SHARED 

STEWARDSHIP OUTCOMES INVESTMENTS LANDSCAPES

PRIORITIES

TREATMENTS STATES 

COMMUNITIES COLLABORATION

IMPROVE MITIGATION 

VISION

FOREST MANAGEMENT

COORDINATION WATERSHEDS FOCUS PLANNING TOOLS TECHNOLOGY STAKEHOLDERS 

FOCUS

CAPITALIZE

HAZARDOUS FUELS TREATMENT

CAPACITY OPPORTUNITIES SAFE EFFECTIVE CO-MANAGE ADAPTATION RECALIBRATE STEWARDSHIP PRIORITIES

 TOOLS

SHARED 

WATERSHEDS FOREST MANAGEMENT FOCUS OUTCOMES

OPPORTUNITIES

COLLABORATION

CO-MANAGE

CAPACITY TREATMENTS MITIGATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS COMMUNITIES VISION COLLABORATION TREATMENTS STATES STEWARDSHIP EFFECTIVE SAFE 

INVESTMENTS ADAPTATION

FOCUS WATERSHEDS 

COORDINATION IMPROVE 

SHARED 

STEWARDSHIP OUTCOMES INVESTMENTS LANDSCAPES

PRIORITIES

TREATMENTS STATES 

COMMUNITIES COLLABORATION

IMPROVE MITIGATION 

VISION

FOREST MANAGEMENT

COORDINATION WATERSHEDS FOCUS PLANNING TOOLS TECHNOLOGY STAKEHOLDERS 

FOCUS

CAPITALIZE

HAZARDOUS FUELS TREATMENT

CAPACITY OPPORTUNITIES SAFE EFFECTIVE CO-MANAGE ADAPTATION RECALIBRATE STEWARDSHIP PRIORITIES

 TOOLS

SHARED 

WATERSHEDS FOREST MANAGEMENT FOCUS OUTCOMES

OPPORTUNITIES

COLLABORATION

CO-MANAGE

CAPACITY TREATMENTS MITIGATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS COMMUNITIES VISION COLLABORATION TREATMENTS STATES STEWARDSHIP EFFECTIVE SAFE 

INVESTMENTS ADAPTATION

FOCUS WATERSHEDS 

COORDINATION IMPROVE 

Toward Shared Stewardship 

Across Landscapes:

An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service FS-1118 August 2018
Cover photos

Fire ecologist Alicia Reiner and fire and aviation management cooperative fire assistant Mark Corson 

check equipment at Fire Behavior Assessment Team site on the Cedar Fire near the Sequoia National 

Forest, Posey, CA, in 2016. USDA Forest Service photo by Lance Cheung.

Private home near the Cedar Fire in the Sequoia National Forest near Panorama Heights, CA, in 2016. 

USDA Forest Service photo by Lance Cheung.

Portion of the Chattahochee-Oconee National Forest in Georgia after thinning treatment for timber sales 

production. USDA Forest Service photo by Cecilio Ricardo. 

Firefighters conduct a prescribed burn on the Stanislaus National Forest near Sonora, CA. USDA Forest 

Service photo.

Public meeting on the Fossil Creek Comprehensive River Management Plan. USDA Forest Service photo 

by Deborah Lee Soltesz.

Forest Service employees brief U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and New Mexico 

Governor Susana Martinez on forest treatments during tour of the Santa Fe Watershed in Santa Fe, NM, 

in 2018. USDA Forest Service photo by Lance Cheung.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 1

Contents

Executive Summary

Growing Need for Reduced Fire Risk and Improved Forest Conditions

Improving the Wildland Fire System 

Vision

Current Situation

Fire Year Outlook for 2018

Cornerstones for Change

Challenges and Constraints

A Foundation for Success

Strategy for Shared Stewardship

Co-managing Wildfire Risk 

Scenario Investment Planning 

Focusing on Outcomes

New Authorizing Environment

Internal Reforms 

The Right Kind of Fire

Risk-Based Response to Wildfire

Envisioning a Path Ahead

Appendix: Recent Forest Service Initiatives and Programs To Build 

Capacity

2

4

6

7

9

9

10

10

13

15

16

17

18

19

20

20

21

22

23
2 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Executive Summary

Managers and owners of forests across the Nation face urgent challenges, 

among them catastrophic wildfires, invasive species, drought, and epidemics 

of forest insects and disease. Of particular concern are longer fire seasons 

and the rising size and severity of wildfires, along with the expanding 

risk to communities, natural resources, and the safety of firefighters. 

Accordingly, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, we 

are rethinking our approach to land management. We will work closely 

with States to set landscape-scale priorities for targeted treatments in 

areas with the highest payoffs.

For decades, we have worked with States, Tribes, local communities, and 

collaborative groups to reduce fuels and improve forest conditions. By 

offering a powerful vision for improving forest conditions across fire-prone 

landscapes, the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy 

provides a foundation for building even stronger relationships. 

The 2014 Farm Bill gave the Forest Service tools to get more work done 

on the ground, for example, providing for cross-boundary work with 

States through the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA). As of June 2018, we 

have signed 163 GNA agreements on 59 national forests in 25 States to 

complete a variety of restoration activities. The 2018 omnibus bill further 

expanded the GNA and other authorities, enabling us to do more work 

across boundaries. 

Since the 1990s, the average annual area we have treated has steadily 

grown. We are protecting more communities and watersheds, producing 

more timber volume, and treating more acres for hazardous fuels than 

at any time in the past 20 years. Yet catastrophic wildfires and the 

corresponding loss of lives, homes, and natural resources have continued 

to grow, partly because our treatments have been uncoordinated and not 

at the right scale. Although locally successful, we have rarely succeeded 

at the scale needed for lasting impacts across landscapes. 

 A steady increase in collaboration capacity and recent breakthroughs in 

Forest Service science, mapping, and technology are providing new tools 

for planning investments to reduce fire risk and improve forest conditions. 

We will implement these new authorities and advances in technology by:

• Working with States to set priorities and co-manage risk across broad 

landscapes. The most effective approach to wildland fire management 

is shared stewardship of the wildland fire environment, shared 

ownership of the challenges it presents, and a shared commitment to 

meeting those challenges. As the scale of wildfires grows, the scale 

of coordinated planning needs to expand accordingly. We envision 

States taking a leading role in convening stakeholders to discuss 

the wildland fire environment. State forest action plans can provide 

guidelines for coordinating activities across jurisdictional boundaries.

Fields of sunflowers blanket many open meadows and fields in Coconino National 

Forest in Arizona. USDA Forest Service photo by Deborah Lee Soltesz.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 3

• Using new tools to conduct targeted investment planning. Advances 

in remote sensing, information science, fire simulation tools, and 

mapping technologies have enabled Forest Service scientists 

to complete new national resource assessments. Based on the 

assessments, Forest Service researchers have developed tools 

for evaluating fire risk and making land management investments 

at scales where the payoffs are highest. These tools for scenario 

investment planning give stakeholders the science-based capacity 

to find opportunities for lasting improvements in forest conditions 

by making the corresponding targeted investments.

