GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

United States General Accounting Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

May 14, 2003 

Congressional Requesters 

Subject: Forest Service: Information on Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction 

 Activities 

Human activities—especially the federal government’s decades-old policy of 

suppressing all wildland fires—have resulted in dangerous accumulations of brush, 

small trees, and other vegetation on federal lands. This vegetation has increasingly 

provided fuel for large, intense wildland fires, particularly in the dry, interior western 

United States. 

The scale and intensity of the fires in the 2000 wildland fire season made it one of the 

worst in 50 years. That season capped a decade characterized by dramatic increases 

in the number of wildland fires and the costs of suppressing them. These fires have 

also posed special risks to communities in the wildland-urban interface—where 

human development meets or intermingles with undeveloped wildland—as well as to 

watersheds and other resources, such as threatened and endangered species, clean 

water, and clean air. 

The centerpiece of the federal response to the growing threat of wildland fires has 

been the development of the National Fire Plan. This plan advocates a new approach 

to wildland fires by shifting emphasis from the reactive to the proactive—from 

attempting to suppress wildland fires to reducing the buildup of hazardous vegetation 

that fuels fires. The plan recognizes that unless these fuels are reduced, the number 

of severe wildland fires and the costs associated with suppressing them will continue 

to increase. Implementation of the National Fire Plan began in fiscal year 2001; full 

implementation of the plan is expected to be a long-term, multibillion-dollar effort. 

Reducing the buildup of hazardous forest fuels is typically accomplished through a 

number of treatment methods. Most often, federal land managers use controlled fires 

(prescribed burns) or mechanical treatments such as chainsaws, chippers, mulchers 

and bulldozers. Other means include using livestock grazing and herbicides. On 

federal lands, these activities are managed by five agencies: the National Park 

Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs, all within the Department of the Interior, and the Forest 

Service within the Department of Agriculture. 
Page 2 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction

In fiscal year 2001, the first year the National Fire Plan was in effect, the Congress 

substantially increased funding for hazardous forest fuels reduction—from $108 

million in FY 2000 to $401 million in FY 2001. The Congress continued this increased 

funding level for 2002 and 2003. Among the federal agencies, the Forest Service 

receives, by far, the largest portion of these funds. 

Since the National Fire Plan began emphasizing the need to reduce forest fuels 

buildup and the Congress has supported this initiative with substantially increased 

funding, concerns have been raised about delays in implementing forest fuels 

reduction projects. Essentially, these concerns focus on whether Forest Service 

decisions to implement specific forest fuels reduction activities are being delayed by 

the appeals and litigation of these decisions. 

In August 2001, we were asked to report on some limited aspects of this issue. We 

provided this information to the congressional requesters on August 31, 2001.1

 In 

2002, the Forest Service also analyzed specific aspects of this issue and provided its 

findings to the Congress.2

 While the subject of these reports was the same, the 

specific objectives and scope of the analyses differed considerably. Not 

unexpectedly, these differences led to different analytical results. Accordingly, in the 

summer of 2002, you asked us to perform a more comprehensive analysis of the 

issue.3

Specifically, you asked us to determine 

• the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and the number 

of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002, 

• the number of decisions that were appealed and/or litigated and the 

number of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002, 

• the outcomes of the appealed and/or litigated decisions and the names of 

the appellants and plaintiffs, 

• whether the appeals were processed within prescribed time frames, 

• the number of acres treated or planned to be treated by each of the fuels 

reduction methods,4

 and 

• the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities in the wildlandurban interface and inventoried roadless areas.5

To respond to your request, we conducted a Web-based survey of all 155 national 

forests. The survey focused on all Forest Service decisions with a forest fuels 

 

1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Forest Service: Appeals and Litigation of Fuels Reduction Projects, 

GAO-01-1114R (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 2001). 

2

U.S. Forest Service, Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatments Decisions (Washington, 

D.C.: July 2002). 

3

 We received a request from Representative McInnis and Senators Craig and Smith in July 2002. We 

received a separate request from Senator Bingaman in August 2002. 

4

 The same acreage can be the subject of more than one decision. 

5

 Inventoried roadless areas are defined in 36 C.F.R. part 294 subpart B as “areas identified in a set of 

inventoried roadless area maps, contained in Forest Service Roadless Area Conservation, Final 

Environmental Impact Statement, volume 2, dated November 2000.” 
Page 3 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

reduction component that were issued in fiscal years 2001 and 2002.6 We obtained a 

100 percent response rate from the national forests, and we have partially completed 

our verification of 10 percent of the reported decisions for accuracy. 

