make these communities more resilient are crucial 

but not comprehensive. We will ultimately reach the limit of our 

adaptive capacity, which is why we must act now to begin to address the underlying disease of global warming, not just the symptoms. 

Congress has the opportunity to send an energy bill to the President that could by 2030 reduce U.S. global warming pollution by 

up to 40 percent of what we must do to save the planet. This will 

lay the foundation for achieving more significant cuts through a 

subsequent cap, auction and trade bill. We have already set in motion changes to our western forests. Now we must adopt smart policies that will help avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable impacts of global warming. And now I would like to turn 

to recognize the ranking member of the Select Committee on Global 

Warming, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Markey follows:] 


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Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Like 

all natural disasters, the recent wildfires in southern California 

have taken an enormous toll on lives and property damage. With 

7 dead, 2,000 homes destroyed, 640,000 people displaced and possibly up to $2 billion in damages, wildfires have again shown that 

they are a deadly threat to people living in the arid West, just as 

hurricanes have proven to be a deadly and destructive threat to 

people living on the Atlantic and gulf coasts. 

Death and destruction aren’t the only things that wildfires and 

hurricanes share in common. They are now both used as poster 

children for global warming. I am glad the Chairman has said that 

global warming didn’t cause the wildfires, unlike the comments 

made by the Senate Majority Leader over in the other body a couple of weeks ago. While both of these severe weather events are 

common and occur naturally, global warming alarmists are using 

these natural disasters to promote regulations that will have little 

or no effect on the forces of nature. 

In regards to global warming, there are many similarities between hurricanes and wildfires. In both cases, they are complicated 

natural events, influenced by a variety of factors. And yes, in both 

cases, warmer temperatures can create conditions that would amplify the effects of these disasters. But just like hurricanes, there 

is no concrete scientific link between the southern California 

wildfires and global warming. And even if there were, Members of 

Congress would be fooling themselves to think that by passing a 

bill to supposedly do something about global warming, they would 

have any measurable impact on the ground in southern California. 

What would have a measurable impact in California and in other 

parts of the country are smart forestry practices. Liberal environmentalists have long fought to prevent management of our forestry, 

which exacerbates many problems that make forest fires worse. By 

allowing forests to go unmanaged, it allows for grasses, underbrush, dead trees and other growth to serve as kindling for these 

fires. 

As the wildfires were raging last week, the Los Angeles Times 

reported that forest thinning helped the resort town of Lake Arrowhead to avoid the worst of the damage. The Times described the 

area as, quote, an island in a sea of destruction, unquote. By creating what are known as fuel breaks, residents of Lake Arrowhead 

were able to see firsthand the effect of forest thinning as they 

watched billowing fires stop nearly dead in their tracks. Forest 

thinning produces a tangible measurable environmental benefit. I 

wouldn’t support any global warming legislation that doesn’t result 

in measurable environmental damages. 

There is another similarity between hurricanes and wildfires 

that Dr. Steven Running points out in his testimony today. Just 

like the hurricanes, the damage suffered by wildfires is often the 

result of where you live. Live by the ocean, and the chances of your 

house getting knocked down by a hurricane are much greater than 

those more inland. The same is true of those who build in the wild 

land urban interface where the dangers of wildfires are greatest. 

As the fires raged, the Los Angeles Times also posed the question 

of whether global warming was part of the problem. The answer 

appears to be a qualified, no. Quoting the Journal of Science, the 


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Times reported that, unlike the rest of the West, there has been 

no increase in the wildfire frequency in southern California. Pointing out the potential problems of global warming is easy. What 

would also be easy is preparing for natural disasters through 

adaptive management techniques, like forest thinning and fuel 

breaks for wild land fires. The hard part is finding ways to promote 

the development of energy sources that don’t emit CO2 and other 

greenhouse gases. If we can do this, we would truly be doing something about global warming. I thank the Chair and yield back the 

balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. 

Blumenauer. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I agree with my distinguished friend from Wisconsin about the 

concerns of development. In fact, I talked about that to one of the 

L.A. Times reporters. We kind of joked, I have this conversation 

with him about every year when these fires break out, and we don’t 

do anything about the problem with that interface. In fact, we have 

so created a problem that it is hard to characterize these as natural disasters because we make them more likely. We make them 

worse, and we allow more and more and more people to be in the 

flame zone. 

Global warming puts this in perspective where we are not going 

to be able to ignore it any longer. And any amount of intelligent 

forestry is not going to save us if we continue to have more development. Two-thirds of the new buildings in southern California 

over the past decade were on lands susceptible to wildfires. If last 

week’s fires had burned in the same location in 1980, there would 

have been 61,000 homes. By 2000, that number had risen to 

106,000, and by this year, it was 125,000. Now we have got to get 

our heads around the fact that we are having a situation that we 

are making worse; it is compounded by global warming. 

And the Federal Government is actually producing malpractice. 

We are lavishing money on fighting fires. We are not spending 

money on disaster protection to make them less likely. We save $4 

for each $1 we put in prevention. And we keep putting people back 

in harm’s way. We subsidize development. We don’t have reasonable regulation, and then we bemoan the fact that we have these 

wildfires, and we call them natural disasters. I think that is abuse 

of the term. It is not fair to nature. I look forward to hearing from 

our witnesses today to sort of deal with the big picture. Because 

if we continue to have more and more people located in the flame 

zone, the fastest growing States are areas that are subjected to persistent drought, subjected to wildfire, and of course, we are going 

to have the floods. When the rain finally does come in southern 

California, then we are going to be paying a lot of money to help 

people with mudslides and calling it an act of nature. 

I really appreciate this hearing. I hope we can continue to look 

at this through the prism of global warming because I think it is 

going to up the ante, and maybe finally Congress will stop practicing malpractice when it deals with these disasters. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blumenauer follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Walden. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciated your comments in the opening statement, vis-a-vis 

the problems we have in our national forests, and some of us have 

actually been trying to working to change those policies, and I look 

forward to working with you in those endeavors. I frankly think 

the passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which I know 

not everyone on this committee supported, provided for the wildfire 

community planning process to allow the communities to come together and deal with the wild land urban interface, and it has been 

quite successful where it has been implemented in communities 

across America and has really resulted in fuel reductions and better planning processes, and that is what is needed. But the bigger 

problem really rests on the state of America’s national forests. 

Teddy Roosevelt would be rolling over in his grave right now if he 

could see what has happened to his great forest reserves, which he 

called for active management upon. 

Right now, the 192 million acres in the national forest system, 

52 million acres are at risk to catastrophic wildfire. Wildfire like 

this depicted behind me is the Egley fire, burned this summer out 

in central Oregon; 140,000 acres burned. This did not come about 

because of homes there. This came about because of a lightning 

strike, and it burned over a prior burn; 140,000 acres were consumed. These children standing here are the future. Caleb Presley 

10; Ashley Presley, 6. They are the grandkids of the Harney County Judge Steve Grasty. This is the future forests that we are giving 

them because of inaction, because of failed practices in the past, because of litigation, because we lock it up, leave it, and let it burn, 

and do nothing about it. 

Now some of us on this committee, my colleague Ms. Herseth 

and I worked together on the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, which passed overwhelmingly in the House, the bipartisan bill to go in after these fires, remove the dead burned trees 

where it makes sense environmentally and where we can still get 

value out of the timber. Because we are going to use wood in America, we ought to use the burned dead wood, not import illegally 

harvested wood from across the globe, which is what we are doing 

today in America. We are using that wood, harvested illegally in 

furniture we buy back here. 

So changes have to occur if we are going to deal with carbon 

emissions, if we are going to make our forests healthier, if we are 

going to keep up with the increasing temperatures that are occurring. And the Forest Service tells us that is what is happening. 

Then forests in the West—especially the eastern side, my district 

certainly has got to be managed better if we are going to keep pace 

and have the appropriate fire regimes. And at some point, I will 

get into the IPCC language because I think it makes the case as 

well. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from South Dakota, Ms. 

Herseth Sandlin. 


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Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will forgo an 

opening statement to add additional time to my questioning. Thank 

you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 

York State, Mr. Hall, for an opening statement. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I also will save my time for questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time is reserved. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California, Ms. Solis. 

Ms. SOLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am pleased that you are having this hearing today because I 

also represent California, southern California. And I am very 

pleased that we did not suffer this time around the enormous fires 

that surrounded Los Angeles County. Yesterday we heard from 

some folks that came by to talk to our California Delegation about 

how we could better manage this particular rising crisis that continues to plague areas like southern California. And one that I 

would be interested in hearing from our witnesses is, what we need 

to do to help provide more assistance to our State forest, you know, 

wild service; what plan, management that we need, the tools that 

we need. I understand that the Bush Administration has cut back 

by 18 percent on funding for the management plans that our States 

should have in place. So I am very concerned. I want to hear about 

that. I am very interested also in how we can help distressed communities, low-income communities so that they have fully implemented evacuation plans and that they, too, understand the importance of security and understand that they are also a part of the 

solution and would like to hear more about that. 

I have had the privilege of being on C–SPAN just a couple minutes ago. And many people do not understand what is happening 

to our climate change that is occurring and the impacts. And I understand that some people will say, there is no correlation between 

the fires and global warming. But we do see in southern California 

and other arid areas in the southwest where we have experienced 

drought-like conditions for the past 7 and 6 years. And we continue 

to not focus on that and do preparation for these disastrous fires. 

