Report to Congressional Addressees

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO 

September 2009 WILDLAND FIRE 

MANAGEMENT 

Federal Agencies 

Have Taken Important 

Steps Forward, but 

Additional, Strategic 

Action Is Needed to 

Capitalize on Those 

Steps 

GAO-09-877 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

September 2009

WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT 

Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps

Forward, but Additional, Strategic Action Is Needed to 

Highlights of GAO-09-877, a report to Capitalize on Those Steps

congressional addressees 

The nation’s wildland fire problems 

have worsened dramatically over 

the past decade, with more than a 

doubling of average annual acreage 

burned and federal appropriations 

for wildland fire management. The 

deteriorating fire situation has led 

the agencies responsible for 

managing wildland fires on federal 

lands—the Forest Service in the 

Department of Agriculture and four 

agencies in the Department of the 

Interior—to reassess how they 

respond to wildland fire and to take 

steps to improve their fire 

management programs. GAO 

reviewed (1) progress the agencies 

have made in managing wildland 

fire and (2) key actions GAO 

previously recommended and 

believes are still necessary to 

improve wildland fire management. 

GAO reviewed previous GAO 

reports and agency documents and 

interviewed agency officials. GAO 

prepared this report under the 

Comptroller General’s authority to 

conduct evaluations on his own 

initiative. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making no new 

recommendations at this time. The 

agencies have generally agreed 

with GAO’s previous 

recommendations but have yet to 

implement several key 

recommendations GAO believes 

could, if implemented, substantially 

assist them in capitalizing on the 

important progress they have made 

to date. In commenting on a draft 

of this report, both the Forest 

Service and the Department of the 

Interior generally agreed with its 

findings. 

The Forest Service and the Interior agencies have improved their 

understanding of wildland fire’s ecological role on the landscape and have 

taken important steps toward enhancing their ability to cost-effectively 

protect communities and resources by seeking to (1) make communities and 

resources less susceptible to being damaged by wildland fire and (2) respond 

to fire so as to protect communities and important resources at risk but to 

also consider both the cost and long-term effects of that response. To help 

them do so, the agencies in recent years have reduced hazardous fuels, in an 

effort to keep wildland fires from spreading into the wildland-urban interface 

and to help protect important resources by lessening a fire’s intensity; 

sponsored efforts to educate homeowners about steps they can take to 

protect their homes from wildland fire; and provided grants to help 

homeowners carry out these steps. The agencies have also made 

improvements that lay important groundwork for enhancing their response to 

wildland fire, including adopting new guidance on how managers in the field 

are to select firefighting strategies, improving the analytical tools that assist 

managers in selecting a strategy, and improving how they acquire and use 

expensive firefighting assets. 

Despite the agencies’ efforts, much work remains. GAO has recommended 

several key actions—including development of an overarching fire 

management strategy—that, if completed, would substantially improve the 

agencies’ management of wildland fire. Nonetheless, the agencies have yet to: 

• Develop a cohesive strategy laying out various potential approaches for 

addressing the growing wildland fire threat, estimated costs associated 

with each approach, and the trade-offs involved. Such information would 

help the agencies and Congress make fundamental decisions about an 

effective and affordable approach to responding to fires. 

• Establish a cost-containment strategy that clarifies the importance of 

containing costs relative to other, often-competing objectives. Without 

such clarification, GAO believes managers in the field lack a clear 

understanding of the relative importance that the agencies’ leadership 

places on containing costs and are therefore likely to continue to select 

firefighting strategies without duly considering the costs of suppression. 

• Clarify financial responsibilities for fires that cross federal, state, and local 

jurisdictions. Unless the financial responsibilities for multijurisdictional 

fires are clarified, concerns that the existing framework insulates 

nonfederal entities from the cost of protecting the wildland-urban 

interface—and that the federal government would therefore continue to 

bear more than its share of the cost—are unlikely to be addressed. 

• Take action to mitigate the effects of rising fire costs on other agency 

programs. The sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires have led the 

agencies to transfer funds from other programs to help pay for fire 

suppression, disrupting or delaying activities in these other programs. 

Better methods of predicting needed suppression funding could reduce 

the need to transfer funds from other programs. 

View GAO-09-877 or key components.

For more information, contact Robin Nazzaro 

at (202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. 
Page i GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Contents 

Letter 1

Background 3 

Agencies’ Efforts to Implement a New Approach to Managing 

Wildland Fire Have Better Positioned Them to Respond to Fire 

Effectively 8 

Agencies Have Yet to Take Certain Key Actions That Would 

Substantially Improve Their Management of Wildland Fire 23 

Concluding Observations 32 

Agency Comments 33 

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 36 

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Agriculture, 

Forest Service 37 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of the Interior 38 

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 39 

Related GAO Products 40 

Table 

Table 1: Forest Service and Interior Wildland Fire Appropriations, 

Fiscal Years 1996 through 2007 6 

Figures 

Figure 1: Distribution of Total Land Managed by the Five Agencies 

Responsible for Wildland Fire Management 4 

Figure 2: Ways Wildland Fire Can Threaten a Structure 7 

Figure 3: Home with Defensible Space 13 

Figure 4: Burning Home Surrounded by Unburned Vegetation 15 
Abbreviation 

FPA fire program analysis 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

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Page ii GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Page 1 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

September 9, 2009 

Congressional Addressees 

The nation’s wildland fire problems have worsened dramatically over the 

past decade, threatening communities as well as important natural and 

appropriations for wildland fire management activities have more than 

doubled, with appropriations reaching more than $2.9 billion annually, on 

average, during fiscal years 2001 through 2007. State and local 

governments have likewise spent hundreds of millions of dollars to 

suppress fires during severe fire years. A number of factors have 

contributed to these increases. Uncharacteristically dense, continuous 

accumulations of vegetation, due in part to past fire suppression policies 

and land management practices, and severe regional weather and drought 

have led to higher-intensity fires and longer fire seasons. At the same time, 

continued development in and near wildlands, an area often called the 

wildland-urban interface, has placed more homes at risk. Five federal 

agencies—the Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture and the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife 

Service, and National Park Service within the Department of the Interior—

are responsible for managing wildland fires on federal lands. State 

forestry agencies and other entities—including tribal, county, city, and 

rural fire departments—have primary responsibility for managing wildland 

fires on nonfederal lands and share responsibility for protecting homes 

and other private structures. 

A series of damaging wildland fires in the 1990s led the Forest Service and 

the Interior agencies to reassess their approach to managing fire. It also 

prompted a sustained effort, known as the National Fire Plan,1

 on the part 

of the federal agencies and Congress to improve fire suppression 

capabilities, reduce potentially hazardous vegetation that can fuel wildland 

fires, restore fire-adapted ecosystems, and help communities better 

 

 

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

cultural resources. Both the average acreage burned annually and federal 

1

The National Fire Plan is a joint interagency effort to respond to wildland fires. Its core 

comprises several strategic documents, including (1) a September 2000 report from the 

Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to the President in response to the wildland fires 

of 2000; (2) congressional direction accompanying substantial new appropriations for fire 

management for fiscal year 2001; and (3) several strategies and plans to implement all or 

parts of the plan. See GAO, The National Fire Plan: Federal Agencies Are Not Organized 

to Effectively and Efficiently Implement the Plan, GAO-01-1022T (Washington, D.C.: July 

31, 2001). 
 

withstand wildland fire. Growing recognition of the long-term fiscal 

challenges facing the nation has also led Congress, the agencies, and 

others to focus on ensuring that federal wildland fire activities are 

appropriate and carried out in a cost-effective manner. Over the last 

decade, this focus led federal agencies (including the Forest Service, 

Interior, the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General, and 

us) and other organizations (including the National Association of State 

Foresters and the National Academy of Public Administration) to conduct 

numerous reviews of federal wildland fire programs. For example, we 

have reported or testified more than 50 times since 1999 on issues related 

to wildland fire management, recommending more than 50 actions the 

Forest Service and the Interior agencies could take to improve the 

programs. The agencies have taken—and continue to take—steps to 

address the shortcomings the reviews identified and to otherwise improve 

their fire management programs, but concerns persist over the agencies’ 

response to the deteriorating fire situation. 

In this context, and to provide the administration and the 111th Congress 

with an overview of the agencies’ efforts to address the wildland fire 

problem, this report provides information on (1) the progress the Forest 

Service and the Interior agencies have made in managing wildland fire and 

(2) key actions we previously recommended and believe are still necessary 

to improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire. We prepared this 

report under the Comptroller General’s authority to conduct evaluations 

on his own initiative. 

To address our first objective, we reviewed agency documents to identify 

the agencies’ overall approach to managing wildland fire, the key steps the 

agencies have taken to address the growing wildland fire problem, and any 

improvement resulting from those steps. To further our understanding of 

these issues, we interviewed various agency officials, including officials in 

Washington, D.C., and at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, 

Idaho. To address our second objective, we reviewed our prior reports and 

testimonies to identify steps we previously recommended that the 

agencies take to improve their wildland fire programs and reviewed 

relevant agency documents and interviewed agency officials to determine 

the status of the agencies’ implementation of those recommendations. 

