Wildland Fire: Federal Agencies' Efforts to Reduce Wildland Fuels and Lower Risk to Communities and Ecosystems
Released: 2019-12-19T00:00:00

Letter

Background

Wildfires play an important ecological role on the nation’s landscapes but various management practices over the past century—including fire suppression, timber harvesting, and grazing—have altered the normal frequency of fires in many forest and grassland ecosystems and have reduced these ecosystems’ resilience to wildland fire. This history of fire exclusion and changes in forest management have resulted in a buildup of surface fuels—burnable material found on or near the ground—and the overstocking of some forests with trees and other fuels. In addition, the reduced frequency of wildfire in some ecosystems has resulted in increased amounts of vegetative debris (e.g., dead trees, branches, leaves, and grasses) accumulating on the ground, which serves to increase fuel quantities and can create more continuous fuels. When this occurs, surface fires—fires that occur on the ground—may ignite more quickly and burn with greater intensity, causing fires to spread more rapidly and extensively than they may have in the past.

The arrangement of living vegetation also affects the way wildfires burn. For example, an increase in the density of small trees creates a layered forest structure with fuels going from the forest floor into the forest’s canopy. These layers are sometimes referred to as ladder fuels. This arrangement may allow fire that previously would have remained on the ground to climb the ladder fuels and spread into the trees’ crowns, becoming a high-intensity crown fire. In addition, reducing the frequency of fire in fire-adapted forests and other ecosystems can result in changes to the plant species that make up the forest or ecosystem, which may cause the vegetative composition to shift toward species that are not well adapted to fire, including non-native invasive species. For example, many areas with sagebrush ecosystems—that historically had fires only once every few decades—have been invaded by cheatgrass that when dried creates large swaths of fuels that increase rates of fire spread, intensity, and frequency.

Approximately 70,000 communities nationwide are considered to be at risk from wildfire, according to the National Association of State Foresters, Communities at Risk, Fiscal Year 2018 Report. Communities face different levels of risk from wildfires depending on such factors as the flammability of vegetation in and around the community, the flammability of materials used in constructing structures, and the location of the structures in relation to vegetation. Structures not located immediately adjacent to wildland vegetation can also be vulnerable to wildfire because winds can transport flaming embers that can ignite homes more than a mile away from a wildfire. In addition to residential housing, other valuable assets and infrastructure that support communities may be located in the WUI, including power lines; highways; and natural resources that provide economic benefits, such as timber, oil and gas wells, and recreational areas. According to the Cohesive Strategy, reducing fuels can help reduce a wildland fire’s intensity, which in turn can help lower the risk fires pose to communities, structures, and other valuable assets and infrastructure.

Federal Agencies Involved in Fuel Reduction Projects

The Forest Service, BLM, FWS, and NPS manage more than 670 million acres of federal land across the country. In addition, BIA is responsible for administering approximately 55 million acres of lands held in trust by the United States for Indian tribes, individuals, and Alaska Natives. Figure 1 shows the lands that these five agencies managed or administered in the contiguous United States. The agencies have estimated that over 100 million of these acres are at high risk from wildfire.

Each agency has a unique mission that shapes how it manages or administers its associated lands. Specifically:

The Forest Service manages land for multiple uses, such as grazing, timber, recreation, and watershed protection, and to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands. The agency operates through nine regional offices that manage 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands.

BIA provides services, directly or through contracts or compacts, to federally recognized tribes comprising approximately 1.9 million American Indian and Alaska Natives, many of whom live on BIA- administered lands. Tribal forests provide a source of revenue and jobs for many tribal governments and their members, and play an important role in sustaining tribal cultures and traditions, according to BIA documents. The agency operates through 12 regional offices that manage 83 BIA field units.

BLM manages land for multiple uses, such as recreation, mining, grazing, timber, and natural scenic values. The agency operates through 12 state offices that manage subsidiary district and field offices.

