EPA Exceptional Events Rule Revision Hearing Testimony 

Phoenix, Arizona 

12-8-15 

Members of the Hearing Panel, 

Introduction: Craig Thomas, Conservation Director for Sierra Forest Legacy (SFL)-formed in 

1996, we are a conservation coalition of over 80 environmental organizations focused primarily 

on federal land management policy and practice in the Sierra Nevada Bioregion of California. 

Increasing fire use for ecological sustainability, forest carbon stability and in support of public 

safety and public health are key concerns of the coalition. 

We are experiencing increasingly alarming fire events in the Sierra Nevada. Many of these 

events have made the national daily news cycle where fire intensity and scale is discussed and 

largely forgotten by the next news cycle. What is seldom discussed is the longer term impacts to 

water quality, air quality, loss of ecological benefits to humans, damage to plants and wildlife, 

soils, recreation opportunjties and recreation economies, community safety and other factors. 

While the roaring blazes and the dangerous fire suppression efforts make an exciting network 

news cycle and provide attention-garnering images, the real heart of the matter is rarely 

mentioned. The issue of increasingly uncontrollable fires in the West, stemming from a century 

of fire exclusion and the loss of fire's critical role in ecosystem resilience, is seldom mentioned. 

We are pleased to see such a robust discussion of these issues in recent EPA Air Quality 

Rulemaking, proposed revisions and guidance letters. We support much of the proposed 

recommendations that focus on enabling fire's critical role in establishing and maintaining 

ecosystem sustainability and protecting public health and safety. We believe that protection of 

public health goes hand-in-hand with increased managed fire use, not at the expense of it. We 

base this statement on a clear understanding of fire and its critical role in forested ecosystems of 

California and the fact that fire suppression efforts are increasingly overwhelmed by fire 

intensity during >95 percentile fue weather events. Promoting thoughtful fire use (FR 72866) at 

meaningful ecological scales is the path forward to protect our natural resources and public 

health. Scale matters greatly. 

We do not comment at this time on the efforts to lower the work and process burden on 

regulators and land managers except to say that collaborative efforts to lower that burden is a 
of the circumstances we are in due largely to fire exclusion and now also exacerbated by 

climate change. 

Assumptions regarding what is "reasonably controllable" needs increased scrutiny during this 

EE Rulemaking. Two examples: l) Reliance on mechanical treatments (FR 72869) as an 

alternative to increased fire use will not lead to ecological, landscape-level resilience. While 

there is a role for ecologically appropriate, strategic mechanical fuels reduction, the scale of 

mechanical treatments is limited by many factors with steep slopes and lack of roads being 

two primary factors. (See North et al. 2012-Journal of Forestry; North et al 2015-Journal of 

Forestry; North et al. 2015-Science Insights). 2. Any scaled use of herbicides to reduce fuels 

is socially and ecologically unrealistic and damaging to multiple resources. 

(2) Not Reasonably Preventable 

The "not reasonably preventable" demonstration criteria that includes consideration of the 

natural fire return interval or interval determined by relevant FLM forest plan is a positive step 

forward. We request EPA be more explicit regarding the scale of fire return (FR72869 

"mimicking the natural role of fire") which is directly tied to fire resilience and scale of fire 

returned to any particular landscape. Minimal increases in the number of burn days and minimal 

changes in burn duration will not remedy the impacts of a century of :fire exclusion. 

(3) Human activity not likely to recur 

SLF supports a reasonable, science-based definition of not likely to recur that encompasses the 

natural fire return interval, maintenance burns that maintain ecological values established in 

previous treatments and protection of public safety. The key point being that we need fire to 

return at regular intervals to "mimic the natural role of fire" in forest, shrubland and grassland 

ecosystems where the fire regime defines the fire need. While some fire regimes have longer 

intervals between fires (lodgepole pine types), others are quite narrow. Public safety that is 

improved by fire use is within the prevue of EPAs authority to allow exceedance demonstrations 

for such purposes. Such uses may have unique fire frequencies. 

II. EPA's Regulatory Influence Over Fire-Associated Landscapes. 

We do not accept the rationale in the 2013 EER Guidance Letter that grants authority to 

state air quality regulators to exempt air pollution impacts resulting from wildfires during 

annual air quality emissions accounting. The authority to exempt wildfire emissions from 

annual or multi-year accounting should only occur if the state and air district regulators 

are supportive of, and not hindering, an ecologically significant fire program within the 
to harmful airborne pollutants are not questioned here, there have been only limited direct 

conversations with the fire, vegetation and wildlife ecology community regarding what it would 

take in terms of scale of fire use to limit public exposure to increasingly common mega-fire and 

mega-emissions events. Hopefully this important dialog will grow and inform future efforts. 

Thank you for this opportunity to comment. We will provide detajled comments by the January 

19, 2016 deadline. 

Sincerely, 

Craig Thomas 

Conservation Director 

Sierra Forest Legacy 

P.O. Box 244 

Garden Valley, CA 95633 

916-708-9409 

craig@sierraforestlegacy.org 

www.sierraforestlegacy.org