• Focusing our work on broad outcomes. Outputs are valuable 

indicators of program accomplishments, but outputs alone do not tell 

us whether we have achieved large-scale outcomes. We envision 

joining together with partners and stakeholders to identify desired 

outcomes and the key performance indicators for measuring them. 

• Capitalizing on the authorities created by recent legislation. The 

2018 omnibus bill gave us new authorities to help expedite our 

work, including new categorical exclusions, expanded GNA, and 

20-year stewardship contracting. We will use every authority we 

have to get more work done on the ground. 

• Improving the Forest Service’s internal processes. We are reforming 

outdated agency processes that delay our work of reducing fire risk 

and improving forest conditions. For example, we are improving the 

efficiency of our environmental review processes under the National 

Environmental Policy Act, and we are realigning our policies to 

better meet market demand for forest products in ways that help 

us improve forest conditions. 

• Using all active management tools. To better manage fire risk, 

we will need to step up the use of prescribed fire and managed 

wildfire in concert with mechanical treatments and timber sales. 

Working with partners and stakeholders, we can find opportunities 

in fire-adapted forests to reintroduce the right kind of fire at the right 

times in the right places.

• Applying a risk-based response to wildfire. As envisioned by the 

National Cohesive Strategy for Wildland Fire Management, learning 

to live with fire includes a safe, effective, risk-based response to 

wildfire. As part of an approach to co-managing fire risks across 

landscapes, we will seek dialogue with partners and stakeholders 

on what a risk-based response might mean.

Through shared stewardship, the Forest Service and State and other 

partners have unprecedented opportunities to co-manage fire risk for 

desired outcomes at the most appropriate scales. Our concept for an 

outcome-based investment strategy has three core elements:

• Determining management needs on a State level. We will prioritize 

stewardship decisions directly with the States, setting priorities 

together and combining our mutual skills and assets to achieve 

cross-boundary outcomes desired by all.

• Doing the right work in the right places at the right scale. We will 

use new mapping and decision tools to locate treatments where they 

can do the most good, thereby protecting communities, watersheds, 

and economies where the risks are greatest.

• Using all available tools for active management. We will use every 

authority and tool we have to do more work on the ground, including 

timber sales, mechanical treatments, and carefully managed fire, 

working with partners and stakeholders to choose the right tools. 

The Forest Service plans to share this concept for an outcome-based 

investment strategy with partners and stakeholders across the Nation as 

a starting point for dialogue. We realize that what we envision will require 

experimentation, co-learning, and adaptation. Working with States and 

others, we envision stakeholders coming together across landscapes 

to co-manage risk, use new tools to better target investments, focus on 

outcomes at the right scale, and recalibrate our wildland fire environment 

for the benefit of people, both now and for generations to come.

The Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana. 

USDA Forest Service photo by Preston Keres.
4 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Growing Need for Reduced Fire Risk 

and Improved Forest Conditions

This paper presents a framework for reducing wildfire risk at its actual 

landscape scale. The framework is based on a scientific breakthrough: 

a new planning tool that gives the wildland fire community the ability to 

manage fire risk across broad landscapes. Working together through 

shared stewardship, stakeholders can make cross-boundary investments 

to reduce fire risk and improve forest conditions across shared landscapes 

in a way never done before. 

The concept of an outcome-based investment strategy responds to an 

urgent national need. Managers and owners of forest land across the 

Nation face a range of growing challenges, among them catastrophic 

wildfires, invasive species, droughts, degraded watersheds, and epidemics 

of forest insects and disease. Driving factors include regional changes in 

temperature, precipitation patterns, and other environmental conditions, 

along with challenges related to normal forest growth and land use 

change within and adjacent to the Nation’s forests and grasslands. Such 

challenges call for new thinking and approaches.

Of particular concern are longer fire seasons and the rising size and 

severity of wildfires, along with the growing risk to lives, homes, natural 

resources, and other values. Statistics reflect the scope and urgency of 

the issue (figure 1). 

The United States has more than a billion burnable acres, and 2 of the 

last 3 years have seen the most acres burned since 1952. The impacts 

have been devastating to local communities and economies. For example, 

the number of structures destroyed by wildfires has risen from less than 

900 in 2001 to more than 12,000 in 2017. After more than a century of 

fire exclusion, the Nation has a complex and challenging wildland fire 

environment, including a growing backlog of fire-adapted forests in need 

of active management.

The wildland fire community has made progress in meeting the challenges—

but not enough. It is time to step up our game, and Congress has given 

the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 

more of the means to do so through the Consolidated Appropriations Act 

of 2018. Following the omnibus bill’s passage, the Senate Committee 

on Energy and Natural Resources asked the Forest Service to report 

on how the bill will help the agency meet the fire-related challenges 

facing the Nation. 

In response, this paper sets forth the broad concept of an outcome-based 

investment strategy, describing the context and rationale for the strategy 

and how it can work through partnerships at larger scales than ever 

before. Fully developing and deploying the concept will take time; we will 

Firefighters observing fire behavior on Willow Fire on the Caribou-Targhee National 

Forest in Idaho, 2008. USDA Forest Service photo by Martell Gibbons. 
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 5

need to hammer out the details together with our partners. It will be up 

to our partners and stakeholders, working together, to decide what the 

strategy looks like on the ground and what tools to use, such as timber 

Figure 1. Changes in fire weather season length (FWSL) across the contiguous United States, 1979–2017. The FWSL is the number of days each year that wildfires are likely to burn. 

Across much of the United States, fire seasons have lengthened by as many as 20 days per decade over the last four decades.

1 Prescribed fires are set and managed by professional fire managers under carefully controlled conditions. Wildfires ignited by lightning or other ignition sources are sometimes allowed to play 

their natural ecological role, managed and monitored by wildland fire professionals and suppressed if needed. For the purposes of this paper only, we are calling such fires “managed wildfires.”

sales, mechanical treatments, prescribed fire, and “managed wildfires.1” 

Our purpose here is to indicate an opportunity for reducing fire risk and 

improving forest conditions by enhancing the entire wildland fire system.
6 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Improving the Wildland 

Fire System

Wildland fire management in the 21st century is affected by a system of 

interconnected factors. A suite of environmental, social, political, financial, 

and cultural factors all drive outcomes in the wildland fire environment 

(figure 2). With pieces connected to responders, communities, and 

landscapes, our wildland fire system is extremely complex. The challenge 

is making the system operate through synergies that allow stakeholders 

to work together across broad landscapes toward outcomes desired by 

all. Our purpose is to improve the system.

For decades, the Forest Service has worked with States, Tribes, local 

communities, and collaborative groups to carry out projects to reduce 

hazardous fuels and improve forest conditions. We have built strong 

relationships and gained experience in working with collaborative groups 

across landscapes toward shared goals, and we have made progress 

in using the wildland fire system to good effect. Since the 1990s, for 

example, the average annual area treated has steadily grown; from 2008 

to 2017 alone, we treated an area about the size of Ohio. 