Appendix I describes our scope and methodology in more detail. We 

conducted this performance audit from January 2009 to September 2009, 

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain 

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our 

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that 

Page 2 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 3 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and 

conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

Wildland fires triggered by lightning are both natural and inevitable and 

play an important ecological role on the nation’s landscapes. These fires 

shape the composition of forests and grasslands, periodically reduce 

vegetation densities, and stimulate seedling regeneration and growth in 

some species. Over the past century, however, various land use and 

management practices—including fire suppression, grazing, and timber 

harvesting—have reduced the normal frequency of fires in many forest and 

rangeland ecosystems and contributed to abnormally dense, continuous 

accumulations of vegetation. Such accumulations not only can fuel 

uncharacteristically large or severe wildland fires but also—with more 

homes and communities built in or near areas at risk from wildland fire—

threaten human lives, health, property, and infrastructure. Moreover, the 

introduction and spread of invasive nonnative species (such as 

cheatgrass), along with the expanded range of certain flammable native 

species (such as western juniper) have also altered natural fire regimes, 

contributing to wildland fires’ burning in some areas with uncharacteristic 

frequency or intensity. 

The Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, 

Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service are responsible for 

wildland fire management. These five agencies manage about 700 million 

acres of land in the United States, including national forests, national 

grasslands, Indian reservations, national parks, and national wildlife 

refuges. The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management manage 

the majority of these lands. The Forest Service manages about 190 million 

acres; the Bureau of Land Management manages about 260 million acres; 

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

Park Service each manage less than 100 million acres. Figure 1 shows the 

distribution of land among the five agencies. Each agency has from 7 to 12 

regional or state offices that oversee field units. 

Background 
 

Figure 1: Distribution of Total Land Managed by the Five Agencies Responsible for 

Wildland Fire Management 

The federal wildland fire management program has three major 

components: preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction.2

 To prepare 

for a wildland fire season, the agencies acquire firefighting assets—

including firefighters, fire engines, aircraft, and other equipment—and 

station them either at individual federal land management units (such as 

national forests or national parks) or at centralized dispatch locations. The 

primary purpose of these assets is to respond to fires before they become 

large—a response referred to as initial attack—thus forestalling threats to 

communities and natural and cultural resources. The agencies fund the 

assets used for initial attack primarily from their wildland fire 

preparedness accounts. 

 

Sources: GAO analysis of Forest Service and Interior data.

Total = 700 million acres

National Park Service

Bureau of Land Management

Bureau of Indian Affairs

Fish and Wildlife Service

Forest Service

9%

12%

14%

28%

37%

Forest Service

Interior agencies

2

Other fire program components include prevention; science, research, and development; 

and assistance to nonfederal entities. 

Page 4 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

When a fire starts, current federal policy directs the agencies to consider 

land management objectives—identified in land and fire management 

plans developed by each land management unit—and the structures and 

resources at risk when determining whether or how to suppress the fire. A 

wide spectrum of strategies is available to choose from, and the land 

manager at the affected local unit is responsible for determining which 

strategy to use. In the relatively rare instances when fires escape initial 

attack and grow large, the agencies respond using an interagency system 

that mobilizes additional firefighting assets from federal, state, and local 

agencies, as well as private contractors, regardless of which agency or 

agencies have jurisdiction over the burning lands. Federal agencies 

typically fund the costs of these activities from their wildland fire 

suppression accounts. 

In addition to preparing for and suppressing fires, the agencies attempt to 

reduce the potential for severe wildland fires, lessen the damage caused by 

fires, limit the spread of flammable invasive species, and restore and 

maintain healthy ecosystems by reducing potentially hazardous vegetation 

that can fuel fires. Approaches used for managing vegetation include 

setting fires under controlled conditions (prescribed burns), mechanical 

thinning, herbicides, certain grazing methods, or combinations of these 

and other approaches. The agencies fund these activities from their fuel 

reduction accounts. 

Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, federal agency officials, 

and others have expressed concern about mounting federal wildland fire 

expenditures. Federal appropriations to the Forest Service and the Interior 

agencies to prepare for and respond to wildland fires, including 

appropriations for reducing fuels, have more than doubled, from an 

average of $1.2 billion from fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to an average of 

$2.9 billion from fiscal years 2001 through 2007. Adjusting for inflation, the 

average annual appropriations to the agencies for these periods increased 

from $1.5 billion to $3.1 billion (in 2007 dollars). The Forest Service 

received about 70 percent, and Interior about 30 percent, of the 

appropriated funds; table 1 shows the agencies’ combined fire 

appropriations for fiscal years 1996 through 2007. 

Page 5 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Table 1: Forest Service and Interior Wildland Fire Appropriations, Fiscal Years 1996 

through 2007 

Dollars in millions 

 Total appropriations 

Fiscal year Nominal Inflation-adjusteda

1996 $772.4 $984.2

1997 1,432.1 1,793.3

1998 1,116.7 1,381.7

1999 1,159.3 1,415.9

2000 1,598.9 1,914.2

2001 2,859.9 3,344.7

2002 2,238.8 2,569.0

2003 3,165.1 3,560.2

2004 3,230.6 3,541.6

2005 2,929.8 3,144.0

2006 2,701.4 2,775.4

2007 $3,047.0 $3,047.0

Source: GAO analysis of Congressional Research Service data. 

a

We adjusted the appropriations amounts for inflation, using the chain-weighted gross domestic 

product price index with fiscal year 2007 as the base year. 

Analysis of structures damaged during past fires and experimental 

research have identified a number of relatively simple steps that can 

reduce the risk of damage to structures from wildland fire. Minimizing or 

preventing damage requires understanding the different types of wildland 

fire and how they can ignite structures. Surface fires—which burn 

vegetation or other fuels, such as shrubs, fallen leaves, small branches, 

and roots, near the surface of the ground—can ignite a home or other 

building by burning nearby vegetation and eventually igniting flammable 

portions of the building, including exterior walls or siding; attached 

structures, such as a fence or deck; or other nearby flammable materials, 

such as firewood or patio furniture. Crown fires—which burn the tops, or 

crowns, of trees—place homes at risk because they create intense heat, 

which can ignite portions of structures even without direct contact from 

flames. Embers, or “firebrands”—which can be carried on the wind a mile 

or more from a fire—can ignite a structure by landing on the roof or by 

entering a vent or other opening. Figure 2 illustrates how each type of fire 

can take advantage of a structure’s vulnerabilities and those of its 

immediate surroundings. 

Page 6 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 7 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Figure 2: Ways Wildland Fire Can Threaten a Structure 

C

C

Source: GAO.

Wildland fires can ignite homes and structures

in different ways.

Surface fires (A) can ignite a home by burning 

nearby vegetation.

Crown fires (B) create intense heat, which can 

ignite portions of structures, without direct contact 

from flames.

Firebrands (C), or embers, can ignite a home by 

landing on the roof or entering a roof vent or other 

opening.

B

C

C

CC

A

A

B B

A

B
 

As the Forest Service and the Interior agencies have improved their 

understanding of wildland fire’s role on the landscape, their approach to 

managing fire has evolved. Under the new approach, the agencies seek to 

make the landscape less susceptible to damage by wildland fire and to 

respond to fires in ways that protect communities and important resources 

while also considering the cost and long-term effects of that response. 

fire as a damaging force that they attempted to suppress quickly—as 

exemplified by the “10 a.m. policy,” in which the goal was to contain every 

fire by 10:00 the morning after it was reported. For decades, the agencies 

were often successful in this approach. This emphasis on suppression led 

to a substantial decline in the average number of acres burned annually 

from the 1930s through the 1970s. A number of damaging fires in the 

1990s, however, led the agencies to fundamentally reassess their 

understanding of wildland fire’s role on the landscape. Their view of fire’s 

ecological role began to expand, from seeing benefits in a few ecosystems, 

like certain grasslands and forest types, to realizing that in many 

locations—particularly the arid West—fire was inevitable. In addition, 

they recognized that by allowing brush, small trees, and other vegetation 

to accumulate, their past success in suppressing fires was in part 

responsible for making recent fires more severe. 

The agencies’ increased awareness of fire’s benefits, as well as of the 

unintended negative consequences of suppression, led them in 1995 to 

develop the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, a policy they 

reaffirmed and updated in 2001.3

 Under the policy, the agencies 

abandoned their attempt to put out every wildland fire, seeking instead to 

 

Historically, the Forest Service and the Interior agencies generally viewed 

3

U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of the Interior, Federal Wildland Fire 

Management Policy and Program Review (Washington, D.C.: December 1995); 

Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department 

of Defense, Department of Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal 

Emergency Management Agency, and National Association of State Foresters, Review and 

Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy (Washington, D.C.: January 

2001). 

Agencies’ Efforts to 

Implement a New 

Approach to 

Managing Wildland 

Fire Have Better 

Positioned Them to 

Respond to Fire 

Effectively 

Managing Wildland Fire 

Has Evolved 

Agencies’ Approach to 

Page 8 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

(1) make communities and resources less susceptible to being damaged by 

wildland fire and (2) respond to fires so as to protect communities and 

important resources at risk but also to consider both the cost and longterm effects of that response. As a result, the agencies have increasingly 

emphasized firefighting strategies that focus on land management 

objectives, which may lead them to use less aggressive firefighting 

strategies that can not only reduce costs in some cases but also be safer 

for firefighters by reducing their exposure to unnecessary risks, according 

to agency fire officials. 

steps to help them better achieve the Federal Wildland Fire Management 

Policy’s vision. In an effort to make the landscape less susceptible to 

damage from wildland fire, for example, they have reduced hazardous 

fuels and fostered fire-resistant communities. They have also improved 

their ability to respond efficiently and effectively to wildland fires that 

occur, including taking steps to (1) implement the federal wildland fire 

management policy, (2) improve decisions regarding fire management 

strategies, and (3) improve how they acquire and use firefighting assets. 

In an effort to reduce damage to communities and resources from 

wildland fire, the agencies have continued to reduce fuels and foster fireresistant communities, but the extent to which these efforts have reduced 

risk is unknown. 

