Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy
Published: 2005-01-14T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Over the past two decades, the number of acres burned by wildland fires has surged, often threatening human lives, property, and ecosystems. Past management practices, including a concerted federal policy in the 20th century of suppressing fires to protect communities and ecosystem resources, unintentionally resulted in steady accumulation of dense vegetation that fuels large, intense, wildland fires. While such fires are normal in some ecosystems, in others they can cause catastrophic damage to resources as well as to communities near wildlands known as the wildland-urban interface. In 1999, GAO recommended that the Forest Service develop a cohesive strategy for responding to wildland fire threats. As a follow-up, 5 years later, GAO was asked to identify the (1) progress the federal government has made in responding to wildland fire threats and (2) challenges it will need to address within the next 5 years.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: Over the last 5 years, the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and land management agencies in the Department of the Interior, working with the Congress, have made important progress in responding to wildland fires. The agencies have adopted various national strategy documents addressing the need to reduce wildland fire risks; established a priority for protecting communities in the wildland-urban interface; and increased efforts and amounts of funding committed to addressing wildland fire problems, including preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction on federal lands. In addition, the agencies have begun improving their data and research on wildland fire problems, made progress in developing long-needed fire management plans that identify actions for effectively addressing wildland fire threats at the local level, and improved federal interagency coordination and collaboration with nonfederal partners. The agencies also have strengthened overall accountability for their investments in wildland fire activities by establishing improved performance measures and a framework for monitoring results. While the agencies have adopted various strategy documents to address the nation's wildland fire problems, none of these documents constitutes a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies the long-term options and related funding needed to reduce fuels in national forests and rangelands and to respond to wildland fire threats. Both the agencies and the Congress need a comprehensive assessment of the fuel reduction options and related funding needs to determine the most effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing wildland fire problems. Completing a cohesive strategy that identifies long-term options and needed funding will require finishing several efforts now under way, each with its own challenges. The agencies will need to finish planned improvements in a key data and modeling system--LANDFIRE--to more precisely identify the extent and location of wildland fire threats and to better target fuel reduction efforts. In implementing LANDFIRE, the agencies will need more consistent approaches to assessing wildland fire risks, more integrated information systems, and better understanding of the role of climate in wildland fire. In addition, local fire management plans will need to be updated with data from LANDFIRE and from emerging agency research on more cost-effective approaches to reducing fuels. Completing a new system designed to identify the most cost-effective means for allocating fire management budget resources--Fire Program Analysis--may help to better identify long-term options and related funding needs. Without completing these tasks, the agencies will have difficulty determining the extent and location of wildland fire threats, targeting and coordinating their efforts and resources, and resolving wildland fire problems in the most timely and cost-effective manner over the long term.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: The national trend in recent years of increasing wildland fire threats to  communities and ecosystems has been continuing. The average number of  acres burned by wildland fires annually from 2000 through 2003 was 56  percent greater than the average amount burned annually during the 1990s.  While an increase in wildland fires may often be necessary to restore  ecosystems, some fires also can cause catastrophic damages to  communities and ecosystems. Experts believe that catastrophic damages  from wildland fires likely will continue to increase until an adequate  long-term federal response, coordinated with others, is implemented and  has had time to take effect. In this context, you asked us to report on the  progress that the federal government has made over the last 5 years and the  key challenges it faces in developing and implementing a response to  wildland fire problems.
This report is primarily based on over 25 reviews dealing with federal  wildland fire issues that we have conducted in recent years. (App. I lists our  reports and testimonies on these reviews.) These reviews focused largely  on the activities of the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and  the land management agencies in the Department of the Interior, which  together manage over 95 percent of all federal lands. We also interviewed  officials and obtained data from the Forest Service, Interior, Congressional  Research Service, Brookings Institution, and National Academy of Public  Administration. Appendix II contains a more complete description of our  methodology. We conducted our work between May and November 2004 in  accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Wildland fire triggered by lightning is a natural, inevitable, and necessary  ecological process. Such fires periodically consume excess vegetation and  renew the productivity of our nation’s ecosystems. However, in ecosystems  that are adapted to frequent small, low-intensity fires, uncharacteristically  large and intense wildland fires increasingly threaten catastrophic damage  to such ecosystems. Large intense fires in these and other ecosystems also  increasingly threaten human lives, health, property, and infrastructure in  the wildland-urban interface.
