IV

107TH CONGRESS

2D SESSION H. CON. RES. 352

Expressing the sense of Congress that Federal land management agencies

should fully implement the Western Governors Association ‘‘Collaborative

10-year Strategy for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and

the Environment’’ to reduce the overabundance of forest fuels that place

national resources at high risk of catastrophic wildfire, and prepare

a National Prescribed Fire Strategy that minimizes risks of escape.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MARCH 14, 2002

Mr. POMBO (for himself, Mr. STUPAK, Mr. OTTER, Mrs. DAVIS of California,

Mr. KILDEE, Mr. SCHAFFER, Mr. MCINNIS, Mr. SIMPSON, and Mr.

STUMP) submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred

to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committee on

Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker,

in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of Congress that Federal land management agencies should fully implement the Western Governors Association ‘‘Collaborative 10-year Strategy for

Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the

Environment’’ to reduce the overabundance of forest

fuels that place national resources at high risk of catastrophic wildfire, and prepare a National Prescribed Fire

Strategy that minimizes risks of escape.
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•HCON 352 IH

Whereas catastrophic wildfires not only cause environmental

damage to forests and other lands but place the lives of

firefighters at risk and pose threats to human health,

personal property, sustainable ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and air and water quality;

Whereas upon completion of the 2001 wildfire season, 81,681

fires burned 3,555,138 acres, which threatened rural

communities nationwide and killed 15 firefighters;

Whereas more than 7,400,000 acres burned during the 2000

wildfire season—equivalent to a six-mile-wide swath from

Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, California—destroying 861 structures, killing 16 firefighters, and costing the

Federal Government $1,300,000,000 in suppression

costs;

Whereas an April 1999 General Accounting Office report to

the United States House of Representatives, entitled

‘‘Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats’’ (GAO/

RCED–99–65) states that ‘‘The most extensive and serious problem related to the health of national forests in

the interior West is the overaccumulation of vegetation,

which has caused an increasing number of large, intense,

uncontrollable and catastrophically destructive wildfires’’;

Whereas an April 2000 United States Forest Service report,

entitled ‘‘Protecting People and Sustaining Resources in

Fire-Adapted Ecosystems: A Cohesive Strategy’’, in response to the 1999 General Accounting Office report,

confirms the previous report’s conclusion and further

warns that ‘‘Without increased restoration treatments . . . , wildfire suppression costs, natural resource

losses, private property losses, and environmental damage
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•HCON 352 IH

are certain to escalate as fuels continue to accumulate

and more acres become high-risk’’;

Whereas the July 2001 General Accounting Office testimony

entitled ‘‘The National Fire Plan: Federal Agencies Are

Not Organized to Effectively and Efficiently Implement

the Plan’’ (GAO–01–1022T) before the United States

House of Representatives Subcommittee on Forests and

Forest Health reported that ‘‘The Federal Government’s

decades-old policy of suppressing all wildland fires, including naturally occurring ones, have resulted in dangerous accumulations of hazardous fuels on Federal

lands. As a result, conditions on 211,000,000 acres, or

almost one-third of all Federal lands, continue to deteriorate’’ and ‘‘[t]he list of at-risk communities ballooned to

over 22,000’’;

Whereas the escaped prescribed burn that created the Cerro

Grande Fire in May 2000, that consumed 48,000 acres

and destroyed 400 homes with losses exceeding

$1,000,000,000 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the escaped prescribed burn that created the Lowden Fire in

1999 that destroyed 23 homes in Lewiston, California,

highlight the unacceptable risks of using prescribed burning as the sole forest fuel reduction practice by Federal

land management agencies;

Whereas similar catastrophic wildfire resolutions were passed

by the California Legislature (AJR 69) and Western

Legislative Forestry Task Force (R00–1) in 2000 and

Oregon (HJM 22), Idaho (SJM 104) and Montana (HJ

22) in 2001;

Whereas the Western Governors Association’s ‘‘Collaborative

10-year Strategy for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to
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Communities and the Environment’’ was signed in 2001;

and

Whereas in 2000, the United States Congress provided an

unprecedented $2,900,000,000 in funding for the United

States Departments of Agriculture and Interior wildfire

fire fighting agencies to prepare for future fire-suppression efforts and take proactive steps to reduce wildfire

risk on all Federal lands: Now, therefore, be it

1 Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate

2 concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that—

3 (1) in the interest of protecting the integrity

4 and posterity of United States forests and wildlands,

5 wildlife habitats, watersheds, air quality, human

6 health and safety, and private property, the Forest

7 Service and other Federal land management agen8 cies should—

9 (A) fully implement the Western Governors

10 Association’s ‘‘Collaborative 10-year Strategy

11 for Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Commu12 nities and the Environment’’ to reduce the over13 abundance of forest fuels that place these re14 sources at high risk of catastrophic wildfire;

15 (B) use an appropriate mix of fire preven16 tion activities and management practices, in17 cluding forest restoration, thinning of at-risk

18 forest stands, grazing, selective tree removal,

19 and other measures to control insects and
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1 pathogens, removal of excessive ground fuels,

2 and small-scale prescribed burns;

3 (C) increase the role for private, local, and

4 State contracts for fuel reduction treatments on

5 Federal forest lands and adjoining private prop6 erties; and

7 (D) pursue more effective fire suppression

8 on Federal forest lands through increased fund9 ing of mutual aid agreements with professional

10 State and local public fire fighting agencies;

11 (2) in the interest of forest protection and pub12 lic safety, the Departments of Agriculture and the

13 Interior should immediately prepare for public re14 view a national prescribed fire strategy for public

15 lands that creates a process for evaluation of worst16 case scenarios for risk of escape and identifies alter17 natives that will achieve land management objectives

18 while minimizing the risk associated with prescribed

19 fire; and

20 (3) a national prescribed fire strategy for public

21 lands as described in paragraph (2) should be incor22 porated into any regulatory land use planning pro23 grams that propose the use of prescribed fire as a

24 management practice.

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