FWS manages the National Wildlife Refuge System, a network of lands and waters that provides for the conservation; management; and, where appropriate, restoration of fish, wildlife, and plants and their habitats, as well as opportunities for wildlife-dependent recreation, including hunting, fishing, and wildlife observation. The refuge system includes approximately 585 refuges. The agency operates through eight regional offices that manage the refuges.

NPS manages the National Park System to conserve the scenery, natural and historic objects, and wildlife therein and to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. Individual park units have varied designations corresponding to the natural or cultural features they are to conserve, including national parks, monuments, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, preserves, and historic sites.

The agency operates through seven regional offices that manage 419 individual park units.

Federal Agencies’ Appropriations and Allocations of Funds for Fuel Reduction

Generally, after receiving its annual appropriation, the Forest Service allocates its fuel reduction funds to its nine regional offices, which in turn allocate the funds they receive to individual field units (e.g., national forests and grasslands). Interior, upon receiving its annual appropriation, allocates its fuel reduction funds through its Office of Wildland Fire to BIA, BLM, FWS, and NPS. These agencies then allocate the funds to their regional offices, which, in turn, allocate the funds to individual field units, such as national parks or wildlife refuges. Once the field units receive their allocations, they select fuel reduction projects to implement during the fiscal year. For fiscal years 2009 through 2018, the Forest Service and Interior implemented fuel reduction projects that treated, respectively, approximately 1.4 million and 1.1 million acres per fiscal year on average. Figure 2 illustrates the annual appropriation and allocation processes for fuel reduction funds.

From fiscal years 2009 through 2018, Congress appropriated approximately $5 billion in fuel reduction funds to the Forest Service and Interior, with the Forest Service and Interior annually receiving on average about $339 million and $177 million, respectively (see fig. 3).

The Role of Nonfederal Entities

Most development in the WUI occurs on nonfederal lands. Accordingly, state and local government agencies, as well as property owners, play a major role in protecting communities and other development from wildfire. The Forest Service and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed publicly available resources that describe ways communities can adapt to wildfire. Specifically, two critical actions for protecting structures from wildfires are (1) reducing vegetation and flammable objects within an area of 30 to 100 feet around a structure, referred to as creating defensible space, and (2) using fire-resistant roofing materials and covering attic vents with mesh screens to block embers from entering the structure. Individuals and communities can also take steps to mitigate fire risk by avoiding development in higher-risk areas. To help protect structures, state and local agencies may conduct, or help fund, fuel reduction projects to protect communities and other nonfederal lands from wildfire. For example, a rural fire department in Montana funds a crew to reduce fuels around private residences to create defensible space for those homes. In addition, individual property owners may reduce fuels around their homes. In previous reports, we found that state and local agencies have adopted laws or ordinances that require homeowners to maintain a specified level of defensible space or have adopted building codes that require the use of fire-resistant building materials in fire-prone areas. For example, in our May 2017 report, we found that under an Oregon law, property owners in certain at-risk areas must reduce excess vegetation around structures and along driveways.

Agencies Use Various Fuel Reduction Methods to Help Lower Risk to Communities and Ecosystems

According to Forest Service and Interior documents and officials, the Forest Service and the four Interior agencies use various methods to reduce fuels, which have advantages and disadvantages under different conditions. For example:

Mechanical treatments. This method entails using equipment such as chainsaws, masticators, bulldozers, or mowers to cut and remove vegetation. Mechanical treatments reduce tree density where there are abnormally dense groups of trees or ladder fuels to help reduce the risk of a wildfire becoming severe. Interior officials said that mechanical treatments are also widely used for removing shrubs and other vegetation in rangeland ecosystems. However, mechanical treatments may also increase the amount of smaller fuels on the ground, including treetops and limbs (referred to as slash) and other debris from thinning, which can in some cases increase a fire’s intensity or rate of spread.