Uncharacteristically large, intense fires often are fueled by abnormally  dense accumulations of vegetation in many forest and rangeland  ecosystems. This excess vegetation is the result of several human land use  and management practices, including several decades of effective fire  suppression activities that have reduced the normal frequency of wildland  fires that nature had periodically used to clear undergrowth and small  trees. This vegetation, in turn, provides abnormally large amounts of fuel  for fires, causing some to spread more rapidly, burn larger areas, and burn  more intensely than normal. Such uncharacteristic fires are more common  in warmer, drier climates such as the interior western United States and  during periods of drought. Federal researchers estimate that these  vegetative conditions exist on approximately 190 million acres (or more  than 40 percent) of federal lands in the contiguous United States, but could  vary from 90 million to 200 million acres, and that these conditions also  exist on many nonfederal lands.
subsections: section_title: Wildland Fire Has Continued to Increase in Recent Years
paragraphs: The acreage burned by wildland fire—after having declined nationally  throughout most of the 20th century due to land management practices,  including fire suppression—increased in the latter decades of the century.  This increase was the result of more large fires, most of which were located  in the inland western United States, where many of the forests historically  had frequent, smaller, and less intense fires. The trend toward increased  acreage burned by wildland fire has continued into the 21st century as  illustrated in figure 1. For 2000 through 2003, the average number of acres  burned annually on all lands nationally was 56 percent greater than the  average acres burned annually during the 1990s.
section_title: Increases in Wildland Fire Exposed Weaknesses in the Federal Response
paragraphs: Our reviews over the last 5 years identified several weaknesses in the  federal government’s management response to wildland fire. Specifically,  we found that the land management agencies lacked an effective national  strategy to respond to wildland fire, had shortcomings in addressing  wildland fire issues at the local level, and had an ineffective system for  accounting for wildland fire management efforts and monitoring results.
We noted in a 1999 report that the federal government lacked a national  strategy for reducing excessive national forest fuel levels and associated  catastrophic wildland fires. Such a strategy was needed by the agencies to  address numerous policy, programmatic, and budgetary factors that  presented significant barriers to accomplishing fuel reduction goals.  Among these barriers were program incentives that tended to focus on  areas that may not present the greatest wildland fire hazards and very high  costs for removing hazardous fuels. We also reported in 2003 that the  Forest Service and Interior had issued national guidance on fuel reduction,  but it was not specific enough for prioritizing fuels reduction projects.  Lacking such guidance, agencies could not ensure that local land  management units were implementing the highest-priority fuels reduction  projects nationwide.
Our reviews also found shortcomings in the federal government’s  implementation at the local level of various wildland fire management  activities, such as preparedness, suppression, and rehabilitation. Over half  of all local federal land management units had no fire management plans  that met the requirements of the 1995 Federal Wildland Fire Management  Policy. This national policy, jointly adopted by Agriculture and Interior and  updated in 2001, established a goal to restore fire’s natural role in  ecosystems consistent with human health and safety. The fire management  plans are intended to help ensure the effective integration of local wildland  fire management activities with planned uses of agencies’ lands so that  unwanted wildland fire does not impair accomplishment of desired future  conditions on these lands. The Forest Service and Interior also lacked basic  data, such as the amount and location of lands needing fuel reduction, and  research on the effectiveness of different fuel reduction methods on which  to base their fire management plans and specific project decisions.  Furthermore, coordination among federal agencies and collaboration of  these agencies with nonfederal entities were ineffective. Such coordination  and collaboration are needed because wildland fire is a shared problem  that transcends land ownership and administrative boundaries, requiring  cooperation among all parties.
Finally, we found that better accountability in federal wildland fire  management efforts was needed. Although the agencies had begun  developing results-oriented performance measures to assess the  effectiveness of treatments in reducing the risk of catastrophic wildland  fires, they had no baseline from which to assess program performance.  They also could not establish any meaningful performance measure and  goal for reducing fuels because they lacked sufficient data on the location  of lands at high risk of catastrophic fires as well as data on the  cost-effectiveness of fuel reduction methods and their effects on other  ecosystem resources. In particular, the agencies needed to develop  performance measures that would focus their actions on reducing priority  hazards and to better monitor the results of those actions.
section_title: Important Progress Has Been Made in Addressing Federal Wildland Fire Management Problems over the Last 5 Years
paragraphs: The federal government has made important progress over the last 5 years  in improving its management of wildland fire. Nationally, it has worked to  formulate a comprehensive strategy, established a priority to protect  communities in the wildland-urban interface, and increased funding for  wildland fire management activities, including fuels reduction and  suppression. At the local level, it enhanced its data and research on  wildland fire problems, made significant progress in developing local fire  management plans, and improved coordination among federal agencies  and collaboration with nonfederal partners. In addition, it strengthened its  overall accountability for investments in wildland fire activities by  establishing more meaningful goals and performance measures.
