Wildland Fire Management: Agencies' Efforts to Assess Program Effectiveness and Modernize the Firefighting Aviation Fleet
Published: 2015-11-17T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: Wildland fires play an important ecological role on the landscape, but they cost billions each year, result in loss of life, and cause damage to homes and other structures. The Forest Service and Interior are responsible for wildland fire management on federal lands, including acquiring firefighting assets such as large airtankers to assist in fire suppression activities. Increased fire intensity has prompted efforts aimed at implementing more effective fire management strategies. Understanding the effectiveness of these efforts takes on heightened importance given that the Forest Service and Interior have obligated $8.3 billion to suppress wildland fires in fiscal years 2009 through 2014.
This testimony is based on GAO reports issued in September 2015 and August 2013. It focuses on (1) how the federal wildland fire agencies assess the effectiveness of their wildland fire management programs and (2) Forest Service efforts to modernize the large airtanker fleet and challenges it faces in doing so. For the 2015 report, GAO reviewed agency performance measures and other ways the agencies assess effectiveness. For the 2013 report, GAO reviewed large airtanker planning and acquisition documents. GAO also conducted selected updates by reviewing documentation and interviewing officials.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: As GAO found in its September 2015 report, the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service and the Department of the Interior assess the effectiveness of their wildland fire management programs in several ways, including through performance measures, evaluations of particular activities, and reviews of specific wildland fires. Forest Service and Interior officials told GAO their performance measures need to be improved and that they are working to do so. For example, in fiscal year 2014, the Forest Service began developing a performance measure intended to reflect that, in some cases, allowing naturallyignited fires to burn can provide natural resource benefits at a lower cost and lower risk to personnel than fully suppressing the fire as quickly as possible. Officials told GAO they plan to finalize the measure and use it in 2017. In addition, Forest Service and Interior have undertaken efforts to evaluate particular wildland fire management activities, such as efforts to reduce potentially hazardous vegetation that can fuel fires, known as fuel reduction, and assess the performance of firefighting aircraft. However, GAO's 2015 report found that the Forest Service and Interior conducted reviews to assess their effectiveness in responding to wildland fire, but did not consistently follow agency policy which generally directs them to review each fire involving federal expenditures of $10 million or more. Forest Service and Interior officials told GAO that this policy overly emphasized the cost of wildland fire suppression rather than the effectiveness of their response to fires. However, the Forest Service and Interior have not established specific criteria for selecting fires for review and conducting the reviews. For example Forest Service officials told GAO the agency judgmentally selects incidents to review based on broad criteria such as complexity and national significance. By developing specific criteria, GAO concluded that the agencies may enhance their ability to help ensure that their fire reviews provide useful information about the effectiveness of their wildland fire activities.
In its August 2013 report, GAO found that the Forest Service faced challenges in modernizing the government's fleet of large airtankers—which had declined from 44 in 2002 to 8 in 2013—but since that report the agency has increased the availability of such aircraft. GAO found in 2013 that the Forest Service, which is responsible for contracting for large airtankers, planned to modernize the fleet by obtaining large airtankers from various sources over the near, medium, and long term, but that each component of that approach faced challenges, making the continued availability of such aircraft to meet fire suppression needs uncertain. For example, for the medium term, the Forest Service had awarded contracts for seven “next-generation” large airtankers, but as of August 2013 only one had completed necessary federal approval and certification processes. Since that report, Forest Service officials told GAO that the agency has increased the availability of large airtankers. Specifically, as of November 2015, the agency had contracted for 20 privately-owned large airtankers, and another 7 large airtankers are to be transferred to Forest Service ownership from the Coast Guard.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommended in September 2015 that the agencies develop specific criteria for reviewing wildland fires. The agencies generally agreed. GAO is not making any new recommendations in this testimony.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: I am pleased to be here today to discuss our recent work on federal  wildland fire management. As you know, wildland fires have resulted in  tragic loss of life and damage to homes, infrastructure, and important  cultural and natural resources. The 2015 fire season has been especially  severe, with over 9 million acres burned to date—well over the annual  average of about 6.5 million acres burned during each of the last 10  years. However, wildland fire also plays an important ecological role in  maintaining healthy ecosystems, with many ecosystems being adapted to  or dependent upon fire. Balancing the need to suppress unwanted  wildland fires to protect people and resources with the need to recognize  fire’s natural role on the landscape is a complex task, particularly given  the current condition of the nation’s landscape, increased development in  and around wildlands (an area often called the wildland-urban interface),  and the future outlook for wildland fires. For example, changing climate  conditions, including drier conditions in certain parts of the country, have  increased the length and severity of wildfire seasons, according to many  scientists and researchers; in the western United States, the average  number of days in the fire season has increased from approximately 200  in 1980 to approximately 300 in 2013.
