Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional Action Is Needed to Address Remaining Challenges
Published: 2009-07-21T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: The nation's wildland fire problems have worsened dramatically over the past decade, with more than a doubling of both the average annual acreage burned and federal appropriations for wildland fire management. The deteriorating fire situation has led the agencies responsible for managing wildland fires on federal lands--the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service in the Department of the Interior--to reassess how they respond to wildland fire and to take steps to improve their fire management programs. This testimony discusses (1) progress the agencies have made in managing wildland fire and (2) key actions GAO believes are still necessary to improve their wildland fire management. This testimony is based on issued GAO reports and reviews of agency documents and interviews with agency officials on actions the agencies have taken in response to previous GAO findings and recommendations.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: The Forest Service and Interior agencies have improved their understanding of wildland fire's ecological role on the landscape and have taken important steps toward enhancing their ability to cost-effectively protect communities and resources by seeking to (1) make communities and resources less susceptible to being damaged by wildland fire and (2) respond to fire so as to protect communities and important resources at risk while also considering both the cost and long-term effects of that response. To help them do so, the agencies have reduced potentially flammable vegetation in an effort to keep wildland fires from spreading into the wildland-urban interface and to help protect important resources by lessening a fire's intensity; sponsored efforts to educate homeowners about steps they can take to protect their homes from wildland fire; and provided grants to help homeowners carry out these steps. The agencies have also made improvements that lay important groundwork for enhancing their response to wildland fire, including adopting new guidance on how managers in the field are to select firefighting strategies, improving the analytical tools that assist managers in selecting a strategy, and improving how the agencies acquire and use expensive firefighting assets. Despite the agencies' efforts, much work remains. GAO has previously recommended several key actions that, if completed, would substantially improve the agencies' management of wildland fire. Specifically, the agencies should: (1) Develop a cohesive strategy laying out various potential approaches for addressing the growing wildland fire threat, including estimating costs associated with each approach and the trade-offs involved. Such information would help the agencies and Congress make fundamental decisions about an effective and affordable approach to responding to fires. (2) Establish a cost-containment strategy that clarifies the importance of containing costs relative to other, often-competing objectives. Without such clarification, GAO believes managers in the field lack a clear understanding of the relative importance that the agencies' leadership places on containing costs and are therefore likely to continue to select firefighting strategies without duly considering the costs of suppression. (3) Clarify financial responsibilities for fires that cross federal, state, and local jurisdictions. Unless the financial responsibilities for multijurisdictional fires are clarified, concerns that the existing framework insulates nonfederal entities from the cost of protecting the wildland-urban interface from fire--and that the federal government would thus continue to bear more than its share of the cost--are unlikely to be addressed. (4) Take action to mitigate the effects of rising fire costs on other agency programs. The sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires have led the agencies to transfer funds from other programs to help pay for fire suppression, disrupting or delaying activities in these other programs. Better methods of predicting needed suppression funding could reduce the need to transfer funds from other programs.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: I am pleased to be here today to discuss wildland fire management by the  federal wildland fire agencies—the Forest Service within the Department  of Agriculture and four agencies within the Department of the Interior— including key actions that we believe the agencies should take to improve  their management of wildland fires and help contain the rising costs of  preparing for and responding to fires. The nation’s wildland fire problems  have worsened dramatically over the past decade, threatening  communities as well as important natural and cultural resources. Both the  average acreage burned annually and federal appropriations for wildland  fire management activities have more than doubled, with appropriations  reaching more than $2.9 billion annually, on average, during fiscal years  2001 through 2007. A number of factors have contributed to these  increases. Uncharacteristic accumulations of vegetation that can fuel  wildland fires, due in part to past fire suppression policies and land  management practices, and severe regional weather and drought have led  to higher-intensity fires and longer fire seasons. At the same time,  continued development in and near wildlands, an area often called the  wildland-urban interface, has placed more homes at risk. A series of  damaging wildland fires in the 1990s led the Forest Service and the  Interior agencies to reassess their approach to managing fire. It also  prompted a sustained effort, known as the National Fire Plan, on the part  of federal agencies and Congress to improve fire suppression capabilities,  reduce fuels, restore fire-adapted ecosystems, and help communities  better withstand wildland fire. Growing recognition of the long-term fiscal  challenges facing the nation has also led Congress, the agencies, and  others to focus on ensuring that federal wildland fire activities are  appropriate and carried out in a cost-effective manner.
