Over the past decade, there has been a series of devastating and deadly wildland fires on federal lands. These fires burn millions of acres of forests, grasslands, and deserts each year, and federal land management agencies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fight them. Wildland fires also threaten communities that are near federal lands. During the 2002 fire season, approximately 88,458 wildland fires burned about 6.9 million acres and cost the federal government over $1.6 billion to suppress. These fires destroyed timber, natural vegetation, wildlife habitats, homes, and businesses, and they severely damaged forest soils and watershed areas for decades to come. The 2002 fires also caused the deaths of 23 firefighters and drove thousands of people from their homes. Only 2 years earlier, during the 2000 fire season, approximately 123,000 fires had burned more than 8.4 million acres and cost the federal government over $2 billion. Effectively managing wildland fires can be viewed in terms of a life cycle—there are key activities that can be performed before a fire starts to reduce the risk of its becoming uncontrollable; other activities that can take place during a fire to detect the fire before it gets too large and to respond to it; and still others that can be performed after a fire has stopped in order to stabilize, rehabilitate, and restore damaged forests and rangelands. Pre-fire activities can include identifying areas that are at risk for wildland fire by assessing changes in vegetation and the accumulation of fuels (including small trees, underbrush, and dead vegetation) as well as these fuels’ proximity to communities; taking action to reduce fuels through a variety of mechanisms (including timber harvesting, management-ignited or prescribed fires, mechanical thinning, and use of natural fires); and monitoring fire weather conditions. Other activities during this phase can include providing fire preparedness training and strategically deploying equipment and personnel resources to at-risk areas. Activities that take place during a fire include detecting fires, dispatching resources, planning the initial attack on the fire, monitoring and mapping the fire’s spread and behavior, and planning and managing subsequent attacks on the fire—if they are warranted. Post-fire activities can include assessing the impact of the fire, providing emergency stabilization of burned areas to protect life, property, and natural resources from post-fire degradation, such as flooding, contamination of a watershed area, and surface erosion; rehabilitating lands to remove fire debris, repair soils, and plant new vegetation; and monitoring the rehabilitation efforts over time to ensure that they are on track. Other activities—such as enhancing community awareness—can and should take place throughout the fire management life cycle. Figure 1 depicts a fire management life cycle, with key activities in each phase. Five federal agencies share responsibility for managing the majority of our nation’s federal lands—the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (FS) and the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). While each agency has a different mission and responsibility for different areas and types of land, they work together to address catastrophic wildland fires, which often cross agency boundaries. In addition, state, local, and tribal governments and private individuals own thousands of acres that are adjacent to federal lands and are similarly susceptible to wildland fires. Figure 2 shows the number of acres of land managed by each of the five federal agencies. After years of catastrophic fires, in September 2000, the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior jointly issued a report on managing the impact of wildland fires. This report forms the basis of what is now known as the National Fire Plan—a long-term multibillion-dollar effort to address the nation’s risk of wildland fires. The plan directs funding and attention to five key initiatives: Hazardous fuels reduction—investing in projects to reduce the buildup of fuels that leads to severe fires. Firefighting—ensuring adequate preparedness for future fires by acquiring and maintaining personnel and equipment and by placing firefighting resources in locations where they can most effectively be used to respond to fires. Rehabilitation and restoration—restoring landscapes and rebuilding ecosystems that have been damaged by wildland fires. Community assistance—working directly with communities to ensure that they are adequately protected from fires. Accountability—establishing mechanisms to oversee and track progress in implementing the National Fire Plan, which includes developing performance measures, processes for reporting progress, and budgeting information. A key tenet of the National Fire Plan is coordination between government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to develop strategies and carry out programs. Building on this goal of cooperation, the five land management agencies have worked with state governors and other stakeholders to develop a comprehensive strategy and an implementation plan for managing wildland fires, hazardous fuels, and ecosystem restoration and rehabilitation on federal and adjacent state, tribal, and private forest and rangelands in the United States. In developing these integrated plans and initiatives, the land management agencies identified other federal agencies that have roles in wildland fire management: agencies that manage other federal lands, including the Department of Defense and Department of Energy; agencies that research, manage, or use technologies that can aid in wildland fire management, including the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Defense’s National Imagery and Mapping Agency; and agencies with other fire-related responsibilities, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency. The integrated plans also identify key state and local organizations that may collaborate on wildland fire management. Over the past four decades, the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior have established an interagency framework to handle wildland fire management—a framework that currently supports the National Fire Plan. In 1965, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management established the National Interagency Fire Center, in Boise, Idaho. The fire center is the nation’s principal management and logistical support center for wildland firefighting and now includes the five land management agencies, the National Weather Service, and the Department of the Interior’s Office of Aircraft Services. The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Association of State Foresters also have a presence at the center. Working together, representatives from this mix of organizations exchange fire protection information and training services and coordinate and support operations for managing wildland fire incidents while they are occurring, throughout the United States. In 1976, the departments established the National Wildfire Coordinating Group to coordinate government standards for wildland fire management and related programs, in order to avoid duplicating the various agencies’ efforts and to encourage active collaboration among entities. This group comprises representatives from the five land management agencies and from other federal, state, and tribal organizations. Figure 3 identifies these member organizations. The coordinating group seeks to foster more effective execution of each agency’s fire management program through agreements on common training, equipment, and other standards; however, each agency determines whether and how it will adopt the group’s proposals. The group is organized into 15 working teams, which focus on issues including information resource management (IRM), fire equipment, training, fire weather, and wildland fire education. Most recently, the coordinating group established the IRM program management office to further support the IRM working team by developing guidance and products. In addition, the IRM working team has established two subgroups to focus on specific issues involving geospatial information and data administration. In recent years, we have reported that despite these interagency efforts, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior had not established clearly defined and effective leadership for ensuring collaboration and coordination among the organizations that respond to wildland fires. Further, the National Academy of Public Administration recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior establish a national interagency council to achieve more consistent and coordinated efforts in implementing national fire policies and plans. In response to these concerns, in April 2002, the Secretaries of the two departments established the Wildland Fire Leadership Council. This council comprises senior members of both departments and of key external organizations, and is supported by the Forest Service’s National Fire Plan Coordinator and the Department of the Interior’s Office of Wildland Fire Coordination. The Council is charged with providing interagency leadership and oversight to ensure policy coordination, accountability, and effective implementation of the National Fire Plan and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. Figure 4 identifies members of the Leadership Council. Geospatial information technologies—sensors, systems, and software that collect, manage, manipulate, analyze, model, and display information about positions on the earth’s surface—can aid in managing wildland fires by providing accurate, detailed, and timely information to federal, state, and local decision makers, fire- fighting personnel, and the public. This information can be used to help reduce the risk that a fire will become uncontrollable, to respond to critical events while a fire is burning, and to aid in recovering from fire disasters. Specific examples of geospatial technologies include remote sensing systems, the Global Positioning System, and geographic information systems. In addition, specialized software can be used in conjunction with remote sensing data and geographic information systems to manipulate geographic data and allow users to analyze, model, and visualize locations and events. Table 1 describes key geospatial technologies. While individual technologies can be used to obtain information and products, the integration of these technologies holds promise for providing even more valuable information to decision makers. For example, remote sensing systems provide images that are useful in their own right. However, when images are geo-referenced and combined with other layers of data in a geographic information system—and then used with specialized software—a more sophisticated analysis can be performed and more timely and sound decisions can be made.