Five federal land management agencies—the Forest Service within the  Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of  Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service  within the Department of the Interior—are responsible for managing  wildland fires on federal lands. The agencies’ wildland fire management  program has three primary components: preparedness, suppression, and  fuel reduction. To prepare for a wildland fire season, the agencies  acquire firefighting assets—including firefighters, fire engines, aircraft,  and other equipment—and station them at individual federal land  management units or at centralized dispatch locations in advance of  expected wildland fire activity. When a fire starts, interagency policy calls  for the agencies to consider land management objectives and the  structures and resources at risk when determining whether or how to  suppress it. A wide spectrum of strategies is available to choose from,  and the land manager at the affected local unit is responsible for  determining which strategy to use—from conducting all-out suppression  efforts to monitoring fires within predetermined areas in order to provide  natural resource benefits. Fuel reduction refers to agencies’ efforts to  reduce potentially hazardous vegetation that can fuel fires, in an effort to  reduce the potential for severe wildland fires, lessen the damage they  cause, limit the spread of flammable invasive species, and restore and  maintain healthy ecosystems. The agencies use multiple approaches for  reducing this vegetation, including setting fires under controlled conditions  (prescribed burns), mechanical thinning, herbicides, certain grazing  methods, or combinations of these and other approaches.
As part of their wildland fire management efforts, the agencies rely on  firefighting aircraft—including fixed-wing airtankers, helicopters, and other  aircraft—to assist in wildland fire suppression activities. Aircraft are used  to conduct surveillance, deliver supplies, and drop retardant or water to  extinguish or slow the growth of fires. In using aircraft, the agencies  largely rely on private vendors that own and operate the aircraft under  contract to the government. Among firefighting aircraft, large airtankers— those able to carry at least 1,800 gallons of fire retardant—are key  resources for the agencies because of their ability to fly to remote areas  and quickly assist in containing small fires before they become larger,  costlier, and more dangerous. The Forest Service is responsible for  contracting for large airtankers, although they may be used by any of the  agencies. However, the number of large airtankers available under  federal contract decreased substantially from 2002, when 44 large  airtankers were available, to 2013, when 8 were available. The decrease  in large airtankers was, in part, the result of aircraft being retired due to  their age—in 2013, the average large airtanker was more than 50 years  old—as well as agencies’ concerns about the airtankers’ safety and  capability to perform the demanding fire aviation mission.
In recent decades, increased wildland fire intensity has prompted new  policies and efforts aimed at implementing more effective management  strategies to manage wildland fire. For example, in response to significant  fire events, the agencies developed the Federal Wildland Fire  Management Policy of 1995, under which the agencies continued to  move away from their earlier emphasis on suppressing every wildland  fire, seeking instead, among other things, to respond to fires in ways that  protect communities and important resources while considering both the  cost and long-term effects of the response. The most recent guidance for  the implementation of this policy was issued in 2009. As we found in our  September 2015 report, this guidance provided managers with more  flexibility in responding to wildland fires by allowing them to consider  different options for response. According to agency documents, the  guidance was intended to reduce barriers to risk-informed decision  making, allowing the response to be more commensurate with the risk  posed by the fire, the resources to be protected, and the agencies’ land  management objectives. The issuance of the 2009 guidance was one of  several key changes the agencies had made in their approach to wildland  fire management, in part to reflect this risk-based approach. Also, in that  report we found that the agencies were working to distribute their fire  management resources in ways that better reflect current conditions  rather than continuing to rely primarily on historical funding amounts.  These efforts take on greater importance in light of constrained budgets  and the amount spent by federal agencies on wildland fire management.  For example, the Forest Service and Interior obligated $8.3 billion to  suppress wildland fires in fiscal years 2009 through 2014. In addition,  according to a 2015 report by Forest Service researchers, the amount the  Forest Service spends on wildland fire management has increased from  17 percent of the agency’s total funds in 1995 to 51 percent of funds in  2014—highlighting the importance of the agencies understanding the  effectiveness of their wildland fire management programs.