Yet catastrophic wildfires and the corresponding loss of lives, homes, 

natural resources, and other values have continued to grow. One reason 

is that our projects have been largely uncoordinated and not at the right 

scale. We have been locally successful in many cases but rarely at the 

scale needed to have a lasting effect across broad landscapes. 

Moreover, we at the Forest Service and our partners have limited budgetary 

and other resources; even pooled, these resources cannot begin to treat 

all the landscapes in need. In an era of megafires that sweep across 

landscapes in multiple ownerships, no single entity can meet the challenge 

alone at the scale needed to reduce fire risk across broad landscapes. 

The belief that individual landowners and land managers can and should 

shoulder all responsibility for disturbance-related risks within their own 

jurisdictions is outdated. The risk is at scales that are simply too great.

Clearly, targeted investments are needed at the scale of shared landscapes, 

including partner contributions of resources. We need shared approaches 

at the scale of the challenges we face within the wildland fire environment, 

using shared resources for the right kinds of investments in the right 

places. We can improve the wildland fire system by joining with partners 

and stakeholders to make smart choices about where we work—shared 

decisions that are both strategic and effective—investments that can 

truly make a difference at an all-lands scale.

Outcomes in the 

Wildland Fire 

Environment

Figure 2. The wildland fire system we have today includes environmental, social, political, financial, and cultural factors that drive outcomes in the wildland fire environment. 

WUI = Wildland-Urban Interface.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 7

Vision

The starting point for an outcome-based investment strategy is for us at 

the Forest Service to sit down together with our partners and stakeholders 

to formulate a broad shared vision for managing the Nation’s forests 

and grasslands. Developed by the entire wildland fire community, the 

National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy offers a vision for 

improving forest conditions across fire-prone landscapes while helping 

people learn to live with wildland fire. The strategy is a powerful idea 

that has motivated stakeholders nationwide to work together across 

boundaries to achieve better fire-related outcomes. 

Nevertheless, the Forest Service believes that all land management 

outcomes, not just those related to wildland fire, can benefit from taking a 

similar approach. Our concept of an outcome-based investment strategy 

is grounded on assessing risks and tradeoffs. In this case, the tradeoffs 

are in terms of fire risk to communities, but they could be in terms of 

any values at risk. For example, the same science-based approach of 

assessing risk and evaluating tradeoffs could be used for managing 

insect epidemics, restoring degraded watersheds, or conserving species 

at risk. We are starting with fire-related challenges as a proving ground 

for our concept.

Most ecosystems across the United States are adapted to periodic 

stressors and disturbances such as drought, fires, storms, and outbreaks 

of insects and diseases. Accordingly, our vision takes multiple factors 

into account: the natural ecological role of fire and other disturbances; 

the ability of people to adapt to living with fire and other disturbances; 

and the need to respond to fire and the effects of other disturbances to 

protect communities and other values at risk. 

At the Forest Service, we take a holistic approach to land management 

based on sound science and on achieving long-term outcomes across 

landscapes. Our vision for the future of America’s forests and grasslands 

is for a time when:

• Land managers are using all available tools and authorities for 

active management, including fire where allowable and appropriate, 

to reduce risk and improve forest conditions; 

• Resilient communities are able to withstand the effects of wildfires 

and other disturbances; and

• The Nation as a whole has learned to live with fire and other 

disturbances.

Our vision for the investment strategy laid out in this paper is based on 

continuous learning as well as on shared leadership and stewardship 

across broad landscapes. Shared stewardship is about working together 

in an integrated way to make decisions and take actions on the land. 

Shared stewardship is one of our five national priorities at the Forest 

Service, and it aligns with USDA’s strategic goal of fostering the productive 

Aspen stand on Monroe Mountain following mechanical treatments and 

removal of conifers on the Fishlake National Forest in Utah, 2016. USDA 

Forest Service photo by Nicholas Mustoe.
8 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

and sustainable use of the National Forest System, particularly USDA’s 

strategic objective of mitigating fire risk. 

In accordance with shared stewardship, we recognize, accept, and respect 

the differences in missions, goals, and objectives among landowners and 

land managers across the Nation. For example, the States have differing 

mandates regarding fire suppression. However, fire, insect outbreaks, 

and other disturbances have no landownership boundaries (figure 3). 

Shared stewardship can bring partners and stakeholders together across 

shared landscapes, capitalizing on existing tools and authorities, to set 

mutual goals and priorities, analyze tradeoffs, and help decide where to 

make the investments needed to achieve the cross-boundary outcomes 

desired by all.

Main Islands of HAWAII

Miles

Albers Conic Equal-Area Projection

ALASKA

Universal Transverse Mercator Projection

Miles

Albers Conic Equal-Area Projection

March 2014

LEGEND

Little or no risk

1-4%

5-14%

15-24%

25% or greater

Percentage of treed area

at risk by watershed

COTERMINOUS UNITED STATES

Acres in Hazardous Condition: Approximately 81.3 million

2013-2027 National Insect and Disease Composite Risk* Map by Subwatersheds (6th Level HUCs)**

*Risk, or more appropriately termed hazard, is defined as: the expectation that, without remediation, at least 25% of standing live basal area greater than one inch in diameter will die over a 15-year time frame (2013 to 2027) due to insects and diseases.

These maps depict the percentage of treed area within each watershed classed as being “at risk”. 

**Overview and History of Hydrologic Units and the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD). http://www.ncgc.nrcs.usda.gov/products/datasets/watershed/history.html

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

Figure 3. National insect and disease composite risk map by subwatersheds (2013-2027).
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 9

Current Situation

In recent decades, the wildland fire system in the United States has 

changed. The National Cohesive Strategy for Wildland Fire Management 

(Cohesive Strategy) in particular has given the wildland fire community 

common sideboards and guidelines for our collective work. Despite 

constraints and ongoing challenges, the Forest Service and partners 

have opportunities to improve the wildland fire system by building on 

new authorities, new community relationships, and breakthroughs in 

science and technology.

Fire Year Outlook for 2018

Calendar year 2017 was one of the most devastating fire years on record. 

Tragically, dozens of Americans were killed, including 14 wildland firefighters. 

Communities in the Southeast and across large parts of the West were 

affected, with more than 10 million acres burned—an area larger than the 

State of Maryland—and more than 8,000 residences destroyed. It was the 

most expensive year for wildfires on record: Together, Federal agencies 

spent $2.9 billion to suppress wildfires across the Nation. 

Early predictions indicated that 2018 would likely be another challenging 

fire year. As of July 1, the National Interagency Fire Center noted that 

abnormally dry conditions along the west coast had allowed for a 

northward expansion of drought into Oregon and Washington in June. 

The southwestern monsoon, anticipated for early July, was expected to 

reduce fire activity across the Southwest. Continuous grass growth was 

predicted to lead to above-normal large fire potential in the Great Basin 

and westward into California. The peak of the western fire season was 

expected for August, with California continuing to experience significant 

fire activity in September and October.