Prescribed burns. This method entails using deliberate, planned fires set by land managers to restore or maintain desired ecosystem conditions and reduce fuels. Prescribed burning under specified fuel and weather conditions is designed to enable a fire to burn at a relatively low intensity level within a confined area. Prescribed burns typically work best when combined with previous prescribed burns or mechanical treatments because they are effective in removing smaller vegetation that can fuel a fire—such as grasses, leaves, pine needles, and twigs—which can reduce a fire’s intensity and rate of spread, but are not as effective in removing larger fuel, such as trees. Smoke produced from prescribed burns and the risk of a prescribed burn spreading into other areas can limit the use of prescribed burns around communities, according to the Forest Service’s Fuels Technical Guide.

Herbicides and targeted grazing. Herbicides can be used to reduce fuels or when needed to kill fast growing vegetation to maintain an existing fuel reduction project. However, herbicide kills vegetation but does not remove it, potentially increasing an area’s susceptibility to fire if further action is not taken to remove the dead fuel. Targeted grazing—the intentional use of cows, sheep, or goats to eat vegetation in a specified area—can also be used to reduce grasses and other smaller fuels that can fuel fires. One advantage of such methods is that they often can be applied with a greater level of control over the location, timing, and desired outcome of the treatment. These methods can be particularly helpful in removing smaller fuels in areas where prescribed burning is undesirable, such as in proximity to structures. With grazing, however, it may take multiple years before there is a noticeable difference in the fuels, and according to agency officials, moving livestock to different areas for grazing is labor-intensive and can potentially increase the spread of invasive plants if livestock movement is not controlled.

While some fuel reduction projects may be completed with a single treatment method, other projects may require multiple treatment methods and may span several years. For example, a project may first use mechanical treatment to thin accumulated vegetation, followed by a prescribed burn to remove remaining slash and litter on the ground. Moreover, once a project is completed, it needs to be maintained over time to retain its effectiveness as vegetation grows back. Depending on the ecosystem, fuels treatment effectiveness can vary in length from only a few years to over a decade. For example, fuel reduction projects are generally effective for 3 to 5 years in southeastern U.S. pine forests given the high rate at which vegetation grows in that region. In contrast, projects are generally effective for 8 to 12 years in dry conifer forests in the western United States.

The most appropriate fuel reduction method or methods—as well as how they are applied (i.e., how much vegetation is removed)—depends on the outcomes desired (e.g., protecting communities, restoring ecosystems); the type of forest or other vegetation present; and site-specific factors, such as topography and proximity to communities, according to the Forest Service’s Fuels Technical Guide and agency officials. The Forest Service and Interior have long-standing research programs that are designed to support agency managers’ understanding of how to implement effective fuel reduction projects. As of November 2019, Forest Service research priorities included refining the scientific understanding of how wildfire burns across landscapes and the effects of fuel reduction projects conducted at different scales. In addition, the agencies conduct assessments, known as fuel treatment effectiveness monitoring reports, in cases where a wildfire either starts within or burns into a fuel reduction project area to evaluate the project’s effect on fire behavior and fire suppression actions. Officials believe that such research helps their agencies continue to improve how they design and implement fuel reduction projects to account for site-specific factors.

Regardless of the method used, the purpose of fuel reduction projects is to reduce the intensity of future wildfires to help protect communities, restore ecosystems, or both, according to agency documents. The following examples illustrate various fuel reduction methods that the agencies have used to help protect communities and ecosystems:

Officials from BIA and the San Carlos Apache Tribe said that they perform prescribed burns and mechanical treatments annually on approximately 1,000 to 1,600 acres of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona to remove rapidly growing grasses, which could quickly carry a wildfire into the community. The officials said that they primarily use prescribed burns as this allows them to inexpensively treat the most acres. The officials said that they perform these treatments close to the community, to help keep fires from reaching structures and to provide space for firefighters to work more safely in the event of a fire (see fig. 4).