Reducing hazardous fuels. Reducing hazardous fuels—to keep wildland 

fires from spreading into the wildland-urban interface and to help protect 

important resources by lessening a fire’s intensity—is one of the primary 

objectives of the National Fire Plan. The agencies reported reducing fuels 

on more than 29 million acres from 2001 through 2008. The agencies have 

also improved the data they use to help identify lands where fuels need to 

be reduced and have taken steps to improve their processes for allocating 

fuel reduction funds and setting priorities for fuels projects. The agencies 

have nearly completed their geospatial data and modeling system, 

LANDFIRE, as we recommended in 2003.4

 LANDFIRE is intended to 

produce consistent and comprehensive maps and data describing 

 

Agencies Have Laid In recent years, the Forest Service and the Interior agencies have taken 

4

GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to Better Identify and 

Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction, GAO-03-805 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 15, 2003). 

Important Groundwork 

through Their Efforts to 

Reduce Damage to 

Communities and 

Resources and to Improve 

Their Responses to 

Wildland Fire 

Agencies Have Taken Steps 

Intended to Reduce Wildland 

Fire Damage to Communities 

and Resources 

Page 9 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

vegetation, wildland fuels, and fire regimes across the United States.5 Such 

data are critical to helping the agencies (1) identify the extent, severity, 

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

resources; (2) predict fire intensity and rate of spread under particular 

weather conditions; and (3) evaluate the effect that reducing fuels may 

have on future fire behavior. LANDFIRE data are already complete for the 

contiguous United States, and the agencies have reported they expect to 

complete the data for Alaska and Hawaii in 2009. Because vegetative 

conditions change over time for a variety of reasons, including landscapealtering events such as hurricanes, disease, or wildland fires themselves, 

the agencies also plan several processes for updating the data, including 

selective updates every 2 years to reflect changes due to fires, fuel 

treatments, and other disturbances and a comprehensive update every 10 

years. 

In addition, the agencies have begun to improve their processes for 

allocating fuel reduction funds to different areas of the country and for 

selecting fuel reduction projects, as we recommended in 2007.6

 The 

agencies have started moving away from “allocation by tradition” toward a 

more consistent, systematic allocation process. That is, rather than relying 

on historical funding patterns and professional judgment, the agencies are 

developing a process that also considers risk, effectiveness of fuel 

reduction treatments, and other factors. The Forest Service uses this 

process to allocate funds to its nine regions and has directed the regions to 

use it to allocate funds to their respective national forests. Interior uses a 

similar process to allocate funds to its four agencies, and the agencies in 

turn use it to allocate funds to their respective state or regional offices. 

The agencies have been increasing their use of this process, in fiscal year 

2009 applying the results to help them determine how to allocate their fuel 

reduction dollars. Interior, however, kept its agencies and regions from 

gaining or losing more than 10 percent in funds relative to fiscal year 2008. 

Agency officials told us they expect to continue to improve their processes 

and to increasingly rely on them to allocate fuel reduction funds. 

 

5

A fire regime generally classifies the role that wildland fire plays in a particular ecosystem 

on the basis of certain characteristics, such as the average number of years between fires 

and the typical severity of fire under historic conditions. 

6

GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic Process Could 

Improve Agencies’ Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction Funds and Selecting Projects, 

GAO-07-1168 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2007). 

Page 10 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Despite these improvements, further action is needed to ensure that the 

agencies’ efforts to reduce hazardous fuels are directed to areas at highest 

risk. The agencies, for example, still lack a measure of the effectiveness of 

fuel reduction treatments and therefore lack information needed to ensure 

that fuel reduction funds are directed to the areas where they can best 

minimize risk to communities and natural and cultural resources. Forest 

Service and Interior officials told us that they recognize this shortcoming 

and that efforts are under way to address it. The Joint Fire Science 

Program, for example, has funded almost 50 studies examining the 

effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments in different locations and has 

begun a comprehensive effort to evaluate the effectiveness of different 

types of fuel treatments, as well as the longevity of those treatments and 

their effects on ecosystems and natural resources.7

 Efforts like these are 

likely to be long term, involving considerable research investment, and 

have the potential to improve the agencies’ ability to assess and compare 

the cost-effectiveness of potential treatments in deciding how to optimally 

allocate scarce funds. 

Fostering fire-resistant communities. Protecting the nation’s 

communities is both one of the key goals of wildland fire management and 

one of the leading factors contributing to rising fire costs. Increasing the 

use of protective measures to mitigate the risk to structures from wildland 

fire is a key goal of the National Fire Plan—a goal which also may help 

contain the cost of managing fires in the long term. This plan, developed 

by federal wildland fire agencies and state governors, encourages, but 

does not mandate, state and local governments to adopt laws requiring 

homeowners and homebuilders to take measures to help protect 

structures from wildland fires. Because these measures rely on the actions 

of individual homeowners and homebuilders or on laws and land-use 

planning affecting private lands, achieving this goal is primarily a state and 

local government responsibility. Nonetheless, the Forest Service and the 

Interior agencies have helped sponsor the Firewise Communities program, 

which works with community leaders and homeowners to increase the use 

 

7

Other Joint Fire Science Program efforts may also help the agencies improve their fuel 

reduction efforts, including efforts to synthesize and disseminate the current scientific 

knowledge related to reducing fuels in different forests and grassland types and to develop 

a system that would allow field managers to better use a variety of sources of fuels data. 

Page 11 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

of fire-resistant landscaping and building materials in areas of high risk.8

Federal and state agencies also provide grants to help homeowners pay for 

creating defensible space around private homes. 

A few relatively simple steps can reduce the risk of damage to structures 

from wildland fire. Experts from a symposium convened for us in 2004 by 

the National Academy of Sciences emphasized that the two most critical 

measures for protecting structures from wildland fires are (1) reducing 

vegetation and flammable objects within an area of 30 to 100 feet around a 

structure, often called creating defensible space (see fig. 3), and (2) using 

fire-resistant roofing materials and covering attic vents with mesh 

screens.9

 Analysis of structures damaged during past fires and 

experimental research have shown these two steps to be key determinants 

of whether or not a structure is damaged by wildland fire. 

 

8

The Firewise Communities program is the primary national effort to educate homeowners 

about wildland fire risks. The program is jointly sponsored by the International Association 

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

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

Association, Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Fire Administration, Forest 

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

and the National Park Service. Numerous state and local fire and forestry officials also 

participate in the program. See http://www.firewise.org/ for more information. 

9

Other measures, including using fire-resistant windows and building materials, also help 

protect buildings from damage from wildland fire; see GAO, Technology Assessment: 

Protecting Structures and Improving Communications during Wildland Fires,

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

Page 12 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 13 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Figure 3: Home with Defensible Space 

Source: GAO.

Defensible space: Reducing vegetation and other 

flammable materials within 30 to 100 feet of a

structure (the area shaded in yellow) creates

defensible space that substantially reduces the 

likelihood that a wildland fire will damage or 

destroy the structure. Creating defensible space 

around a structure does not require that all trees

and plants be eliminated, but plants or trees

adjacent to structures should be carefully spaced 

and be pruned to remove the lower branches that 

hang over the roof.
 

Nevertheless, use of protective measures is inconsistent. We reported in 

2005 that many homeowners in the wildland-urban interface have not used 

such measures to mitigate fire risk because of the time or expense 

involved. State and local fire officials estimated that the price of creating 

defensible space, for example, can range from a negligible amount, if 

homeowners can do the work themselves, to $2,000 or more. Competing 

concerns also influence the use of protective measures. For example, 

although modifying landscaping to create defensible space has proved to 

be key in protecting structures from wildland fire, officials and 

researchers have reported that homeowners are more concerned about 

the effect of landscaping on their property’s appearance, privacy, or 

habitat for wildlife. Defensible space can, however, be created so as to 

alleviate many of these concerns. Leaving thicker vegetation away from a 

structure and pruning plants close by it, for instance, can help protect the 

structure and still be attractive, private, and wildlife-friendly. 

Misconceptions about fire behavior and the effectiveness of protective 

measures can also influence what people do to protect structures from 

wildland fires. For example, homeowners may not know that homes can 

be more flammable than the surrounding trees, shrubs, or other vegetation 

and therefore do not recognize the need to reduce the flammability of the 

structure itself (see fig. 4). Fire officials told us that few people realize that 

reducing tree density close to a structure can return a wildland fire to the 

ground, where it is much easier to keep away from structures, or that fireresistant roofs and screened attic vents can reduce the risk of ignition 

from firebrands. Finally, homeowners may not use protective measures 

because they believe that firefighters are responsible for protecting their 

homes and do not recognize that they share this responsibility. 

Page 14 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 15 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Figure 4: Burning Home Surrounded by Unburned Vegetation 

Source: Forest Service.

Implementing the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The 

Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy directs each agency to develop 

a fire management plan for all areas they manage with burnable 

vegetation. Without such plans, agency policy does not allow use of the 

whole spectrum of wildland fire response strategies, including less 

aggressive strategies—meaning that, for areas without such plans, the 

agencies must attempt to suppress fires regardless of any benefits that 

might come from allowing them to burn. We reported in 2006 that about 95 

percent of the agencies’ 1,460 individual land management units had 

completed the required plans. We also reported, however, that the 

agencies may not always find it easy to update these plans; a Forest 

Service official told us, for example, that, if the introduction of new data 

into a fire management plan results in the development of new fire 

management objectives, the agency might need to conduct a new 

environmental analysis of that plan, requiring additional time and 

resources.10 Moreover, in examining 17 fire management plans, a May 2007 

 

Agencies’ Improvements Have 

Laid Important Groundwork for 

Enhancing Their Response to 

Wildland Fire 

10Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, agencies evaluate the likely 

environmental effects of their activities using an environmental assessment or, if the 

activity likely would significantly affect the environment, a more detailed environmental 

impact statement. 
 

independent review of large wildland fires managed by the Forest Service 

in 2006 identified several shortcomings in the plans, including that most of 

them examined did not contain current information on fuel conditions and 

that many did not provide sufficient guidance on selecting firefighting 

strategies.11 If fire management plans are not updated to reflect the most 

current information on the extent and distribution of fire risks and the 

most promising methods for dealing with these risks, the plans will be of 

limited use to the agencies in managing wildland fire. 

The Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy also states that the 

agencies’ responses to wildland fires are to be based on the circumstances 

of each fire and the likely consequences to human safety and to natural 

and cultural resources. Interagency guidance on implementing the policy, 

adopted in 2009, clarifies that the full range of fire management strategies 

and tactics are to be considered when responding to every wildland fire 

and that a single fire may be simultaneously managed for different 

objectives. Previous guidance required each fire to be managed either for 

suppression objectives—that is, to put out the fire as quickly as possible—

or to achieve resource benefits—that is, to allow the fire to burn to gain 

certain benefits such as reducing fuels or seed regeneration. Both the 

Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General and we criticized the 

previous guidance, in part because it did not allow the agencies the 

flexibility to switch between these strategies as fire conditions changed or 

to manage parts of a single fire differently.12 By allowing this flexibility, the 

new guidance should help the agencies achieve management objectives on 

more acres and help contain the long-term costs of fire management. 

Improving decisions about fire management strategies. The agencies 

have recently undertaken several efforts to improve decisions about 

firefighting strategies. In 2007 we reported that previous studies had found 

that officials may not always consider the full range of available strategies 

and may not select the most appropriate strategy, which would account 

for the cost of suppression; the value of structures and other resources 

 

11Independent Large Wildfire Cost Panel, chartered by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, 

Towards a Collaborative Cost Management Strategy: 2006 U.S. Forest Service Large 

Wildfire Cost Review Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: May 15, 2007). 

12GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders Federal 

Agencies’ Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires, GAO-07-655 (Washington, D.C.: 

June 1, 2007). 

Page 16 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

threatened by the fire; and, where appropriate, any potential benefits to 

natural resources.13

Managers of the agencies’ individual land management units—typically 

known as line officers and including national forest supervisors, BLM 

district managers, and others—are responsible for making strategic 

decisions about how to manage a fire. A 2000 review by the National 

Association of State Foresters, however, concluded that many line officers 

have little wildland fire experience and may select fire management 

strategies that lead to unnecessarily high suppression costs. Fire officials 

told us such strategies may also have a low likelihood of success, 

unnecessarily exposing firefighters to risk of injury. The Forest Service 

initiated a program in 2007 designed to add to line officers’ knowledge and 

experience through a series of certifications at three competency levels, 

certifying the officer to manage a fire of low, medium, or high complexity. 

If a fire exceeds the line officer’s certification level, a more experienced 

officer is assigned to coach the less experienced officer; final decisions on 

strategies, however, remain the responsibility of the line officer of the unit 

where the fire is burning. 

To help line officers and fire managers14 in making on-the-ground 

decisions about how to manage a particular fire, the agencies in 2009 

began to use a new analytical tool, known as the wildland fire decision 

support system. This new tool helps line officers and fire managers 

analyze various factors—such as the fire’s current location, adjacent fuel 

conditions, nearby structures and other highly valued resources, and 

weather forecasts—in determining the strategies and tactics to adopt. For 

example, the tool generates a map illustrating (1) the probability that a 

particular wildland fire, barring any suppression actions, will burn a 

certain area within a specified time and (2) the structures or other 

resources that may therefore be threatened. Having such information can 

help line officers and fire managers understand the resources at risk and 

identify the most appropriate response—for example, whether to devote 

substantial resources to attempt full and immediate suppression or instead 

to take a less intensive approach, which may reduce risks to firefighters 

and be less costly. 

 

13GAO-07-655. 

14Fire managers known as incident commanders are responsible for implementing the 

suppression strategies selected by line officers. 

Page 17 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

The agencies have also established four teams, known as national incident 

management organization teams, staffed with some of the most 

experienced fire managers.15 These teams have several purposes, including 

managing some of the most complex and costly fires; identifying and 

disseminating best management practices throughout the agencies; and, 

during periods of low fire activity, working with staff at the national 

forests where large fires are particularly likely to occur, to better prepare 

staff to respond. Fire officials said that over time they expect these teams 

will improve decisions about firefighting strategies, both for fires the 

teams manage directly and those where they worked with staff ahead of 

time. 

In addition, the agencies, following congressional committee direction,16

require an independent review of all fires whose costs exceed $10 million, 

including an examination of the strategic decisions affecting suppression 

costs.17 Although these reviews may identify instances where the agencies 

could have used more cost-efficient firefighting strategies, and may 

provide long-term benefits by helping the agencies identify and 

disseminate best practices, the reviews are typically conducted after the 

fires have been suppressed and therefore are not intended to help fire 

managers change strategies while fires are still burning, before managers 

have taken ineffective or unnecessary suppression actions. 

To influence strategic firefighting decisions while fires are still burning, 

the Forest Service (which, among the responsible federal agencies, most 

often manages the most expensive fires) has experimented in recent years 

with several approaches for identifying ongoing fires where suppression 

actions are unlikely to be effective and for influencing strategic decisions 

made during those fires that might help contain costs and reduce risk to 

firefighters. A senior Forest Service official told us that these efforts have 

helped raise awareness of the importance of basing strategic decisions on 

(1) the resources at risk of damage and (2) the likelihood that suppression 

actions will be effective, but that the agency was still working to improve 

its ability to quickly identify strategic firefighting decisions likely to be 

ineffective. This official told us that the concept of reviewing strategic 

 

15Based in the Forest Service, the teams are available to work with all wildland fire 

agencies. 

16See H.R. Rep. No. 111-180 at 82 (2009). 

17In addition to these independent reviews, the Forest Service requires an internal review of 

fires whose costs exceed $5 million. 

Page 18 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

decisions while a fire is still burning is new, as is the concept of 

considering the probability of success, and not just the resources at risk, 

in making those decisions; he added that he believed the agency was 

making strides in implementing this approach but that it would be a long 

process dependent on managers in the field gaining a better understanding 

of the benefits of the new approach. 

According to this official, the agency’s approach in 2009 is to identify 

ongoing fires for which the cost of suppression—estimated using 

information from the wildland fire decision support system—is expected 

to be higher than the cost predicted by a measure known as the stratified 

cost index, based on the costs of previous fires with similar 

characteristics.18 On those fires for which suppression costs are expected 

to be substantially higher than costs for similar fires in the past, Forest 

Service officials will consult with local line officers and fire management 

officials to ensure that the most appropriate firefighting strategies are 

being implemented. The basis for this comparison—the stratified cost 

index of previous fires—is not entirely reliable, however; our 2007 report 

identified several shortcomings with it, including the lack of data from 

many fires where less costly firefighting strategies were used (because the 

agencies have only recently emphasized the importance of using less 

aggressive suppression strategies).19 As a result, using the index as the 

basis for comparison may not allow the Forest Service to accurately 

identify fires where more, or more-expensive, resources than needed are 

being used. 

Although these efforts are new and we have not fully evaluated them, we 

believe they have the potential to help the agencies strengthen how 

firefighting strategies are selected. The efforts, however, do not address 

certain critical shortcomings. We reported in 2007, for example, that 

officials in the field have few incentives to consider cost containment in 

making critical decisions affecting suppression costs, and that previous 

studies had found that the lack of a clear measure to evaluate the benefits 

and costs of alternative firefighting strategies fundamentally hindered the 

 

18Characteristics affecting suppression costs include fire size; fuel types; fire intensity; 

physical terrain; proximity to the nearest community; total value of structures close to the 

fire; and special management considerations, such as whether the fire was burning in a 

wilderness or other designated area. 

19The utility of the index should improve over time as data from recent fires, including 

those where less aggressive firefighting strategies were used, are incorporated; see 

GAO-07-655. 

Page 19 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

agencies’ abilities to provide effective oversight.20 Although the agencies 

have made progress in other areas, they still lack such a measure. 

Acquiring and using firefighting assets effectively. In 2007 we reported 

that (1) federal agencies lacked a shared or integrated system for 

effectively determining the appropriate type and quantity of firefighting 

assets needed for a fire season; (2) the agencies’ processes and systems 

for acquiring firefighting assets lacked controls to ensure that the agencies 

were procuring assets cost-effectively; and (3) the agencies sometimes 

used firefighting assets ineffectively or inefficiently, often in response to 

political or social pressures.21 Despite continued improvement, further 

action to address these shortcomings is needed. 

First, to address congressional committee direction22 that they improve 

their system for determining needed firefighting assets, the agencies in 

2009 began deploying an interagency budget-planning system known as 

fire program analysis (FPA). FPA was intended to help the agencies 

develop their wildland fire budget requests and allocate funds by, among 

other objectives, (1) providing a common budget framework to analyze 

firefighting assets without regard for agency jurisdictions; (2) examining 

the full scope of fire management activities, including preparing for fires 

by acquiring and positioning firefighting assets for the fire season, 

mobilizing assets to suppress fires, and reducing potentially hazardous 

fuels; (3) modeling the effects over time of differing strategies for 

responding to wildland fires and treating lands to reduce hazardous fuels; 

and (4) using this information to identify the most cost-effective mix and 

location of federal wildland fire management assets. In 2008, we reported 

that FPA showed promise in achieving some of the key objectives 

originally established for it but that the approach the agencies have taken 

hampers FPA from meeting other key objectives, including the ability to 

project the effects of different levels of fuel reduction and firefighting 

strategies over time.23 We therefore concluded that agency officials lack 

information that would help them analyze the extent to which increasing 

or decreasing funding for fuel reduction and responding more or less 

 

20GAO-07-655. 