As of July 29, about 4.4 million acres had burned, mostly in the South, 

Great Basin, Rocky Mountains, Southwest, and Alaska. The rate of burning 

was less than the previous year but almost about 800,000 acres higher 

than the 10-year average. Federal, Tribal, State, and local partners are 

working together through cooperative agreements for a sustained and 

effective response to wildfires across jurisdictions. At the Forest Service, 

we have about 10,000 firefighters, 900 engines, and hundreds of aircraft 

available to manage wildfires, and our partners have more resources in 

every category. 

Firefighters on the Thomas Fire on the Los Padres National Forest in California, 

2017. USDA Forest Service photo.
10 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Cornerstones for Change

In recent decades, we and our partners have taken many steps across 

the United States to improve forest conditions across broad landscapes. 

That includes reducing wildfire risk for homeowners and communities 

across the Nation’s forests and grasslands. We have made advances 

in research and technology,2 including social science related to shared 

learning about cross-boundary stewardship. We have also treated more 

and larger areas to improve forest conditions, partly through initiatives 

Challenges and Constraints 

Although we and our partners have made progress in using the tools of 

active management to protect communities and improve forest conditions, the corresponding treatments have not always been at a broad 

enough scale. The challenges are just too great. 

One challenge has to do with the Nation’s history of excluding fire from 

fire-adapted landscapes. Nearly every landscape in the United States 

has a history of fire, but the cascading effects of more than a century of 

fire exclusion and fuel buildups, changes in land use, extended drought, 

warming temperatures, and the spread of invasive species have led to 

widespread changes in vegetation conditions and fire frequency across 

2 Advances came in such areas as fire-related physical science, risk management protocols, fire weather forecasting, firefighting equipment development, ecological science, and 

watershed practices prefire and postfire.

3 Mechanical treatments involve the use of equipment and machinery to remove vegetation, typically by thinning overly dense forest stands. Often, the treatments are followed by 

prescribed fire.

4 In some areas, such as the chaparral in southern California, there are more fires than there were historically. In the sage steppe ecosystems of the Great Basin, for example, invasive 

grasses have led to a fire surplus.

with partners across jurisdictions and through landscape-scale collaborative projects. The appendix contains brief descriptions of some of our 

most innovative and successful all-lands initiatives and programs. The 

advances we have made lay the foundations for changing the way we 

and our partners work together to reduce fire risk and improve forest 

conditions.

the Nation. The effects of fire exclusion can be called a “fire deficit,” 

which can vary depending on many factors. For example, a ponderosa 

pine woodland with a history of burning every 5 years on average might 

not have burned at all since the 1950s, for a tremendous fire deficit. The 

fire deficit is the difference between the historical rate of burning and the 

current rate of fire frequency (whether wildfire or prescribed fire) plus 

mechanical treatments.3 Figure 4 shows the difference. On forested 

lands, the average annual fire deficit can range up to 60 percent—that 

is, up to 60 percent more of the landscape burned historically than now, 

especially in the West.4

Forest Service hot shots and Job Corps firefighters perform a prescribed burn 

in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, 2018. USDA Forest 

Service photo by Cecili Ricardo.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 11

The result has been fuel buildups and a growing number of catastrophic 

fires. Scientists predict that extreme fire danger across much of the West 

will become the new normal by the middle of the 21st century. Recent 

experience confirms the trend. Impelled by fire seasons lengthening into 

fire years, land managers might be inclined to step up fire suppression, 

compounding fire deficits and increasing future wildfire risk. 

Compounded fire deficits would further degrade forest health on public 

and private lands alike nationwide. Of the lands on the National Forest 

System at high to very high fire risk and/or above-normal levels of insect 

and disease mortality, we can treat 17 million acres through traditional 

timber sales and 35 million acres through prescribed fire and/or another 

fuels treatment. Overgrown fire-adapted forests like ponderosa pine 

often need a mechanical treatment followed by prescribed fire (figure 5).

Figure 4. Area in percent of lands in the United States (excluding wilderness and roadless areas) affected by wildfire and fuels treatments from 2009 to 2017. The dotted line at the top, 

based on LANDFIRE fire regime data, shows the historical rate of burning.
12 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Figure 5. Fuels and forest health treatment, before and after, in a 

ponderosa pine stand. Vegetation removal reduced ladder fuels 

and created an open, patchy stand structure less likely to carry 

a crown fire and more like historical stand structures. Prescribed 

burning then reduced ground fuels, creating conditions for an open 

ponderosa pine woodland well adapted to frequent surface fires.

Active management on most of the National Forest System is therefore 

limited to fuels treatments, predominately by prescribed fire. For example, 

timber sales have typically applied to about 200,000 acres per year, 

whereas hazardous fuels treatments overall have covered about 1.9 

million acres. And within hazardous fuels treatments from 2008 to 2017, 

mechanical treatments accounted for about 37 percent of the area treated, 

with prescribed fire accounting for most of the rest. To diminish the fire 

deficit and thereby mitigate fire risk, the Forest Service and partners will 

need to step up the use of prescribed fires and managed wildfires in 

concert with timber sales and mechanical treatments. 

The Forest Service has learned that engaging landowners and communities 

well ahead of any planned activity is key. Many citizens are understandably 

concerned about the effects of smoke and about prescribed fires escaping 

to become wildfires. A typical tradeoff in fire-prone landscapes is smoke 

and risk from planned prescribed fires under controlled conditions or from 

unplanned wildfires under unpredictable conditions. Learning together 

with stakeholders to assess risks and evaluate tradeoffs has become a 

critical part of developing and carrying out successful land management 

programs. For cultural, historical, and biophysical reasons, the use of 

prescribed fire is widely accepted in large parts of the Southern United 

States. The lessons learned by land managers and communities in the 

South might be useful in helping to overcome constraints elsewhere in 

the United States.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 13

A Foundation for Success

Despite such constraints, the Forest Service has built capacities in 

recent decades that provide unprecedented opportunities to rise to the 

challenge (figure 6). From forming resource advisory councils in the 

early 2000s to joining the entire wildland fire community in drafting the 

Cohesive Strategy in the 2010s, we have found new ways of building 

lasting relationships with partners and communities. For example, 

we have built new social capacity by co-convening and in some cases 

co-funding collaborative groups around the country.5 We also laid the 

foundations for additional management capacity by adopting a new land 

and resource management planning rule in 2012. We are now revising 

forest plans to incorporate all-lands approaches, adaptive management, 

and a full suite of active management tools.

Figure 6. In recent decades, new Forest Service authorities, along with new investments in science and partnerships, have led to an accelerating rate of returns and new synergies in 

wildland fire management.

5

 Social capacity, according to the 1987 Brundtland Report on sustainable development, is the ability of social systems to 

produce services and experiences.

Our growing experience with treatments to improve forest conditions at the 

Forest Service has provided new analysis tools. We have also acquired 

more technical capabilities through new scientific breakthroughs, ranging 

from applied fire science to understanding how to help communities become 

adapted to wildfire. Advances in remote sensing, information science, fire 

simulation tools, and related technologies have helped us complete, in 

recent years, new resource assessments to better understand terrestrial 

conditions, watershed health, wildfire hazards, and forest health. We 

also have tools to assess the economic and social benefits of reducing 

risks to communities and watersheds. Our suite of new tools gives us 

a science-based capacity to find opportunities for lasting improvements 

in forest conditions by making the corresponding targeted investments. 