In discussions with your staffs, we agreed to provide you with a briefing on the 

preliminary results of our work, with a final report to follow when we have 

completed our analysis and verification. This briefing occurred on May 9, 2003. As 

we pointed out at the briefing, there are some limitations to the information provided. 

First, we have not yet completed our verification work, so some of the preliminary 

information in the briefing and this report may change. However, on the basis of the 

partial verification work we have done, we do not anticipate significant changes to 

the reported information. Further, as with any survey, the information obtained from 

the national forests was self-reported, and we were not able to independently ensure 

that all decisions were reported. In addition, the Forest Service does not have a 

common definition of a fuels reduction activity. Accordingly, if the Forest Service 

decision documents explicitly stated that the purpose of an activity was fuels 

reduction, we accepted it. Likewise, if the decision documents did not include an 

explicit discussion of fuels reduction, we did not include the decision in our analysis. 

Finally, the Forest Service does not have a uniformly applied definition of the 

wildland-urban interface. Consequently, individual forests may have their own 

definition or no definition at all which could result in inconsistent data. 

Enclosure II contains the information we provided during our May 9, 2003, briefing 

with your office. This report briefly summarizes our preliminary answers to your 

questions. 

In brief, the national forests reported the following: 

• 762 decisions involved fuels reduction activities in FY 2001 and FY 2002. The 

fuels reduction activities in these decisions covered 4.7 million acres. The 

national forests originally reported 851 decisions involving fuels reduction 

activities. Of these, we eliminated 67 because respondents did not identify fuels 

reduction as a stated purpose of the activities. We also eliminated 22 decisions 

because they may not have been issued in FY 2001 or FY 2002. 

• 180 decisions were appealed affecting 900,000 acres. These decisions represented 

24 percent of all decisions or 59 percent of appealable decisions. Generally, 

decisions that were categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an 

environmental impact statement are not appealable; 457 decisions covering 3 

million acres were not appealable. Conversely, decisions that were issued after 

preparation of an environmental assessment or an environmental impact 

statement are appealable; 305 decisions covering 1.7 million acres were 

appealable. All decisions can be litigated; 23, or 3 percent of decisions were 

litigated, affecting 100,000 acres. 

• The outcomes of the 180 appealed decisions and 23 litigated decisions are as 

follows: 

 

6

 Our work focused only on national forests, national grasslands were not included. 
Page 4 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction

o Of the 180 appealed decisions,7

 

• 133 required no change before implementation (i.e., the Forest 

Service affirmed its original decision); 

• 16 were modified to some degree (i.e., the Forest Service allowed 

the decision to be implemented with changes); 

• 19 were reversed (i.e., the Forest Service did not allow the decision 

to be implemented); and 

• 12 were withdrawn by the Forest Service, but it was unclear if 

changes were required. 

• 84 interest groups and 39 private individuals appeared as appellants 

in FY 2001 and FY 2002. 

o Of the 23 litigated decisions, 

• 10 were still in the courts at the time of our survey; 

• 5 were settled by agreement of the parties; 

• 3 were reversed, overturning the Forest Service’s decision; 

• 1 was upheld by the court; and 

• the outcomes of 4 were unknown because the respondents did not 

report their status. 

• 27 interest groups and one private individual appeared as plaintiffs 

in the litigated decisions. 

• The national forests processed 79 percent of appeals within the prescribed 90-

day time frame. The national forests reported many reasons for exceeding the 

90-day time limit 21 percent of the time, including the following: in general, 

staffing was inadequate; insufficient staff were available around the holiday 

season; appeals were backlogged; and settlement of some appeals was 

imminent. 

• The national forests planned to use prescribed burning on 3.3 million acres 

and mechanical treatments on 800,000 acres. In addition, the national forests 

reported using other methods on 1.1 million acres (mostly because of an 

annual firewood removal program at one forest). Because the same acreage 

can be treated by more than one method, the sum is greater than the total 

acreage treated. 

• The national forests issued 464 decisions involving fuels reduction activities in 

the wildland-urban interface covering 1.5 million acres of planned treatments. 

