Although wildland fires are inevitable natural disturbances that have helped shape ecosystems over time, they can be unpredictable and destructive as well. Fires can kill trees and other vegetation, alter wildlife habitat and soils, and destroy roads, buildings, campgrounds and other infrastructure. Fires can also leave lands denuded of vegetation and vulnerable to severe erosion and mudslides, which can contaminate municipal water supplies and compromise water quality in streams and lakes. In addition, the open landscapes left by fires can create opportunities for invasive plants to become established or expand, crowding out native plants and the animals that depend on them. When wildland fires have adverse effects on natural resources, and federal land managers believe the lands are unlikely to recover to a desired condition on their own, they may conduct rehabilitation or restoration work to aid or accelerate recovery. Similarly, when wildland fires damage developed features such as roads, trails, buildings, fences, or campgrounds, land managers may identify needed work to repair or replace them, as shown in figures 1 and 2. Rehabilitation and restoration projects include, for example, repairing or maintaining roads and trails, controlling noxious and invasive weeds, replanting forests or grasslands, repairing or replacing fences, restoring fish or wildlife habitat, rebuilding burned facilities, replacing boundary markers, and stabilizing archaeological sites. In some cases, land managers may determine that no rehabilitation or restoration projects are needed because a fire did not have adverse effects on any resources or infrastructure, or because the burned lands are likely to recover on their own. Under historical conditions, many forest and rangeland ecosystems have adapted to wildland fire, and the vegetation, insects, fish, and wildlife in such systems benefit from the kind of fires that occur there, surviving and regenerating after fires occur. Fires can benefit resources by recycling soil nutrients, renewing vegetation growth, adding material to streams that improves spawning habitat for fish, and sustaining ecological functions. For example, when ponderosa pine forests are adapted to wildland fires, frequent less-intense fires remove brush and small trees, which allows the large trees to survive and grow. Recognizing the need to restore historic vegetation conditions to help reduce the risks of wildland fires, as well as the need to address adverse effects that can result from fires, in 2001 and 2002, federal agencies, states, and others developed a 10-year strategy and implementation plan. The strategy established four broad goals for wildland fire management: (1) improving fire prevention and suppression for those areas that need it; (2) reducing hazardous fuels, by mechanically thinning forests and using controlled burns; (3) restoring fire-adapted ecosystems and rehabilitating burned areas; and (4) promoting community assistance to help conduct fire management activities. The implementation plan established measures for showing progress toward each of the goals. Around the same time, in fiscal year 2001, Congress began providing funds to the Forest Service and Interior specifically for postfire rehabilitation and restoration. The funding was greatest in 2001, and decreased after that, particularly for the Forest Service. To administer these funds and address its rehabilitation and restoration needs, the Forest Service relies on existing staff and programs, such as watershed improvement and recreation programs. On the other hand, BLM has a specific rehabilitation program and some dedicated staff to administer its funds. BLM’s program initially included both emergency stabilization and postfire rehabilitation work, but since 2004 has been separated into two programs. BLM’s rehabilitation program covers work up to 3 years after a fire and does not provide for subsequent postfire restoration work. The Forest Service manages its rehabilitation and restoration work through nine regional offices, and offices overseeing 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands across the nation. Each forest and grassland is divided into several ranger districts. BLM manages its rehabilitation program through state offices in 12 western states, including Alaska, that oversee field and district offices. Both the Forest Service and BLM manage their lands for multiple uses, including timber production, wildlife, recreation, and wilderness purposes. Under the National Forest Management Act, the primary law governing the land management planning activities of national forests in the Forest Service, all national forests must have land and resource management plans for the lands they manage. Generally, these plans describe desired future conditions for lands and resources in various geographic areas within the forest, and identify strategies to maintain or achieve those conditions. Similarly, BLM field offices develop resource management plans under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act for the lands they manage. Like the national forests’ plans, BLM plans identify specific desired outcomes and allowable uses and actions to achieve those outcomes. Generally, neither agency’s plans identify strategies or actions specifically related to postfire recovery. When agency officials identify needed projects—including postfire rehabilitation and restoration projects—they must ensure that the projects are consistent with these land management plans. In addition, if a project could have environmental impacts, the agencies