21GAO-07-655. 

22See H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 107-234 at 68 (2001). 

23GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further Development 

to Fully Meet Key Objectives, GAO-09-68 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 24, 2008). 

Page 20 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

aggressively to fires in the short term could affect the expected cost of 

responding to wildland fires over the long term. Senior agency officials 

told us in 2008 that they were considering making changes to FPA that 

may improve its ability to examine the effects over time of different 

funding strategies. The exact nature of these changes, or how to fund 

them, has yet to be determined. Officials also told us the agencies are 

currently working to evaluate the model’s performance, identify and 

implement needed corrections, and improve data quality and consistency. 

The agencies intend to consider the early results of FPA in developing 

their budget requests for fiscal year 2011, although officials told us they 

will not rely substantially on FPA’s results until needed improvements are 

made. As we noted in 2008, the approach the agencies took in developing 

FPA provides considerable discretion to agency decision makers and, 

although providing the flexibility to consider various options is important, 

doing so makes it essential that the agencies ensure their processes are 

fully transparent. 

Second, we also reported in 2007 that the agencies were planning 

improvements to their acquisition processes to ensure they were 

procuring assets cost-effectively. The agencies rely on private contractors 

to provide many firefighting assets and have begun implementing a new 

system for determining which contractors to use. This system considers 

the capabilities of the equipment or personnel, as well as the cost, and is 

intended to help the agencies identify the “best value” and not just the 

lowest cost or closest asset. A Forest Service official said that the agencies 

are also evaluating how the equipment and personnel from each 

contractor perform in the field and, once they have gathered enough data, 

plan to apply that information in selecting contractors. The agencies are 

already using this system to select contractors for many kinds of 

frequently used equipment, including firefighting crews, fire engines, 

aircraft, and water trucks, and plan to expand the system to include other 

equipment in future years. 

Third, the agencies have taken several steps to improve their efficiency in 

using firefighting assets. As we reported in 2007, for example, the agencies 

implemented a computer-based dispatching system called the resource 

ordering and status system.24 The agencies had been using a manual, 

paper-based system for requesting and assigning firefighting assets, and 

the new system was meant to allow them to more effectively and 

 

24GAO-07-655. 

Page 21 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

efficiently monitor firefighting assets during a fire or other incident. We 

reported that although the system’s benefits had not been quantified, it had 

likely reduced suppression costs by making it easier to use local 

firefighting assets—which could hasten response and thus perhaps reduce 

fire size—and by reducing the personnel needed to dispatch resources. 

The agencies can also use the system to identify individuals qualified and 

available to serve in various firefighting positions, which may help 

increase the agencies’ use of local incident commanders and reduce the 

need to mobilize more-costly incident management teams. 

We also reported in 2007 that the agencies required that an “incident 

business advisor” be assigned to fires expected to cost more than $5 

million and recommended that an advisor be assigned to fires expected to 

cost more than $1 million. An incident business advisor represents the line 

officer’s interest in containing costs by observing firefighting operations 

and working with the incident management team to identify ways those 

operations could be more cost-effective. For example, an incident 

business advisor may observe the types and quantity of firefighting 

personnel and equipment assigned to a fire and how they are used; 

observe how equipment and supplies are procured; and, as a fire comes 

under control, ensure that the most expensive personnel and equipment 

are released first. 

In 2008, the agencies also changed how they determined where to send 

certain firefighting assets to ensure that assets perform the highest-priority 

work. Agency officials told us they instituted a new practice to increase 

the likelihood that firefighting assets perform the highest-priority actions. 

Under this practice, certain assets that are often in high demand (including 

some of the most experienced firefighting crews) are assigned to perform 

only the highest-priority actions on a particular fire or set of adjacent fires 

and are then reassigned to perform high-priority actions on other fires,25

rather than being assigned for several weeks to a single fire, as has been 

typical. This practice should help the agencies address a shortcoming 

previous studies have identified—that firefighting assets may sit idle at a 

fire rather than be released for use elsewhere because managers are 

concerned that they will be unable to recall an asset if they need it later, a 

practice that unnecessarily increases a fire’s cost and prevents those 

assets from helping to protect communities and resources from fires 

 

25As we reported in 2007, the agencies already used a similar practice to determine where 

many aircraft, including air tankers and helicopters, were assigned; see GAO-07-655. 

Page 22 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 23 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

burning elsewhere. In addition, the officials said it can be important to 

ensure that assets are sufficiently flexible to respond to new fires, even if 

many fires are already burning. Responding quickly can substantially 

increase the likelihood that firefighters will be able to contain fires before 

they become large, which is particularly important when fires start in 

weather and fuel conditions that can cause them to burn intensely and 

spread rapidly. Agency officials also said they have improved their ability 

to predict when an unusually high number of fires might start and have 

emphasized the need to keep some firefighting assets in reserve to 

respond to new fires quickly. 

Previous studies also found that agencies sometimes use more, or morecostly, firefighting assets than necessary, often in response to political or 

social pressures to demonstrate they are taking all possible action to 

protect communities and resources. Consistent with these findings, fire 

officials told us they were pressured in 2008 to assign more firefighting 

assets than could be effectively used to fight fires in California. More 

generally, previous studies have found that air tankers may drop flame 

retardants when on-the-ground conditions may not warrant such drops. 

Aviation activities are expensive, accounting for about one-third of all 

firefighting costs on a large fire. Providing clarity about when different 

types of firefighting assets can be used effectively could help the agencies 

resist political and social pressure to call up more assets than they need. 

Despite the important steps the agencies have taken, much work remains. 

We have previously recommended several key actions—including 

development of an overarching investment strategy for addressing the 

wildland fire problem—that, if completed, would improve the agencies’ 

management of wildland fire. In addition to completing the overarching 

strategy (which we have termed a cohesive strategy), we have 

recommended that the agencies clarify the importance of containing costs 

relative to other, often-competing objectives and clarify financial 

responsibilities for fires that cross federal, state, and local jurisdictions. 

Finally, we have identified several steps the agencies should take, and 

Congress could consider, that could mitigate the effects on the agencies’ 

other programs of rising fire management costs. 

effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing wildland fire 

problems that have been decades in the making, the agencies need a 

cohesive strategy that identifies the options and associated funding for 

Agencies Have Yet to 

Take Certain Key 

Actions That Would 

Substantially Improve 

Their Management of 

Wildland Fire 

Strategy 

Develop a Cohesive If the agencies and Congress are to make informed decisions about an 
 

reducing excess vegetation and responding to fires. By laying out various 

potential approaches for addressing the growing wildland fire threat, the 

estimated costs associated with each approach, and the trade-offs 

involved, a cohesive strategy would help Congress and the agencies make 

informed decisions about how to invest scarce funds. 

We first recommended a cohesive strategy for addressing excess 

vegetation in 1999.26 Subsequently, after evaluating a number of related 

wildland fire management issues, we reiterated the need for a cohesive 

strategy in 2005 and 2006 and broadened our recommendation to better 

address the interrelated nature of fuel reduction efforts and wildland fire 

response.27 The agencies have concurred with our recommendations to 

develop a cohesive strategy but have yet to develop a strategy that clearly 

formulates different approaches and associated costs.28 In July 2009, 

agency officials told us they had begun planning how to develop a 

cohesive strategy but were not far enough along to provide further 

information. We were therefore unable to determine the extent to which it 

might provide the information the agencies and Congress need to make 

fundamental decisions about the best way for the nation to respond to the 

growing wildland fire problem. Because of the critical importance of this 

step in improving the agencies’ overall management of wildland fire, we 

continue to believe that the agencies should complete a strategy, and 

begin implementing it, as quickly as possible. The Federal Land 

Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act, introduced in 2009, 

would require the agencies to produce, within 1 year of its enactment, a 

cohesive strategy consistent with our previous recommendations.29

A document that included the critical elements of a cohesive strategy was 

created in 2002: an analysis by a team of Forest Service and Interior 

 

26GAO, Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address Catastrophic 

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

27GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges 

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

Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to Develop a Cohesive 

Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats, GAO-06-671R (Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006). 

28Although the agencies issued a document titled Protecting People and Natural Resources: 

A Cohesive Fuels Treatment Strategy in 2006, this document did not identify long-term 

options or associated funding for reducing fuels and responding to wildland fires, elements 

we believe are critical to a cohesive strategy. 

29S. 561 (2009); H.R. 1404 (2009). 

Page 24 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

experts estimated the funds needed to implement each of eight different 

fuel reduction options for protecting communities and ecosystems across 

the nation over the next century.30 The team determined that reducing the 

risks to communities and ecosystems across the nation could require an 

approximate tripling of funding for fuel reduction, to about $1.4 billion 

annually, for an initial period of several years. These initially higher costs 

for fuel reduction would decline after fuels had been sufficiently reduced 

to make it possible to use less expensive prescribed burning methods in 

many areas. More important, the team estimated that the reduction in fuels 

would allow the agencies to suppress more fires at lower cost and would 

reduce total wildland fire management costs and risk after 15 years. 

Alternatively, the team concluded, maintaining the then-current level of 

investment in fuel reduction would increase costs, as well as risks to 

communities and ecosystems in the long term. 