Of these, 163 were appealable, and 84 were appealed. 73 decisions involved 

fuels reduction activities in inventoried roadless areas covering 200,000 acres 

of planned treatments. Of these 73 decisions, 39 were appealable, and 24 were 

appealed. 

 

7

 We have not yet analyzed to what extent activities planned under the reversed and withdrawn 

decisions still occurred after problems leading to the reversal or withdrawl were resolved. 
Page 5 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

We provided a draft of this report to the Forest Service for its review and comment. 

The Forest Service generally agreed with the information presented in the report. In 

commenting on the report, however, the Forest Service had one major concern. 

Specifically, the agency believes that we should not have included a 1 million acre 

personal use firewood program at one forest in the material presented because, in 

their opinion, it unnecessarily skews the data by increasing the amount of acreage 

with fuel reduction activities. However, we did not change the report to omit the 

information because, as the Forest Service agrees, it was reported and documented 

as a fuels reduction project by the agency. Nonetheless, in the interest of full 

disclosure, we highlighted the unique nature of the project in the information we are 

providing, as appropriate. In addition, the agency provided some editorial comments 

that we considered in finalizing the report. 

- - - - - 

As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we 

plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after the date of this report. At 

that time, we will send copies to the Secretary of Agriculture; the Chief of the Forest 

Service; the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other interested parties. 

We will make copies available to others upon request. This report will also be 

available on GAO’s home page at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact me at (202) 

512-3841 or Cliff Fowler at (202) 512-8029. Major contributors to this report include 

Carolyn Boyce, Curtis Groves, Roy Judy, Nicole Shivers, Patrick Sigl, and Shana 

Wallace. 

Barry T. Hill 

Director, Natural Resources 

and Environment 

Enclosure 
Page 6 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction

List of Requesters 

The Honorable Scott McInnis 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests 

 and Forest Health 

Committee on Resources 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Larry E. Craig 

Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Lands 

 and Forests 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Jeff Bingaman 

Ranking Member, Committee on Energy 

 and Natural Resources 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Gordon Smith 

United States Senate 
Enclosure 

Page 7 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

1

Briefing for Congressional Requesters

Information on Forest Service Decisions Involving Fuels 

Reduction Activities
Enclosure 

Page 8 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

2

Background

• Decades of well-intended fire management policies have resulted in 

dangerous accumulations of brush, small trees and other 

hazardous vegetation (i.e. forest fuels) on federal lands.

• These accumulations of forest materials have increasingly provided 

fuel for large, intense wildfires that all too often become 

catastrophic and result in the loss of life and property. 

• As a result, addressing the threat of catastrophic wildfires has

become an overarching theme in managing national forests. 

• The policy and management principles guiding the nation’s efforts 

in addressing this danger are provided in the National Fire Plan. 

Reducing the buildup of forest fuels is a central component of this 

initiative.
Enclosure 

Page 9 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

3

Background (cont.)

• To carry out forest fuels reduction activities, the Forest Service 

must comply with the requirements of the National Environmental 

Policy Act (NEPA), as well as other statutes.

• NEPA requires the Forest Service, and all other federal agencies, 

to assess the environmental impacts of their major actions that 

significantly affect environmental quality. 

• As part of the NEPA process, the Forest Service generally 

publishes a document—referred to as a decision document—

detailing the specific activities to be implemented. This document 

can include activities to reduce forest fuels.

• Under certain circumstances the public can appeal decision 

documents. An appeal is a written document filed with a 

designated forest service official objecting to a decision. The

designated forest service official renders a decision on the appeal. 

In addition, the public can file a lawsuit with a federal district court 

objecting to a decision. 
Enclosure 

Page 10 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

4

Background (cont.)

• Each decision can include many activities, such as those aimed at 

reducing forest fuels.

• In response to the National Fire Plan, the Congress appropriated

hundreds of millions of dollars for the Forest Service to undertake 

fuels reduction activities.

• Controversy has arisen about whether the appeals and litigation of 

Forest Service decisions delays the implementation of fuels 

reduction activities.

• Recent legislative and administrative proposals would revise the

appeals process or exempt certain fuels reduction activities from it.
Enclosure 

Page 11 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

5

Objectives

We were asked to provide information on:

1) The number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and

the number of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002

2) The number of decisions that were appealed and/or litigated and 

the number of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002

3) The outcomes of the appealed and/or litigated decisions and the 

names of the appellants and plaintiffs 

4) Whether appeals are processed within prescribed time frames

5) The number of acres treated or planned to be treated by each of 

the fuels reduction methods

6) Decisions involving fuels reduction activities in wildland-urban 

interface and inventoried roadless areas
Enclosure 

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6

Scope and Methodology

• The Forest Service has no national database of fuels reduction 

decisions, appeals, or litigation.