One catalyst for change has come through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, which will help the Forest Service stabilize its operating 

environment. Beginning in fiscal year 2020, the omnibus bill will keep 

rising suppression costs from steadily draining budgetary resources away 

from our nonsuppression programs, and it will also reduce the need for 

transferring funds from our nonfire mission areas to cover firefighting costs. 

In addition, the bill expanded our authorities for using forest management 

tools to get more work done on the ground. 

Another catalyst for change has been the Forest Service’s work with 

partners toward mutual recognition that disturbances such as wildfires 

are all-lands events with cross-jurisdictional implications. Figure 6 shows 

the nature of fire transmissions across jurisdictions in relation to the 

community of Ketchum, ID. Because fire crosses back and forth across 

landownership boundaries, the risk is shared; accordingly, land managers 

cannot achieve the fire-related outcomes people want without all-lands 

planning—without shared stewardship of the wildland fire environment, 
14 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

including a sense of interdependence and shared responsibility for 

managing the risk. 

“Fire risk” comprises the likelihood of a wildfire, its intensity, and its positive 

or negative effects. Large fires burn across various jurisdictions, both 

public and private, with each contributing to the spread and intensity of 

the fire (figure 7). Using advanced modeling tools, we can now understand 

cross-boundary fire risk issues across a “fireshed”—the area of fire risk 

around a community or other point of value—including the contributions 

that individual land parcels make to community wildfire risk. We can map 

firesheds around communities and other values to locate hotspots of fire 

transmission. In the Western United States, for example, scientists have 

mapped the core firesheds that are responsible for some 80 percent of 

the potential future community exposure from wildfires ignited on the 

National Forest System (figure 8). Fireshed assessments can be used 

to identify broad areas where fuel treatments will do the most to reduce 

fire risk in the long term (figure 5).

Figure 7. The fireshed for Ketchum, ID (left, dotted line), includes lands in multiple ownerships—Forest Service (USFS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), State, and private. The arrows 

(right) show fire transmissions to the community within the fireshed from each type of landownership, with the size of the arrows and circles indicating the level of transmission. The risk 

to the community is shared across landownerships.

Figure 8. Core firesheds (orange) that potentially transmit fire to the exposed communities 

(blue) adjacent to national forests. These core firesheds account for 80 percent of the total 

potential fire from the National Forest System to communities in the Western United States.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 15

Strategy for Shared Stewardship

Accordingly, the Forest Service has reached a turning point: we are now poised to capitalize on a unique set of synergies among new authorities, 

innovative community relationships, and breakthroughs in science and technology (figure 5). Our concept for an outcome-based investment strategy 

is predicated on seven types of activities:

1. Working with States to co-manage risk across broad landscapes;

2. Using new scenario investment planning tools for targeted investments;

3. Focusing our work on broad outcomes;

4. Capitalizing on the authorizing environment created by recent legislation;

5. Changing the Forest Service’s own internal processes to get more work done on the ground; 

6. Using a full suite of active management tools, including the right kind of fire at the right times in the right places; and

7. Applying a risk-based response to wildfire.

USDA Forest Service personnel and partner agencies discussing decisions 

made and consequences of the 2015 Mormon Fire in Arizona. USDA Forest 

Service photo by Brady Smith.
16 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Co-managing Wildfire Risk

Landscapes in the United States are a mosaic of mixed ownerships. 

The National Forest System covers about 8 percent of the Nation’s total 

land area and about 20 percent of the Nation’s forests, mostly in the 

West; the relative proportion and influence of lands under Forest Service 

management vary widely across the Nation. At the Forest Service, we 

manage a portion of most landscapes and are directly responsible for 

only a portion of the response to wildfire. Typically, risk is shared among 

Federal, State, Tribal, local, and/or private landowners, land managers, and 

other stakeholders. The wildland fire community has cooperative agreements for sharing wildfire response. When we and other land managers 

and landowners across all lands appreciate our interdependencies and 

accept our shared ownership of fire risk, we have an opportunity to share 

responsibility for evaluating and managing it.

New science and landscape assessments have resulted in a better understanding of the scale of risk and the need to address it at the appropriate 

scale. For example, community firesheds are substantially larger than 

the boundaries of most community wildfire protection plans, resulting in 

mismatches between the scale of wildfires and the scale of mitigation 

planning. Mapping the scale of risk has led to a better understanding of 

how risk is shared among landowners and across jurisdictions. As the 

scale of wildfires continues to grow, the scale of coordinated planning 

needs to expand accordingly, perhaps to encompass a “stewardship 

landscape”—the area needed for effective cross-boundary planning. 

The technical capacity is there. We have tools that stakeholders can use 

to make sound risk-based, land management decisions. Co-managing 

fire risk means learning together about firesheds and landscapes around 

communities, municipal watersheds, and other values and choosing the 

risk reduction strategies with the highest rate of return on investments. In 

some areas, the greatest wildfire risk reduction might come from investing 

in fire prevention. Elsewhere, it might come from hazardous fuels treatments around communities. In still other areas, the best strategy might 

be to focus on defensible space within communities. The right actions in 

the right places will have the most meaningful cumulative effects.

The key is to bring stakeholders together to learn about the particular fire 

risks they face, to examine the options for managing them, and to decide 

what actions to take. Convening and planning at multiple scales will be 

crucial. Within the framework of an outcome-based investment strategy, 

partners and stakeholders would take multiple scales into account, from 

the national scale to the individual project scale. Ideally, plans at smaller 

scales would tier to plans at larger scales. 

In our preliminary thinking, we envision that the States offer a particularly 

useful scale. Given their unique authorities and responsibilities, States 

and territories can lead the way in convening stakeholders to facilitate 

dialogue about the wildland fire environment at every scale. States can 

smooth the way for land management planning that takes biophysical, 

social, and political factors into account; indeed, the State forest action 

plans can serve to coordinate activities across stewardship landscapes 

that span jurisdictional boundaries within a State. 

The Forest Service is ready to help. Our cross-jurisdictional mission, 

science capacity, and history of working in cooperation with States, Tribes, 

communities, and local groups give us the ability, if needed, to act as 

co-conveners and co-facilitators for collaborative learning and decision 

making. Stakeholders could then use the Forest Service’s assessment 

and planning tools to devise investment plans at the appropriate scale, 

tiered to the broader statewide plans. Through an analysis of tradeoffs, 

planning for desired outcomes at the appropriate scale would then let 

partners and stakeholders treat the highest priority areas first.

Fuel treatments conducted on the Colville National Forest in Washington. 

USDA Forest Service photo by Paul Haas. 
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 17

Scenario Investment Planning

We envision being a partner with State leaders, working together to 

build coalitions of stakeholders that support investments to reduce risk 

and improve forest conditions within a State. One crucial area of Forest 

Service support will be in science and technology, based on advances 

in recent years. Forest Service scientists have been developing and 

adapting tools that can be used to collaboratively assess fire risk and 

make land management investments in areas where the investment 

payoffs are greatest. The tools will require careful use at and across the 

appropriate scales.