So I think that it is a combination of different things, both planning the forests, better resources and better management at the 

local level and coordination with the State and Federal level and, 

of course, the funding to implement that I think are very important. That is all I want to say, and I look forward to hearing from 

the witnesses. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs. Miller. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I certainly want to 

thank you for holding this hearing today. Certainly what has happened in southern California is of utmost interest certainly to our 

entire nation, to the entire world quite frankly. And if it is not inappropriate, I might just take 1 minute to formally put myself on 

the record to ask you to consider a hearing for a different topic at 

another time, and that is regarding the Great Lakes. We have historic low lake levels. I will just take one quick minute. Unbelievably low lake levels that is happening in the Great Lakes, which 

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et, much of it can be attributable I think to climate change, changing weather patterns. Some of it is man-made but it is having an 

unbelievable negative impact on many segments of society. And I 

know we are going to talk about wildfires today. But I would like 

to be on record asking you to consider such a hearing in the future. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely we will. In part I am responding in 

this hearing to the request from Mr. Walden and Mr. Blumenauer 

that we spend more time on the forestry related issues, and I will 

try my best to accommodate that request as well. Let me now turn 

and recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. McNerney. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My heart certainly goes out to the families who lost their homes 

in last week’s fire. Whether it is fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, any 

of these human tragedies are something that we feel deeply about 

and that we want to try to avoid as much as possible. Are these 

large fires the result of global warming? Well, we can’t really answer that definitively; can we? Certainly the fires, the droughts, 

the large frequent storms are consistent with the theory of global 

warming. We will indeed see more of these large fires. We will see 

more hurricanes. We will see droughts. And it is incumbent upon 

us to understand what is going on here, to adapt and to mitigate, 

and I think that this hearing is a good step in that direction. I 

thank the panelists for coming today, and I look forward to your 

testimony. Thank you. I reserve the balance of my time. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

And I don’t see any other members seeking recognition. 

[The prepared statements of Mr. Cleaver and Ms. Blackburn follow:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. And I will then turn as a result to our first witness, and that witness is Gail Kimbell. 

She is Chief Gail Kimbell. She is the 16th chief and the first female chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Her long and distinguished 

career working in Federal forestry began in 1974. She has extensive experience working in our Nation’s forests throughout the 

West, including Alaska, Oregon, Colorado and Washington. She assumed her current position as Chief of the U.S. Forest Service on 

February 5, 2007. 

We welcome you, Chief. Whenever you are ready, please begin. 

STATEMENT OF ABIGAIL KIMBELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST SERVICE; ACCOMPANIED BY SUSAN CONARD, NATIONAL PROGRAM LEADER FOR FIRE ECOLOGY RESEARCH, AND MARC 

ROUNSAVILLE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR FIRE AND AVIATION, U.S. FOREST SERVICE. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the Select Committee, thank you 

for inviting me today. I will focus my oral remarks on what the 

Forest Service is doing to address interactions between wildfire and 

climate change. 

First, I would like to note that I am accompanied by Dr. Susan 

Conard. Susan is the National Program Leader for Fire Ecology Research, right behind me. And I am also accompanied by Marc 

Rounsaville, who is my Deputy Director for Fire and Aviation for 

the agency. And I also must disclose, because I understand there 

are some baseball fans, that everything I know about baseball, I 

learned in Fenway Park. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Cheap shot. 

The CHAIRMAN. No. But everything she learned about ecology, 

she learned in Yellowstone Park; okay? So we will just give deference to which park teaches which subject. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Cheap shot. Cheap shot. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Scientists tell us climate change may increase the 

incidence and severity of wildfire in some parts of the United 

States. Decisions made today by resource managers and policymakers will have implications throughout the next century. I am 

a forester with over 33 years of experience, but I am not a scientist. 

Still, the Forest Service has some of the best scientists and research available on forests and climate change. For example, Forest 

Service scientists participated in the Intergovernmental Panel on 

Climate Change, the IPCC. They were recently awarded a Nobel 

Peace Prize, and they concluded that disturbances from pests, diseases and fire are projected to have increasing impacts on forests 

with longer fire seasons and large increases in areas burned. While 

we have much to learn about the interactions between climate 

change and wildfire, we are taking science-based adaptive management approaches today to reduce the impact of wildfires to mitigate 

the impacts of climate change on our Nation’s forests and grasslands and to improve the forest potential for mitigating the effects 

of climate change. 

I was in southern California last week, observing what is being 

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ment of Forestry and Fire Protection and other agency partners, 

the fire fighters are doing everything within their power and qualifications to contain those fires. Without question, we are seeing 

more wildfires covering more acres in recent years, a result of extended drought and the accumulation of fuels. Climate change is 

certainly a contributor to the factors affecting the current fire situation, but more needs to be known about the details. We need more 

information before we can conclusively answer the question of the 

relationship between wildfire and climate change. 

A recent study by the department’s Office of Inspector General 

found that the majority of the Forest Service’s fire suppression 

costs were related to fighting fire in the wild land urban interface. 

According to our recently published, ‘‘National Forests on the 

Edge,’’ just published last week, almost 22 million acres of rural 

private lands, about 8 percent of all private lands located within 

10 miles of the national forest boundaries are projected to undergo 

increases in housing densities by 2030. This coupled with climate 

change factors of drought and warmer temperatures will increase 

the complexity and the costs of fire fighting. The Forest Service has 

conducted over two decades of focused climate research, three decades of air pollution research, and has long experience in scientific 

assessments that provide a firm scientific foundation for addressing 

the challenge of forest and rangeland management relative to climate change. Forest Service research and development continues to 

study the interactions between factors affecting fire behavior and 

the potential effects of changing climate on fire patterns and vegetation. There are important knowledge gaps we must address, such 

as wide variability and the estimates of fire emissions. 

While we have information for a few systems, we do not have 

good information on all systems of how burn severity affects emissions or vegetation recovery. Current models of smoke dispersion 

need to be improved to more accurately predict the potential effects 

on human health. We are developing improved projections of the 

impacts of changing precipitation patterns on forest ecosystems to 

help us adapt to and mitigate those changes. In partnership with 

other land managers, we are working to identify the landscape 

level forest conditions most likely to sustain forest ecosystems in a 

changing climate. 

The IPCC in its fourth assessment report states, in the long 

term, a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fiber or energy from the forest will 

generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit. Forestry can 

make a very significant contribution to a low-cost global mitigation 

portfolio. 

It is important to note that not only can forests store carbon and 

help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, they can also provide 

clean water, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities among 

other significant environmental and economic amenities. 

Other elements of a broad strategy include treating fuels to reduce the threat of wildfire to community and to other forest values, 

keeping forests in forest, keeping forests healthy and reforesting 

degraded lands. While recent wildfire activity reflects some of what 

we have experienced with climate change, management of fire and 


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vegetation and thoughtful restoration, including that of burned 

areas, can and should be part of the solution. Communities of vastly different interests across the country are witnessing changes in 

the forests they care about, and they are coming together to develop guidelines to support forest restoration. 

The Forest Service has focused resources on improving forest 

health and the resilience of ecosystems to climate change. Many of 

the approaches we use to reduce fire risk and restore fire-affected 

systems also improve forest health and productivity and increase 

the resilience of America’s forests to changing climate. Although 

forests are not the solution to controlling greenhouse gases, forests 

and sustainable forest management must be part of a broad set of 

strategies that contribute to the solution. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues with the committee. And I would be 

happy to answer any questions you might have. 

[The statement of Ms. Kimbell follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much, Chief, for being here at this 

time. Let me turn first and recognize myself and ask you, do you 

consider wildfire a threat to public welfare? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Wildfire, you know, certainly in the last several 

years, we have seen an increase in the size of wildfires and the 

number of large wildfires. We have seen the number of fires over 

100,000 acres increase pretty dramatically since 1990. You can see 

in this graph here the increase since 1990. The blue diamonds indicate the number of fires over 100,000 acres. Those are the very expensive fires. Those are the very troubling fires, and many of those 

fires are the ones we are talking about, like in southern California, 

with the nearly 2,000 homes burned just in the last week and a 

half. 

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask, do you think that CO2 emissions are 

without question contributing to global warming? 

Ms. KIMBELL. I am not a scientist. But I can say that we have 

measured certainly CO2 emissions from fire. We have measured 

carbon monoxide and methane along with other volatile gases. And 

they should be of a concern to all of us. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is 6 months since the Supreme Court 

rendered its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, asking the EPA to 

make a ruling on whether or not CO2 is a danger. And it has yet 

to do so and, as a result, has yet to have to then make decisions 

as to what it is going to do about it. So that really does create some 

problems for us. 

I solicited some questions online yesterday, and I wanted to 

share one with you from someone who lives in Missouri. He was 

concerned that as global warming widens the area subject to wildfire conditions, it could reach into areas of his State and other 

States that are not used to having wildfires and are ill-prepared to 

fight them. If climate change expands the number of areas at risk 

of wildfires, it could take many communities by surprise. What 

areas of the country should begin to contemplate wildfires for the 

first time? And what can be done to educate other communities unaccustomed to wildfires? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Well, the Congresswoman from Michigan mentioned the Lake States, and certainly, we had some pretty active 

fire in northern Minnesota this summer. The northern latitudes in 

the more real forests are experiencing some of the greatest change 

with climate change, and certainly, we need to be paying attention 

and focus there. The drought across the southeast United States 

right now in Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, we are 

experiencing drought and fire danger in a way that those communities are not accustomed to in October of a year. The fire that 

burned out of the Okefenokee Swamp this spring and burned so 

many acres in Florida, creating not only a huge health risk but certainly destroying a lot of people’s livelihoods, burned a lot of private timber. And fortunately when it hit some treated lands, some 

areas where the hazardous fuels had been reduced, we were able 

to suppress that fire. 

But there are communities not only in the northern latitudes and 

in the more real forests where climate change is the most pronounced or we expect the effects to be most pronounced, but certainly there are communities experiencing prolonged fire seasons 


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that may have been prepared for a 2- or 3-month fire season and 

are now looking at having to prepare for a much longer fire season. 

The CHAIRMAN. And one final question. 

Recently Centers for Disease Control Director Julie Gerberding 

testified before the Senate on the impacts of climate change on 

global public health. In her draft testimony, she stated that, because of climate change, quote, forest fires are expected to increase 

in frequency, severity, distribution and duration. The Bush Administration removed that statement from her final testimony. Do you 

agree with that statement? 