subsections: section_title: Progress in National Strategy: Priorities Have Been Clarified and Funding Has Been Increased for Identified Needs
paragraphs: Over the last 5 years, the federal government has been formulating a  strategy known as the National Fire Plan, clarifying its priorities and  increasing funding for wildland fire management activities. The National  Fire Plan is not a single document. Rather, it is composed of several  strategic documents that set forth a priority to reduce wildland fire risks to  communities. To address this priority, the agencies, working with the  states, identified a list of communities nationwide that are considered most  at risk of wildland fire damage. While the recently enacted Healthy Forests  Restoration Act of 2003 addresses risks to both communities and  ecosystems, it emphasizes a priority for protecting wildland-urban  interface communities by directing that at least 50 percent of funding for  fuel reduction projects authorized under the act be allocated to  wildland-urban interface areas. Although we have raised concerns about  how the agencies have defined these interface areas, the accuracy and  process they used in designating these communities and wildland-urban  interface areas, and the specificity of their prioritization guidance, the act’s  clarification of the priority for protecting communities provides a starting  point for identifying and prioritizing funding needs.
Forest Service and Interior appropriations for fuel reductions, as well as  for other wildland fire management activities such as preparedness and  suppression, have increased substantially over the past 5 years. In 1999, the  Forest Service had not requested increased funding to meet the growing  fuel reduction needs it had identified. As shown in table 1, overall  appropriations for wildland fire management activities for both the Forest  Service and Interior have nearly tripled in the past 5 years, from about $1  billion in fiscal year 1999 to over $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2004. While these  increases include significant amounts for unanticipated suppression costs  and preparedness funding, fuel reduction funding has quadrupled since  1999.
Additionally, through the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, the  Congress authorized $760 million per year to be appropriated for hazardous  fuels reduction activities, including projects for reducing fuels on up to 20  million acres of land.
section_title: Progress in Local Implementation: Data and Research, Fire Management Planning, and Coordination and Collaboration Have Been Strengthened
paragraphs: The federal government also has improved the implementation of its  wildland fire management activities at the local level. In particular,  significant improvements in federal data and research on wildland fires  have been made during the past 5 years. In 1999, the federal government  lacked adequate data on the location and extent of hazardous fuels to use  in selecting and designing fuel reduction projects. Since then, the  agencies have jointly completed a mapping of fuels nationwide that  classifies lands by differing fuel hazard levels. Although this mapping is not  done at a small enough geographic scale to support decisions on the  location and design of individual fuel reduction projects, it nevertheless  represents a significant improvement over the information that was  available in the past.
In 2003, Agriculture and Interior approved funding for development of a  geospatial data and modeling system, called LANDFIRE, to identify  wildland fire hazards with more precision and uniformity than the existing  hazardous fuels mapping and to enable comparisons of conditions between  different field locations nationwide. When operational, LANDFIRE data  and enhanced models of likely fire behavior thus will help identify the  nature and magnitude of the wildland fire risks confronting numerous  community and ecosystem resources, such as residential and commercial  structures, species habitat, air and water quality, and soils. The agencies  plan to use this information to better support their strategic decisions on  preparedness, suppression, the location and design of fuel reduction  projects, and other land management activities. Initial results from  LANDFIRE have been promising. For example, a Forest Service official,  who had used LANDFIRE to choose an approach for suppressing a fire in  an area of Montana where the prototype system was developed, said he  found it much better at identifying suppression options and their  consequences than any other currently available data. LANDFIRE—  estimated to cost $40 million—is scheduled for nationwide implementation  in 2009.
Local fire management planning also has been strengthened. As we  reported in 2002, over half of the agencies’ land management units had not  completed local fire management plans in accordance with the 1995 federal  wildland fire management policy. They subsequently adopted an  expedited schedule to complete all of these plans in 2004, and agency  officials told us that they believed they would meet this schedule. The  agencies also adopted a common interagency template for preparing these  plans to ensure greater consistency in their contents.