My testimony today summarizes our previous findings and  recommendations related to wildland fire, and also includes preliminary  information from our ongoing work examining the extent to which the  agencies have improved their wildland fire programs in response to our  previous work. Specifically, I will focus on (1) the progress the Forest  Service and the Interior agencies have made in managing wildland fire and  (2) key actions we previously recommended and believe are still necessary  to improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire. To address these  objectives, we reviewed previous GAO reports and agency documents and  interviewed agency officials in Washington, D.C.; at the National  Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho; and elsewhere. We expect to issue  a report later this year that will address these objectives in more detail.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: Wildland fires triggered by lightning are both natural and inevitable and  play an important ecological role on the nation’s landscapes. These fires  shape the composition of forests and grasslands, periodically reduce  vegetation densities, and stimulate seedling regeneration and growth in  some species. Over the past century, however, various land use and  management practices—including fire suppression, grazing, and timber  harvesting—have reduced the normal frequency of fires in many forest and  rangeland ecosystems and contributed to abnormally dense, continuous  accumulations of vegetation. Such accumulations not only can fuel  uncharacteristically large or severe wildland fires, but also—with more  homes and communities built in or near areas at risk from wildland fires— threaten human lives, health, property, and infrastructure.
The Forest Service and four Interior agencies—the Bureau of Indian  Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and  National Park Service—are responsible for wildland fire management.  These five agencies manage about 700 million acres of land in the United  States, including national forests, national grasslands, Indian reservations,  national parks, and national wildlife refuges.
The federal wildland fire management program has three major  components: preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction. To prepare  for a wildland fire season, the agencies acquire firefighting assets— including firefighters, engines, aircraft, and other equipment—and station  them either at individual federal land management units (such as national  forests or national parks) or at centralized dispatch locations. The primary  purpose of these assets is to respond to fires before they become large—a  response referred to as initial attack—thus forestalling threats to  communities and natural and cultural resources. The agencies fund the  assets used for initial attack primarily from their wildland fire  preparedness accounts.
When a fire starts, current federal policy directs the agencies to consider  land management objectives—identified by land and fire management  plans developed by each local unit, such as a national forest or a Bureau of  Land Management district—and the structures and resources at risk when  determining whether or how to suppress it. A wide spectrum of fire  response strategies is available to choose from, and the manager at the  affected local unit—known as a line officer—is responsible for  determining which strategy to use. In the relatively rare instances when  fires escape initial attack and grow large, the agencies respond using an  interagency system that mobilizes additional firefighting assets from  federal, state, and local agencies, as well as private contractors, regardless  of which agency or agencies have jurisdiction over the burning lands.  Federal agencies typically fund the costs of these activities from their  wildland fire suppression accounts.
In addition to preparing for and suppressing fires, the agencies attempt to  reduce the potential for severe wildland fires, lessen the damage caused by  fires, limit the spread of flammable invasive species, and restore and  maintain healthy ecosystems by reducing potentially hazardous vegetation  that can fuel fires. The agencies generally remove or modify hazardous  vegetation using prescribed fire (that is, fire deliberately set in order to  restore or maintain desired vegetation conditions), mechanical thinning,  herbicides, certain grazing methods, or combinations of these and other  approaches. The agencies fund these activities from their fuel reduction  accounts.
Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, federal agency officials,  and others have expressed concern about mounting federal wildland fire  expenditures. Federal appropriations to the Forest Service and the Interior  agencies to prepare for and respond to wildland fires, including  appropriations for reducing fuels, have more than doubled, from an  average of $1.2 billion from fiscal years 1996 through 2000 to an average of  $2.9 billion from fiscal years 2001 through 2007 (see table 1). Adjusting for  inflation, the average annual appropriations to the agencies for these  periods increased from $1.5 billion to $3.1 billion (in 2007 dollars). The  Forest Service received about 70 percent and Interior about 30 percent of  the appropriated funds.
section_title: Agencies’ Efforts to Implement a New Approach to Managing Wildland Fire Have Better Positioned Them to Respond to Fire Effectively
paragraphs: The Forest Service and the Interior agencies have improved their  understanding of wildland fire’s role on the landscape and have taken  important steps toward improving their ability to cost-effectively protect  communities and resources. Although the agencies have long recognized  that fire could provide ecological benefits in some ecosystems, such as  certain grassland and forest types, a number of damaging fires in the 1990s  led them to develop the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The  policy formally recognizes not only that wildland fire can be beneficial in  some areas, but also that fire is an inevitable part of the landscape and,  moreover, that past attempts to suppress all fires have been in part  responsible for making recent fires more severe. Under this policy, the  agencies abandoned their attempt to put out every wildland fire, seeking  instead to (1) make communities and resources less susceptible to being  damaged by wildland fire and (2) respond to fires so as to protect  communities and important resources at risk but also to consider both the  cost and long-term effects of that response. By emphasizing firefighting  strategies that focus on land management objectives, rather than seeking  to suppress all fires, the agencies are increasingly using less aggressive  firefighting strategies—strategies that can not only reduce costs but also  be safer for firefighters by reducing their exposure to unnecessary risks,  according to agency fire officials.
To help them better achieve the federal wildland fire management policy’s  vision, the Forest Service and the Interior agencies in recent years have  taken several steps to make communities and resources less susceptible to  damage from wildland fire. These steps include reducing hazardous fuels,  in an effort to keep wildland fires from spreading into the wildland-urban  interface and to help protect important resources by lessening a fire’s  intensity. As part of this effort, the agencies reported they have reduced  fuels on more than 29 million acres from 2001 through 2008. The agencies  have also nearly completed their geospatial data and modeling system,  LANDFIRE, as we recommended in 2003. LANDFIRE is intended to  produce consistent and comprehensive maps and data describing  vegetation, wildland fuels, and fire regimes across the United States. Such  data are critical to helping the agencies (1) identify the extent, severity,  and location of wildland fire threats to the nation’s communities and  resources; (2) predict fire intensity and rate of spread under particular  weather conditions; and (3) evaluate the effect that reducing fuels may  have on future fire behavior. LANDFIRE data are already complete for the  contiguous United States, although some agency officials have questioned  the accuracy of the data, and the agencies expect to complete the data for  Alaska and Hawaii in 2009.
The agencies have also begun to improve their processes for allocating  fuel reduction funds to different areas of the country and for selecting fuel  reduction projects, as we recommended in 2007. The agencies have  started moving away from “allocation by tradition” toward a more  consistent, systematic allocation process. That is, rather than relying on  historical funding patterns and professional judgment, the agencies are  developing a process that also considers risk, effectiveness of fuel  reduction treatments, and other factors. Despite these improvements,  further action is needed to ensure that the agencies’ efforts to reduce  hazardous fuels are directed to areas at highest risk. The agencies, for  example, still lack a measure of the effectiveness of fuel reduction  treatments and therefore lack information needed to ensure that fuel  reduction funds are directed to the areas where they can best minimize  risk to communities and resources. Forest Service and Interior officials  told us that they recognize this shortcoming and that efforts are under way  to address it; these efforts are likely to be long term involving considerable  research investment, but they have the potential to improve the agencies’  ability to assess and compare the cost-effectiveness of potential  treatments in deciding how to optimally allocate scarce funds.