My statement today focuses on (1) how the federal wildland fire  management agencies assess the effectiveness of their wildland fire  management programs and (2) the Forest Service’s efforts to modernize  the large airtanker fleet and challenges it has faced in doing so. This  testimony is based primarily on reports we issued in September 2015 and  August 2013. To examine how federal wildland fire management  agencies assess program effectiveness, we reviewed documents, such  as agency strategic plans, budget justifications, agency studies and  strategy documents related to fire aviation, and reports resulting from fire  reviews conducted by the agencies since 2009. We interviewed agency  officials to identify key performance measures and other mechanisms the  agencies use to determine the effectiveness of their wildland fire  management programs and to understand agency efforts to identify their  firefighting aircraft needs, including their use of information on  performance and effectiveness. We also reviewed legislative and agency  direction related to fire reviews and compared agency practices for  conducting fire reviews with direction contained in relevant agency policy.  To examine the Forest Service’s efforts to modernize the large airtanker  fleet, we reviewed agency documents related to large airtanker  acquisition, management, and operations, as well as planning and  acquisition documents. We also interviewed members of the fire aviation  stakeholder community, including state officials, vendors that own and  operate large airtankers, and national trade organizations. More details  on the scope and methodology for this work can be found in each of our  issued reports. In addition, this testimony includes selected updates we  conducted in November 2015 on actions the agencies have taken since  our 2013 report. To conduct the updates, we reviewed agency  documentation, including documents related to firefighting aircraft, and  interviewed Forest Service and Interior officials.
We conducted the work on which this testimony is based in accordance  with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards  require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate  evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions  based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained  provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on  our audit objectives.
subsections: section_title: Agencies Assess the Effectiveness of Their Programs in Several Ways but Have Not Consistently Conducted Reviews That Could Improve Responses to Fires
paragraphs: In our September 2015 report, we found that the agencies assess the  effectiveness of their wildland fire management programs in several  ways, including through performance measures, efforts to assess specific  activities, and reviews of specific wildland fire incidents. We found that  both the Forest Service and Interior were developing new performance  measures, in part to help better assess the results of their current  emphasis on risk-based management, according to agency officials. In  addition, the agencies have undertaken multiple efforts to assess the  effectiveness of activities such as fuel reduction treatments and aerial  firefighting. We also found that the agencies had conducted reviews of  their responses to wildland fires, but that they did not consistently follow  agency policy in doing so or use specific criteria for selecting the fires  they reviewed, limiting their ability to help ensure that their fire reviews  provided useful information and meaningful results.
subsections: section_title: Agencies Use Various Performance Measures to Assess Wildland Fire Management
paragraphs: As we found in our September 2015 report, both the Forest Service and  Interior use various performance measures, such as the number of acres  treated to reduce fuels and the percentage of wildland fires contained  during initial attack, to assess their wildland fire management  effectiveness. These measures are reported in, among other things, the  agencies’ annual congressional budget justifications. Officials from both  the Forest Service and Interior, however, told us their performance  measures need improvement to more appropriately reflect their emphasis  on a risk-based approach to wildland fire management and, in June 2015,  officials from both agencies told us that they were working to improve  them. For example, in fiscal year 2014, the Forest Service began  developing a performance measure intended to reflect that, in some  cases, allowing naturally-ignited fires to burn can provide natural resource  benefits at a lower cost and lower risk to personnel than fully suppressing  the fire as quickly as possible. Forest Service officials told us they are  working with field units to evaluate whether this measure will effectively  assess their efforts to implement a risk-based approach to fire  management, and said they will adjust it as needed. The officials told us  they plan to finalize the measure and use it in 2017. Similarly, in fiscal  year 2014 Interior began using a new performance measure intended to  better reflect the variety of strategies, in addition to all-out suppression  efforts, available to respond to wildland fires.
section_title: Agencies Have Undertaken Multiple Efforts to Assess Effectiveness of Specific Activities
paragraphs: The agencies have also undertaken multiple efforts to assess the  effectiveness of particular wildland fire management activities, such as  fuel reduction and aerial firefighting. Regarding fuel reduction activities, in  prior work we found that demonstrating the effectiveness of fuel reduction  treatments is inherently complex and that the agencies did not have  sufficient information to evaluate fuel treatment effectiveness, such as the  extent to which treatments changed fire behavior. Without such  information, we concluded that the agencies could not ensure that fuel  reduction funds were directed to the areas where they can best minimize  risk to communities and natural and cultural resources. Accordingly, we  recommended in 2007 that the agencies take actions to develop  additional information on fuel treatment effectiveness. The agencies  agreed with this recommendation and have taken steps to address it. In  our September 2015 report, we found that the agencies are continuing  efforts to improve their understanding of fuel treatment effectiveness. For  example, the Forest Service and Interior agencies use a system called  Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Monitoring to assess fuel reduction  treatment effectiveness. The Forest Service began requiring such  assessments in 2011, and Interior requested such assessments be  completed starting in 2012. Under this approach, the agencies are to  complete a monitoring report whenever a wildfire interacts with an area  where a fuel reduction treatment was previously conducted.