Other critical improvements have been made in coordination among  federal agencies responsible for wildland fire management and in  collaboration with nonfederal partners. In 2001, as a result of  congressional direction to the agencies to involve the states as full partners  in their efforts, Agriculture and Interior jointly adopted a 10-Year  Comprehensive Strategy with the Western Governors Association. This  strategy, and an implementation plan adopted in 2002, detail goals, time  lines, and responsibilities of the different parties for various actions related  to a wide range of activities, including collaboration at the local level to  identify fuel reduction priorities in different areas. Also, in 2002, the  agencies established an interagency organizational body, the Wildland Fire  Leadership Council, to improve coordination of their activities with each  other and with nonfederal parties. The council is composed of senior  Agriculture and Interior officials and nonfederal representatives. The  council meets regularly to provide policy direction on a wide range of  issues and decisions to foster necessary coordination and consistency  among federal approaches, activities, and funding of various efforts.
section_title: Progress in Accountability: Better Performance Measures and a Results Monitoring Framework Have Been Developed
paragraphs: The federal government also made progress in accounting for the results it  achieves from its investments in wildland fire management activities. In  1999, the Forest Service’s performance measure for fuel reductions, which  measured only the total acres of fuel reductions accomplished, created an  incentive to treat less costly acres rather than the acres that presented the  greatest hazards. To rectify this shortcoming, the agencies adopted a  performance measure that identifies the amount of acres moved from  high-hazard to low-hazard fuel conditions. This measure will allow them to  better determine the extent to which their fuel reduction efforts  accomplish the key goal of reducing risks to communities and ecosystems.
The agencies also made progress in developing a system to monitor the  effects of wildland fires. Without such information, they cannot determine  the nature of threats or the likely effectiveness of different actions taken to  address threats. In May 2004, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council  approved a nationwide monitoring framework for wildland fire data,  including data on fire severity that may help address this problem. While  we also have said that an implementation plan for this monitoring  framework is needed, the adoption of the framework nonetheless  represents a critical step toward enhancing wildland fire management  accountability for results.
section_title: Agencies Face Several Challenges to Completing a Long-Needed Cohesive Strategy for Reducing Fuels and Responding to Wildland Fire Problems
paragraphs: While federal land management agencies have made important progress  over the past 5 years in addressing wildland fire management issues, they  continue to face a number of challenges that will need to be met if they are  to complete development of a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies  available long-term options and funding needed to reduce fuels on national  forests and rangelands and respond to the nation’s wildland fire threats.  The nation’s wildland fire problems have been decades in the making and  will take decades more to resolve. Without a cohesive strategy and better  data, agencies will have difficulty determining the extent and severity of  the wildland fire problem, targeting and coordinating their efforts and  resources, and resolving the problem in a timely and cost-effective manner.  Moreover, without such a strategy and better data, the Congress will not  have reliable information on when, how, and at what cost wildland fire  problems can be brought under control.
The federal government’s strategy documents adopted thus far, such as  those associated with the National Fire Plan, establish a good framework  for addressing our nation’s wildland fire problems, but these documents  still need to identify the long-term options and funding needed to reduce  and maintain fuels at acceptable levels. A clear understanding of the  options and funding needs are essential to both the agencies and the  Congress for determining the most effective and affordable approach.  However, the agencies are not currently in a position to develop these  options and identify related funding needs with any precision or reliability  because they need to complete several steps, each with its own challenges.  These steps include (1) completing and implementing the LANDFIRE data  and modeling system so that the extent and location of wildland fire threats  are more precisely known, (2) updating local fire management plans with  more precise LANDFIRE information and the latest research so that the  most promising wildland fire management practices are included to  effectively address wildland fire threats, and (3) based on these plans,  identifying the various national options and related funding needed to  reduce fuels and respond to wildland fire threats. Recently, the agencies  began an assessment of wildland fire threats that may provide a useful  framework for completing a long-needed cohesive wildland fire  management strategy.
subsections: section_title: Completing and Implementing the LANDFIRE System Is Essential to Identifying and Addressing Wildland Fire Threats
paragraphs: LANDFIRE is critical to identifying and addressing wildland fire threats to  communities and ecosystems, but the agencies face several challenges  completing and implementing LANDFIRE. The agencies need LANDFIRE  to more precisely identify the extent and location of wildland fire threats  and better target fuel reduction efforts. LANDFIRE is also needed to better  reconcile the effects of fuel reduction activities with the agencies’ other  stewardship responsibilities for protecting ecosystem resources, such as  air, water, soils, and species habitat. Fuel reduction activities, such as  controlled burning or mechanical treatments (using chainsaws and heavy  equipment), can adversely affect these ecosystem resources if not done at  the proper time and place. For example, mechanically removing fuels with  heavy equipment can adversely affect wildlife habitat and water quality in  many areas and controlled burning can cause air quality problems. The  agencies also need LANDFIRE to help them better measure and assess  their performance. For example, such data will enable the agencies to  better identify the relative importance of reducing fuels on the  highest-hazard lands versus maintaining conditions on low-hazard lands.  As we have noted, a separate performance measure for maintaining  conditions on these low-hazard lands is important so that their conditions  do not deteriorate to more hazardous conditions while funding is being  focused on lands with high-hazard conditions.