The agencies have also taken steps to foster fire-resistant communities.  Increasing the use of protective measures to mitigate the risk to structures  from wildland fire is a key goal of the National Fire Plan. The plan  encourages, but does not mandate, state or local governments to adopt  laws requiring homeowners and homebuilders to take measures—such as  reducing vegetation and flammable objects within an area of 30 to 100 feet  around a structure, often called creating defensible space, and using fire- resistant roofing materials and covering attic vents with mesh screens—to  help protect structures from wildland fires. Because these measures rely  on the actions of individual homeowners or homebuilders, or on laws and  land-use planning affecting private lands, achieving this goal is primarily a  state and local government responsibility. Nonetheless, the Forest Service  and the Interior agencies have helped sponsor the Firewise Communities  program, which works with community leaders and homeowners to  increase the use of fire-resistant landscaping and building materials in  areas of high risk. Federal and state agencies also provide grants to help  pay for creating defensible space around private homes.
In addition, the agencies have made improvements laying important  groundwork for enhancing their response to wildland fire, including:    Implementing the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The  Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy directs each agency to develop  a fire management plan for all areas they manage with burnable  vegetation. Without such plans, agency policy does not allow the use of  the entire range of wildland fire response strategies, including less  aggressive strategies, and therefore the agencies must attempt to suppress  a fire regardless of any benefits that might come from allowing it to burn.  We reported in 2006 that about 95 percent of the agencies’ 1,460 individual  land management units had completed the required plans. The policy also  states that the agencies’ responses to a wildland fire are to be based on the  circumstances of a given fire and the likely consequences to human safety  and natural and cultural resources. Interagency guidance on implementing  the policy, adopted in 2009, clarifies that the full range of fire management  strategies and tactics are to be considered when responding to every  wildland fire, and that a single fire may be simultaneously managed for  different objectives. Both we and the Department of Agriculture’s  Inspector General had criticized the previous guidance, which required  each fire to be managed either for suppression objectives—that is, to put  out the fire as quickly as possible—or to achieve resource benefits—that  is, to allow the fire to burn to gain certain benefits such as reducing fuels  or seed regeneration. By providing this flexibility, the new guidance  should help the agencies better achieve management objectives and help  contain the long-term costs of fire management.
Improving fire management decisions. The agencies have recently  undertaken several efforts to improve decisions about firefighting  strategies. In one such effort, the agencies in 2009 began to use a new  analytical tool, known as the wildland fire decision support system. This  new tool helps line officers and fire managers analyze various factors— such as the fire’s current location, adjacent fuel conditions, nearby  structures and other highly valued resources, and weather forecasts—in  determining the strategies and tactics to adopt. For example, the tool  generates a map illustrating the probability that a particular wildland fire,  barring any suppression actions, will burn a certain area within a specified  time, and the structures or other resources that may therefore be  threatened. Having such information can help line officers and fire  managers understand the resources at risk and identify the most  appropriate response—for example, whether to devote substantial  resources in attempting full and immediate suppression or to instead take  a less intensive approach, which may reduce risks to firefighters and cost  less. Other efforts include (1) establishing experience and training  requirements for line officers to be certified to manage fires of different  levels of complexity, and (2) forming four teams staffed with some of the  most experienced fire managers to assist in managing wildland fires. The  Forest Service has also experimented in recent years with several  approaches for identifying ongoing fires where suppression actions are  unlikely to be effective and for influencing strategic decisions made during  those fires, in order to help contain costs and reduce risk to firefighters.  Although these efforts are new, and we have not fully evaluated them, we  believe they have the potential to help the agencies strengthen how they  select firefighting strategies. By themselves, however, these efforts do not  address certain critical shortcomings. We reported in 2007, for example,  that officials in the field have few incentives to consider cost containment  in making critical decisions affecting suppression costs, and that previous  studies had found that the lack of a clear measure to evaluate the benefits  and costs of alternative firefighting strategies fundamentally hindered the  agencies’ ability to provide effective oversight.