Ms. KIMBELL. I think we can demonstrate higher severity, larger 

fires and certainly over the last 7, 8 years, more frequent fires and 

a longer fire season. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank you for that testimony. 

I now turn to recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent 

that my time be given to the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Walden. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be so ordered. And Mr. 

Walden is recognized for that purpose. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Sensenbrenner. 

Chief, I welcome your testimony today. I thought it was excellent, and I also appreciate the service you give to the Forest Service and many States, especially my home State of Oregon, and your 

days as ranger up in Le Grande. We appreciate your leadership 

there. I would like to follow up on several points. There is an Associated Press story out today that says that southern California 

wildfires emitted the same amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as that State’s power plants and vehicles do for a year, some 

8.7 million tons, which is more than the entire power emissions 

from the State of Washington, 6.5 million tons. 

Clearly these wildfires do emit pollutants into the atmosphere. 

And it seems to me that your agency needs additional resources 

and help to deal with mitigating these levels of fires we are seeing 

in recent years. 

Now can you speak to the difference, for example, in a State like 

mine or a region like mine in sort of the arid eastern sides of the 

States of Washington and Oregon and the forest regimes there 

versus the western side where we don’t necessarily see the same 

types of fire, and the importance of changing the structure of those 

forests to make them more compatible with their natural environment, that hasn’t existed for 100 years since we started suppressing fire. What do you need? What tools do you need? Does 

HFRA work? Are you using it? Healthy Forest Restoration Act. 

And is that adequate? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Tools. We are absolutely using the Healthy Forest 

Restoration Act. Since the inception of the National Fire Plan, all 

the Federal agencies together have treated 25 million acres of hazardous fuels. That is in the original reports that set up the National Fire Plan. There was an estimated 190 million acres that 

had excessive fuels. And to date, we have been able to treat 25 million acres, working with community and community wildfire protection plans. 


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Mr. WALDEN. Now we have seen fires, like the fires in Tahoe, 

where your agency had wanted to go in and do treatment to remove hazardous fuels from wild land urban interface. What precluded that treatment from occurring? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Well, in fact, I was able to visit the Angora fire 

this summer there at South Lake Tahoe and able to visit with forest staff, able to visit with community members who had been so 

involved. I was able to visit with the chairman of the Tahoe Regional Planning Authority. I also asked our scientists to put together an assessment of fuel treatments in the South Lake Tahoe 

area. We actually conducted transects through the burned area, the 

areas that had been treated prior to the fire. 

Mr. WALDEN. I am going to have to move you along a little 

quicker. I am going to run out of time here. What delayed the 

treatment? 

Ms. KIMBELL. There is a lot of very complex agreements in the 

Lake Tahoe area. There are a lot of complex agreements all over. 

It is not just Lake Tahoe, but certainly there is a certain amount 

of social license that will allow a lot of different activity to take 

place in a forest, and sometimes there are things in the process 

that can really hold up, prevent, delay treatment of hazardous 

fuels. And I think we have examples of that certainly all over the 

West. 

Mr. WALDEN. All right. Okay. Let me give you an example in my 

district. A fire that burned this summer outside of Sisters, Oregon, 

came roaring over both private land and Federal, started by lightning, came down into an area that they had been trying to thin 

since I think 2000 or 2001. And that thinning project had been 

under appeal by different groups or a group. Finally, they had gotten through the court system, and the Forest Service prevailed, 

and the thinning had occurred. When the fire hit that area that 

had been thinned, it went to the ground. They were able to put it 

out. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Absolutely. 

Mr. WALDEN. But it took them years and years and years to fight 

through to be able to get that thinning done. 

And it strikes me that much of your agency’s time is still spent 

in litigation and fighting appeals and in the courtrooms rather 

than on the ground doing the treatment that your foresters are 

educated to provide. And we are never going to get ahead of this 

190 million acres of area that needs some work if you are always 

backlogged. And that same forest actually has HFRA-approved 

projects out 5 years and yet lacks the funding to go implement 

some of those. So it is a funding issue, and part of that gets back 

to how much are you spending this year fighting fire, $1.2, $1.4 billion? 

Ms. KIMBELL. $1.34. 

Mr. WALDEN. And how much now have you had to dip into these 

other accounts on an emergency basis to pay for fire fighting? 

Ms. KIMBELL. We had to dip into other accounts, $100 million. 

Mr. WALDEN. And would any of those accounts effect work out 

on the ground this season? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Not those accounts specifically but the continuing 

effect when you work those numbers into a 10-year average, and 


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then you look at your out year budget. In preparing the fiscal year 

2009 budget, I had to find $300 million to move out of other 

projects to move into fire suppression to meet that 10-year average. 

That $300 million comes from everywhere. 

Mr. WALDEN. And does that include coming from how we maintain campgrounds and parks and other recreational activities out 

on the Federal land that now we are having to scramble or you are 

closing because you don’t have those resources? 

Ms. KIMBELL. And in fact, it also comes from vegetation treatment. 

Mr. WALDEN. All right. Then some vegetation treatment funding 

remains an issue that we need to deal with. Post-fire recovery, I 

think Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin and I authored the Forest 

Emergency Recovery Research Act. It was probably among other 

things providing the biggest funding source to enhance the science 

of post-fire post-disaster recovery. It passed the House, went up 

where all good bills go to die in the Senate. I believe we need more 

research to be done so we get it right and we don’t make mistakes. 

But, in the meantime, you have a lot of long-term management 

practices that you all know what works and what doesn’t work. 

And am I correct that you still have more than a million acres of 

Federal forest land post-fire that have not been replanted? 

Ms. KIMBELL. That is correct. 

Mr. WALDEN. This isn’t post-timber harvest share commercial 

sale program because that is required to be replanted in—as I recall from the GAO report a year ago, is replanted. So we are just 

talking post-fire. It is lands like this that go untreated. Now my 

understanding on this Egley fire is that there are those in the environmental community who are telling the Forest Service, they 

won’t appeal if you don’t harvest more than 19 trees on 140,000 

acres. Now we are still running that out. But that is what I have 

been told, 19; 140,000 acres. We have had half a million acres in 

my State burn this year. This is getting out of control. We have to 

change Federal policy. Or this place isn’t going to get replanted. 

‘‘That will come back naturally.’’ You will hear that. ‘‘Oh, yeah, 

don’t do anything. You are better not to disturb this; just leave it 

the way it is.’’ 

I will tell my colleagues, nobody else leaves it the way it is; not 

private forest managers, not county forest managers, not State forest managers, not tribal forest managers. Only we do this in a tribute to burned and destroyed watersheds and habitat. And I just get 

sick of it because nobody else does this. I held hearings when I 

chaired the Forestry Subcommittee. Tribal nations are in—even in 

my State—hauling out burned dead trees while they were smoldering. Not the best transportation practice, but they admitted to 

it. The State of Oregon under—one of the most aggressive forest 

management practice laws in the country, if not one of the first, 

one of the most aggressive, goes in immediately after fires on their 

lands and does the rehab work. 

And how long does it take you to come up with a plan to come 

in after a fire? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Well if it is not done within the first 3 years, then 

the value is such that—— 


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Mr. WALDEN. But it takes you a year to come through the planning process; correct? 

Ms. KIMBELL. At least. 

Mr. WALDEN. And then you have the appeals process and that 

can take a year; correct? 

Ms. KIMBELL. The appeals process should only be 90 to 120 days. 

Mr. WALDEN. But with the seasons for harvest and activity in 

the forest, it can delay you into the next year; correct? You can’t 

work in the winter in some areas. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Yes. That is correct. And then, too, if something is 

litigated, and it goes to court, then it can be 5, 6, 7 years. 

Mr. WALDEN. Right. So you lose the value so you don’t get the 

funding into your agency to do the restoration work. And if you replant sooner, you are going to produce a forest sooner, and you are 

going to sequester carbon sooner. Doesn’t your science show that as 

well? 

Ms. KIMBELL. The science absolutely shows that, that healthy 

vigorous growing trees sequester carbon. Those don’t. 

Mr. WALDEN. Exactly. And so, Mr. Chairman, I hope we can find 

some common ground here to become better managers and give the 

Forest Service better tools to make the right decision not to wipe 

out every—I have never supported that. You don’t go ahead and 

clear cut all this stuff. But there are areas where you can recover. 

There are areas where you drop them to stop the erosion. They do 

a really good job with their bear teams coming in after a fire; they 

will drop some of these trees horizontally to the hillside so that it 

will stop the erosion because otherwise this all runs into the watershed. I know I have used up my time. But I appreciate your testimony and the work you are doing. And we will continue to do our 

part here. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Thank you, Mr. Walden. 

May I add one thing? I did mention social license. And I think 

the work that is going on in so many communities is very encouraging to me where many diverse interests are coming together and 

talking about what needs to happen, what do they want to have 

happen in the forests that means so much to them? We have got 

some great examples of that around the country. But maybe since 

hurricanes were mentioned this morning, the work that happened 

in Mississippi following Katrina, working with wild law, working 

around a common vision of what long leaf pine restoration should 

look like, we were able to accomplish just a huge amount of restoration work using salvage logging and other methods. But restoration work in those long leaf pine ecosystems in Mississippi took 

a lot of work on the part of a lot of people but had very positive 

results. 

Mr. WALDEN. And you were able to use the Healthy Forest Restoration Act; weren’t you? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Yes, we absolutely were. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

recognizes the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Blumenauer. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. And I deeply appreciate, Chief, 

your looking at the big picture because people are focused on southern California. But it is up in the Great Lakes region. Well, there 

are certain irony because the Governor of Georgia is now trying to 


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short cheat Alabama and Florida by keeping their—what they 

think is their water and threatening not just endangered species 

but coal communities and the fishing industry because they haven’t 

got their act together. And with the climate change, with development in the flame zone, we are going to see this all across the 

country. 

And I do appreciate the comments from my friend and colleague 

from Oregon because there are lots of things that communities can 

come together on and deal with some absolutely noncontroversial 

treatment on the urban fringe. And we might actually be able to 

extract some wooden biomass that will help with some of our other 

fuel issues. 