Building on recent national assessments (such as for terrestrial condition, 

wildfire hazard, insect and disease, forest inventories, drinking water, and 

watershed condition), the Forest Service has developed a science-based 

decision support framework to simulate specific investment strategies 

over the short term (3 to 5 years). The simulations can help stakeholders 

better prioritize activities to achieve desired outcomes on the National 

Forest System and adjacent lands in each State. These tools would not 

supplant forest plans but rather point to areas of opportunity for working 

across boundaries at a cross-jurisdictional fireshed or landscape scale. 

This new framework can give stakeholders a way to understand tradeoffs among competing land management goals and to discover the best 

investment strategies at the appropriate scale. 

Scenario planning can also help categorize landscapes by “investment 

themes” in terms of risk and management opportunities (figure 9). This 

approach can help build a policy bridge among administrative scales in 

the Forest Service, for instance, by translating national budget priorities 

into investments in specific landscapes where they are most likely to 

produce desired outcomes.

We also envision scenario investment planning as a tool for crossboundary collaboration. It can help planners identify high-priority, crossboundary risks and achieve outcomes that meet both Forest Service 

and stakeholder objectives. The framework can be applied at the State 

scale as part of collaborative efforts to define planning areas, such as 

stewardship landscapes, that fit shared management visions across 

multiple landownerships.

Figure 9. Conceptual map of “investment themes” derived from scenario planning showing broad potential goals. The goals are not mutually exclusive; often, several goals can be met 

on the same landscape.
18 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Focusing on Outcomes

Advances in social and technological capacity within the land management 

community will create the most synergies if partners and stakeholders 

focus on outcomes at the right scale. Historically, the Forest Service 

has focused on outputs, such as volume of timber sold, number of fires 

suppressed, or acres of hazardous fuels treated. Outputs are valuable 

indicators of program accomplishments, but outputs alone do not tell us 

whether we have achieved large-scale outcomes. Collaborative projects 

around the country have achieved social, economic, and ecological gains, 

though not always at the scale needed to achieve lasting outcomes across 

broad landscapes. An outcome-based investment strategy requires a 

broadening of our planning focus. 

Moreover, an all-lands approach requires valuing the social outcomes 

needed for shared stewardship across landscapes and firesheds. Therefore, 

we are developing meaningful indicators with our partners to account 

for the complex multidimensional outcomes we seek, such as reduced 

fire risk and resilient fire-adapted forests. We will use key performance 

measures to account for the outcomes we commit to achieving in using 

scenario planning to carry out an investment strategy. 

In short, the Forest Service long ago learned how to account for activity 

targets. Now, we must become adept at accounting for meaningful 

outcomes as well. To do so, we envision joining together with partners 

and stakeholders to learn about shared risks, discuss potential common 

goals, agree on joint planning areas across stewardship landscapes, and 

jointly develop desired outcomes and how to measure them through key 

performance indicators. 

Job Corps students participating in prescribed burn around a red-cockaded 

woodpecker nest tree on the Croatan National Forest in North Carolina, 

2016. USDA Forest Service photo by Bill Coates.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 19

New Authorizing Environment

In carrying out an outcome-based investment strategy, the States, Tribes, 

and other conveners and stakeholders can capitalize on new opportunities 

for cross-boundary projects on the National Forest System and adjacent 

lands. Together with our partners, we can build on recent successes and 

use new authorities and approaches to expedite work on the ground so 

we can achieve common goals.

Tools in the 2014 Farm Bill

The Agricultural Act of 2014, better known as the Farm Bill, provided a 

suite of tools that will continue to help the Forest Service get work done 

on the ground more quickly and collaboratively. Some authorities have 

helped to expedite our processes for environmental analysis and decision 

making, which has boosted the amount of work we can get done. For 

example, the Good Neighbor Authority (GNA) has created opportunities 

for expanding partnerships with States to work across boundaries. As of 

June 2018, we have signed 163 GNA agreements on 59 national forests 

in 33 States for a variety of restoration activities.

Another example is the tools provided for in the Farm Bill for cross-boundary 

work to protect forest health from insects and disease. In cooperation with 

State Governors, the Forest Service has designated about 56.9 million 

acres on the National Forest System across 100 national forests in 37 

States for expedited treatment for epidemics of insects and disease. 

As of June 2018, 74 projects across 38 national forests and 18 States 

were proposing to use Farm Bill insect and disease tools. Of these, 63 

projects proposed using categorical exclusions, and the rest proposed 

using expedited environmental analysis for timber harvests and other 

activities. These tools give us more of the means we need to achieve 

outcomes mutually decided on through scenario investment planning.

Tools in the 2018 Omnibus Bill

The omnibus bill gave the Forest Service a suite of new authorities to 

help expedite our work of improving forest conditions and reducing fire 

risk. Each Forest Service regional office is drafting a plan for applying 

our new authorities to our work on the ground. In addition:

• With respect to the new categorical exclusions for treatments 

to improve forest conditions, we will track the number used at the 

national level and work with the Forest Service regional offices to 

understand how to use them most effectively.

• With respect to our new authority for road maintenance and 

reconstruction in our GNA agreements with the States, we have 

national templates to allow existing agreements to incorporate 

roadwork. We will continue to monitor our agreements and work 

with our State partners to add components and expand the number 

of agreements.

• With respect to 20-year stewardship contracting, we plan to start 

in a few areas where we believe we will have a high level of success 

in attracting investments in wood-processing infrastructure. We will 

ensure that we are synchronized at all levels of the Forest Service 

in carrying out our new authority. 

At the Forest Service, we are committed to validating the trust that 

Congress placed in us through the omnibus bill. One way is developing 

and improving tools to make our wildland fire suppression activities more 

cost effective. We will also implement the outcome-based investment 

strategy outlined in this paper, supported by integrating our national wildfire 

hazard assessment with the other assessments we have completed or 

will complete.

Ponderosa pine stand immediately after the Willard Fire burned through on 

the Coconino National Forest in Arizona, in 2017. USDA Forest Service photo. 
20 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Internal Reforms

The new authorizing environment for the Forest Service will strengthen 

our ability to make more investments in areas with the highest payoffs. 

The change initiatives we have launched to reform outdated agency 

processes that delay our work on the ground will also strengthen our 

ability. Two of these changes initiatives are described below.

Environmental Analysis and Decision Making

Under our 2012 planning rule, we can improve the efficiency of our 

environmental review processes under the National Environmental Policy 

Act (NEPA) to accelerate the pace of our treatments to improve forest 

conditions. By developing collaborative projects across large landscapes, 

we can perform environmental analysis for larger planning areas, thereby 

making it easier to get work done on the ground while still delivering 

sound environmental analyses. 