An FWS official at the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge said that the refuge uses prescribed burns and mechanical treatments to reduce the wildfire risk to several nearby communities. For example, for a 1,000-acre area near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, the refuge has been doing fuel reduction projects for decades in an effort to protect nearby residential and commercial areas, as well as a highway, railroad, and other infrastructure (see fig. 5). The official said that because the dominant tree species on the refuge is slash pine, which grows very quickly, they have to treat the area every 3 to 5 years to maintain the effectiveness of the project. The official also said that the refuge uses more mechanical treatments than prescribed burns in this area because of concerns about smoke drifting into nearby communities but that they also use prescribed burns when weather conditions are favorable.

Santa Fe National Forest officials said that since the early 2000s, they have partnered with the New Mexico State Forestry Division and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish to conduct a series of fuel reduction projects, including mechanical treatments and prescribed burns, covering 8,000 acres in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. These projects were designed to reduce both the likelihood of a fire reaching nearby communities and potential ecosystem damage. The officials said that given the proximity to development and the large accumulation of fuels in that area, they used mechanical treatments first because a prescribed burn would be hazardous until fuel levels were reduced. After the mechanical treatments were completed, they used prescribed burns to remove as much of the remaining fuels as possible. Officials told us that the utility of these projects was demonstrated in July 2018 when the Venado Fire burned from an untreated into a treated area and changed from a high-intensity fire burning the crowns of the trees to primarily a low-intensity fire burning on the ground (see fig. 6). The officials said that while they do not know what the Venado Fire would have done without the fuel reduction projects, they believe that the projects slowed the fire sufficiently to provide firefighters with time to contain the fire before it spread to populated areas and also helped reduce ecosystem damage.

NPS officials at the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area near Redding, California, said that many of the fuel reduction projects they undertake are designed to reduce risk to local communities and restore ecosystem health. For example, the officials said that in 2013 they began a 1,000-acre project, consisting primarily of prescribed burns but also some mechanical treatments, located adjacent to privately owned houses and timber land. The officials said that they primarily use prescribed burns because the lower cost of the burns allows them to treat more acres. The project was intended to reduce fire risk to adjacent private property and to help improve the ecological health of old-growth Douglas-fir stands within the recreation area. The officials said that they believed the project helped to reduce the intensity in some areas burned by the 2018 Carr Fire but also noted that the fire was too intense for the treatments to be effective in other areas, as shown in figure 7.

Officials at the BLM West Desert District office in Utah said that they have been working on a 4,680-acre fuel reduction project since 2017. The primary purpose of this project is to improve breeding and winter habitat for the greater sage-grouse by removing juniper and other vegetation that pose a wildfire risk to the sagebrush habitat the bird relies on. The project area is home to the largest population of greater sage-grouse in the state. The officials said that they mostly use mechanical treatments, including mastication, because mastication, unlike other fuel reduction methods, allows for the selective removal of juniper trees while still preserving sagebrush. Figure 8 shows the project area before and after treatment, with juniper trees removed and sagebrush remaining.

Agencies Considered Similar Information on Potential Wildfire Damage to Communities and Ecosystems and Used Different Approaches to Allocate Fuel Reduction Funds

Agencies Considered Similar Types of Information in Allocating Funds in Fiscal Year 2018

Agency officials told us that in deciding how to allocate their fuel reduction funds in fiscal year 2018, they primarily considered information related to the wildfire hazard potential on lands they manage or administer, the proximity of communities and infrastructure to those potential fires, and ecosystem health.

Wildfire hazard potential. To allocate their fuel reduction funds, officials from the five agencies said they considered information regarding the likelihood and severity of wildfires that may occur across the areas they manage and administer. For example, officials said they generally used information incorporated into a national geospatial database that the Forest Service developed to estimate the relative probability a given area faces of experiencing a wildfire that would be difficult for suppression resources to contain and therefore may cause damage to communities or ecosystems. To produce this database, the Forest Service used, among other things, satellite imagery to identify fuel conditions across the landscape. The Forest Service then ran computer models that used this fuel condition information to estimate the potential intensity of future wildfires. The Forest Service’s identification of the likelihood and potential intensity of a wildfire in a given area helps the agencies compare the relative hazard potential different geographic areas face from such fire. The agencies also used information from another national geospatial database that the Forest Service developed on historical fire occurrence data to identify where fires have most frequently occurred, whether because of natural causes (e.g., lightning) or human causes (e.g., accidental ignitions or arson). Figure 9 shows the wildfire hazard potential, as assessed by the Forest Service in July 2018, on lands the five agencies managed and administered in the contiguous United States.