• We consulted with Forest Service headquarters, regional, and 

national forest officials on where needed information resides.

• We conducted a web-based survey of all 155 national forests to 

collect data on decisions issued in fiscal years 2001 and 2002 – the 

first 2 years of activity under the National Fire Plan. We did not 

include national grasslands in our analysis.

• We had a 100% response rate.

• We sampled 10% of the reported decisions to verify the accuracy of 

reported data.

• We have not yet completed our verification work. On the basis of 

work done so far, we do not anticipate any major problems with 

data accuracy.
Enclosure 

Page 13 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

7

Scope and Methodology

• The national forests originally reported 851 decisions involving fuels 

reduction activities. Of these, we eliminated 

• 67 because respondents did not identify fuels reduction as a 

purpose of the project. We have not yet analyzed why 

respondents did not identify these decisions as having fuels 

reduction activities. 

• 22 because they may not have been issued within the time 

frame we were analyzing. We have not completed verification 

to ascertain when these decisions were signed.
Enclosure 

Page 14 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

8

Limitations/Caveats

• Information obtained from the national forests was self-reported. 

Therefore, we have no independent assurance that all decisions 

were reported.

• The Forest Service does not have a common definition of a fuels 

reduction activity. 

• If documentation described the activity as fuels reduction, we 

accepted it in our analysis.

• Although the Forest Service published a general definition of the 

the wildland-urban interface in the federal register, it is not uniformly 

applied to all national forests. 

• Because verification is incomplete, some numbers presented in this 

briefing may change. 
Enclosure 

Page 15 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

9

Results in Brief

• The national forests reported:

• 762 decisions involving fuels reduction activities covering 

4.7M acres. 457 decisions (60% of all decisions) covering 

3M acres were not appealable, and 305 decisions covering 

1.7M acres were appealable.

• 180 decisions were appealed (0.9M acres) representing 

59% of appealable decisions or 24% of all decisions; 23, or 

3% of all decisions, were litigated (0.1M acres). 

• Of those appealed, 133 decisions required no change before 

implementation; 35 required changes; and 12 were 

withdrawn and it is unclear whether changes were required. 

Of those litigated, many were still in the courts at the time of

our analysis; many appellants/litigants were interest groups.
Enclosure 

Page 16 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

10

Results in Brief (cont.)

• 79% of appeals were processed within the prescribed 90-

day time frame. Reasons given for not processing the 

appeals within 90-days included inadequate staffing, 

availability of staff around the holiday season, appeal 

backlog, and settlement of the appeal was imminent.

• 3.3M acres were treated, or treatment was planned using 

prescribed burning; 0.8M acres using mechanical methods; 

1.1M using other means (mostly due to firewood removal at 

one forest). Because the same acreage can be treated by 

more than one method, the sum is greater than the total 

acreage treated.

• 464 decisions (1.5M acres) involved fuels reduction activities 

in the wildland-urban interface; 73 decisions (0.2M acres) 

involved such activities in inventoried roadless areas.
Enclosure 

Page 17 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

11

Objective 1: Number of decisions and acres 

affected

In FY 2001 and FY 2002, there were 762 decisions involving fuels

reduction activities.

• There are three kinds of decisions.

• Those that were categorically excluded (CE) from the 

preparation of an environmental assessment (EA) or an 

environmental impact statement (EIS). CEs are generally not 

appealable. 

• Those for which an EA was prepared. 

• Those for which an EIS was prepared.
Enclosure 

Page 18 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

12

Objective 1 (cont.)

Decisions and acreage by decision type:

64 30 6 100 %of total 

acres

3M 1.4M 0.3M 4.7M No. of 

acres

60 34 6 100 % of total 

decisions

457 256 49 762 No. of 

decisions

CEs EAs EISs Total a

aOne activity covered by a CE treats approximately 1M acres under an annual program to allow 

private individuals to collect firewood. 
Enclosure 

Page 19 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

13

Objective 1 (cont.) Figure 1: Total decisions and acres, by Forest 

Service region
Enclosure 

Page 20 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

14

Objective 1 (cont.) Figure 2: Regional data on decisions
Enclosure 

Page 21 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

15

Objective 1(cont.) Figure 3: Regional data on acres
Enclosure 

Page 22 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

16

Objective 2: Number of decisions appealed 

and/or litigated and acreage affected

Appealed decisions and acreage:

• Of 762 decisions, 305 were appealable.