To that end, we have launched a change initiative called Environmental 

Analysis and Decision Making. The goal is to increase the efficiency 

and reduce the cost of our environmental analysis and decision-making 

processes. For example, we are restoring agencywide NEPA training 

with new courses for line officers and resource specialists. We are also 

reviewing and updating our NEPA regulations, and we are building on 

authorities in the 2014 Farm Bill to consider new categorical exclusions 

in such areas as infrastructure repair and special use permits. Overall, 

we have been working with USDA to reengineer the way we conduct 

environmental analysis and decision making, and we expect major 

improvements. 

Forest Products Modernization

Many Forest Service policies and procedures related to forest products 

are out of date. Our Forest Products Modernization initiative is designed 

to align our culture, policies, and procedures with current and future needs 

for forest products from healthy, resilient forest ecosystems. Our goal is 

to become more agile, flexible, and adaptable to better meet current and 

future market demand for forest products in ways that help us improve 

forest conditions. For example, we are revising our policies and procedures 

to make timber sale contracts more flexible. We want to make it easier 

to remove lower value or noncommercial biomass, thereby reducing fire 

risk and improving forest conditions. We are also encouraging the use of 

cross-laminated timber technology to construct tall buildings from mass 

timber derived from small trees, which can include materials removed to 

reduce fuels and improve forest health. 

The Right Kind of Fire

A focus on outcomes at the right scale, including resilient forests and 

reduced wildfire risk across firesheds, implies using a full suite of tools 

for active management, including timber sales, mechanical treatments, 

and—as envisioned in the Cohesive Strategy and in Federal interagency 

policy—both prescribed fires and managed wildfires. Like other land 

managers, the Forest Service is bound by administrative, institutional, 

biophysical, and other constraints that give us limited options for using 

fire for management purposes. However, the agency does have unique 

opportunities, for example, in backcountry settings, that other land 

managers might not have to use fire. Unlike most landowners and land 

managers, the Forest Service is both fire manager and land manager 

on the same piece of ground. That gives us the ability in many areas, 

working with local communities and other stakeholders, to reintroduce 

the right kind of fire at the right times in the right places.

On most landscapes near communities, depending on the condition 

of the land, mechanical treatments are needed to reduce fuels before 

reintroducing fire (figure 4). Many fire-adapted forests have such high 

fire deficits that returning fire too soon or in blocks too big could have 

devastating ecological effects, along with catastrophic consequences 

for local communities. Within administrative and other constraints,6

mechanical treatments are often a necessary precursor to returning fire 

to fire-adapted forests.

In fire-adapted forests, prescribed fire is an indispensable part of treatments 

to reduce fuels and improve forest conditions, and it is subsequently needed 

to control fuels and sustain forest health. In fire-adapted forest types, there 

is no substitute for fire. Research has shown that mechanical treatments 

alone are not effective in managing risk in fire-adapted landscapes or 

in sustaining resilient fire-adapted forests. Moreover, fire is the only tool 

available for reducing fuels and improving forest conditions on many 

landscapes, such as in wilderness areas or in areas too steep or remote 

for mechanical treatments.

We envision the right kind of fire as part of an outcome-based investment 

strategy. Scenario investment planning would allow stakeholders within a 

fireshed to assess the risks and tradeoffs and plan a successful response 

before a fire occurs. Stakeholders would begin by using assessment tools to 

gain a mutual understanding of the tradeoffs between alternative scenarios. 

One common tradeoff is between the future risk of a catastrophic fire and 

its lasting smoke impacts and the lesser risks from a mechanical fuels 

treatment coupled with prescribed fire and its short-term smoke impacts. 

Effective prefire planning would then entail making the corresponding 

investments in the highest leverage areas. Pre-season fire planning would 

also involve working with State and local partners to develop common 

operating approaches to help us align our various missions regarding 

6

 Areas that are ineligible and/or infeasible for mechanical treatments include wilderness and roadless areas, areas too 

steep or remote, areas with low-value woody materials, and areas already treated or burned over by wildfire. 
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 21

suppression and initial attack. For example, a community might treat the 

surrounding landscape to reduce hazardous fuels, using a combination 

of mechanical vegetation removals and the right kind of fire in the right 

place at the right time. Additionally, stakeholders might work with local 

communities to help them take measures to reduce fire risk to homes, 

infrastructure, and other values. National forests and regional offices 

would work with State and local partners to pre-plan fire management. 

Our intention is to work with States to examine approaches, develop 

plans, and implement on-the-ground activities together, as well as jointly 

determine ways to use new technologies to improve the effectiveness of 

prevention and detection, and enhance firefighter safety

Risk-Based Response to Wildfire

An important part of prefire planning is dialogue involving States, Tribes, 

communities, and others about a fire suppression policy based on the 

principle that safety comes first. Rising rates of firefighter fatalities in 

recent decades are of deep concern to the Nation. When extreme fire 

behavior precludes successful defense of homes, the Forest Service’s 

first priority is human safety—evacuating everyone from areas at risk 

and ensuring that responders use tactics that are both safe and effective. 

As envisioned by the Cohesive Strategy, learning to live with fire includes 

a safe, effective, risk-based response to wildfire. As part of an approach to 

co-managing risks across firesheds, we will seek dialogue with partners 

and stakeholders on what a risk-based response might mean. For 

example, our suppression policy is based on the probability of success. We 

neither expect nor allow firefighters to risk their lives while attempting the 

improbable. What might that mean for local residents and communities? 

What are their corresponding options for input into fire response and for 

preparedness in the event of a wildfire?

Forest Service engine and line crews work in and around the Wofford Heights 

community in response to the Cedar Fire in California, 2016. USDA Forest 

Service photo by Lance Cheung.
22 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

Envisioning a Path Ahead

All this is part of a conceptual framework for making strategic investments 

across landscapes for outcomes desired by all. Through shared stewardship, 

the Forest Service and State and other partners have unprecedented 

opportunities to co-manage fire risk and achieve positive outcomes at the 

most appropriate scales. The key is working with the States and other 

partners to convene stakeholders for planning at fireshed and landscape 

scales. The partners can use scenario investment planning as a tool for 

assessing risk, evaluating the tradeoffs, and managing risk through targeted 

investments in areas with the highest payoffs. We envision outcomes that 

include resilient fire-adapted landscapes, flourishing fire-adapted human 

communities, and fewer responder injuries and fatalities.

There is much work to do, and it must be done within the framework of our 

social, political, financial, and biophysical opportunities and constraints. 

We believe that the wildland fire community, drawing on the Cohesive 

Strategy, now has enough social capacity, as well as the science, 

technology, and authorizing environment to move toward a truly all-lands, 

all-hands approach. We plan to share our concept for an outcome-based 

investment strategy with partners and stakeholders across the Nation as 

a starting point for dialogue.

We contemplate a path ahead with all due humility. We know that we don’t 

have all the answers or perhaps even the right questions. We have some 

ideas that seem exciting to us. We have conducted some experiments that 

we keep learning from, and we realize that what we envision will require 

continuous experimentation, co-learning, and adaptation.

We are beginning to understand that scale matters. How do ecosystems 

on the National Forest System interconnect on large landscapes? How do 

we help stakeholders across America’s forests and grasslands plan across 

scales? How do we give stakeholders across all scales opportunities to 

participate in creating conservation outcomes? These questions and more 

will influence our thinking as we build communities of stakeholders in pursuit 

of collective conservation outcomes at the complex and interconnected 

scales that characterize our Nation’s forests and grasslands.