Location of communities and infrastructure. Officials from the five agencies told us that they considered the location of communities and important infrastructure, such as municipal watersheds and electrical transmission lines, which could be damaged by wildfires. The officials said they used several information sources to help them identify the locations of these communities and infrastructure. For example, the agencies used a national geospatial database that the Forest Service developed that maps the WUI as defined by the Forest Service and Interior in 2001. Field unit officials said that they also considered local knowledge about areas that are important to protect in or near to a given community when selecting fuel reduction projects to prioritize and implement. For example, officials said that many communities had developed Community Wildfire Protection Plans— plans identifying areas the communities believe are important to protect—and that they would consider these local plans when selecting fuel reduction projects to implement.

Ecosystem health and location of natural resources. Officials from four of the five agencies said that they considered information on the locations of particularly valued natural resources, such as rare or otherwise important plants, including those that provide habitat for threatened or endangered species. Using an interagency tool, they also considered information on the overall ecological condition of forests, grasslands, and other vegetation and how current conditions related to historical conditions in given locations. The officials said that this information helped them identify areas where wildfires may be more damaging than they were in the past because of changes in the density, age, and species composition of the vegetation. For example, officials said that in part because of decades of fire suppression, many ponderosa pine forests currently contain more trees than they would have historically, and as a result, today’s wildfires may burn hotter and cause more damage to those forests than fires did in the past. Reducing fuels can help the agencies to restore an area closer to its historical conditions, which in some ecosystems may reduce the risk of wildfire damaging an ecosystem and the resources it contains, according to the Cohesive Strategy.

Agencies Used Different Approaches for Allocating Funds in Fiscal Year 2018

As they considered similar information on potential damage to communities and ecosystems, each agency used a different approach for allocating fuel reduction funds in fiscal year 2018, according to agency documents and agency officials. Officials from each of the agencies said that professional judgment plays an important role in making these decisions. The general approaches each agency used for allocating fuel reduction funds in fiscal year 2018 were:

Forest Service. Forest Service headquarters officials said they allocated fuel reduction funds to their regions based primarily on the allocation levels from the previous fiscal year. However, they also said they considered information based on the best available science on the wildfire risk facing the regions and each region’s contributions to meeting the agency’s acreage targets for fuel reduction projects in the previous fiscal year. According to a 2017 Forest Service manual, the agency was to develop national and regional risk assessments to help inform their approach to allocation decisions, but the national assessment had not been finalized for use in fiscal year 2018. Forest Service officials initially allocated approximately 70 percent of the agency’s total fuel reduction funds to the regions, withholding about 30 percent to make available to regions and national forests on a competitive basis later in the fiscal year. The regions and forests then competed for additional fuels funds for projects aligned with specific national priorities as determined by Forest Service headquarters.

Interior. Interior’s Office of Wildland Fire officials said they allocated fuel reduction funds to the Interior agencies based primarily on allocation levels from fiscal year 2017. However, late in the third quarter of fiscal year 2018, Interior officials began testing an approach for reviewing each of the four Interior agencies’ planned fuel reduction projects for consistency with the Secretary of the Interior’s priorities for the fiscal year. The agencies’ plans for such projects were to be updated each quarter to keep Interior officials informed on the implementation status for projects underway and of changes to planned projects, according to Interior documents.