Acquiring and using firefighting assets effectively. The agencies have  continued to make improvements—including better systems for  contracting with private vendors to provide firefighting assets and for  dispatching assets to individual fires—in how they determine the  firefighting assets they need and in how they acquire and use those assets,  although further action is needed. For example, although the agencies in  2009 began deploying an interagency budget-planning system known as  fire program analysis (FPA) to address congressional direction that they  improve how they determine needed firefighting assets, our 2008 report on  FPA’s development identified several shortcomings that limit FPA’s ability  to meet certain key objectives. FPA was intended to help the agencies  develop their wildland fire budget requests and allocate funds by, among  other objectives, (1) providing a common budget framework to analyze  firefighting assets without regard for agency jurisdictions; (2) examining  the full scope of fire management activities; (3) modeling the effects over  time of differing strategies for responding to wildland fires and treating  lands to reduce hazardous fuels; and (4) using this information to identify  the most cost-effective mix and location of federal wildland fire  management assets. We reported in 2008 that FPA shows promise in  achieving some of the key objectives originally established for it but that  the approach the agencies have taken hampers FPA from meeting other  key objectives, including the ability to project the effects of different levels  of fuel reduction and firefighting strategies over time. We therefore  concluded that agency officials lack information that would help them  analyze the extent to which increasing or decreasing funding for fuel  reduction and responding more or less aggressively to fires in the short  term could affect the expected cost of responding to wildland fires over  the long term. Senior agency officials told us in 2008 that they were  considering making changes to FPA that may improve its ability to  examine the effects over time of different funding strategies. The exact  nature of these changes, or how to fund them, has yet to be determined.  Officials also told us the agencies are currently working to evaluate the  model’s performance, identify and implement needed corrections, and  improve data quality and consistency. The agencies intend to consider the  early results of FPA in developing their budget requests for fiscal year  2011, although officials told us they will not rely substantially on FPA’s  results until needed improvements are made. As we noted in 2008, the  approach the agencies took in developing FPA provides considerable  discretion to agency decision makers and, although providing the  flexibility to consider various options is important, doing so makes it  essential that the agencies ensure their processes are fully transparent.
In addition, previous studies have found that agencies sometimes use  more, or more-costly, firefighting assets than necessary, often in response  to political or social pressure to demonstrate they are taking all possible  action to protect communities and resources. Consistent with these  findings, fire officials told us they were pressured in 2008 to assign more  firefighting assets than could be effectively used to fight fires in California.  More generally, previous studies have found that air tankers may be used  to drop flame retardants when on-the-ground conditions may not warrant  such drops. Aviation activities are expensive, accounting for about one- third of all firefighting costs on a large fire. We believe that providing  clarity about when different types of firefighting assets can be used  effectively could help the agencies resist political and social pressure to  use more assets than they need.
section_title: Agencies Have Yet to Take Certain Key Actions That Would Substantially Improve Their Management of Wildland Fire
paragraphs: Despite the important steps the agencies have taken, much work remains.  We have previously recommended several key actions that, if completed,  would improve the agencies’ management of wildland fire. Specifically, the  agencies need to:    Develop a cohesive strategy. Completing an investment strategy that  lays out various approaches for reducing fuels and responding to wildland  fires and the estimated costs associated with each approach and the trade- offs involved—what we have termed a cohesive strategy—is essential for  Congress and the agencies to make informed decisions about effective and  affordable long-term approaches for addressing the nation’s wildland fire  problems. The agencies have concurred with our recommendations to  develop a cohesive strategy but have yet to develop a strategy that clearly  formulates different approaches and associated costs, despite our  repeated calls to do so. In May 2009, agency officials told us they had  begun planning how to develop a cohesive strategy but were not far  enough along in developing it to provide further information.
