Such large intense fires increasingly threaten catastrophic ecosystem  damage and also increasingly threaten human lives, health, property, and  infrastructure in the wildland-urban interface. These plans are intended to  identify needed local fuel reduction, preparedness, suppression, and  rehabilitation actions. Important Progress Has Been Made in Addressing Federal Wildland Fire Management Problems over the Last 5 Years

The federal government has made important progress over the last 5 years  in improving its management of wildland fire. Progress in Local Implementation: Data and Research, Fire Management Planning, and Coordination and Collaboration Have Been Strengthened

The agencies have strengthened local wildland fire management  implementation by making significant improvements in federal data and  research on wildland fire over the past 5 years, including an initial  mapping of fuel hazards nationwide. Coordination among federal agencies and their collaboration with  nonfederal partners, critical to effective implementation at the local level,  also has been improved. Progress in Accountability: Better Performance Measures and a Results Monitoring Framework Have Been Developed

Accountability for the results the federal government achieves from its  investments in wildland fire management activities also has been  strengthened. Agencies Face Several Challenges to Completing a Long- Needed Cohesive Strategy for Reducing Fuels and Responding to Wildland Fire Problems

While the federal government has made important progress over the past 5  years in addressing wildland fire, a number of challenges still must be met  to complete development of a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies  available long-term options and funding needed to reduce fuels on the  nation’s forests and rangelands. Completing and Implementing the LANDFIRE System Is Essential to Identifying and Addressing Wildland Fire Threats

The agencies face several challenges to completing and implementing  LANDFIRE, so that they can more precisely identify the extent and  location of wildland fire threats and better target fuel reduction efforts. In implementing LANDFIRE, however, the agencies will have to overcome  the challenges presented by the current lack of a consistent approach to  assessing the risks of wildland fires to ecosystem resources as well as the  lack of an integrated, strategic, and unified approach to managing and  using information systems and data, including those such as LANDFIRE, in  wildland fire decision making. This research  also suggests that these new climate patterns may continue for decades,  resulting in further increases in the amount of wildland fire. Fire Management Plans Will Need to Be Updated with Latest Data and Research on Wildland Fire

The agencies will need to update their local fire management plans when  more detailed, nationally consistent LANDFIRE data become available. The plans also will have to be updated to incorporate recent agency fire  research on approaches to more effectively address wildland fire threats. The cost of the 2002 interagency team’s option that reduced risks to  communities and ecosystems over the long term is consistent with a June  2002 National Association of State Foresters’ projection of the funding  needed to implement the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy developed by  the agencies and the Western Governors’ Association the previous year. The New Strategic Analysis Effort: In May 2004, Agriculture and Interior  began the initial phase of a wildland fire strategic planning effort that also  might contribute to identifying long-term options and needed funding for  reducing fuels and responding to the nation’s wildland fire problems. The improvements in data, modeling, and fire behavior research that the  agencies have under way, together with the new cost-effectiveness focus  of the Fire Program Analysis system to support local fire management  plans, represent important tools that the agencies can begin to use now to  provide the Congress with initial and successively more accurate  assessments of long-term fuel reduction options and related funding  needs. Recommendation for Executive Action

Because there is an increasingly urgent need for a cohesive federal  strategy that identifies long-term options and related funding needs for  reducing fuels, we have recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture  and the Interior provide the Congress, in time for its consideration of the  agencies’ fiscal year 2006 wildland fire management budgets, with a joint  tactical plan outlining the critical steps the agencies will take, together  with related time frames, to complete such a cohesive strategy.
Why GAO Did This Study

Over the past two decades, the number of acres burned by wildland fires has surged, often threatening human lives, property, and ecosystems. Past management practices, including a concerted federal policy in the 20th century of suppressing fires to protect communities and ecosystem resources, unintentionally resulted in steady accumulation of dense vegetation that fuels large, intense, wildland fires. While such fires are normal in some ecosystems, in others they can cause catastrophic damage to resources as well as to communities near wildlands known as the wildland-urban interface. GAO was asked to identify the (1) progress the federal government has made in responding to wildland fire threats and (2) challenges it will need to address within the next 5 years. This testimony is based primarily on GAO's report Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy (GAO-05-147), released on February 14, 2005.

What GAO Found

Over the last 5 years, the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture and land management agencies in the Department of the Interior, working with the Congress, have made important progress in responding to wildland fires. The agencies have adopted various national strategy documents addressing the need to reduce wildland fire risks; established a priority for protecting communities in the wildland-urban interface; and increased efforts and amounts of funding committed to addressing wildland fire problems, including preparedness, suppression, and fuel reduction on federal lands. In addition, the agencies have begun improving their data and research on wildland fire problems, made progress in developing long-needed fire management plans that identify actions for effectively addressing wildland fire threats at the local level, and improved federal interagency coordination and collaboration with nonfederal partners. The agencies also have strengthened overall accountability for their investments in wildland fire activities by establishing improved performance measures and a framework for monitoring results. While the agencies have adopted various strategy documents to address the nation's wildland fire problems, none of these documents constitutes a cohesive strategy that explicitly identifies the long-term options and related funding needed to reduce fuels in national forests and rangelands and to respond to wildland fire threats. Both the agencies and the Congress need a comprehensive assessment of the fuel reduction options and related funding needs to determine the most effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing wildland fire problems. Completing a cohesive strategy that identifies long-term options and needed funding will require finishing several efforts now under way, each with its own challenges. The agencies will need to finish planned improvements in a key data and modeling system--LANDFIRE--to more precisely identify the extent and location of wildland fire threats and to better target fuel reduction efforts. In implementing LANDFIRE, the agencies will need more consistent approaches to assessing wildland fire risks, more integrated information systems, and better understanding of the role of climate in wildland fire. In addition, local fire management plans will need to be updated with data from LANDFIRE and from emerging agency research on more cost-effective approaches to reducing fuels. Completing a new system designed to identify the most cost-effective means for allocating fire management budget resources--Fire Program Analysis--may help to better identify long-term options and related funding needs. Without completing these tasks, the agencies will have difficulty determining the extent and location of wildland fire threats, targeting and coordinating their efforts and resources, and resolving wildland fire problems in the most timely and cost-effective manner over the long term. A November 2004 report of the Western Governors' Association also called for completing a cohesive federal strategy to address wildland fire problems.