Regarding aerial firefighting, in our August 2013 report, we found that  Forest Service and Interior had not collected information on the  performance and effectiveness of firefighting aircraft as part of their  efforts to identify their firefighting aircraft needs. Specifically, we found  that the agencies had not established data collection mechanisms to track  the specific tactical uses of firefighting aircraft—for example, where  retardant or water is dropped in relation to a fire as well as the objective  of a drop, such as protecting a structure—or measure their performance  and effectiveness in those uses. Since the 1960s, multiple reviews of  federal fire aviation programs have called for the Forest Service and  Interior to collect information on the performance of firefighting aircraft. At  the time of our 2013 report, the Forest Service had recently begun an  effort known as the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness Study to  address this concern. We noted, however, that this study focused on  large airtankers (which, as noted, are managed by the Forest Service)  and that Interior did not have plans to collect performance information on  the types of firefighting aircraft it manages. Accordingly, in that report we  recommended that the agencies expand efforts to collect information on  aircraft performance and effectiveness to include all types of firefighting  aircraft in the federal fleet. The agencies generally agreed with our  recommendation.
In our September 2015 report, we found that the Forest Service and  Interior were jointly implementing the Aerial Firefighting Use and  Effectiveness Study begun in 2012. According to the study website and  agency officials, the agencies are collecting information on how aerial  retardant and suppressant delivery affects fire behavior, and they plan to  use this and other collected information to track the performance of  specific aircraft types. As of November 2015, according to agency  officials, the agencies had collected data on aircraft use in more than 100  fires as part of the study. In addition, according to these officials, as part  of the study the agencies are developing specific ways to assess  firefighting aircraft performance effectiveness to be used during the 2016  fire season. Agency officials told us the study is not a one-time activity but  is an ongoing effort to continually provide information to help improve  their use of firefighting resources.
section_title: The Forest Service and Interior Agencies Have Not Consistently Conducted Reviews of Wildland Fire Incidents to Assess their Effectiveness
paragraphs: As detailed in our September 2015 report, the Forest Service and the  Interior agencies have conducted reviews to assess their effectiveness in  responding to wildland fires, but have not consistently followed agency  policy in doing so and did not always use specific criteria for selecting the  fires they reviewed. Congressional committee reports and agency policy  have generally called for the agencies to review their responses to  wildland fires involving federal expenditures of $10 million or more, in part  to help understand how to better contain suppression costs. The  agencies, in turn, have each developed their own policies that generally  direct them to review each fire that exceeds the $10 million threshold and,  in some cases, those policies note that fire reviews may be conducted for  other purposes, such as where the fire raised significant political, social,  natural resource, or policy concerns.
The agencies have not consistently conducted reviews of fire incidents  meeting the $10 million threshold, in part because, according to officials,  doing so does not reflect the agencies’ focus on assessing the  effectiveness of their response to fire. However, the agencies have not  developed specific criteria for selecting fire incidents for review. Forest  Service officials told us that rather than selecting all fires with federal  expenditures of $10 million or more to review, they changed their  selection approach. These officials told us that focusing exclusively on  suppression costs when selecting fires may keep the agency from  choosing those fires where it can obtain important information and best  assess management actions and ensure they are appropriate, risk-based,  and effective. Instead, Forest Service officials told us the agency  judgmentally selects incidents to review based on a range of broad  criteria, such as complexity and national significance, taking into account  political, social, natural resource, or policy concerns. Using these broad  selection criteria, the Forest Service reviewed 5 wildland fires that  occurred in 2012 and 10 that occurred in 2013. However, with these  broad criteria it is not clear why the Forest Service selected those  particular fires and not others. For example, the 2013 Rim Fire, which  burned more than 250,000 acres and cost more than $100 million to  suppress—by far the costliest fire to suppress that year—was not among  the 2013 fires selected for review. Moreover, the reviews completed for  each of those years did not use consistent or specific criteria for  conducting the reviews. As of July 2015, the agency had not selected  fires to review from the 2014 wildland fire season and, when asked,  agency officials did not indicate a time frame for doing so.
