Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

In response to a request from the Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, we examined (1) the extent and seriousness of problems related to the health of national forests in the interior West, (2) the status of efforts by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to address the most serious of these problems, and (3) barriers to successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming them. Catastrophic Wildfires Threaten Resources and Communities

According to the Forest Service, about 39 million acres of tree stands on national forests of the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic fire, largely because the agency’s decades-old policy of suppressing historically occurring, periodic, small wildfires has led to unprecedented accumulations of flammable materials. National Forests in the Interior West Have Several Health Problems

According to the Forest Service, large areas of national forests in the interior West are not healthy. As figure 2.3 shows, over the last decade, the number of acres of national forestlands burned by wildfires has begun to increase, reversing the trend of the previous three-quarters of a century. As a result, catastrophic wildfires compromise the forests’ ability to sustain timber, outdoor recreation, clean water, and other uses. These increasing numbers of larger, more intense fires also pose hazards to human health, safety, and property. . . wildfires . Nonetheless, the agency may not be able to achieve its announced goal of adequately resolving the problem by the end of fiscal year 2015. In 1995, it announced its intention to refocus its fire management program on reducing accumulated fuels. To implement its increased emphasis on reducing accumulated fuels, the Forest Service restructured and redefined its fiscal year 1998 budget for wildland fire management to better ensure that funds are available for these activities. The Congress Has Increasingly Supported the Agency’s Efforts

The Congress has supported the Forest Service’s efforts to reduce accumulated fuels by, among other things, increasing the funding for this activity. Our analysis of the agency’s initial plans and data indicates that as many as about 10 million acres in the interior West may still have excessive fuel levels and still be at high risk of uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015. The Agency Lacks a Cohesive Strategy for Addressing Several Barriers to Effective Action

Without adequate data, the Forest Service has not been able to develop a cohesive strategy for addressing numerous policy, programmatic, and budgetary factors that present significant barriers to the accomplishment of its fuel reduction goals. The increasing number of uncontrollable and often catastrophic wildfires in the interior West, as well as the significant costs to reduce growing hazards to natural resources and human health, safety, property, and infrastructure, present difficult policy decisions for the Forest Service and the Congress: Does the agency request, and does the Congress appropriate, the hundreds of millions of dollars a year that may be required to fund an aggressive fuel reduction program? 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 11.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1) the extent and seriousness of forest-health-related problems in national forests in the interior West; (2) the status of efforts by the Forest Service to address the most serious of these problems; and (3) barriers to successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming them.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) the most extensive and serious problem related to the health of national forests in the interior West is the overaccumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large, intense, uncontrollable, and catastrophically destructive wildfires; (2) according to the Forest Service, 39 million acres in national forests in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire; (3) past management practices, especially the Forest Service's decades-old policy of putting out wildfires in the national forests, disrupted the historical occurrence of frequent low-intensity fires, which had periodically removed flammable undergrowth without significantly damaging larger trees; (4) because this normal cycle of fire was disrupted, vegetation has accumulated, creating high levels of fuels for catastrophic wildfires and transforming much of the region into a tinderbox; (5) the number of large wildfires, and of acres burned by them, has increased over the last decade, as have the costs of attempting to put them out; (6) these fires not only compromise the forests' ability to provide timber, outdoor recreation, clean water, and other resources, but they also pose increasingly grave risks to human health, safety, property, and infrastructure, especially along the boundaries of forests, where population has grown significantly in recent years; (7) during the 1990s, the Forest Service began to address the unintended consequences of its policy of putting out wildfires; (8) in 1997, it announced its goal to improve forest health by resolving the problems of uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires in national forests by the end of fiscal year 2015; (9) to accomplish this goal, it has: (a) initiated a program to monitor forest health; (b) refocused its wildland fire management program to increase the number of acres on which it reduces the accumulated vegetation that forms excessive fuels; and (c) restructured its budget to better ensure that funds are available for reducing these fuels; (10) Congress has supported the Forest Service's efforts by increasing the funds for reducing fuels and authorizing a multiyear program to better assess problems and solutions; (11) the Forest Service has not yet developed a cohesive strategy for addressing several factors that present significant barriers to improving the health of the national forests by reducing fuels; and (12) many acres of national forests in the interior West may remain at high risk of uncontrollable wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015.