But I guess we can’t do this if you are going to be spending more 

and more and more of your money that you are charged with managing on a problem that is getting ever larger. Because it is not 

just smart forest practices that impact fighting fires. The figures I 

have given, for example, you had a 600-acre fire in the Jebediah 

Smith wilderness that costs maybe $20,000 to fight when you are 

dealing with 600 acres. In contrast, there was a 250 acre fire near 

the town of Wilson, Wyoming, that cost more than 10 times as 

much because of the proximity. And there are orders of magnitude—I mean, I am assuming that we can be looking at orders 

of magnitude that are 100 or 1,000 times greater because of the infrastructure and the people involved. Is that correct? Do I have 

that right? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Certainly, it is much more expensive where you 

are up against community development, yes. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. And you are already cannibalizing the budget 

to deal—you are making difficult priority decisions. 

Ms. KIMBELL. We are making very difficult priority decisions in 

order to be able to have funds to be able to suppress fires when 

they are up against those communities. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. But they are undercutting the long-term 

issues of health and recreation, research. I mean, you are having 

to thin all of your activities with this exploding problem. 

Ms. KIMBELL. We have made some very difficult adjustments, 

yes. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. I was struck in your testimony where you 

talked about the 22 million acres of rural private land within 10 

miles of the core national forests that are projected to undergo very 

significant increases in housing density over the course of the next 

two decades. Is the Fire Service—I mean—excuse me—is the Forest Service—how could I make that Freudian slip? 

Is the Forest Service developing some policies, programs, recommendations to us to deal with this impending massive complication for your already difficult task? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Let me offer two different things. We are getting 

ready to—we have just published this National Forests on the 

Edge. We will be publishing our open space strategy next month. 

It contains several different things. One of those is that we have 

been working very diligently with a number of different bodies, 

looking at things like environmental services, looking at carbon, 

carbon markets. We have the science that we can bring to that discussion, and we have been doing that. We have been working very 


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hard to bring science around carbon accounting, science around 

water, science around all the different things that people take for 

granted coming from forest lands, whether they are public or private. With our open space strategy, we are addressing in a very 

real way what is happening with forest land across the United 

States. There are 800 million acres of forest land in the United 

States. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Let me be clear because my time is running 

out. 

Are you formulating specific policy recommendations to help 

solve the problem—not quantifying it; I appreciate the research— 

but policy recommendations that would make this problem diminish? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Make it diminish. I think forests are so important. 

You will find in that open space strategy quite a number of suggestions for policy considerations in there. Certainly there are things 

that we will take on as an agency, but there are some things much 

bigger than we are as an agency that hopefully the U.S. Congress 

will address. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, I apologize. We have a Ways and Means markup 

that is going on now. But my slipping away is not any reflection 

on how I think this is a critical hearing, and I hope that there is 

a way to focus broader attention on the wide range of issues here. 

And I really appreciate you putting it on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we thank you for being here because you 

have a long career in focusing on these issues. And it helps us to 

hear your questions and comments to the witnesses. Thank you. 

The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Mrs. Miller. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And Chief 

Kimbell, we certainly appreciate your expertise on this issue. I am 

not an expert on the issue, but hopefully this question is appropriate here. But I am just trying to understand. In your testimony, 

you mentioned about housing density and increasing housing density, people moving into areas that are heavily forested. And I, 

along with the rest of the Nation, watched with sort of morbid fascination on the TVs, watching this whole thing happen in southern 

California, and there was a lot of talk about vegetation and undergrowth that normally would either burn off or naturally be destroyed or die off in some format, but because there are more people living there now, that is not happening. So it essentially acts 

as an accelerant for some of these fires because, I mean, we have 

had the Santa Ana winds forever. It just didn’t happen at this 

time. 

I am just wondering what your thoughts are about having such 

a significant amount of people moving into heavily forested areas. 

And I ask that question in this context coming from the Great 

Lakes. We just had a big debate here about flood insurance. And 

many people were saying, why is the Federal Government continuing to pay for housing that is destroyed in floods that are going 

to happen? I mean, it is no secret; it is going to flood again at some 

point, and people rebuild. And I actually came from local government. I am a huge believer in local control and planning zoning orVerDate Mar 15 2010 23:09 Oct 19, 2010 Jkt 058243 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A243.XXX A243

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dinances, having the impetus and coming from local planners, et 

cetera. But do you think there is anything that may be appropriate 

for the Federal Government to do to dissuade people from continuing to move into heavily forested areas that we may know are 

going to have a forest fire in the future? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Well, the Forest Service in working with the States 

and with local agencies has worked very diligently on Firewise. It 

is a program by which we advise local land owners, local communities on different things where they might structure ordinances, 

where they might talk about building materials and vegetation 

around homes. And many communities have adopted those. Many 

people have implemented those around their own homes, whether 

or not their neighbors have. But certainly all that work in Firewise 

has been very, very important. 

At the same time, we are talking about a population that is now 

300 million people and, by the middle of this century, maybe 400 

million people or more. All those people are going somewhere. And 

the national forest lands provide a real draw to people seeking 

amenity values, and so we find in this report, National Forests on 

the Edge, but we have a companion report that is about all of 

America’s forests, people are seeking out amenity values and locating—because telecommuting is such a possibility now and wireless 

is available in so many places, people are choosing to live in those 

forested environments. But they need to do that with the understanding of what they are moving into and with the understanding 

that they need to be very aware and treating the landscapes 

around them. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you very much. Yes. 

And I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Oregon. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. I just want to follow up because the 

question came up about wilderness. And I know we have had some 

fires that originated in the wilderness. What can you do to manage 

bug infestation, overstocking, disease and dead trees in a wilderness area? 

Ms. KIMBELL. We do not manage natural processes in the wilderness areas. By statute, those are managed by mother nature. 

Mr. WALDEN. And so when a fire breaks out in a wilderness area, 

are you able—I know technically you are allowed to involve aggressive fire fight tactics. But generally that is reserved if there is life 

or casualty. I mean, isn’t that right? Don’t you employ different fire 

fighting tactics in wilderness area versus outside a wilderness 

area? 

Ms. KIMBELL. We do. But again, that is based on the values at 

risk. We go through quite an analysis at the start of a fire to look 

at values at risk and then assign tactics and strategies. So if you 

are in a very expansive wilderness area—there is a gentleman here 

from Montana who was probably breathing smoke most of this 

summer. And they will remember the fires this summer in a number of different wilderness areas that did not have aggressive fire 

fighting techniques until there were significant values at risk. 

Mr. WALDEN. Generally, you let those burn if they are in a wilderness area? 


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Ms. KIMBELL. Generally, we manage the edges to avoid having 

them become something much bigger than—to be burning other resources, to be getting into other resources. 

Mr. WALDEN. Because it seems like we are seeing more and more 

of these lightning fires originate, in some cases in the wilderness 

areas where there have been some problems with bug and drought 

infestation and no management and those come roaring out of 

there and then into other areas private and public. Are you seeing 

that? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Yes. There have been some examples of that. And 

certainly in southern California, because of the immediate values 

at risk on the very edge of the wilderness boundary, there are some 

times where we have employed more aggressive fire fighting techniques than perhaps were experienced this summer in the Bob 

Marshall wilderness area there in Montana. But yes, we have seen 

some examples—because those forests within wilderness areas are 

undergoing all the same stresses with climate change that forests 

outside wilderness areas are. They are just as susceptible to a 

lightning strike. 

Mr. WALDEN. But with none of the management activities. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Correct. Without the management activities, including without the access. 

Mr. WALDEN. And I am sure there are fires that start outside the 

wilderness areas and burn in. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Yes. Those are two examples. 

Mr. WALDEN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chairman recognizes the gentlelady from South Dakota, Ms. 

Herseth Sandlin. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chief Kimbell, thank you very much for your work and your 

service. I also want to commend to you the terrific work of the Forest Service officials in the Black Hills National Forest and the 

great work they are doing with their local partners, including the 

local timber industry, to pursue a number of thinning projects in 

the wild land urban interface. Just a few weeks ago, in addition to 

having Mr. Walden in South Dakota, a couple of years ago, Mr. 

Norm Dicks, Chairman Dicks was in South Dakota just a couple 

of weeks ago and was also very impressed with the efforts there, 

and looking forward to working with him and with you as relates 

to the budgets necessary to not only fight fires but also to continue 

with these important projects, particularly when they do involve 

commercial timber sales that actually allow receipts that can continue with additional projects and the patchwork that we have in 

the Black Hills National Forest. 

I certainly empathize with the folks in southern California. As 

you know, we had a devastating fire in the southern hills near Hot 

Springs that resulted in a number of homes and other structures 

lost as well as a gentleman who lost his life, firefighters who were 

injured. And so I come at this being convinced by the science that 

climate change has led to the increased frequency, the increased severity, of these fires which, while we haven’t hammered out the 

precise and best solution yet on how we manage carbon by putting 


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a price on carbon, but I am also convinced that as climate change 

is exacerbated, drought, insect infestation, the fuel load, the timing 

of the snow melt, that we also have to manage carbon not only to 

reduce the threat of the forest fires, but to enhance the potential 

of our natural forests as carbon sequestration carbon sinks. 

And so I wanted to probe with you an area that I think is very 

important and has vast potential, and that is biomass. 

Now, every forest is unique, and the Ponderosa pine regenerates 

itself at a significant pace. And I have been told by some that I 

have been working with, as they are trying to partner to figure out 

in the Black Hills, do we have significant biomass to support either 

cellulosic fuel production or for renewable electricity generation, 

that the average amount of woody biomass just from the slash piles 

that exist would be sufficient to maintain some amount of electricity generation if a project was pursued there. 

Can you talk about what activities the Forest Service is undertaking to assess potential wood waste as a source for biomass either for fuel production, cellulosic fuel production or electricity generation? And do you have any barriers currently that may inhibit 

moving forward if your assessments and research suggest that that 

would be a good source to help reduce the fuel load? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Thank you, and—I can get into that, and if I can’t 

get into enough detail, I am going to have to ask Dr. Conard to join 

me. 