The agencies, however, face several challenges in implementing  LANDFIRE. As we recently reported, the agencies lack a consistent  approach to assessing the risks of wildland fires to ecosystem resources  and an integrated, strategic, and unified approach to managing and using  information systems and data, including those such as LANDFIRE, in  wildland fire decision making. Currently, software, data standards,  equipment, and training vary among the agencies and field units in ways  that hamper needed sharing and consistent application of the data.
Although the Wildland Fire Leadership Council has recently chartered a  National Wildfire Enterprise Architecture Steering Group to implement an  action plan for more effectively sharing and using these data, these system  and implementation problems are not yet resolved.
Moreover, the agencies may have to re-examine the LANDFIRE data and  models before implementing them. Recent research suggests that the  effects of climate change on wildland fire might more adversely affect the  nature, extent, and geographical distribution of hazards identified in  LANDFIRE, as well as the costs for addressing them, than previously  understood. In August 2004, a panel—appointed by the Wildland Fire  Leadership Council to investigate escalating suppression costs—reported  that recent agency research suggested that climate change could have  significant implications for the occurrence of wildland fire and the costs  required to contain it. The research suggests that part of the recent  increase in wildland fire has been caused by a shift in climate patterns, and  that this new pattern may likely continue for decades, resulting in further  increases in the amount of accumulated vegetation consumed nationally by  wildland fire.
section_title: Fire Management Plans Will Need to Be Updated with Latest Data and Research on Wildland Fire
paragraphs: Incorporating LANDFIRE data and recent research on addressing wildland  fire threats into local fire management plans will be central to completing a  cohesive long-term fuels reduction strategy. The fire management plans are  important for identifying the fuel reduction, preparedness, suppression,  and rehabilitation actions needed at the local level to more effectively  address wildland fire threats. While these plans now are all scheduled for  completion in December 2004, they will be based on outdated data once  LANDFIRE is available. To improve the accuracy and usefulness of these  plans, the agencies will need to update them when more detailed,  nationally consistent LANDFIRE data become available within 5 years. The  Forest Service indicated that this updating could occur during the agency’s  annual review of fire management plans to determine whether any changes  to plans may be needed.
The agencies also will need to update their local fire management plans  with recent agency research on the best approaches for more effectively  addressing wildland fire threats. For example, a 2002 interagency analysis  found that protecting wildland-urban interface communities more  effectively—as well as more cost-effectively—might require locating a  higher proportion of fuel reduction projects outside of the wildland-urban  interface than currently envisioned, so that fires originating in the  wildlands do not become too large to suppress by the time they arrive at  the interface. Additionally, other agency research being field-tested in  California and elsewhere suggests that placing fuel reduction treatments in  specific geometric patterns can more effectively reduce the spread rate and  intensity of wildland fires. As a result, agency officials believe the approach  could provide more protection across the landscape than other approaches  to locating and designing treatments, such as placing fuel breaks around  communities and ecosystems resources. Moreover, these geometric fuel  reduction patterns, because they are more efficient, reportedly may  provide protection for up to three times as many community and  ecosystem resources as other approaches do for the same cost.
section_title: Identifying Long-Term Fuel Reduction Options and Needed Funding Is Key to Completing a Cohesive Strategy
paragraphs: As LANDFIRE is developed and fire management plans are updated, the  agencies should become better positioned to formulate and communicate  to the Congress a cohesive, long-term federal strategy that identifies  various options and the related funding needed to reduce fuels and respond  to our nation’s wildland fire problems. The agencies have several efforts  under way that should help them identify these options and funding needs.