BIA. BIA headquarters officials told us they allocated fuel reduction funds to their regional offices based on an allocation model that the agency adopted around fiscal year 2012. The model analyzes wildfire hazard potential and agency staffing levels across BIA regions, among other factors. According to a BIA document, the model includes information that captures risk-related information for wildfires on BIA-administered tribal lands. It also captures information on performance and fiscal management for each BIA regional office’s fuel reduction program during the previous fiscal year and each BIA regional office’s contributions to the total number of acres treated overall by the BIA fuel reduction program. BIA officials said the comparative scores for each regional office derived from the model served as a starting point for discussions with BIA senior leadership when determining the fuel reduction allocations to the regions.

BLM. BLM headquarters officials said they allocated fuel reduction funds to their state offices based on the results of the 5-year allocation model the agency adopted in 2015. The model analyzes the location of communities, critical infrastructure, and sagebrush habitat, among other factors, as well as wildfire fire hazard potential for the area covered by each BLM state office. According to BLM officials, the model provides a relative ranking for each BLM state office based on acreage at risk, which helps determine the state offices’ respective fuel reduction allocations. For example, BLM state offices that manage more sage-grouse habitat that is at high risk for wildfire received larger allocations than offices in states without such habitat or where the sage-grouse habitat was at lower risk for wildfire.

FWS. FWS headquarters officials said they allocated fuel reduction funds to their regional offices based on the results of an allocation system—the Fuels Management Allocation and Accountability System—that they have used since fiscal year 2016. This system generates a risk profile for each FWS region based on, for example, the location of infrastructure, population density, and how fuel conditions may affect wildfires that occur on FWS-managed land. According to FWS officials, this system provides a relative ranking for each FWS region based on acreage at risk, which helps determine the regions’ respective fuel reduction allocations. In general, the FWS regions with the most acreage at risk receive the largest percentage of FWS’s fuel reduction funds.

NPS. NPS headquarters officials told us that they allocated fuel reduction funds to their regions based primarily on historical allocation levels from fiscal year 2017. Headquarters officials said they are considering ways to improve their allocation process, such as potentially adopting a model developed in one of their regions. Specifically, officials from the NPS region in our review said that they had developed a model to help analyze the relative risk facing the field units in their region when making allocation decisions. This model is designed to identify highly valued assets in the national parks and other NPS-managed lands in the region and provide relative rankings for those assets requiring protection through fuel reduction projects, according to the officials.

Agency Officials Cited a Variety of Factors Affecting Their Efforts to Implement Fuel Reduction Projects

Officials we interviewed from the five federal agencies cited a variety of factors affecting their efforts to implement fuel reduction projects. The officials also identified steps they were taking to help mitigate some of the factors.

Scale of problem. Officials from all five agencies we interviewed said that the number of acres needing fuel reductions is significantly larger than the number of acres the agencies are able to treat in any given year. As previously noted, the Forest Service estimated in 2018 that there were approximately 63 million acres of national forest lands at high to very high risk from uncharacteristic wildfire, and Interior officials estimated in 2019 that 54 million acres of the lands that they manage or administer were at high or very high risk from wildfire. In fiscal year 2018, the Forest Service and Interior implemented fuel reduction projects that treated approximately 1.7 million and 1.3 million acres, respectively, of lands they manage or administer.

Agency officials told us that they recognize that their efforts will not allow them to reduce fuels on all high-risk lands needing treatment but said that in addition to the projects they undertake to reduce fuels, wildfires also serve to reduce fuels in areas burned by such fires. In some circumstances, officials said, wildfires may provide similar fuel reduction benefits as prescribed burns and other fuel reduction methods. To the extent that wildfires reduce fuels in areas that the agencies would otherwise plan to implement fuel reduction projects, such wildfires would serve to reduce fuels on more acreage than they would otherwise be able to treat.