Actually, we are doing quite a bit at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, in looking at the opportunities for 

using woody biomass for ethanol. And the technology is very, very 

close. There are people in Georgia—not Forest Service people, private interests in Georgia—working on the very same or similar 

kinds of technologies ready to go into production just as soon as 

that technology is more certain. 

A barrier right—the—let me back up a little further. 

It would require not only those slash piles from the Black Hills 

National Forest, but would require a woody biomass from all forest 

land. If we were able to access that woody biomass that is not currently being used for other products and is excessive to the needs 

for soil processes and wildlife habitats and those kinds of things, 

we estimate that we can offset up to 15 percent of the fossil fuels 

currently being burned with the use of woody biomass for ethanol. 

Now, there is a measure in there, though, of the price of oil. And 

so it is all—all of this works together. I am not an economist, but 

all of this works together, and it is dependent—the efficacy of the 

technology is also dependent on the price of oil and its competitiveness. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you for that response. 

And then if you could address maybe two other issues, not just 

in terms of the potential for biomass, but then the thinning projects 

that are undertaken and reducing the density of the stands. 

Do you feel that you have sufficient research, or you are pursuing that, that would suggest that by thinning and reducing the 

density of the stands, that that enhances the carbon sequestration 

potential of the forest? 

Ms. KIMBELL. Yes. In fact, we have got some excellent science 

that demonstrates that exactly. 


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Most recently, an article was published in the Journal of Forestry by Dr. Susan Stout, who is one of our project leaders in Pennsylvania. And she had looked at different management regimes in 

the Allegheny hardwoods and was able to demonstrate that she 

could maximize carbon sequestration with a managed stand; and 

she had different sort of cultural regimes that she had looked at. 

But Susan’s study isn’t the only one. There are many other studies that will demonstrate something similar. We do not have 

science for every single forest ecosystem that we do manage, and 

we are continuing to work on that part of science. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. And one final question. 

I know you had stated on page 3 of your written testimony that 

there are important knowledge gaps that we need to address, including the estimates of fire emissions that do vary widely. 

Do you have any in terms of the AP article, that I believe Mr. 

Walden cited, in terms of the amount of emissions of the southern 

California fires as compared to the amount of emissions by power 

plants? Do you have any comments on the statistics cited in that 

Associated Press article? 

Ms. KIMBELL. May I ask Dr. Conard? 

The CHAIRMAN. Could you please identify yourself for the record? 

Ms. CONARD. I am Dr. Susan Conard from the U.S. Forest Service. 

So the question—could you repeat it again? Thanks. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Yes. Very quickly. The Chairman is being 

indulgent in letting me ask this question when my time was about 

to run out. 

But based on the knowledge gaps that I think—you know, there 

is some consensus, the estimates are varying widely on the amount 

of emissions from the wildfires. So do you have any comments specifically? 

I don’t know if you have seen the Associated Press article yet 

that compared the amount of emissions from the southern California wildfires to the amount of emissions from the power plant 

it cited, I believe, in the State. Can you elaborate a bit on where 

you are headed with the research as it results to identifying the 

amount of emissions from the wildfires? 

Ms. CONARD. Sure. And I actually haven’t seen that particular 

article. We do have some independent estimates, that we consider 

quite preliminary, that the emissions from the southern California 

wildfires so far would be equivalent to about 3 to 5 percent of the 

fossil fuel and CO2 emissions in the United States in a typical year. 

So that is probably a similar number. 

In terms of estimating emissions nationally from wildfires, there 

are a number of different lines of work. Probably some of the most 

promising involves combining remote sensing information with information on models and measurements of full consumption in individual fires; and as that work proceeds, the numbers get more and 

more similar from different studies. 

But I think right now, if you looked in the literature, you would 

see a variation of two or three times in the estimates. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Hall. 


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Mr. HALL. I just quickly want to ask a couple of questions before 

our votes get called. 

Chief Kimbell, thank you very much for your testimony. I heard 

or read that around Lake Tahoe, that area of forest that the Angora fire burned, received last winter 29 percent of its average 

snowpack. Is that right? 

Ms. KIMBELL. I can’t confirm that number, but I know it was a 

reduced snowpack. 

Mr. HALL. Okay. It has been mentioned in your testimony and 

others’ comments that either reduced snowpack or earlier snowmelt 

obviously causes a drier forest and a longer fire season. 

If you could, comment on thinning. There are different—people 

have different ideas of how to thin, and I believe somebody here or 

members on both sides of the aisle are thinning the underbrush 

and the dead trees and removing fuel. 

There are also those who would like to thin by taking out commercially viable trees, and I wonder if you would comment on the— 

how efficient it is to remove healthy, large, commercially viable 

trees in terms of preventing or slowing fires. 

Ms. KIMBELL. Everything depends on the site you are working 

on, and if your goal is to have healthy, vigorous trees on the—when 

you are finished with whatever projects you are undertaking, then 

you are going to be looking at a number of things, and one of those 

is available moisture. 

It is the surrounding country, what you have on that site, what 

you anticipate might be a successful tree species or a successful individual tree into the future using the predictions of temperature, 

moisture, all of those things. So it is going to vary from site to site. 

There are some sites that would be able to support all of what 

some people might want to define as ‘‘larger.’’ There are other sites 

that might be able to support a smaller number of trees. 

If a stand starts out at 6,000 stems to the acre, and it can reasonably support 40 large trees, there is a process of elimination 

when you get to those 40 large trees. Mother Nature has had a 

very interesting way of doing that on her own, and yet now we 

have people living in and amongst those forests. 

So if the goal is to have a healthy, vigorous forest, it is going to 

be very important that the silva-culturalist, the person who is writing that prescription, is aware of what is happening there in temperature, water, soil processes, and all of those things. 

Mr. HALL. So as Mother Nature makes the choice, we may want 

to help by removing the ones that don’t make it from sprouts to 

full-size trees? 

Ms. KIMBELL. One of Mother Nature’s tools is fire. 

Mr. HALL. I wanted to ask just quickly, are there any natural enemies of the bark beetles and other insects who have been decimating the forests, who perhaps are no longer there, and whether 

they could be reintroduced? 

Ms. KIMBELL. One of the things that we have been seeing with 

climate change is a real difference in bird activity: when birds are 

nesting, where they are nesting, what elevation they are nesting. 

And for some of these insects that are forest pests—that is how 

they are classified—birds are an important part of that control 

mechanism. 


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We are also seeing that with the temperatures, many insects are 

having two breeding seasons in a year instead of one. 

One of the natural controls has been temperature, and, you 

know, certainly that is something we have seen—actually we see 

it in Georgia and we see it in Montana—multiple broods of insects 

that aren’t part of our historical information. But also we are seeing the movement of birds and just trying to figure out how those 

birds are now interacting with the insects that are moving around. 

There are viruses, there are fungi, there are other insects that 

are—that prey on maybe the damaging insect. 

I had a fascinating conversation with one of our researchers who 

had just been to China looking for tiny, tiny, teeny insects that 

feed on—the emerald ash borer; and the emerald ash borer, if you 

are in the Lake States, is just a huge threat to the urban forests 

all over the eastern United States. 

So there are a lot of natural enemies. We are working with those 

and also examining what is happening with climate change that 

changes the efficacy of all of those. 

Mr. HALL. And you would say that increased temperature would 

make all of these—the insects, the viruses, the fungi—have more 

opportunity to attack the forests? 

Ms. KIMBELL. It makes things different, and that is the part that 

we are continuing to work with the science on. 

For some insects like pine beetles, it has made them greater in 

number and covering larger areas. 

Mr. HALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

We will have time for Mr. Inslee and Mr. Cleaver for 5 minutes. 

The Chairman recognizes the gentleman from Washington state, 

Mr. Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you, Chief. I appreciated your testimony, but 

I have a lot of sadness about it for a couple of reasons. 

One, I have seen firsthand the devastation that climate change 

is causing our forests. I was up in the national forest last summer 

at Robin and Tuck Lakes, places I have been for decades, and I 

have seen it ravaged by these beetles, literally one falling off my 

hat as I was talking to the forest ranger. And I said, What killed 

all of these trees? He said, Look at the brim of your hat. And there 

was a little worm falling off the brim of my hat. 

I was in the Sawtooth last winter. I talked to a guy who was 

having to build these firebreaks because of the enormous beetle kill 

associated probably with climate change in Idaho. So I have seen 

this firsthand. 

It is very painful to watch the unfolding death of our forests, and 

what I have a real sadness about is, despite your best efforts and 

the best efforts of the great people who work for you in these forests, the policies of George Bush are dooming these forests. 

It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as George Bush stands in 

the schoolhouse door and prevents us in Congress from doing 

things to stop global warming, these forests are going to die. It 

doesn’t matter what you do; the forces are too great. As long as 

George Bush allows unchecked CO2 emissions into the area, these 

forests are going to die. 


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And so I have a great sadness about the position you are in, trying to save that which is unsavable when the President of the 

United States won’t help us deal with this mortal threat to these 

forests. 

When I say ‘‘mortal,’’ I mean mortal. Dead trees. When you go 

up to northern Washington, you see miles of dead trees up there 

right now. Same thing in Idaho. I don’t know if George Bush has 

ever looked at that. 

And I want to enlist you to really do something about this that 

can succeed in saving these forests. So I want to ask you to do 

what you can to really impress upon the President of the United 

States how destructive his policy is to these forests. 

I want to ask you, have you told George Bush personally that his 

policies are killing the forests over which you have a stewardship 

responsibility? 

Ms. KIMBELL. No. 

Mr. INSLEE. That is a start. 

Ms. KIMBELL. But I have been very outspoken about the need to 

have healthy, vigorous, growing forests; and there are a lot of different tools that we have talked about today to have healthy, vigorous, growing forests. It is so important to be cleaning carbon 

emissions from the air. It is so important to be sequestering carbon 

to have healthy vigorous forests, not just on national forests, but 

on all 800 million acres of forest. 