In 2002, a team of Forest Service and Interior experts produced an estimate  of the funds needed to implement eight different fuel reduction options for  protecting communities and ecosystems across the nation over the next  century. Their analysis also considered the impacts of fuels reduction  activities on likely future costs for other principal wildland fire  management activities, such as preparedness, suppression and rehabilitation, if fuels were not reduced. The team concluded that  reducing the risks to communities and ecosystems across the nation could  require an approximate tripling of current fuel reduction funding to about  $1.4 billion for an initial period of a few years. These initially higher costs  would decline after fuels had been reduced enough to use less expensive  controlled burning methods in many areas and more fires could be  suppressed at lower cost, with total wildland fire management costs, as  well as risks, being reduced after 15 years. Alternatively, the team said that  not making a substantial short-term investment using a landscape focus  could increase costs, as well as risks to communities and ecosystems, in  the long term. More recently, however, Interior has said that the costs and  time required to reverse current increasing risks may be less when other  vegetation management activities are considered that were not included in  the interagency team’s original assessment but also can influence wildland  fire. The interagency experts said their estimates of long-term costs could  only be considered an approximation because the data used for their  national-level analysis were not sufficiently detailed. They said a more  accurate estimate of the long-term federal costs and consequences of  different options nationwide would require applying this national analysis  framework in smaller geographic areas using more detailed data, such as  that produced by LANDFIRE, and then aggregating these smaller-scale  results.
Agency officials told us that another management system under  development—Fire Program Analysis (FPA)—also could be used to help  identify long-term fuel reduction options and related funding needs. FPA,  which is being developed in response to a congressional committee  direction to improve budget allocation tools, is designed to identify the  most cost-effective allocations of annual preparedness funding for  implementing agency field units’ local fire management plans. Eventually,  FPA will use LANDFIRE data and provide a smaller geographical scale for  analyses of fuel reduction options. Thus, like LANDFIRE, FPA will be  critical for updating fire management plans. Officials said that the FPA  preparedness budget allocation systemwhen integrated with an  additional component that is now being considered for allocating annual  fuel reduction funding—could be instrumental in identifying the most  cost-effective long-term levels, mixes, and scheduling of these two wildland  fire management activities. The agencies began training employees in  October 2004 for initial implementation of the preparedness budget  component in February 2005. However, completely developing FPA,  including the fuel reduction funding component, is expected to cost about  $40 million and take until at least 2007 and perhaps as long as 2009.
Finally, in May 2004, Agriculture and Interior began the initial phase of a  wildland fire strategic planning effort that also might contribute to  identifying long-term options and needed funding for reducing fuels and  responding to the nation’s wildland fire problems. This effortthe  Quadrennial Fire and Fuels Reviewis intended to result in an overall  federal interagency strategic planning document for wildland fire  management and risk reduction and to provide a blueprint for developing  affordable and integrated fire preparedness, fuels reduction, and fire  suppression programs. Because of this effort’s consideration of  affordability, it may provide a useful framework for developing a cohesive  strategy that includes identifying long-term options and related funding  needs. The preliminary planning and analysis phases of this effort are  scheduled to be completed in December 2004, followed by an initial report  expected in March 2005.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: In our initial reporting on the wildland fire problem 5 years ago, we  concluded that it would take many years for the federal government to  successfully address all of the complex management challenges that  wildland fire presents. Accordingly, as expected, much important work  remains to be done. Nevertheless, federal agencies over the last 5 years  have laid a sound foundation for success, including initial data  development and planning and establishing a constructive, collaborative  dialogue with the states and others. This foundation will be important for  meeting the key challenges the agencies face in completing a cohesive  strategy for addressing the nation’s wildland fire problems.
If the agencies’ progress to date toward developing a cohesive strategy is to  be of enduring value, the agencies will need to complete ongoing efforts  such as LANDFIRE, research, and local fire management plans. The  agencies need the results of these ongoing efforts so that they can develop  a sufficiently detailed blueprint of the various available and realistic  long-term options and related funding needed for addressing our nation’s  wildland fire problems. Without such a blueprint, wildland fire will likely  pose increasing risks to not only the nation’s communities and ecosystems,  but also to tens of billions of dollars of federal budgetary resources that  will be spent to respond to wildland fire over the coming decades. If these  budgetary resources are not cost-effectively applied, then the risks to  communities and ecosystems will not be reduced as much as intended or in  ways that are needed and desired. Critical to determining  cost-effectiveness will be understanding the optimal timing of  appropriation investments over the long term. Thus, a focus on long-term  options and their costs provides necessary realism about available choices  for protecting communities and ecosystems and required cohesiveness  among the actions needed to implement them. Conversely, without such a  long-term focus, agencies cannot ensure that the numerous collaborative  efforts they undertake locally each year will add up to a cost-effective,  affordable, long-term national solution.