Agency officials also said, as previously discussed, that they are working to improve their ability to identify areas to prioritize for treatment. For example, scientists at the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station are helping the agency refine its methods for identifying areas most at risk from wildfire and the communities closest to those areas by expanding and updating agency risk assessments to more accurately depict where fuels reduction projects on national forest lands could provide the most protection to communities. This may also allow Forest Service officials to reduce the total number of acres needing treatment through better targeting of the highest-risk acres. According to Forest Service officials, the agency intends to consider this research to help inform its budget requests and funding allocations for fuel reduction efforts in future fiscal years. The Forest Service and Interior are also working to improve their existing fuel reduction project computer simulation software—called the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System—so that it can be used to model and quantify the risk reduction effects of potential projects across larger geographic areas. Officials said these improvements would help them prioritize areas to treat by allowing agency officials to explore how different combinations of locations and types of treatments affect predicted future wildfire behavior.

Operating under continuing resolutions. Officials we interviewed from all five agencies said that operating under continuing resolutions negatively affected their ability to implement fuel reduction projects. Specifically, agency officials said that they tend to budget conservatively until they receive their regular appropriation and therefore implementation of planned projects may be delayed. For example, Forest Service officials said that the weather for doing prescribed burns is often better in the fall and winter and that receiving their annual appropriation later in the fiscal year can reduce their ability to perform these burns in a given year. In addition, the officials said they had delayed hiring and training staff in previous years when the agencies were operating under continuing resolutions, reducing the number of staff available to implement projects.

The Forest Service has taken some steps to mitigate the effects of operating under continuing resolutions. For example, officials in one region said they recently adopted an approach that allows them to more readily shift funding from one planned fuels project to another, either within the same national forest or to other national forests in the region, to complete projects as weather conditions and budgets allow. Officials from one national forest in this region said that this approach has facilitated sharing fuels reduction staff among neighboring national forests to plan additional projects, thereby leading to a broader array of projects being ready for implementation when the agency receives its regular annual appropriations.

Balancing fuels projects in new areas with maintaining past treatments. Officials from all five agencies said that it can be difficult to balance conducting fuel reduction projects in new areas with maintaining areas that have already had initial fuel reduction projects completed. Some agency officials said that while it is important to conduct projects to reduce wildfire risk in new areas, they also need to conduct projects in previously treated areas to maintain the effectiveness of past treatments.

Agency officials said that in balancing their investments between new and previously treated areas, they consider the relative costs of projects. Conducting fuel reduction projects in new areas can be more expensive than conducting maintenance projects because of the type of treatments that need to be done, according to officials. For example, officials from one national forest said that initial mechanical treatments may cost from $300 to $1,500 per acre, depending on the area where the treatment is located, while conducting prescribed burns to maintain a previously treated area may cost from $25 to $100 per acre.

Availability of staff. Agency officials from all five agencies said that fuel program staff may be involved in wildfire suppression efforts and therefore may not be available to plan or perform fuel reduction projects, leading to delays in completing such projects. Officials noted that this was largely an unavoidable result of the agencies’ approach to suppression operations, whereby staff from many of the agencies’ program areas, including fuels, are mobilized through temporary emergency assignments to respond to large wildfires across the country as they occur.

Agency officials said that they are used to working within staff availability constraints. However, some officials expressed concern about the potential for staff burnout. Specifically, fuel program staff may work many overtime hours when suppressing fires and additional overtime hours when they return to their field units to catch up with planned fuel reduction projects that were delayed because of the emergency suppression assignments.

Higher cost of treating WUI areas. Officials we interviewed from four of the five agencies said that costs are a factor when determining which projects to pursue and that it can be more expensive to conduct fuel reduction projects close to homes and infrastructure in the WUI. For example, officials at one national forest said that conducting prescribed burns close to communities in the WUI typically costs almost $250 per acre, whereas it may cost $60 per acre to reduce fuels further away from communities.

Agency officials told us that they try to balance their work between WUI and non-WUI areas to ensure treatment of high-risk areas. In balancing between WUI and non-WUI areas, some Forest Service field unit officials noted that Forest Service headquarters annually sets fuel reduction acreage targets for each region; each region then sets targets for each of its national forests and grasslands. Some officials said that as their annual targets for acres of fuel reduction increase, they may feel pressure to choose projects in locations where they can treat more acres to meet their targets, even if those acres may not be located in the areas at highest risk from wildfire damage. Forest Service headquarters officials said that they do not pressure field units to meet the targets but that they are aware that increasing the annual fuels targets, while budgets remain relatively flat, may incentivize field units to select lower cost areas, which may be at lower risk from wildfire. The officials added that the field units, consistent with Forest Service guidance, should be selecting their project locations based on their risk assessments, not cost.