The first phase of our work will be exploratory—joining stakeholders 

in learning how to interconnect in terms of relationships, goals, and 

priorities across scales. We envision the exploratory phase as creating a 

conservation network for shared stewardship of our Nation’s forests and 

grasslands. We will need partners at the national scale to help guide the 

needed exploration and relationship building by carefully co-convening early 

explorers at many scales. We expect the exploratory phase to generate 

stakeholder learning as a basis for the next phase of collaborative work.

What will the next phase look like? Success will depend on taking a 

co-learning and co-designing approach together with partners and 

stakeholders. As envisioned in this paper, we hope to help partners 

interconnect all conservation interests into a network for sustaining the 

Nation’s forests and grasslands into the future. We believe that the Forest 

Service has a role to play in helping partners and stakeholders come 

together to co-manage risk, use new tools to better target investments, 

focus on outcomes at the right scale, and recalibrate our wildland fire 

system so it works better for people, both now and for generations to come. 

Deschutes National Forest silviculturist leads a discussion of forest restoration 

techniques with Forest Service employees and members of the Deschutes 

Collaborative Forest Project in Oregon. USDA Forest Service photo by Beth Peer. 
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 23

Accelerated Pace of Forest Management

The Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 

(USDA), has increased the pace of work on the ground to reduce fire 

risk to communities and to improve forest conditions, partly to restore 

watersheds and water supplies. The area treated annually in recent years 

has shown steady gains: from 4.2 million acres in fiscal year (FY) 2011, 

to 4.6 million acres in FY 2014, to about 6 million acres per year in FY 

2016–17. In the process, the Forest Service expanded partnerships to 

increase the scale of forest management and work strategically across 

landscapes. Working in broad partnerships engages local communities, 

maximizes efficiency, generates investments by partners, and magnifies 

outcomes for communities.

Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program

Since FY 2010, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program 

has established 23 collaborative projects across large landscapes around 

the Nation to reduce fire risk, improve forest conditions, and generate 

jobs and economic activity in rural areas. The program has shown that 

strategic landscape-scale partnerships work. Outcomes include:

• Attracting partner investments of more than $90 million for work 

on National Forest System lands and generating more than $207 

million in investments on State, private, and other Federal lands;

• Creating $1.5 billion in local labor income;

• Creating or maintaining an average of 5,400 jobs each year; 

• Reducing hazardous fuels on more than 2.9 million acres; and

• Selling more than 2.5 billion board feet of timber.

Perhaps, most importantly, the Forest Service has added to its store of best 

practices. For example, areas treated with a combination of timber sales 

and fuels reduction have changed the rate of fire spread and intensity, 

making it easier to control fires and reduce the risk to communities, 

private property, and natural resources. The agency plans to make the 

best practices part of the way it works, which will help with collaboration 

and community engagement. 

Managing Across Landscapes for Forest Health

Although forest insects and diseases play ecological roles, they can also 

be serious economic and environmental threats, partly due to the effects 

of a changing climate. Tree mortality resulting from insects and diseases 

across the United States increased from about 7.9 million acres in FY 2016 

to more than 8.8 million acres in FY 2017 (figure B-1), with 46 percent of 

the mortality due to western bark beetle. Such infestations can reduce 

benefits from forests, including timber, recreation, clean water, energy, 

wildlife habitat, and jobs.

Recent Forest Service Initiatives 

and Programs To Build Capacity

Figure B-1. Tree mortality in the United States has been trending upward since 2013, in 

large part due to bark beetle outbreaks in the Western States.

The Forest Service monitors, detects, and helps manage insects, diseases, 

and invasive plants, using its funding authorities to protect forest health 

across boundaries at landscape scales. Partnering with State, Tribal, and 

local governments, as well as other partners, to prioritize management 

actions, the Forest Service helps ensure that America’s forests remain 

resilient and sustainable.

Watershed Enhancement and Infrastructure Protection Partnerships

The Forest Service has been working with municipal water providers, 

energy utilities, corporate partners, and others to restore healthy forests 

in high-priority watersheds and near critical energy infrastructure on the 

National Forest System. In Colorado, for example, the agency is working 

with Denver Water and other water providers that serve more than 3.2 

million municipal customers and 900,000 acres of agricultural land. Since 

FY 2009, the partners in Colorado have contributed or promised a total 

investment of $36 million for treatments on National Forest System 

land. The accomplishments include more than 40,000 acres treated, 

860,000 trees planted, 80 miles of trails and roads restored, and 2,700 

volunteers engaged.

Cohesive Strategy Pilot Projects

The Forest Service has been carrying out the National Cohesive Strategy 

for Wildland Fire Management by making investments with benefits for 

landscapes and communities. Through Federal, State, and local partnerships, 

Appendix
24 | Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

the Forest Service has established 10 pilot projects to strategically treat 

forests to reduce wildfire risk to communities and to foster community 

engagement. The pilots are changing the conversation across all lands 

about the management of fire and are attracting private and corporate 

funding to address forest health needs.

Supplemental Fuels Program

The Supplemental Fuels Program was part of the Forest Service’s program 

to reduce fuels and improve forest conditions under its Hazardous Fuels 

budget line item. The Forest Service distributed most funds for Hazardous 

Fuels to the regions to fund high-priority regional projects. Program staff 

at the national level evaluated the project proposals submitted by the 

regions on their ability to target areas of high wildfire risk, mitigate that 

risk, and achieve cross-boundary accomplishments with willing partners 

and neighbors. Although the regions reported project achievements, 

such as acres, within the total accomplishments of the Hazardous Fuels 

program, outcomes included building social capacity for cross-boundary 

collaboration in improving forest conditions.

Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership

Since FY 2014, the Forest Service has partnered with the USDA, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service in funding projects across large landscapes 

to reduce wildfire threats to communities and landowners, protect water 

quality and supply, and improve wildlife habitat for at-risk species. The 

3-year projects target forest ecosystems where public and private lands 

meet. In fiscal years FY 2014–2017, the partners invested $176 million 

in 56 projects in 38 States and Puerto Rico, with State and local partners 

contributing another $20 million. Outcomes included:

• Treating more than 400,000 acres on the National Forest System 

for hazardous fuels;

• Restoring more than 29,000 acres of watersheds;

• Treating 724 miles of streams to improve aquatic habitat; and

• Supporting conservation activities by private landowners on more 

than 200,000 acres.

Accomplishment Trends

The graph below shows Forest Service accomplishments in treatments 

on the National Forest System since FY 2008 (figure B-2). For measures 

of active management such as timber sales, watersheds restored, and 

managed wildfires, the 10-year trends are slowly rising. More information 

on the use of managed wildfires and on acres treated to reduce hazardous 

fuels and restore forest health can be found at http://fsweb.wo.fs.fed.us/

fire/fam/fuels/hazardous.html. 

Figure B-2. Accomplishments in treatments on the National Forest System since FY 2008.
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy | 27
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy

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