To date there have been no clear actions or a commitment by the agencies  to explicitly identify and communicate to the Congress long-term options  and the funding needed to pursue them. In order for the Congress to make  informed decisions about effective and affordable long-term approaches  for addressing our nation’s wildland fire problems, it should have, as soon  as possible, a broad range of long-term options and related funding needed  to reduce and maintain wildland fuels at acceptable levels and respond to  wildland fire threats.
section_title: Recommendation for Executive Action
paragraphs: We recommend that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior provide  the Congress, in time for its consideration of the agencies’ fiscal year 2006  wildland fire management budgets, with a joint tactical plan outlining the  critical steps the agencies will take, together with related time frames, to  complete a cohesive strategy that identifies long-term options and needed  funding for reducing and maintaining fuels at acceptable levels and  responding to the nation’s wildland fire problems.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
paragraphs: We received written comments on a draft of this report from the Forest  Service on behalf of Agriculture and from Interior. Both departments  generally concurred with our findings and recommendation, but expressed  concern about the time frame within which we recommended they provide  the Congress with a joint tactical plan for completing a cohesive strategy to  respond to wildland fire problems. We did not change our recommendation  because we believe that the departments misunderstood this time frame  and what we recommended that they provide within this period. The  departments also provided technical comments that we have incorporated  into the report, as appropriate. The Forest Service’s and Interior’s letters  are included in appendixes III and IV, respectively, together with our  evaluation of them.
As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce the contents  earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after the  date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this report to other  interested congressional committees. We also will send copies to the  Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior and the Chief of the Forest  Service. We will make copies available to others upon request. In addition,  this report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have questions about this report, please contact me at  (202) 512-3841 or at nazzaror@gao.gov or David Bixler at (202) 512-7201 or  bixlerd@gao.gov. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix V.
section_title: GAO Products Related to Federal Wildland Fire Management
paragraphs: 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.
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.
Wildland Fires: Better Information Needed on Effectiveness of  Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments. GAO-03-430.  Washington, D.C.: April 4, 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.
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.
Forest Service Roadless Areas: Potential Impact of Proposed Regulations  on Ecological Sustainability. GAO-01-47. Washington, D.C.: November 8,  2000.
Reducing Wildfire Threats: Funds Should be Targeted to the Highest Risk  Areas. GAO/T-RCED-00-296. Washington, D.C.: September 13, 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.
Fire Management: Lessons Learned from the Cerro Grande (Los Alamos)  Fire. GAO/T-RCED-00-257. Washington, D.C.: August 14, 2000.
Forest Service: Actions Needed for the Agency to Become More  Accountable for Its Performance. GAO/T-RCED-00-236. Washington, D.C.:  June 29, 2000.
Park Service: Agency Is Not Meeting Its Structural Fire Safety  Responsibilities. GAO/RCED-00-154. Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2000.
Forest Service: A Framework for Improving Accountability.  GAO/RCED/AIMD-00-2. Washington, D.C.: October 13, 1999.
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.
Forest Service Priorities: Evolving Mission Favors Resource Protection  over Production. GAO/RCED-99-166. Washington, D.C.: June 17, 1999.
Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address  Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. GAO/RCED-99-65. Washington, D.C.: April  2, 1999.
section_title: Scope and Methodology
paragraphs: To identify the progress that federal land management agencies have made  in addressing the threat posed by wildland fires over the past 5 years and  the challenges that remain over the next 5 years, we reviewed past GAO,  Congressional Research Service, and National Academy of Public  Administration reports on wildland fires. We interviewed officials from the  Forest Service and Department of the Interior agencies that are responsible  for wildland fire management and obtained data on acres burned from the  National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. We also interviewed and  obtained data from Forest Service and Interior officials responsible for  developing long-term fuel treatment options and costs, LANDFIRE, the Fire  Program Analysis system, climate change estimates, fire management  plans, performance measures, and the Quadrennial Fire and Fuels Review.  In addition, we interviewed officials and obtained data from the National  Academy of Public Administration and the Brookings Institution. We  conducted our work between May 2004 and November 2004 in accordance  with generally accepted government auditing standards.
section_title: Comments from the Department of Agriculture
paragraphs: The following are GAO’s comments on the USDA Forest Service’s letter  dated December 10, 2005.