The Office of Management and Budget raised concerns about the accuracy 

of the long-term funding estimates used by the strategy document, 

however, and Office of Management and Budget officials told us in 2006 

that the agencies needed to have sufficiently reliable data before they 

could publish a strategy with long-term funding estimates. Since that time, 

the agencies have continued to improve their data by nearly completing 

their LANDFIRE and FPA projects, laying important groundwork for 

future progress. Our 2008 review of FPA,31 however, recognized that 

although FPA represented a significant step forward and showed promise 

in meeting several of its objectives, it had limited ability to examine the 

long-term effects of differing funding allocation strategies—a shortcoming 

that could limit FPA’s ability to contribute to the agencies’ development of 

a cohesive strategy.32 In addition, the agencies’ abilities to develop 

effective long-term options for reducing fuels will improve if they succeed 

in their current efforts to measure the effectiveness and durability of 

different fuel reduction treatments. 

 

30Wendell Hann, et al., “A Cohesive Strategy for Protecting People and Sustaining Natural 

Resources: Predicting Outcomes for Program Options” (a paper presented at the Fire, Fuel 

Treatments, and Ecological Restoration Conference, a meeting on national wildland fire 

experts convened by the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, 

Colo., April 2002). 

31GAO-09-68. 

32As previously discussed, senior agency officials told us in 2008 that they are considering 

making changes to FPA that may improve its ability to examine the effects over time of 

different funding strategies, although they have yet to determine the exact nature of the 

changes or how to fund them. 

Page 25 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 26 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Establish a Cost- We reported in 2007 that although the Forest Service and the Interior 

agencies had taken several steps intended to help contain wildland fire 

costs, they had not clearly defined their cost-containment goals or 

developed a strategy for achieving those goals—steps that are 

fundamental to sound program management.33 Since our 2007 review, the 

agencies have continued to implement individual cost-containment steps, 

including the wildland fire decision support system and updated guidance 

for implementing the federal wildland fire management policy, but they 

have yet to develop clear cost-containment goals or a strategy for 

achieving them, as we recommended in our 2007 report. Without such 

goals and a strategy, we believe the agencies will have difficulty 

determining whether they are taking the most important steps first, as well 

as the extent to which the steps they are taking will help contain costs. 

The Forest Service and Interior generally disagreed with the 

characterization of many of our 2007 findings. In particular, they identified 

several agency documents—including the 2001 Review and Update of the 

1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and their 10-year 

strategy to implement the National Fire Plan—that they argued clearly 

define goals and objectives and that make up their strategy to contain 

costs. Although the documents cited by the agencies provide overarching 

goals and objectives, they lack the clarity and specificity needed by land 

management and firefighting officials in the field to help manage and 

contain wildland fire costs. Interagency policy, for example, established an 

overarching goal of suppressing wildland fires at minimum cost, 

considering firefighter and public safety and the importance of resources 

being protected, but the agencies have established neither clear criteria by 

which to weigh the relative importance of the often-competing elements of 

this broad goal, nor measurable objectives by which to determine if the 

agencies are meeting the goal. As a result, despite improvements the 

agencies continue to make to policy, decision-support tools, and oversight, 

we believe that managers in the field lack a clear understanding of the 

relative importance that the agencies’ leadership places on containing 

costs and—as we concluded in our 2007 report—are therefore likely to 

continue to select firefighting strategies without due consideration of the 

costs of suppression. Forest Service officials told us in July 2009 that 

although they are concerned about fire management costs, they are 

emphasizing the need to select firefighting strategies on the basis of land 

management objectives and reducing unnecessary risks to firefighters, an 

 

33GAO-07-655. 

Containment Strategy 
 

emphasis that, in the long run, may also help contain costs. Nonetheless, 

we continue to believe that our recommendations, if effectively 

implemented, would help the agencies better manage their costcontainment efforts and improve their ability to contain wildland fire 

costs. 

In 2006, we reported that federal and nonfederal officials had concerns 

about how costs for suppressing fires that burn across federal, state, and 

local jurisdictions were shared among federal and nonfederal entities and 

that these concerns may reflect a more fundamental issue—that those 

entities had not clearly defined their financial responsibilities for wildland 

fire suppression, particularly those for the often costly efforts to protect 

the wildland-urban interface.34 Nonfederal entities—including state 

forestry entities and tribal, county, city, and rural fire departments—play 

an important role in protecting communities and resources and 

responding to fires. We reported in 2006, however, that federal officials 

were concerned that the existing framework for sharing suppression costs 

among federal and nonfederal entities, coupled with the availability of 

federal emergency assistance,35 insulated state and local governments 

from the cost of providing wildland fire protection in the wildland-urban 

interface.36 As a result, state and local governments had less incentive to 

adopt laws (such as building codes requiring fire-resistant building 

materials in areas at high risk of wildland fire) that, in the long run, could 

help reduce the cost of suppressing wildland fires. We therefore 

recommended that the federal agencies work with relevant state entities to 

develop more-specific guidance as to when particular cost-sharing 

methods should be used and to clarify their respective financial 

responsibility for fires that burn, or threaten to burn, across multiple 

jurisdictions. The agencies have updated their guidance on when 

particular cost-sharing methods should be used, although we have not 

 

34GAO, Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises Concerns about Cost 

Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities, GAO-06-570 (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 

2006). 

35The Federal Emergency Management Agency can reimburse nonfederal entities for up to 

75 percent of allowable fire suppression costs for eligible fires. In 2007 and 2008, two bills 

were introduced that would have allowed the reimbursement rate to increase to 90 percent, 

provided the area at risk had adopted building codes and other measures designed to 

protect communities from wildland fire. S. 2390 (2007); H.R. 5218 (2008). 

36GAO-06-570. 

Clearly Define Financial 

Responsibilities for Fires 

That Cross Jurisdictions 

Page 27 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

evaluated the effect of this guidance. Still, the agencies have yet to clarify 

the financial responsibility for fires that threaten multiple jurisdictions. 

Our 2006 report identified two primary ambiguities regarding financial 

responsibilities for fire suppression. 

• Federal wildland fire management policy states that protecting structures 

is the responsibility of state, tribal, and local entities but it also states that, 

under a formal fire protection agreement specifying the financial 

responsibilities of each entity, federal agencies can assist nonfederal 

entities to protect the exterior of structures threatened by wildland fire.37

Forest Service guidance defines actions to protect the exterior of 

structures to include removing fuels in the vicinity of structures and 

spraying water or retardant on structures or surrounding vegetation. 

Federal and nonfederal officials agreed that federal agencies can assist 

with such actions, but they did not agree on which entities are responsible 

for bearing the costs. Federal officials told us that the purpose of this 

policy is to allow federal agencies to use their personnel and equipment to 

help protect homes but not to bear the financial responsibility of providing 

that protection. Nonfederal officials, however, said that these actions are 

intended to keep a wildland fire from reaching structures, and financial 

responsibility should therefore be shared between both federal and 

nonfederal entities. The Forest Service developed new “structure 

protection principles” in 2009, but these principles do not clarify the 

financial responsibilities for suppression actions intended to protect 

structures. 

• The presence of structures adjacent to federal lands can substantially alter 

fire suppression strategies and raise costs. A previous report and agency 

officials have questioned which entities are financially responsible for 

suppression actions taken on federal lands but intended primarily or 

exclusively to protect adjacent wildland-urban interface areas. Fire 

managers typically use existing roads and geographic features, such as 

rivers and ridgelines, as firebreaks to help contain wildland fires. If, 

however, homes and other structures are located between a fire and such 

natural firebreaks, firefighters may have to construct other firebreaks and 

rely more than they would otherwise on aircraft to drop fire retardant to 

 

37Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, 

Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Environmental Protection Agency, 

Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the National Association of State Foresters, 

Review and Update of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy (Washington, 

D.C.: January 2001). 

Page 28 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

protect the structures, thereby increasing suppression costs. Nonfederal 

officials in several states questioned the appropriateness of assigning to 

nonfederal entities the costs for suppression actions taken on federal 

lands. They said that an accumulation of fuels on federal lands is resulting 

in more-severe wildland fires and contributing to the increased cost of fire 

suppression. They also said that federal agencies are responsible for 

keeping wildland fires from burning off federal land and should therefore 

bear the costs of doing so. Federal officials recognized this responsibility, 

but some also said that with the growing awareness that wildland fires are 

inevitable in many parts of the country, policy should recognize that 

wildland fires will occur and are likely to burn across jurisdictional 

boundaries. In their view, those who own property in areas at risk of 

wildland fires share a portion of the financial responsibility for protecting 

it. Previous federal agency reports have also recognized this issue and 

called for clarifying financial responsibility for such actions.38

Agency officials, in conjunction with officials from nonfederal entities, 

including the National Association of State Foresters, have initiated an 

effort intended to help clarify federal and nonfederal financial 

responsibilities, although it is too early to determine if the effort will 

succeed. Yet the continuing expansion of the wildland-urban interface and 

the rising costs for protecting these areas make resolving these issues ever 

more urgent. Unless the financial responsibilities for multijurisdictional 

fires are clarified, the concerns that the existing framework insulates 

nonfederal entities from the cost of protecting the wildland-urban 

interface from fire—and that the federal government therefore continues 

to bear more than its share of that cost—are unlikely to be addressed. 

agencies to transfer funds from other programs to help pay for fire 

suppression. The year-to-year variability in the number, location, and 

severity of fires makes it difficult to estimate needed suppression funds 

accurately, and when appropriated funds are insufficient to cover actual 

suppression expenditures, the agencies are authorized to use funds from 

their other programs to pay for emergency firefighting activities. We 

reported in 2004 that from 1999 through 2003, the agencies transferred 

 

Mitigate Effects of Rising Rising wildland fire costs have led the Forest Service and the Interior 

38See Department of Agriculture, Secretary of Agriculture Independent Cost-Control 

Review Panel, FY 2004 Large Cost Wildfires Report (Washington, D.C.: March 2005), and 

Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior, Consolidation of the 2003 

National and Regional Large Incident Strategic Assessment and Oversight Review Key 

Findings (Washington, D.C.: September 2003). 