are required to conduct an analysis of the potential impacts. Under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, agencies generally evaluate the likely effects of projects they propose using a relatively brief environmental assessment or, if the action would be likely to significantly affect the environment, a more detailed environmental impact statement. One purpose of this analysis is to ensure that agencies have detailed information available to inform their decision making. The agencies give the public an opportunity to comment on draft environmental assessments and impact statements. Also, the Forest Service and BLM have established procedures for administrative appeal of their decisions. As a general rule, once the administrative appeals process is complete, the public can litigate the relevant project decision in federal court. The Forest Service and BLM use similar procedures to determine whether any rehabilitation or restoration work is needed after a wildland fire, but they differ in how they plan, prioritize, and fund needed work. These differences reflect the distinct approaches the Forest Service and BLM have adopted for managing postfire rehabilitation and restoration. The Forest Service has no national guidance for postfire rehabilitation and restoration, in part because it does not have a discrete program for such activities. Instead, the agency addresses its rehabilitation and restoration needs through existing programs, including its watershed, forest management, recreation, rangeland management, wilderness, and construction programs, among others. Forest Service regions and forests have discretion to determine how to plan, prioritize, and fund needed rehabilitation and restoration work in the context of these programs. To fund such work, the agency draws from several different appropriations. On the other hand, BLM has a distinct program for postfire rehabilitation, and has issued national guidance for the program. Following this guidance, agency officials use a standard process to plan, prioritize, and fund rehabilitation work, nearly all of which is paid for with funds specifically designated for rehabilitation under the wildland fire management appropriation. BLM’s rehabilitation program covers postfire work up to 3 years after a fire, and any subsequent restoration work must be addressed by other ongoing BLM programs, such as the wildlife and noxious weeds programs. The Forest Service has no national guidance on how to identify, prioritize, and fund postfire rehabilitation and restoration work. According to a headquarters official, the agency has not developed guidance in part because appropriations specifically designated for these activities—about $12.8 million for fiscal year 2005 and $6.2 million for fiscal year 2006—did not warrant development of a manual. Instead, the agency provides its regions and forests with wide latitude to use varied procedures that accommodate their diverse ecosystems, priorities, and unique circumstances. The Forest Service allocates the appropriations designated for rehabilitation and restoration to its regions annually based on each region’s proportion of Forest Service acreage severely burned over the previous 5 years. The regions, in turn, allocate these funds to forests, usually applying a prioritization system to select among project proposals and funding requests submitted by forests. In addition, Forest Service regions and forests use appropriations available for activities such as reforestation and construction to help pay for related rehabilitation and restoration work. According to agency officials, relying on these other funds gives regions and forests the flexibility to determine their priorities while considering needs on burned lands as well as in other areas, and to accommodate needs that arise after unpredictable events in addition to fires, such as hurricanes. The Forest Service does not keep track of how much rehabilitation and restoration work is funded through these programs. According to agency officials, the first step in planning postfire rehabilitation and restoration projects is for forest and district-level staff to determine whether any such work is needed, by comparing postfire conditions with prefire and desired conditions. Typically, immediately after a wildland fire is contained, field officials assemble an interdisciplinary team made up of specialists such as foresters, wildlife biologists, hydrologists, botanists, and soil scientists, among others, to conduct an on-the-ground evaluation of the burned area. Officials use this evaluation along with satellite photographs of the burned area, for example, to assess a fire’s effects on the land and resources. Finally, agency officials compare these postfire conditions with historical photos and data on prefire conditions, and with descriptions of desired conditions detailed in forest plans and other guidance documents. Agency officials told us that, in many cases, no rehabilitation or restoration work is needed. According to the officials, there are various reasons that natural recovery may be sufficient, and active rehabilitation and restoration efforts may not be needed. For example, some fires burn in areas adapted to wildland fires and leave natural resources no worse off than before the fire, or benefit resources, for example, by stimulating vegetation growth or increasing denning and foraging habitat. When fires also do no damage to infrastructure such as fences or campground facilities, there is usually no need for any active rehabilitation or restoration, according to agency officials.