subsections: section_title: GAO Comments
paragraphs: 1. We did not change our characterization of the period over which  progress was made because efforts made earlier than 4 years ago  provided an important basis for subsequent progress, including (1) the  September 8, 2000, report to the President from the Secretaries of  Agriculture and the Interior that was used to inform the 2001  appropriation request and (2) the Forest Service’s formulation of its  own fuel reduction strategy that was initiated in 1999.  2. We clarified the language of our report to make clearer our meaning  that, although national guidance was issued, this guidance—as we have  previously reported—was not specific enough for prioritizing fuels  reduction projects.  3. We clarified the language in our report to make clearer our meaning  that, by identifying landscape fuel hazards, LANDFIRE will help  identify the risks to those resources.  4. We have included this observation in our report. However, we note that  the agencies will need to ensure this is done because of (1) the likely  impacts that the LANDFIRE and FPA systems will have on the fire  management plans, (2) the importance of the plans for identifying  aggregate national fuel reduction options and costs, and (3) agencies’  past failures to keep these plans up-to-date, as our report notes.  5. We did not recommend that the long-term options and associated costs  be identified in the joint tactical plan. Rather, we said that this joint  tactical plan should specify the steps and related time frames that the  agencies will take in completing a cohesive strategy containing options  and costs. In addition, we did not recommend that the joint tactical  plan be provided concurrently with the agencies’ fiscal year 2006  budget submissions, but only that it be provided in time for the  Congress’s deliberation of the agencies’ appropriations for fiscal year  2006. Should the agencies subsequently identify adjustments that need  to be made to the tactical plan because of evolving LANDFIRE and FPA  processes, they can so inform the Congress of those adjustments and  the reasons for them. Because this is a long-term effort in which each  year’s progress can have significant long-term fiscal, resource, and  human safety consequences, we believe it is important from this point  forward that the agencies more transparently identify for the Congress  the specific steps they will undertake, and their associated time frames,  for identifying long-term options and costs. Accordingly, we made no  change to our recommendation.
section_title: Comments from the Department of the Interior
paragraphs: The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of the Interior’s  letter dated December 10, 2005.
subsections: section_title: GAO Comments
paragraphs: 1. We did not recommend that the long-term options and associated costs  be identified in the joint tactical plan.  Rather, we said that this joint  tactical plan should specify the steps and related time frames that the  agencies will take in completing a cohesive strategy containing options  and costs.  In addition, we did not recommend that the joint tactical  plan be provided concurrently with the agencies’ fiscal year 2006  budget submissions, but only that it be provided in time for the  Congress’s deliberation of the agencies’ appropriations for fiscal year  2006.  Should the agencies subsequently identify adjustments that need  to be made to the tactical plan because of evolving LANDFIRE and FPA  processes, they can so inform the Congress of those adjustments and  the reasons for them.  Because this is a long-term effort in which each  year’s progress can have significant long-term fiscal, resource, and  human safety consequences, we believe it is important from this point  forward that the agencies more transparently identify for the Congress  the specific steps they will undertake, and their associated time frames,  for identifying long-term options and costs.  Accordingly, we made no  change to our recommendation.   2. We clarified the language of our report to make clearer our meaning  that, although national guidance was issued, as we have previously  reported, this guidance was not specific enough for prioritizing fuels  reduction projects.
3.
In reporting on the progress that has been made in clarifying priorities,  we are merely noting that the act provided a good starting point for  undertaking analysis to identify and prioritize funding needs.  We  neither are criticizing the emphasis that the agencies previously placed  on protecting wildland urban interface areas nor are making an  assessment of the act’s priorities, since our report notes that further  analysis is needed to determine the most cost-effective allocation  among priorities. 4. We clarified the language in our report to make clearer our meaning  that, by identifying landscape fuel hazards, LANDFIRE will help  identify the risks to those resources.  5. We agree these factors should be among those raised by climate change  research that our report says should be considered in identifying long- term options and associated costs. 6. We have modified our draft to include the observation that Interior  believes inclusion of this additional acreage would have substantially  changed the outcome the team reported.  Our report already noted the  interagency team’s view that the accuracy of the assessment’s  outcomes will be improved by use of more detailed data such as from  LANDFIRE.  However, we are encouraged by the departments’  commitment, expressed in both of their comments on our draft report,  to use this type of analysis to identify and communicate to the Congress  long-term fuel reduction options and costs, reversing a June 2002  decision by the Wildland Fire Leadership Council not to do so.  We  believe that the fulfillment of this commitment is needed to provide the  Congress with a sufficiently informed understanding of the long-term  consequences of different appropriation choices that it will need to  make over the coming years and decades to adequately and cost- effectively address wildland fire management issues. 7. We did not change our characterization of the period over which  progress was made because efforts made earlier than 4 years ago  provided an important basis for subsequent progress, including (1) the  September 8, 2000, report to the President from the Secretaries of  Agriculture and the Interior that was used to inform the 2001  appropriation request and (2) the Forest Service’s formulation of its  own fuel reduction strategy that was initiated in 1999.
section_title: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contacts
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to those named above, Jonathan Altshul, Barry T. Hill, Richard  Johnson, Chester Joy, and Jonathan McMurray made key contributions to  this report.