Forest Service officials told us they believe it is appropriate to  judgmentally select fires to provide them flexibility in identifying which  fires to review and which elements of the fire response to analyze.  Nevertheless, Forest Service officials also acknowledged the need to  develop more specific criteria for selecting fires to review and conducting  the reviews. In July 2015, officials told us they were working to update  their criteria for doing so. They provided us a draft update of the Forest  Service policy manual, but this draft did not contain specific criteria for  selecting fires for review or conducting the reviews. Moreover, officials did  not provide a time frame for completing their update.
Within Interior, Bureau of Land Management officials told us that the  agency completed its last fire review based on significant cost (i.e.,  federal expenditures of $10 million or more) in 2013. These officials told  us that the Bureau of Land Management, similar to the Forest Service,  plans to shift the emphasis of its fire reviews to evaluate management  actions rather than focusing on cost, and that officials are working to  determine criteria for selecting fires for review. Interior headquarters  officials told us that the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park  Service have continued to follow the direction provided through their  policies regarding reviews of fires that met the $10 million threshold.  Interior headquarters officials, however, acknowledged the need to  improve Interior’s approach to selecting fires for review to focus more on  information about decision making rather than fire costs. In July 2015, the  officials told us they planned to develop criteria other than cost for use by  all Interior agencies in selecting fires to review, and that they planned to  develop standard criteria for implementing the reviews, but they did not  provide information about how they planned to develop such criteria or  the factors they would consider.
Agency reports have likewise cited the need to improve both the  processes for selecting fires for review and the implementation of the  reviews. A 2010 report, for example, noted the importance of improving  the selection of fires to review and stated that the agencies would benefit  from a more productive review strategy. The report said the agencies’  existing approach to conducting reviews tended to produce isolated  efforts and unrelated recommendations rather than establishing a  consistent foundation for continuous improvement. A 2013 report  assessing the usefulness of the Forest Service’s five reviews of 2012 fires  noted shortcomings in consistency across the reviews, including unclear  criteria for selecting fires and conducting reviews, as well as limitations in  the specificity of the resulting reports and recommendations. Our  previous body of work on performance management has shown that it is  important for agencies to collect performance information to inform key  management decisions, such as how to identify problems and take  corrective actions and how to identify and share effective approaches.  We concluded that, by developing specific criteria for selecting fires for  review and conducting the reviews, the agencies may enhance their  ability to obtain useful, comparable information about their effectiveness  in responding to wildland fires, which, in turn, may help them identify  needed improvements in their wildland fire approach. As a result, we  recommended in our September 2015 report that the Secretaries of  Agriculture and the Interior direct the Chief of the Forest Service and the  Director of Interior’s Office of Wildland Fire to (1) develop specific criteria  for selecting wildland fires for review and for conducting the reviews as  part of their efforts to improve their approach to reviewing fires and  (2) once such criteria are established, revise agency policies to align with  the specific criteria developed by the agencies. In their written comments  on our report, the agencies generally agreed with our recommendations  and stated that they were developing criteria for selecting fires to review  and conducting reviews.
section_title: The Forest Service Has Faced Challenges in Its Efforts to Modernize the Large Airtanker Fleet, but Has Increased the Availability of Large Airtankers Since Our 2013 Report
paragraphs: In our August 2013 report, we found that the Forest Service faced  challenges in modernizing the government’s fleet of large airtankers— which had declined from 44 in 2002 to 8 in 2013—but since that report  the agency has increased the availability of such aircraft, with some  challenges remaining. Specifically, we found that the Forest Service  planned to modernize the large airtanker fleet by obtaining large  airtankers from various sources over the near, medium, and long terms,  but that each component of this approach faced challenges that made the  continued availability of such aircraft to meet national fire suppression  needs uncertain. Since that report, some of these challenges remain,  while others are no longer relevant. In addition, the Forest Service has  increased the availability of large airtankers, in part by increasing the  number of airtankers under contract.