Fire Costs on Other 

Agency Programs 

Page 29 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

more than $2.7 billion from these other programs.39 The Forest Service 

transferred funds from numerous programs, including construction and 

maintenance; the national forest system; and state and private forestry 

programs that provide grants to states, tribes, communities, and private 

landowners for fire and insect management, among other purposes. 

Interior transferred funds primarily from its construction and land 

acquisition programs. We have not examined this issue in detail since our 

2004 report, but in 2009 we testified that funding transfers continued, with 

the agencies transferring funds in fiscal years 2006, 2007, and 2008.40

Although the agencies received additional appropriations to cover, on 

average, about 80 percent of the funds transferred, we found that the 

transfers caused the agencies to cancel or delay some projects and fail to 

fulfill certain commitments to their nonfederal partners. We reported, for 

example, that funding transfers delayed planned construction and land 

acquisition projects, which in some cases led to higher project costs due to 

revised budget and construction plans or higher supply and land 

acquisition costs. In one instance, the Forest Service delayed purchasing a 

65-acre property in Arizona that it had planned to acquire for 

approximately $3.2 million in 2002; it was able to purchase the property 

about a year later, but the cost of the property had increased by $195,000. 

Also, although funds were transferred to help the agencies suppress 

wildland fires, among the delayed projects were ones to reduce fuels to 

lower the fire risk to communities, construct new firefighting facilities, 

and provide firefighting training courses. 

To help the agencies address the impacts of funding transfers on other 

agency programs, we recommended in 2004 that they take a number of 

steps, including improving their methods for estimating annual 

suppression costs. Typically, the agencies base their estimates of needed 

suppression funding on the 10-year rolling average of fire costs41—a 

 

39GAO, Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations and 

Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions, GAO-04-612 (Washington, 

D.C.: June 2, 2004). 

40GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Actions by Federal Agencies and Congress Could 

Mitigate Rising Fire Costs and Their Effects on Other Agency Programs, GAO-09-444T

(Washington, D.C: Apr. 1, 2009). 

41The agencies calculate a simple rolling or moving average by computing average annual 

expenditures over a 10-year period and updating the average each year, using expenditures 

from the most recent 10 years. Each year’s value receives equal weight in the average. The 

moving average is generally considered to be a lagging indicator of current costs. 

Page 30 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

method with known problems. Although we noted in our 2004 report that 

better estimates of the costs of suppressing fires in a given year would 

reduce the likelihood that the agencies would need to transfer funds from 

other accounts, the agencies continue to use the 10-year rolling average as 

the foundation of their budget requests. Interior stated at the time that it 

believed that the 10-year average was a “reasonable and durable basis for 

suppression budgeting.” The Forest Service, however, concurred with our 

recommendation. Nevertheless, a Forest Service official told us in 2008 

that the agency had analyzed alternative methods for estimating needed 

suppression funds but determined that no better method was available. 

While we recognize that the accuracy of the 10-year average is likely to 

improve as recent years with higher suppression costs are included in that 

average, the need to transfer funds in each of the last 3 years suggests that 

the agencies should continue to seek a more accurate method for 

estimating needed suppression costs. 

In addition to the actions we believe the agencies need to take, we have 

also suggested that Congress consider legislating alternative approaches to 

funding wildland fire suppression that could help reduce the need for the 

agencies to transfer funds. As we reported in 2004, for example, Congress 

could consider alternative funding approaches for wildland fire 

suppression, including establishing a reserve account that the agencies 

could access when their suppression accounts are depleted.42 Such an 

account could provide either a specified amount (a definite appropriation) 

or as much funding as the agencies need to fund emergency suppression 

(an indefinite appropriation). 

Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. Establishing a reserve 

account with a definite appropriation would provide the agencies with 

incentives to contain suppression costs within the amount in the reserve 

account, but depending on the size of the appropriation and the severity of 

a fire season, suppression costs could still exceed the funds reserved, and 

the agencies might still need to transfer funds from other programs. An 

account with an indefinite appropriation, in contrast, would eliminate the 

need for transferring funds from other programs but would offer no 

inherent incentives for the agencies to contain suppression costs. 

Furthermore, both definite and indefinite appropriations could raise the 

overall federal budget deficit, depending on whether funding levels for 

other agency or government programs are reduced. The Federal Land 

 

42GAO-04-612. 

Page 31 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Assistance, Management, and Enhancement bill would establish a 

wildland fire reserve account; the administration’s budget for fiscal year 

2010 also proposes a $282 million reserve account for the Forest Service 

and a $75 million reserve account for Interior to provide funding for 

firefighting when the appropriated 10-year average is exhausted.43

The agencies responsible for managing wildland fires on federal lands 

have unquestionably improved their understanding of the nation’s 

wildland fire problem and have positioned themselves to respond to fire 

more effectively. Noteworthy advances include more flexible firefighting 

strategies, better information and decision-making tools, and a more 

coordinated approach. Yet it is not clear how much ground the agencies 

have gained through these improvements, because at the same time the 

agencies have been working to improve, the conditions contributing to the 

nation’s fire problem have worsened—with increasing development in the 

wildland-urban interface, a continued excess of accumulated fuels, and 

growing evidence of the effects of climate change. The agencies have 

recognized that additional, strategic action is needed if they are to get 

ahead of the fire problem rather than simply react to it, but they have yet 

to take the bold steps we believe are necessary to implement such a 

strategic approach. Such steps—including implementation of a cohesive 

strategy and efforts to better predict, contain, and share firefighting 

costs—could, over time, allow the agencies to better prepare for, and 

respond to, the severe wildland fire seasons to come. Without such steps, 

the agencies risk failing to capitalize on the important, but incomplete, 

improvements they have made—and risk losing ground in their fight to 

manage the wildland fire problem. 

We are making no new recommendations at this time. As noted, however, 

we believe that our previous recommendations—which the agencies have 

generally agreed with—could, if implemented, substantially assist the 

agencies in capitalizing on the important progress they have made to date. 

 

43The FLAME bill would establish in the Treasury a fund known as the Federal Land 

Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Fund. The fund would include amounts 

appropriated to it in annual appropriations acts as well as amounts transferred from any 

fire suppression remaining unobligated at the end of the fiscal year. Money in the fund 

would be available on a permanent indefinite basis to pay the costs of certain catastrophic 

emergency wildland fire suppression activities. 

Concluding 

Observations 

Page 32 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

Page 33 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

We provided a draft of this report to the Departments of Agriculture and 

the Interior for comment. Both the Forest Service and the Department of 

the Interior agreed with the findings in the report. The Forest Service’s and 

Interior’s written comments are reproduced in appendixes II and III, 

respectively. 

committees; the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior; the Chief of 

the Forest Service; the Directors of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of 

Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service; 

and other interested parties. The report also is available at no charge on 

the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

If you or your staffs have questions about this report, please contact me at 

(202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of 

Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page 

of this report. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV. 

Robin M. Nazzaro 

Director, Natural Resources and Environment 

Agency Comments 

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional 
 

List of Congressional Addressees 

The Honorable Tom Harkin 

Chairman 

The Honorable Saxby Chambliss 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Jeff Bingaman 

Chairman 

The Honorable Lisa Murkowski 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 

United States Senate 

The Honorable Collin C. Peterson 

Chairman 

The Honorable Frank D. Lucas 

Ranking Member 

Committee on Agriculture 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Nick J. Rahall II 

Chairman 

Committee on Natural Resources 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein 

Chairman 

The Honorable Lamar Alexander 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, 

 and Related Agencies 

Committee on Appropriations 

United States Senate 

Page 34 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
 

The Honorable Joe Baca 

Chairman 

The Honorable Jeff Fortenberry 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Department Operations, 

 Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry 

Committee on Agriculture 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks 

Chairman 

The Honorable Michael K. Simpson 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, 

 and Related Agencies 

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives 

The Honorable Raul M. Grijalva 

Chairman 

The Honorable Rob Bishop 

Ranking Member 

Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, 

 and Public Lands 

Committee on Natural Resources 

House of Representatives 

Page 35 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

Page 36 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

To determine progress the Forest Service and Department of the Interior 

agencies have made in managing wildland fire, we reviewed pertinent 

agency documents and our previous reports and testimonies. To identify 

the agencies’ overall approach to managing wildland fires and any changes 

they have made to that approach, we reviewed key agency documents, 

including the 1995 and 2001 federal wildland fire management policies and 

the key documents making up the National Fire Plan. To identify key steps 

the agencies have taken to address the growing wildland fire problem and 

any improvement resulting from these steps, we reviewed agency 

documents and previous GAO reports and testimonies related to wildland 

fire. To further our understanding of the changes in the agencies’ approach 

to managing wildland fire and the steps they have taken to address the 

problem—and to identify any additional agency efforts to improve their 

wildland fire programs—we interviewed various agency officials, 

including officials in Washington, D.C., and at the National Interagency 

Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. 

To determine the key actions we previously recommended and believe are 

still needed to improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire, we 

reviewed our previous reports and testimonies and identified steps we had 

previously recommended the agencies take to improve their wildland fire 

programs. In many cases, our earlier recommendations were based on our 

review of agency documents and of independent analysis of the agencies’ 

programs (including reviews by the National Academy of Public 

Administration and the National Association of State Foresters). To 

determine the status of the agencies’ implementation of our 

recommendations, we reviewed relevant agency documents and 

interviewed agency officials. 