Mr. INSLEE. I agree with you. But what I am trying to say is that 

no matter what you do—and I think your intentions are normal 

here. No matter what you do, as long as this climate is changing 

to entirely different regimes in these areas, they are going to be 

dead. 

And I want to know whether—would you be willing to try to get 

in to see the President of the United States and personally tell him 

and show him, with pictures, the devastations that are happening 

in these forests so that maybe he would start to work with us to 

solve this problem? 

Would you do that for us? 

Ms. KIMBELL. I would certainly be willing to invite the President 

of the United States to come visit some national forests with me 

and some of my expert staff to look at the health of forests across 

the United States. 

Mr. INSLEE. I am thrilled by that. I hope you will do so, and I 

hope you will let us know what the President’s response is, because 

we need his help to solve these problems these forests have. 

Thank you for that. 

As far as what is happening to cause these forest fires, I wanted 

to put in the record, Mr. Chair, an article by Dr. Al Westerling and 

several others from the University of California at Scripps, that basically looked at the fire. 

This came out in Science Express on July 6, 2006. And they 

looked at these records and they found that the greatest increases 

in the fires were in the mid-elevation northern Rockies forest 

where land use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks 

and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer 

temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt. That is an abstract 

of this article. 


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Basically what this article suggests is that the huge increase in 

forest fires we are experiencing are probably more associated with 

climate change than anything else, of increased spring and summer 

temperatures and earlier spring snowmelt for drier forests. 

Now that, to me, means that even if we do better serve a culture, 

it means that our forests are going to die. 

So I appreciate your offer. I am going to follow up with you. 

[The information follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. We just have time to also recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Cleaver, for his 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the Chief for your 

questions here. 

We are running late so we—a number of us went to Greenland 

a few weeks ago and painfully listened to some Greenlanders talk 

about how indigenous fish were leaving the area in a search for 

colder waters. 

And listening to you, you didn’t quite get there, but are there certain species of birds that are now going further and further northward, maybe even into Canada, because they—the warming climate is not conducive to reproduction and hunting and so forth? 

Ms. KIMBELL. We have very good evidence that there are a number of birds that are changing their use patterns, changing their 

habits. Fish, we are very concerned about. It has been estimated 

that a 2-degree temperature rise in the waters that support many 

of our trout fisheries would no longer be able to—if there were a 

2-degree rise, would no longer be able to support those trout. 

So we are very concerned about all of that and have been studying it. 

Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone ecosystem have used for decades 

the seeds from whitebark pine. Well, whitebark pine is moving 

higher and higher in elevation, and those lower in elevation are no 

longer thriving; and we are very concerned about that, and we have 

been studying that. 

So these are all pieces of the climate change picture that we do 

have science resources assigned to; and we need to learn more 

about it. 

Mr. CLEAVER. I was recently in Aspen, and they killed 12 bears 

over the summer. Bears who are now coming down into the city because of the bark and the inaccessibility of their food, and so where 

it is creating a conflict with humans, it will result in some killings. 

I think I probably should go vote since—— 

Ms. KIMBELL. We could talk all day about grizzly bears, and I did 

get to Missouri this summer as well, and you have got some beautiful country on the Mark Twain Forest. 

Mr. CLEAVER. God bless you. 

The CHAIRMAN. And he is actually a Reverend, so that means 

something. From an ordinary member, it would mean nothing. 

So we thank you very much, Chief Kimbell, for your excellent 

testimony; and we look forward to working with you right in the 

future. 

We have three roll calls on the floor of the House. We will take 

a brief recess, and we will return in about 20 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing is reconvened and our very distinguished second panel will now be recognized. 

First, I will ask Dr. Steven Running who is a distinguished forest 

ecologist who has published over 240 scientific articles. As a chapter lead author for the Fourth Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Running shares the recently announced Nobel Peace Prize with his colleagues. 

And we extend our congratulations to you. 


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He is a professor at the University of Montana and a Fellow of 

the American Geophysical Union, and he is a recognized expert on 

climate modeling and specifically on the impacts of climate change 

in North America. 

So we welcome you, Doctor. Whenever you are ready, please 

begin. 

STATEMENT OF DR. STEVEN RUNNING, PROFESSOR OF 

ECOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA 

Mr. RUNNING. Good morning, Chairman Markey, and members of 

this Select Committee. 

I thank you for the opportunity to come and testify on wildfire 

and climate change; and I think what I want to do, rather than 

going through much of my prepared discussion, which has been 

covered at length this morning, I want to really focus on a couple 

of issues that I think are particularly important for this committee 

to understand. 

And so, first, for the record, as an IPCC author, let me read the 

exact text that I put in the IPCC report. 

‘‘Since 1980, an average of 22,000 kilometers squared per year 

has burned in U.S. wildfires, almost twice the average from 1920 

to 1980. The forested area burned in the Western U.S. from 1987 

to 2003 is 6.7 times the area burned from 1970 to 1986. 

‘‘The wildfire burned area in the North American boreal region 

has increased from 6,500 square kilometers per year in the 1960s 

to 29,700 square kilometers per year in the 1990s.’’ 

And as of October 29th, we have now burned 8.7 million acres 

of land in the U.S. this year. 

So these are the statistics I put in the IPCC report, and I think 

what I want to do is just make two critical points for the time that 

we have here. 

When we look at the causes, what is causing this real acceleration in wildfire? 

There are four important trends that we are aware of: Clearly, 

our forests and rangeland have grown back over the last century 

from overgrazing and overlogging in the 1800s. So some of this is 

a natural ecological recovery. 

We add to that a second factor of the fire suppression, and we 

have already heard about that from the Chief earlier this morning. 

Ninety-eight percent of the fires are now suppressed. So we really 

have ecosystems throughout the country that are growing back to 

a point where they have actually overgrown the carrying capacity 

of the landscape. 

And a fire is a natural way for an ecosystem to return to its natural equilibrium, and we have taken that away by suppressing the 

fires. 

So, in a way, you might think that our ecosystems have overshot 

the climate that would support the forests, particularly in the 

West. 

I want to make then the second point of how important snowmelt 

and snowpack is for all of the northern forests. 

Obviously, snow is a natural fire retardant. When there is snow 

on the ground, nothing is going to burn, and we now see snow 

melting 1 to 4 weeks earlier than we did 50 years ago. That is not 


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only lengthening the fire season, but it is bringing forests at higher 

elevations into a vulnerable condition of drought. That didn’t used 

to happen, just literally because there was snow on the ground. So 

the acceleration of wildfire in the wild western forests is very much 

a function of this early snowmelt. 

The last point I want to make is where the future is going. And 

before IPCC, there were over a dozen climate models run hundreds 

of different times. In my written testimony, on figure 4, I showed 

the results of what all of these GCMs project for the future. 

And I summarized just a single graph to save time, and basically 

that one graph, this is a consensus of seven different GCMs, is that 

western North America summertime temperatures will be 3 to 5 

degrees centigrade warmer than they are now. And in about 50 

years—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Which translates in Fahrenheit to? 

Mr. RUNNING. To about 5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in 8 

years. And the important point is, there will be no increases in precipitation. 

So I can only conclude from the best GCMs run for the IPCC report that the Western U.S. is in for longer, hotter summers, and 

I can conclude nothing else but that is going to increase wildfire 

dynamics. 

So with that, my time is up. And those are the key points I want 

to make. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it is 5 to 8 degrees warmer and no more rain 

over the next 50 years. 

[The statement of Mr. Running follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. All right. Our next witness is Dr. Michael 

Medler. Dr. Medler is an expert on fire ecology and wildland firefighting. He is currently a professor of environmental studies at 

Western Washington University. He is also the President-elect of 

the Association For Fire Ecology and a member of the Firefighters 

United for Safety Ethics and Ecology. 

Dr. Medler’s research focuses on analysis of historical wildfire 

patterns in the Western United States. He actually was a wildland 

firefighter during the 1980s in the Willamette National Forest in 

Oregon and helped fight the historic Yellowstone fires in 1988. 

So we thank you. Please begin. 

STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL MEDLER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AND 

PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR FIRE ECOLOGY, REPRESENTING FIREFIGHTERS UNITED FOR SAFETY, 

ETHICS AND ECOLOGY 

Mr. MEDLER. Thank you, Chairman Markey, and members of the 

committee. 

I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify in climate 

change and fire management. 

As you said, I am a President-elect of the Association for Fire 

Ecology and also a member of the Firefighters United for Safety, 

Ethics and Ecology. And many of the important scientific points 

have been made quite well today, but I would like to make some 

other points, about fire management, in particular, and firefighting. 

As you said, I worked as a firefighter in the Forest Service in the 

1980s and really cut my teeth at the Yellowstone fires in 1988. And 

it has been a while since I have had boots on and cut fireline, but 

the members of AFE and FUSEE, are currently serving on the 

firelines, even now in southern California, and would like me to 

talk about some of our shared concerns about changes in fire behavior resulting from climate change. 

Fire behavior is changing. In Yellowstone in 1988, the grizzled 

old firedogs told us that we would never see fire behavior like that 

again because they never had. Now, most summers bring us new 

record-breaking fires and fire seasons, and the fires we call big 

today can be 10 times as big as the ones 20 years ago. 

On the firelines, it is really clear that global warming, global climate change, is changing fire behavior and creating more and bigger, severe fires; and we have had a fair bit of testimony to that 

extent. 

But this isn’t the only news here. Many firefighters we know 

have commented that they are facing more extreme fire behavior 

than they have ever witnessed, and among fire scientists there is 

a broad consensus that the fire frequency and size and severity will 

continue to occur. 

So weather does drive a lot of these fire events. We are experiencing weather phenomena that are unprecedented in the historical record. And because of these changing patterns, as many people pointed out here, the wildfire season in the West is roughly 78 

days longer than in 1987, a really profound change. 