Community acceptance of fuel reduction projects. Officials we interviewed from four of the five agencies said that community concerns about the effects of proposed fuel reduction projects have affected their ability to conduct some projects but that they are often able to work with communities to gain their acceptance. For example, the officials said that community members are frequently concerned that smoke from prescribed burns will have negative impacts on their health and quality of life, or that mechanical thinning of vegetation near their communities will be visually unattractive or have negative impacts on wildlife.

Agency officials said that they work to minimize these impacts. For example, Forest Service officials schedule prescribed burns at times when weather conditions are not expected to cause a significant volume of smoke to drift into communities. The officials also said that they work with community members to educate them about the benefits of reducing fuels, steps the agencies are taking to reduce negative impacts on the community and wildlife, and steps community members can take to help avoid some impacts. In other instances, agencies partner with various stakeholders to help mitigate negative effects of fuel reduction projects on communities. For example, the Forest Service in New Mexico is part of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition, a group that loans air filters to community members who are sensitive to smoke to help them avoid negative health impacts from prescribed burns.

Limited economic value of biomass. Officials from three of the five agencies we interviewed said that, in contrast to commercial timber harvests in which contractors pay the agency for the material they remove, fuel reduction projects often produce small trees and other biomass with limited economic value. As a result, fuel reduction projects are unlikely to generate revenues that the agencies could use to help offset the costs of completing such projects.

To help mitigate this issue, Forest Service officials said they are working to expand their use of a practice known as stewardship contracting. Through stewardship contracting, the agencies can trade goods—such as timber—for fuel reduction or forest restoration services that the agencies would otherwise pay for with appropriated dollars. Officials we interviewed at two national forests said that the use of stewardship contracts had facilitated their ability to conduct fuel reduction projects, although officials at one of the forests also said they were concerned that the relatively long length of the contracts could slow the rate at which contractors completed the projects. The Forest Service is also researching ways to increase demand for small trees and other biomass—for example, by expanding their use in energy production and building materials—which, if successful, could help to increase the economic value of the material.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior for review and comment. In comments reproduced in appendix II, the Forest Service, responding on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, generally agreed with our findings. In addition, the Forest Service and Interior provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional committees, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Interior, and other interested parties. In addition, the report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, 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 report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report are listed in appendix III.

Appendix I: Federal Agencies, Agency Units, and Nonfederal Entities Interviewed

Appendix I: Federal Agencies, Agency Units, and Nonfederal Entities Interviewed Regional office (geographic area covered by region)

Field unit (state in which unit is located)

Southwestern Region (Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas)

Cibola National Forest (New Mexico) Santa Fe National Forest (New Mexico)

Pacific Southwest Region (California, Hawaii)

Cleveland National Forest (California) Shasta-Trinity National Forest (California)

Pacific Northwest Region (Oregon, Washington)

Deschutes National Forest (Oregon)

Southern Region (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico)

Francis Marion and Sumter National Forests (South Carolina)

Western Region (most of Arizona, Nevada, Utah)

San Carlos Agency (Arizona)

Utah State Office (Utah)

West Desert District (Utah)

Southeast Region (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands)

Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge (Mississippi)

Pacific West Region (portions of Arizona; California; Hawaii; Idaho; portions of Montana; Nevada; Oregon; Washington; and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands)

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (California)

Agency

Appendix II: Comments for the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Jonathan Dent (Assistant Director), David Lysy (Analyst-in-Charge), Aditi Archer, Kathryn Godfrey, Richard Johnson, Gwen Kirby, Anne Rhodes-Kline, Dan Royer, and Kyle Stetler made key contributions to this report.