Because of the critical importance of a cohesive strategy to improve the  agencies’ overall management of wildland fire, we encourage the agencies  to complete one and begin implementing it as quickly as possible. The  Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act, introduced  in March 2009 and sponsored by the chairman of this committee, would  require the agencies to produce, within 1 year of the act’s enactment, a  cohesive strategy consistent with our previous recommendations.  Although they have yet to complete a cohesive strategy, the agencies have  nearly completed two projects—LANDFIRE and FPA—they have  identified as being necessary to development of a cohesive strategy.  However, the shortcomings we identified in FPA may limit its ability to  contribute to the agencies’ development of a cohesive strategy.
Establish a cost-containment strategy. We reported in 2007 that  although the Forest Service and the Interior agencies had taken several  steps intended to help contain wildland fire costs, they had not clearly  defined their cost-containment goals or developed a strategy for achieving  those goals—steps that are fundamental to sound program management.  The agencies disagreed, citing several agency documents that they argued  clearly define their goals and objectives and make up their strategy to  contain costs. Although these documents do provide overarching goals  and objectives, they lack the clarity and specificity needed by land  management and firefighting officials in the field to help manage and  contain wildland fire costs. Interagency policy, for example, established an  overarching goal of suppressing wildland fires at minimum cost,  considering firefighter and public safety and importance of resources  being protected, but the agencies have established neither clear criteria for  weighing the relative importance of the often-competing elements of this  broad goal, nor measurable objectives for determining if the agencies are  meeting the goal. As a result, despite the improvements the agencies are  making to policy, decision support tools, and oversight, we believe that  managers in the field lack a clear understanding of the relative importance  that the agencies’ leadership places on containing costs and—as we  concluded in our 2007 report—are therefore likely to continue to select  firefighting strategies without duly considering the costs of suppression.  Forest Service officials told us in July 2009 that although they are  concerned about fire management costs, they are emphasizing the need to  select firefighting strategies that will achieve land management objectives  and reduce unnecessary risks to firefighters, an emphasis they believe  may, in the long run, also help them contain costs. Nonetheless, we  continue to believe that our recommendations, if effectively implemented,  would help the agencies better manage their cost-containment efforts and  improve their ability to contain wildland fire costs.
Clearly define financial responsibilities for fires that cross  jurisdictions. Protecting the nation’s communities is both one of the key  goals of wildland fire management and one of the leading factors  contributing to rising fire costs. A number of relatively simple steps—such  as using fire-resistant landscaping and building materials—can  dramatically reduce the likelihood of damage to a structure from wildland  fire. Although nonfederal entities—including state forestry entities and  tribal, county, city, and rural fire departments—play an important role in  protecting communities and resources and responding to fires, we  reported in 2006 that federal officials were concerned that the existing  framework for sharing suppression costs among federal and nonfederal  entities insulated state and local governments from the cost of providing  wildland fire protection in the wildland-urban interface. As a result, there  was less incentive for state and local governments to adopt laws—such as  building codes requiring fire-resistant building materials in areas at high  risk of wildland fires—that, in the long run, could help reduce the cost of  suppressing wildland fires. We therefore recommended that the federal  agencies work with relevant state entities to clarify the financial  responsibility for fires that burn, or threaten to burn, across multiple  jurisdictions and develop more specific guidance as to when particular  cost-sharing methods should be used. The agencies have updated guidance  on when particular cost-sharing methods should be used, although we  have not evaluated the effect of the updated guidance; the agencies,  however, have yet to clarify the financial responsibility for fires that  threaten multiple jurisdictions. Without such clarification, the concerns  that the existing framework insulates nonfederal entities from the cost of  protecting the wildland-urban interface from fire—and that the federal  government, therefore, would continue to bear more than its share of that  cost—are unlikely to be addressed.