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This is taxing on the endurance of the firefighting crews and 

draining budgets of land management agencies, as we have heard. 

Because of this behavior, firefighters have been forced to change 

firefighting tactics. Perimeter control and its tactics of anchor, 

flank, and hold fires have been almost futile in megafires. Firefighters in the northern Rockies had to give up aggressively fighting fires because it was extremely unsafe and almost completely ineffective. Instead, they have adopted a strategy of indirect attack 

and point protection to make sure individual homes and communities are protected. And they are forced to light very large backfires that were also burning with high severity. 

Meanwhile, communities are sprawling into high danger areas. 

With severe weather conditions, firefighters are often unable to 

keep fire from spreading into vulnerable communities. And this 

will be a factor all over the country, not just the West. Unfortunately, development patterns and the designs of homes rarely consider wildland fires at this point, and this is putting both homeowners and firefighters in harm’s way. 

Firefighters are rightly becoming unwilling to risk their lives to 

protect individual homes that are located in absurdly indefensible 

locations like at the top of narrow chimney canyons or built with 

highly combustible materials or completely surrounded by dense, 

flammable vegetation. 

There are two kinds of fire requiring two very different sets of 

fire policies. Fire management policies need to distinguish between 

back country wildland, many of which are comprised of fire-adapted ecosystems, and front country communities with built environments, many of which are largely unprepared for fire. 

Conflating wildland fire policies and urban policies will lead to 

inappropriate forest management and ineffective community protection policies. Stated simply, if our homes and communities were 

far more fire resistant, we would have it as a tool rather than an 

enemy in the back country. Ecological restoration programs could 

carefully reintroduce fire to prescribed burning and wildland burning use. 

However, some of my colleagues speculate that we have perhaps 

a 10-year window to reintroduce fire at a landscape scale and still 

have effective control over fire behavior, but beyond that, we may 

lose this control due to climate changes and the temperature 

changes as pointed out here. 

In rural communities, it is getting late now even to address some 

of these needs for land use zoning, revised building codes and enforceable vegetation management ordinances. Climate change is 

going to create more fire-prone environments. 

We have to break the cycle of new homes being rebuilt in the 

same places with the same materials as the homes that were destroyed by the last fire. Ideally, our goal should be to create a fireproof set of structures that are able to dwell sustainably in a firepermeable landscape. 

We need to be proactive, not reactive, to manage wildland fires 

in a changing climate. Our traditional strategies that focused on 

prevention and suppression have become increasingly ineffective 

and unsustainable. 


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Large wildfires defy our ability to put them out. They often burn 

until the weather changes. The attempt to extinguish all fires has, 

in fact, caused huge costs to taxpayers, significant environmental 

damage, and put firefighters at unnecessary risk. 

It is important to acknowledge that there are forces in nature 

that cannot be controlled and perhaps megafires should be viewed 

like hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, natural disturbances that we must adapt to since we can’t prevent them. This 

is not fatalism, but instead a plea for realism and a change from 

reactive fire suppression to proactive fire management. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank the witness. The witness’ time has expired. And you will have plenty of time in the question-and-answer 

period to expound upon your points. 

[The statement of Mr. Medler follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness, Michael Francis, is the Deputy 

Vice President for Public Policy and the Director of the National 

Forest Program at The Wilderness Society. He is a nationally recognized expert on these issues. 

We recognize you, Mr. Francis. Whenever you are ready, please 

begin. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL FRANCIS, DIRECTOR OF FOREST 

PROGRAMS AND DEPUTY VICE PRESIDENT, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY, ACCOMPANIED BY TOM DeLUCA, SENIOR SCIENTIST 

Mr. FRANCIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I am accompanied today by Mr. Tom DeLuca, who is sitting 

behind me here, who is going to be available to answer questions 

that go well beyond my pay grade. 

First, our thoughts are with all of those whose lives, homes, and 

livelihoods were threatened by the recent fires. We also salute the 

firefighters, risking their lives, as well as the many community volunteers that helped the affected communities. Their efforts, bravery and determination to demonstrate that American sense of community is alive and well. 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, there are five key 

points that The Wilderness Society would like to leave you with 

today. 

Number one, wildfire is a regular and healthy occurrence in a 

forest ecosystem. Our forests have evolved over the last 10,000 

years on the North American continent, and fire has been a critical 

ecological process. We have learned that we cannot stop the fires 

and we cannot exclude them from the forest. And slowly, I think, 

the country is beginning to understand that we must be fire tolerant in fire-dependent ecosystems. 

Second, our climate is changing, as we had a distinguished panel 

member here state about the impact of temperature increase and 

water regimes. One of the points I pick out from the IPC report is 

its projection that precipitation will decrease in the southern 

U.S.—southwestern U.S.—and will cause drought through much of 

the 21st century. Historically, increases in fire—fire increases correspond to warmer, drier periods. 

Three, climate change makes forests more susceptible to changes 

in wildland fire behavior and in the seasons. Warmer winters contribute to summer drought. Reductions in snowpack depth and duration alter timing and volumes of water runoff, leading to longer 

summer droughts, larger water deficits and more severe fire seasons. 

The changing climate in fire behavior calls for changing U.S. Forest Service management policy direction to one of ecological restoration, stewardship to restore and maintain forest resiliency in 

the face of global warming. 

Four, wildland fire in the long term is at least carbon neutral 

and potentially positive—or negative. I am sorry, negative. 

Harvesting trees will not stop fires; such harvests avert the 

causes or impacts of climate change. There is cycled carbon and 

noncycled carbon. Forest carbon represents the type that constantly 

cycles through the environment such as the carbon that humans 


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exhale and wildfires release. Fossil fuels represent the type that 

nature permanently stores in the Earth. 

All carbon released in a fire has been cycling back and forth between the forest and the atmosphere for a millennium. Fire 

changes the location and the state of the carbon in the system, but 

it does not change the amount. 

About 5 to 10 percent of biomass killed by wildland fire is converted into charcoal, a uniquely stable form of carbon which will 

remain stored for thousands of years. Also, forest regeneration 

after fires recaptures carbon lost during the fires; in other words, 

over the long run, fire may help forests store carbon, not release 

it. 

Five, targeting fuels reduction around communities can reduce 

the threat of wildland fire to people, their homes, and their communities. The wildland fire triangle says that three factors could affect 

fire behavior—topography, weather, and fuels. 

Though weather will increasingly play the trump card in influencing fire behavior, managing fuels will continue to be important. 

Research shows that hazardous fuels reduction treatments in appropriate types of fire regimes and locations are often effective in 

decreasing the severity of subsequent fires. However, it is not feasible nor recommended that all forests be thinned. 

Faced with decades of long fire seasons and the near certainty 

of large blazes across the landscape, it is more important now than 

ever before to apply the tools of hazardous fuels reduction surgically and scientifically. Without exception, the first priority of 

hazardous fuel reduction and fire management should be keeping 

families safe and protecting communities. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Francis follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Francis, very much. 

The Chair will now recognize himself for a round of questions. 

I asked Chief Kimbell on the first panel if she considered global 

warming’s impact on wildfires a threat to the public welfare. I 

would like to ask each of you if you could briefly tell me if you believe that it is. 

Dr. Running. 

Mr. RUNNING. I think there is no question that as we look at the 

climate trends that we are documenting, we look at the projected 

trends that the GCMs predict for the future, and we see the current acceleration of wildfire and the acceleration of people building 

homes in fire-prone areas, it all just adds up to this issue getting 

bigger and bigger. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Medler, please. 

Mr. MEDLER. I would like to concur with Dr. Running. There is 

a whole set of complicated issues that come together, but clearly 

most of the models and many of our predictions indicate we are 

going to be seeing increased fire behavior, fire severity. 

The CHAIRMAN. Because of global warming? 

Mr. MEDLER. I am willing to say that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Francis. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I would say ditto to what my colleagues have said. 

It is one aspect that we are going to see as a result of global warming, so it is a threat as global warming is a threat. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, again, we had an online question that came 

in, and that was from a gentleman in Missouri who e-mailed us a 

question. 

It was: As experts in fire science or forest policy, do you worry 

about the expansion of wildfires across the country to areas that 

have not typically experienced them and may be unprepared to 

deal with them? 

And relate it to global warming, please. 

Dr. Running. 

Mr. RUNNING. Yes. I think we are already seeing areas that have 

not had historical fire, that with forests under more stress, this is 

an expectation that you would get from ecosystem theory. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Medler. 

Mr. MEDLER. Well, yeah. 

To continue, there is plenty of evidence that we are seeing these 

changes in fire behavior. There are also land management issues 

that have left large fuel buildups in some areas, not such a significant problem in others. And climate change, in particular, will 

make a lot of these areas vulnerable to fire beyond our historical 

expectations, and in many areas where we may not be used to seeing it quite as often as before. 

I worked previously in New Jersey and we were getting surprised by large fires. 

The CHAIRMAN. And you relate that to global warming? 

Mr. MEDLER. That was 5, 6 years ago. I am hesitant to do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Francis. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I would like to refer that answer to Tom DeLuca. 

Mr. DELUCA. My name is Tom DeLuca. I am a senior scientist 

with The Wilderness Society. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 


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Mr. DELUCA. As Dr. Steve Running had pointed out, temperatures are increasing with climate change, and we have associated 

with that temperature change the same ecosystems that had existed in these locations under lower temperatures. 

So the long and short of it is, yes, we are going to see higher biomass—we have higher biomass; that what exists in that temperature and that environment and those ecosystems will experience 

fires that would not be characteristic. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Mr. Francis, some people have alleged that 

environmental groups are somehow responsible for the increase in 

wildfire because they have blocked projects to remove brush or to 

do controlled burns in order to protect the rest of the forests. But 

in 2003, the GAO found that 97 percent of these types of projects 

go forward without any opposition at all. 

How would you respond to the allegations that litigation by environmental groups is actually responsible for the wildfires? 

Mr. FRANCIS. I would respond by saying, look at the GAO report. 