• Generally, decisions covered by CEs are not appealable. 

• Decisions covered by EAs and EISs are appealable.

• 180 decisions were appealed (59% of appealable decisions or 24% 

of all decisions).

• 63 decisions were appealed more than once—at least 267 appeals 

on the 180 decisions.

• The appealed decisions covered 0.9M acres.
Enclosure 

Page 23 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

17

Objective 2 (cont.) Figure 4: Appeal rates of all decisions and

appealable decisions by region
Enclosure 

Page 24 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

18

Objective 2 (cont.)

Litigated decisions and acreage:

• Of the 762 decisions:

• 23 were litigated (3%) covering 0.1M acres.

• All decisions can be litigated.

• None of the 457 CEs were litigated.

• 23 of the 305 decisions covered by EAs and EISs were 

litigated covering 0.1M acres.
Enclosure 

Page 25 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

19

Objective 2 (cont.) Figure 5: Decisions, appeals, and litigation by 

region
Enclosure 

Page 26 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

20

Objective 3: The outcomes of the appealed and/or litigated 

decisions and the names of the appellants and plaintiffs

Appeal Outcomes

• Of the 180 appealed decisions:

• 133 required no change before implementation. 

• 16 were modified to some degree (i.e., the Forest Service 

allowed the decision to be implemented with changes).

• 19 were reversed (i.e., the Forest Service did not allow the 

decision to be implemented). 

• 12 were withdrawn (the Forest Service withdrew the decision, 

but it was unclear if changes were required). 
Enclosure 

Page 27 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

21

Objective 3 (cont.)

Appellants

• A decision can be appealed multiple times. There were at least 267 

appeals on the 180 appealed decisions. About 84 interest groups and 39 

private individuals appeared as appellants in the 267 appeals.

• Multiple appellants can appear as parties to an appeal. The 84 interest 

groups appeared about 432 times as parties to the appeals. The 39 private 

individuals appeared about 48 times as parties to the appeals. 

• Of the interest groups:

• 7 groups each appeared as appellants 20 or more times: the Alliance for Wild Rockies, Ecology Center, Forest Conservation Council, Lands 

Council, National Forest Protection Alliance, Oregon Natural Resources Council, and Sierra Club.

• Interest groups were most active in Forest Service’s Northern, Pacific 

Southwest, and Pacific Northwest regions--regions 1, 5, and 6 respectively.
Enclosure 

Page 28 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

22

Objective 3 (cont)

Litigation outcomes

• Of the 23 litigated decisions:

• 10 were still in litigation at the time of the survey. 

• 5 were settled by agreement of the parties.

• 3 were reversed, overturning the Forest Service’s decision; the 

Forest Service has appealed one of these to a higher court.

• 1 was upheld by the court, allowing the Forest Service to 

proceed with the decision.

• 4 are unknown because the respondents did not report 

outcomes. 
Enclosure 

Page 29 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

23

Objective 3 (cont.)

Litigants

• Of the 23 litigated decisions, 27 different interest groups appeared 

77 times as plaintiffs and 1 private individual appeared once as a 

plaintiff. 

• Of the interest groups:

• 5 groups appeared as plaintiffs in 4 or more decisions: the 

Ecology Center, Sierra Club, Oregon Natural Resources 

Council, Hell’s Canyon Preservation Council, and Native 

Ecosystems Council.

• Interest groups were most active in the Forest Service’s 

Northern, Intermountain, Pacific Southwest, and Pacific 

Northwest regions—regions 1, 4, 5 and 6, respectively.
Enclosure 

Page 30 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

24

Objective 4: Information on whether appeals are processed 

within prescribed time frames

• Appeals must be processed within 90 days of the date a decision 

was legally published 

• There were at least 267 appeals on 180 decisions:

• At least 212 appeals (79%) affecting 141 decisions were 

processed within 90 days.

• At least 55 appeals (21%) affecting 39 decisions were not 

processed within 90 days.
Enclosure 

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25

Objective 4 (cont.)