Mitigate effects of rising fire costs on other agency programs. The  sharply rising costs of managing wildland fires have led the Forest Service  and the Interior agencies to transfer funds from other programs to help  pay for fire suppression, disrupting or delaying activities in these other  programs. Better methods of estimating the suppression funds the  agencies request, as we recommended in 2004, could reduce the  likelihood that the agencies would need to transfer funds from other  accounts, yet the agencies continue to use an estimation method with  known problems. A Forest Service official told us the agency had analyzed  alternative methods for estimating needed suppression funds but  determined that no better method was available. Because the agencies  have had to transfer funds in each of the last 3 years, however, a more  accurate method for estimating suppression costs may still be needed. To  further reduce the likelihood of transferring funds from the agencies’ other  programs to cover suppression costs, our 2004 report also noted, Congress  could consider establishing a reserve account to fund emergency wildland  firefighting. Congress, for example, could provide either a specified  amount (known as a definite appropriation) or as much funding as the  agencies need to fund emergency suppression (known as an indefinite  appropriation). Establishing a reserve account with a definite  appropriation would provide the agencies with incentives to contain  suppression costs within the amount in the reserve account, but  depending on the size of the appropriation and the severity of a fire  season, suppression costs could still exceed the funds reserved, and the  agencies might still need to transfer funds from other programs. An  account with an indefinite appropriation, in contrast, would eliminate the  need for transferring funds from other programs but would offer no  inherent incentives for the agencies to contain suppression costs.  Furthermore, both definite and indefinite appropriations could raise the  overall federal budget deficit, depending on whether funding levels for  other agency or government programs are reduced. The Federal Land  Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act proposes establishing a  wildland fire suppression reserve account; the administration’s budget  overview for fiscal year 2010 also proposes a $282 million reserve account  for the Forest Service and a $75 million reserve account for the Interior to  provide funding for firefighting when the appropriated suppression funds  are exhausted.
We are making no new recommendations at this time. Rather, we believe  that our previous recommendations—which the agencies have generally  agreed with—could, if implemented, substantially assist the agencies in  capitalizing on the important progress they have made to date in  responding to the nation’s growing wildland fire problem. We discussed  the factual information in this statement with agency officials and  incorporated their comments where appropriate.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be pleased  to answer any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee  may have at this time.
section_title: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: For further information about this testimony, please contact me at (202)  512-3841 or daltonp@gao.gov, or Robin M. Nazzaro, Director, at (202) 512- 3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional  Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this  statement. Steve Gaty, Assistant Director; David P. Bixler; Ellen W. Chu;  Jonathan Dent; and Richard P. Johnson made key contributions to this  statement.
section_title: Related GAO Products
paragraphs: Wildland Fire Management: Interagency Budget Tool Needs Further  Development to Fully Meet Key Objectives. GAO-09-68. Washington, D.C.:  November 24, 2008.
Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Lack Key Long- and Short- Term Management Strategies for Using Program Funds Effectively.  GAO-08-433T. Washington, D.C.: February 12, 2008.
Wildland Fire Management: Better Information and a Systematic  Process Could Improve Agencies’ Approach to Allocating Fuel Reduction  Funds and Selecting Projects. GAO-07-1168. Washington, D.C.: September  28, 2007.
Wildland Fire Management: Lack of Clear Goals or a Strategy Hinders  Federal Agencies’ Efforts to Contain the Costs of Fighting Fires.  GAO-07-655. Washington, D.C.: June 1, 2007.
Wildland Fire Suppression: Lack of Clear Guidance Raises Concerns  about Cost Sharing between Federal and Nonfederal Entities.  GAO-06-570. Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2006.
Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to Develop  a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats. GAO-06-671R.  Washington, D.C.: May 1, 2006.
Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but  Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy. GAO-05-147.  Washington, D.C.: January 14, 2005.
Wildfire Suppression: Funding Transfers Cause Project Cancellations  and Delays, Strained Relationships, and Management Disruptions.  GAO-04-612. Washington, D.C.: June 2, 2004.
Wildland Fire Management: Additional Actions Required to Better  Identify and Prioritize Lands Needing Fuels Reduction. GAO-03-805.  Washington, D.C.: August 15, 2003.
Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy Is Needed to Address  Catastrophic Wildfire Threats. GAO/RCED-99-65. Washington, D.C.: April  2, 1999.
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