The fact is, 97 percent of these projects make it through in the time 

that is set out by the law. A few do get litigated because they are 

bad projects. They are not projects that are supportable by science 

or the public. I mean, the Chief talked about the public dialogue 

and the public being involved in looking at what happens around 

their communities, and therefore, you need to involve that public. 

And the Forest Service has a good record of having an appeal 

record that allows the public to participate when they strongly disagree. That is part of the process. It doesn’t really delay anything 

on their project. 

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Running, could you respond to that, briefly? 

Mr. RUNNING. I really have nothing more to add than what I see 

around Montana. And that is that there are—occasionally have 

been appeals that take a number of years to work through for 

things like salvage logging after fires and the value of the timbers 

then lost while the appeal process goes through. 

But those, I don’t have specific knowledge of the details on those. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Running. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington state, Mr. 

Inslee. 

Mr. INSLEE. Thank you all, and I want to welcome Dr. Medler 

from Western Washington. If you ever see a kid named Joe on campus, tell him to do his homework. 

And you have some great students up there who have been working on clean energy issues. I am going to be talking to them about 

this book, Apollo’s Fire, about a clean energy future for the country; and I note that because my sort of sense of your professional 

work—and I really appreciate your professional work, all three of 

you, in this regard. 

But I really do believe as long as global warming continues to 

ravage these forests, there is really nothing that is going to significantly change the devastation occurring as long as we have these 

huge changes in the climactic system. And if that is true, it is incumbent upon us to develop a clean energy system that will indeed 

stop global warming to save these forests. 

And when I say ‘‘save’’ them, I gotta tell you, it is just astounding to me. You know, we talk about this academically, but when 


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you are up there in the mountains and you see mile after mile after 

mile of dead trees, it is stunning. And I have been hiking those 

places for 56 years. 

So I guess I will ask for your comments on that position. Is that 

really the fundamental thing we have to do to save these forests, 

which is to stop this human-caused climactic change? And I would 

ask for any of your comments. 

Mr. MEDLER. I would chime in, agreeing with Mr. Francis here, 

that we have a complicated situation in that fire and ecosystem 

processes are just a part of this. As you are pointing out, in a global climate change situation, if we don’t deal with the climate 

change itself, we are going to be stuck with immensely problematic 

forest issues. We have estimates as high as 190 million acres that 

are in need of some sort of treatment, and this includes the kinds 

of forests you are talking about. 

And I am also very familiar with literally hundreds of acres, 

hundreds of thousands of acres at times, of what look like dead 

trees. Those are massive numbers. One hundred ninety acres is not 

the kind of area that you can thin by hand and clear out. Fire is 

the process we are going to need to reintroduce to do a lot of that 

treatment, but that is extraordinarily complicated because of policies that put housing digitized in there that is completely 

unprotectable. 

So one of the critical elements is to let us use fire as a tool where 

it can help, and to do that, we need to protect communities. 

As for your question about global climate change itself, I would 

concur that we need to deal with the imbalances that Mr. Francis 

was talking about. The globe as a system has got a certain amount 

of carbon in the biosphere and the atmosphere for quite some time, 

and that is what we are changing now by reintroducing carbon that 

can be tens, hundreds of millions years old, changing the total balance of the system and changing temperatures that allow insects 

to have two reproductive cycles or maybe, more importantly, survive through the winter. 

In Canada, directly north of where I live, there are massive areas 

of insect damage, fire waiting to happen. There are literally millions of acres of dead trees, as you were pointing out; it is staggering when you drive through these large areas. And they can be 

directly attributed to what seemed like subtle temperature 

changes, just enough to allow insects to survive the winter. 

Mr. INSLEE. I heard—or maybe I read it—that fire season has increased 78 days. Is that correct? What percentage of increase is 

that? I don’t know how many days a fire season is. 

Mr. RUNNING. Well, a fire season is obviously different in different climates, but that is on the order of a 20 to 30 percent increase in the number of days; and we expect another 20 or 30 percent increase with the climate model projections for the future. 

So we are in the middle of the trend that has been progressing 

for 30 to 40 years, and there is no reason to believe it is going to 

slow down with any of the climate model projections we see. 

Mr. INSLEE. Well, I think that suggests that we need to get going 

in Washington, D.C., to do something about climate change. And I 

have to tell you, we are on the cusp of doing that. We are making 


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some progress here. We need a President who won’t stand in the 

way of progress to save these forests. 

And I appreciate that you are trying to spread the word about 

this, because not only is a forest going to burn, but we are going 

to have people on that interface in danger, too. 

So thank you for your professional work. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Cleaver. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like for the three of you—to get the comments from the 

three of you on this issue. 

I have always been fascinated by—hopefully, it wasn’t cynicism, 

but I have always been fascinated by people who build their homes 

on cliffs and then seem stunned when they fall during a mudslide. 

I mean, maybe it is because I can’t afford to build one. But it is 

amazing to me. 

And I am now becoming a little concerned about people who 

build their homes in areas that are prone to wildfires, previously, 

now the megafires. 

And the concern is more than for the home. If the wildfires represent about 10 percent of the greenhouse gases, as is being suggested by the science, that is one level of a problem that has an 

adverse effect on human beings. But the one that is troubling me 

more is the prospect of airborne particles that result from a wildfire that the PM–10, the 10 micrometers and smaller particles that 

come up, that apparently a mask cannot filter. They are so small 

that they penetrate the masks that are being used in the area to 

protect human beings. 

Do you think we are going to approach a time when we might 

need to discourage people from living in areas that could be ignited 

quickly where a mega wildfire could start? 

We have got the greenhouse emissions and now the micro particles that—I am not sure what kind of medical damage that is 

doing. It can’t—it is not going to be helpful. 

So do any of you have— 

Mr. RUNNING. Well, let me first address the immediate public 

health issue you bring up. 

In Missoula, Montana, this summer, for over a month we were 

under a—first, a Stage One, and then I think we reached a Stage 

Two air pollution alert from the wildfires. And this meant that all 

of the football teams weren’t practicing, they were encouraging people with breathing problems to stay indoors. 

I mean, this went on for weeks and weeks in our community, a 

very immediate public health issue because of the wildfires’ smoke. 

So there is no doubt that when you are in these wildfires and in 

the downwind of these smoke plumes, it is an immediate health 

issue for the public. 

I think the longer term of where we have structures built, it is 

very much like people building all of the coastline houses in the 

hurricane areas with sea level rise. The same thing. We have allowed structures to be built in places that are nondefensible, and 


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I think we are reaching that same sort of issue in the forested land 

around the country with this fire issue now. 

And I think while I have the mike, I will certainly reiterate also 

in the long run, only reducing our fossil fuel emissions is going to 

get us ahead of this problem. 

Mr. CLEAVER. So, yeah, essentially you are saying that there 

could be some damage to the human creature as well as the other 

creatures and that, you know, being the United States, we have the 

constitutional right to be stupid. 

Mr. RUNNING. That is correct. 

Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. We thank each of our witnesses. 

Let’s ask you to do this, in reverse order, and I will tell you what 

we will do: We will allow the gentleman accompanying you, Mr. 

Francis, to also give us—give us the 1 minute you want us to each 

remember about this relationship between global warming and 

wildfires. And try to summarize in 1 minute the parting shot that 

you want us to each remember. 

Mr. DELUCA. Climate change is causing an increase in the occurrence and size of wildfires in the United States. Wildfire, on the 

other hand, is a natural process that is necessary in our forest environments. Wildfires should be allowed to burn in natural landscapes that are far from the community zone and that have the opportunity to reinvigorate those forests and reduce the fuel loading 

in those forests over the long term and maintain the healthy vigorous forests that Gail Kimbell referred to today. 

Intense efforts should be made in the wild land urban interface 

to reduce the fuel loading and protect those structures and the fire 

fighters and people’s lives. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Francis. 

Mr. FRANCIS. I will pick up from where Tom left off about the 

wild land urban interface. We need to be—in this next century, in 

order to protect our population and protect the people, we need to 

be concentrating our resources into the wild land urban interface 

in and around these communities. We also need to be providing resources to the local communities to be able to help themselves, and 

doing that through the State Fire Assistance Program is one of the 

things that we mentioned in our testimony. The fact is, communities working together and doing the planning for their own protection and their own survival is an important aspect. And it is 

where you get that type of project that doesn’t get appealed when 

you have the community participation collaboration. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Dr. Medler. 

Mr. MEDLER. Well, I would like to continue off some of those 

thoughts and go back to some of the questions. We have huge areas 

in the back country that are going to burn, proscribed fire, controlled fire would probably involve less smoke. And there is a tricky 

decision that is going to need to be made there. 

Last year, the San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and 

Fire Management was formally ratified at the third International 

Fire Ecology and Management Congress. So we had over 1,200 people there, scientists and managers. This historic document really 


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presents a synopsis of the best available science and efforts of climate change and wildfire scientists, and we provide with that a list 

of action items. And I would like to enter the full San Diego Declaration into the record along with my testimony. 

[The information follows:] 


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The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be included. And I 

thank you, Dr. Medler. It will be included in the record. 

Dr. Running, the final word. 

Mr. RUNNING. And the final word. I think what all of us as IPCC 

authors want to make clear to the public is that this warming 

trend we are on is human induced. We are already seeing the early 

signs of a whole scale transition of our entire landscape. Really 

what we are seeing with these wildfires is a natural process where 

a dryer ecosystem ends up being replaced because it can’t be supported with the current climate that is now occurring. And the only 

way we are ever going to get ahead of this issue is to reduce our 

fossil fuel emissions down to rebalance the global carbon budget. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dr. Running. And again, congratulations on the role you played in helping the United Nations win the 

Nobel Peace Prize. 

And we thank each of you for your contribution here today. This 

is a subject that I think over the next year we are going to return 

over and over again. It is a central part of the whole story line of 

global warming, the causation by human beings and its effect subsequently on human beings yet again. So we thank you. And with 

that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:38 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 


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