• The national forests reported various reasons for not processing the 

55 appeals within 90 days, including:

• Inadequate staffing

• Availability of staff around the holiday season

• Appeal backlog

• Settlement of the appeal was imminent.

• If an appeal is filed, a decision may not be implemented until 15 

days after the outcome of the appeal is determined. However, an

“emergency mechanism” permits the Forest Service chief to 

implement a decision even if an appeal was filed. This mechanism 

was not used in FY 2001 or FY 2002.
Enclosure 

Page 32 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

26

Objective 5: The number of acres treated or planned to be 

treated by each of the fuels reduction methods.

Treatment Methods

• 3.3M acres were treated, or treatment was planned by prescribed 

burning.

• 0.8M acres were treated by mechanical treatment (e.g., bulldozers, 

chainsaws, chippers, mulchers).

• 687 acres were treated by chemical/herbicide treatment.

• 300 acres were treated by grazing.

• 1.1M acres were reported as “other” treatment methods. Most of 

these acres were for a single firewood program.

• Because multiple treatment methods can be used on the same 

acres, the numbers will not total to 4.7M acres treated in FY 2001 

and FY 2002.
Enclosure 

Page 33 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

27

Objective 5 (cont.) Figure 6: Acres treated or planned to be 

treated by prescribed burning under each decision type

• Of the 3.3M prescribed burning acres: 

• 1.9M acres were covered under CEs.

• 1.2M acres were covered under EAs.

• 0.2M acres were covered under EISs.

Source: U.S. Department of the Interior
Enclosure 

Page 34 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

28

Objective 5 (cont.) Figure 7: Acres treated or planned to be 

treated by mechanical treatment under each decision type

• Of the 0.8M acres mechanically treated:

• 0.2M acres were covered under CEs.

• 0.5M acres were covered under EAs.

• 0.1M acres were covered under EISs.

Note: Percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding.
Enclosure 

Page 35 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

29

Objective 5 (cont.) Figure 8: Acres treated or planned to be 

treated by chemical treatment, grazing, and other methods under 

each decision type

•Of the 1,060,687 acres treated by chemical, grazing, and other methods:

•1,007,064 were covered under CEs

•53,573 were covered under EAs

•50 were covered under EISs
Enclosure 

Page 36 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

30

Objective 6: Information on decisions with fuels reduction 

activities in wildland-urban interface and inventoried 

roadless areas

Wildland-urban interface (WUI) decisions:

• Of the 762 decisions, the national forests reported 464 (61%) 

decisions with fuels reduction activities in the WUI.

• These 464 decisions covered 1.5M acres (32% of total acreage for

all reported fuels reduction activities).
Enclosure 

Page 37 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

31

Objective 6 (cont.) Figure 9: Comparison of WUI and non-WUI 

acreage covered by fuels reduction activities
Enclosure 

Page 38 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

32

Objective 6 (cont.) Figure 10: WUI acreage by decision type

• Of the 1.5M acres in the WUI:

• 1.0M were covered under CEs

• 0.4M were covered under EAs

• 0.1M were covered under EISs

Note: Percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding.
Enclosure 

Page 39 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

33

Objective 6 (cont.)

WUI appeals:

• Of the 464 decisions involving activities in the WUI (1.5M acres), 

163 were appealable (0.5M acres). 

• 84 decisions were appealed (0.2M acres).
Enclosure 

Page 40 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

34

Objective 6 (cont.)

Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA) decisions:

• Of the 762 decisions, the national forests reported 73 (10%) 

decisions with fuels reduction activities in an IRA.

• These 73 decisions covered 0.2M acres (4% of total acreage for all 

reported fuels reduction activities).
Enclosure 

Page 41 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

35

Objective 6 (cont.) Figure 11: Comparison of IRA and non-IRA 

acreage covered by fuels reduction activities
Enclosure 

Page 42 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

36

Objective 6 (cont.) Figure 12: IRA acreage by decision type

• Of the 240K acres in the IRA:

• 95K were covered under CEs

• 129K were covered under EAs

• 16K were covered under EISs

Note: Percentages do not add to 100 due to rounding.
Enclosure 

Page 43 GAO-03-689R Forest Service Fuels Reduction 

37

Objective 6 (cont.)

IRA appeals:

• Of the 73 decisions involving IRAs (0.2M acres), 39 were 

appealable (0.15M acres).

• 24 decisions were appealed (0.08M acres).

(360272)