We found in our 2013 report that, in the near term, the agency planned to  rely on a mix of contracted “legacy” airtankers, including several P-2V  Neptune aircraft—Korean War-era maritime patrol aircraft—as well as  supplemental aircraft available through additional contracts and  agreements with the military and with other governments. However,  agency concerns existed regarding the availability, capability, and costs  of these resources. For example, the agency had seven P-2V Neptune  aircraft under contract, the ages of which made their availability  throughout the entire 5-year contract period uncertain. Specifically,  aircraft vendors told us they might need to retire some aircraft prior to the  end of the contract period because of the cost of maintaining the aging  aircraft. As of November 2015, six P-2V Neptune aircraft remained under  contract to the Forest Service.
For the medium term, the Forest Service had awarded contracts for  seven “next-generation” large airtankers that were expected to be faster  and more up-to-date than the legacy aircraft. However, at the time of our  2013 report, it was uncertain when those aircraft would begin supporting  fire suppression activities, in part because bid protests had delayed  contract issuance and, at the time of that report, only one had completed  necessary federal approval and certification processes to support fire  suppression activities. Since then, according to Forest Service officials,  six of these seven aircraft have completed the needed approval and  certification processes. The Forest Service has issued additional  contracts for next-generation aircraft and, as of November 2015, the  agency had a total of 20 privately-owned large airtankers under contract,  according to Forest Service officials. Seven of these airtankers were  added under contract in September 2015.
For the long term, the Forest Service’s plan included a shift from the  agency’s long-standing practice of contracting for, rather than owning,  aircraft. Specifically, the Forest Service had indicated its long-term  intention to obtain up to 14 Alenia C-27J Spartan transport aircraft  through intergovernmental transfer at no initial cost if they were declared  surplus by the military and to purchase other airtankers. In our 2013  report, however, we found that challenges existed regarding the retardant  capacity and operating cost of the C-27J transport aircraft the Forest  Service was to obtain through intergovernmental transfer, and that the  Forest Service had been unable to justify previous plans for purchasing  large airtankers to the Office of Management and Budget. Regarding  intergovernmental transfer, the Forest Service had expressed interest in  obtaining up to 14 Alenia C-27J Spartan transport aircraft from the  Department of Defense if they were declared surplus equipment. Since  our report, the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 required a  different intergovernmental transfer than that anticipated by the Forest  Service—thereby making the challenge we identified with the C-27J  transport aircraft no longer relevant. Rather than transferring the C-27J  transport aircraft to the Forest Service, section 1098 of the act directs the  Coast Guard to transfer seven Lockheed Martin HC-130H Hercules  aircraft to the Forest Service for use in wildfire suppression. According  to Forest Service officials, none of these aircraft have been transferred as  of November 2015; these officials told us they expect the aircraft will be  transferred to the Forest Service between 2017 and 2019. One aircraft,  however, was used by the Forest Service during the 2015 wildland fire  season under an agreement with the Coast Guard, according to Forest  Service officials. The Forest Service equipped that aircraft with a Modular  Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) unit—a portable, pressurized  retardant delivery system. However, as we found in our 2013 report,  Forest Service and Interior officials expressed concern that MAFFS  performance can be inadequate in some circumstances. Forest Service  officials told us the agency intends to operate one HC-130H aircraft with  the MAFFS unit through the 2016 fire season, but the agency plans to  equip all seven HC-130H aircraft with traditional gravity-fed retardant  delivery systems. Forest Service officials told us that the expected service  life of these aircraft is 6 to 12 years, after which time the Forest Service  would likely need to invest in significant maintenance given the demands  placed on the aircraft by the firefighting mission.
In another development since our 2013 report, the Consolidated and  Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, included $65 million “for  the purpose of acquiring aircraft for the next-generation airtanker fleet to  enhance firefighting mobility, effectiveness, efficiency, and safety.” In  August 2015, the Forest Service issued draft specifications for aircraft it  would consider purchasing in accordance with the act. In November  2015, Forest Service officials told us the Department of Agriculture is  preparing a business case to demonstrate the feasibility of such a  purchase as required by Office of Management and Budget guidance, but  did not provide a time frame for its submission.
Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, and Members of the  Committee, this completes my prepared statement. I would be pleased to  respond to any questions that you may have at this time.
section_title: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: If you or your staff members have any questions about this testimony,  please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or fennella@gao.gov. Contact  points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may  be found on the last page of this statement. Other individuals who made  key contributions to this testimony include Steve Gaty (Assistant  Director), Ulana M. Bihun, Mark Braza, Richard P. Johnson, Kyle M.  Stetler, and Kiki Theodoropoulos.
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