We conducted this performance audit from January 2009 to September 

2009, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to 

obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for 

our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe 

that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings 

and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
Appendix II: Comments from the Department Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 

of Agriculture, Forest Service 

Page 37 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Appendix III: Comments from the Department Appendix III: Comments from the of the Interior 

Department of the Interior 

Page 38 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Page 39 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Robin M. Nazzaro, (202) 512-3841, or nazzaror@gao.gov 

In addition to the individual named above, Steve Gaty, Assistant Director; 

David P. Bixler; Ellen W. Chu; Jonathan Dent; Richard P. Johnson; and 

Kim Raheb made key contributions to this report. 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact 

Staff 

Acknowledgments 
Related GAO Products Related GAO Products 

Wildland Fire Management: Actions by Federal Agencies and Congress 

Could Mitigate Rising Fire Costs and Their Effects on Other Agency 

Programs. GAO-09-444T. Washington, D.C.: April 1, 2009. 

Forest Service: Emerging Issues Highlight the Need to Address Persistent 

Management Challenges. GAO-09-443T. Washington, D.C.: March 11, 2009. 

Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further 

Development to Fully Meet Key Objectives. GAO-09-68. Washington, D.C.: 

November 24, 2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long- and ShortTerm Management Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively.

GAO-08-433T. Washington, D.C.: February 12, 2008. 

Forest Service: Better Planning, Guidance, and Data Are Needed to 

Improve Management of the Competitive Sourcing Program. GAO-08-195. 

Washington, D.C.: January 22, 2008. 

Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic 

Process Could Improve Agencies’ Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction 

Funds and Selecting Projects. GAO-07-1168. Washington, D.C.: September 

28, 2007. 

Natural Hazard Mitigation: Various Mitigation Efforts Exist, but 

Federal Efforts Do Not Provide a Comprehensive Strategic Framework.

GAO-07-403. Washington, D.C.: August 22, 2007. 

Wildland Fire: Management Improvements Could Enhance Federal 

Agencies’ Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires. GAO-07-922T. 

Washington, D.C.: June 26, 2007. 

Wildland Fire Management: A Cohesive Strategy and Clear CostContainment Goals Are Needed for Federal Agencies to Manage Wildland 

Fire Activities Effectively. GAO-07-1017T. Washington, D.C.: June 19, 

2007. 

Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders 

Federal Agencies’ Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires. 

GAO-07-655. Washington, D.C.: June 1, 2007. 

Department of the Interior: Major Management Challenges. 

GAO-07-502T. Washington, D.C.: February 16, 2007. 

Page 40 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Related GAO Products 

Wildland Fire Management: Lack of a Cohesive Strategy Hinders 

Agencies’ Cost-Containment Efforts. GAO-07-427T. Washington, D.C.: 

January 30, 2007. 

Biscuit Fire Recovery Project: Analysis of Project Development, Salvage 

Sales, and Other Activities. GAO-06-967. Washington, D.C.: September 18, 

2006. 

Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: Forest Service and BLM 

Could Benefit from Improved Information on Status of Needed Work.

GAO-06-670. Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2006. 

Wildland Fire Suppression: Better Guidance Needed to Clarify Sharing 

of Costs between Federal and Nonfederal Entities. GAO-06-896T. 

Washington, D.C.: June 21, 2006. 

Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises Concerns 

about Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities.

GAO-06-570. Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2006. 

Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to Develop 

a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats. GAO-06-671R. 

Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006. 

Natural Resources: Woody Biomass Users’ Experiences Provide Insights 

for Ongoing Government Efforts to Promote Its Use. GAO-06-694T. 

Washington, D.C.: April 27, 2006. 

Natural Resources: Woody Biomass Users’ Experiences Offer Insights for 

Government Efforts Aimed at Promoting Its Use. GAO-06-336. 

Washington, D.C.: March 22, 2006. 

Wildland Fire Management: Timely Identification of Long-Term Options 

and Funding Needs Is Critical. GAO-05-923T. Washington, D.C.: July 14, 

2005. 

Natural Resources: Federal Agencies Are Engaged in Numerous Woody 

Biomass Utilization Activities, but Significant Obstacles May Impede 

Their Efforts. GAO-05-741T. Washington, D.C.: May 24, 2005. 

Natural Resources: Federal Agencies Are Engaged in Various Efforts to 

Promote the Utilization of Woody Biomass, but Significant Obstacles to 

Its Use Remain. GAO-05-373. Washington, D.C.: May 13, 2005. 

Page 41 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Related GAO Products 

Technology Assessment: Protecting Structures and Improving 

Communications during Wildland Fires. GAO-05-380. Washington, D.C.: 

April 26, 2005. 

Wildland Fire Management: Progress and Future Challenges, Protecting 

Structures, and Improving Communications. GAO-05-627T. Washington, 

D.C.: April 26, 2005. 

Wildland Fire Management: Forest Service and Interior Need to Specify 

Steps and a Schedule for Identifying Long-Term Options and Their 

Costs. GAO-05-353T. Washington, D.C.: February 17, 2005. 

Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but 

Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy. GAO-05-147. 

Washington, D.C.: January 14, 2005. 

Wildland Fires: Forest Service and BLM Need Better Information and a 

Systematic Approach for Assessing the Risks of Environmental Effects.

GAO-04-705. Washington, D.C.: June 24, 2004. 

Federal Land Management: Additional Guidance on Community 

Involvement Could Enhance Effectiveness of Stewardship Contracting.

GAO-04-652. Washington, D.C.: June 14, 2004. 

Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations 

and Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions.

GAO-04-612. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 2004. 

Biscuit Fire: Analysis of Fire Response, Resource Availability, and 

Personnel Certification Standards. GAO-04-426. Washington, D.C.: April 

12, 2004. 

Forest Service: Information on Appeals and Litigation Involving Fuel 

Reduction Activities. GAO-04-52. Washington, D.C.: October 24, 2003. 

Geospatial Information: Technologies Hold Promise for Wildland Fire 

Management, but Challenges Remain. GAO-03-1047. Washington, D.C.: 

September 23, 2003. 

Geospatial Information: Technologies Hold Promise for Wildland Fire 

Management, but Challenges Remain. GAO-03-1114T. Washington, D.C.: 

August 28, 2003. 

Page 42 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Related GAO Products 

Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to Better 

Identify and Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction. GAO-03-805. 

Washington, D.C.: August 15, 2003. 

Wildland Fires: Forest Service’s Removal of Timber Burned by Wildland 

Fires. GAO-03-808R. Washington, D.C.: July 10, 2003. 

Forest Service: Information on Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction 

Activities. GAO-03-689R. Washington, D.C.: May 14, 2003. 

Wildland Fires: Better Information Needed on Effectiveness of 

Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments. GAO-03-430. 

Washington, D.C.: April 4, 2003. 

Major Management Challenges and Program Risks: Department of the 

Interior. GAO-03-104. Washington, D.C.: January 1, 2003. 

Results-Oriented Management: Agency Crosscutting Actions and Plans 

in Border Control, Flood Mitigation and Insurance, Wetlands, and 

Wildland Fire Management. GAO-03-321. Washington, D.C.: December 20, 

2002. 

Wildland Fire Management: Reducing the Threat of Wildland Fires 

Requires Sustained and Coordinated Effort. GAO-02-843T. Washington, 

D.C: June 13, 2002. 

Wildland Fire Management: Improved Planning Will Help Agencies 

Better Identify Fire-Fighting Preparedness Needs. GAO-02-158. 

Washington, D.C.: March 29, 2002. 

Severe Wildland Fires: Leadership and Accountability Needed to Reduce 

Risks to Communities and Resources. GAO-02-259. Washington, D.C.: 

January 31, 2002. 

Forest Service: Appeals and Litigation of Fuel Reduction Projects. 

GAO-01-1114R. Washington, D.C.: August 31, 2001. 

The National Fire Plan: Federal Agencies Are Not Organized to 

Effectively and Efficiently Implement the Plan. GAO-01-1022T. 

Washington, D.C.: July 31, 2001. 

Reducing Wildfire Threats: Funds Should be Targeted to the Highest Risk 

Areas. GAO/T-RCED-00-296. Washington, D.C.: September 13, 2000. 

Page 43 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 
Related GAO Products 

Page 44 GAO-09-877 Wildland Fire Management 

Fire Management: Lessons Learned From the Cerro Grande (Los 

Alamos) Fire. GAO/T-RCED-00-257. Washington, D.C.: August 14, 2000. 

Fire Management: Lessons Learned From the Cerro Grande (Los 

Alamos) Fire and Actions Needed to Reduce Fire Risks.

GAO/T-RCED-00-273. Washington, D.C.: August 14, 2000. 

Federal Wildfire Activities: Issues Needing Future Attention. 

GAO/T-RCED-99-282. Washington, D.C.: September 14, 1999. 

Federal Wildfire Activities: Current Strategy and Issues Needing 

Attention. GAO/RCED-99-233. Washington, D.C.: August 13, 1999. 

Western National Forests: Status of Forest Service’s Efforts to Reduce 

Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. GAO/T-RCED-99-241. Washington, D.C.: 

June 29, 1999. 

Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address 

Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. GAO/RCED-99-65. Washington, D.C.: 

April 2, 1999. 

Western National Forests: Nearby Communities Are Increasingly 

Threatened By Catastrophic Wildfires. GAO/T-RCED-99-79. Washington, 

D.C.: February 9, 1999. 

(361038) 
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