[Senate Hearing 108-568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-568
WILDLAND FIRE IMPACTS IN 2003 AND WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS IN 2004
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
to
GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE IMPACT AND COST OF LAST YEAR'S FIRES AND
THEN LOOK FORWARD TO THE POTENTIAL 2004 FIRE SEASON. THE HEARING WILL
GIVE ALL COMMITTEE MEMBERS A SOLID UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEMS FACED
LAST YEAR AND WHAT PROBLEMS THE AGENCIES AND THE LAND THEY OVERSEE MAY
FACE THIS NEXT SEASON, INCLUDING AERIAL FIRE FIGHTING ASSETS AND CREW,
AND OVERHEAD AVAILABILITY
__________
MAY 11, 2004
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
______
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico, Chairman
DON NICKLES, Oklahoma JEFF BINGAMAN, New Mexico
LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming BOB GRAHAM, Florida
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee RON WYDEN, Oregon
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana
CONRAD BURNS, Montana EVAN BAYH, Indiana
GORDON SMITH, Oregon DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
JIM BUNNING, Kentucky CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
JON KYL, Arizona MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
Alex Flint, Staff Director
Judith K. Pensabene, Chief Counsel
Robert M. Simon, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Frank Gladics, Professional Staff Member
Scott Miller, Democratic Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS
Page
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from New Mexico................ 5
Bunning, Hon. Jim, U.S. Senator from Kentucky.................... 24
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, U.S. Senator from Washington............... 2
Domenici, Hon. Pete V., U.S. Senator from New Mexico............. 1
Rey, Mark, Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment,
Department of Agriculture...................................... 8
Scarlett, P. Lynn, Assistant Secretary, Policy, Management and
Budget, Department of the Interior............................. 6
Wyden, Hon. Ron, U.S. Senator from Oregon........................ 5
APPENDIX
Responses to additional questions................................ 33
WILDLAND FIRE IMPACTS IN 2003 AND WILDFIRE PREPAREDNESS IN 2004
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TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m. in
room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Pete
Domenici, chairman, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETE DOMENICI, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW
MEXICO
The Chairman. The hearing will come to order. First of all,
let me apologize for being late. And good morning. It's my
pleasure to welcome the Assistant Secretary of Policy
Management and Budget for the Department of the Interior, Lynn
Scarlett, and Under Secretary for Natural Resources for the
Department of Agriculture, Mark Rey.
We are here today to review the 2003 fire season and the
impact of those fires on the environment and to examine
preparedness for the 2004 fire season. Along with learning what
fire conditions we can expect this year, I think we're all
interested in learning more about three areas. One, we want to
better understand how it is, in a year when we had only 63,000
fires, the smallest number of fires in a year since 1922, and
only burned 3.9 million acres--I shouldn't say only, but I
guess that's relatively speaking--about a million acres less
than a 10-year average, that the Agency managed to expend $1.2
billion on fire suppression. I want to know how the agencies
are going to react to the recent National Transportation Safety
Board finding on heavy slurry bombers and what that means for
this year's fire fighting efforts and what it means for the
long-term. I understand some of the Senators who are here are
particularly interested in that.
I see that over 50 percent of your Healthy Forest
Restoration Act work this year will be accomplished through
prescribed burns, most of which will occur in the Southeast
United States and less than 20 percent will be accomplished
through Healthy Forest Restoration projects that mechanically
remove fuels. I want to be assured that this ratio will be
reversed in 2005.
We want to ask the witnesses to summarize their statements.
Due to the importance of this hearing I've allotted each
witness 15 minutes to testify. I ask each of you to respect
that time limit. Each member will then be recognized for
purposes of statements and/or questions for five minutes each.
I hope this will allow all members an opportunity for dialogue
with the witnesses.
Senator Bingaman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Cantwell follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Maria Cantwell, U.S. Senator From Washington
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this important hearing today on
the outlook for the 2004 fire season. We in Washington state are very
concerned about what appears to be yet another year of devastating
drought throughout the West, and the hazards this could pose in terms
of increased fire risk and threats to public safety.
As always, I believe there are two fundamental principles that
should guide our efforts here. First, we need to ensure adequate
resources for firefighting activities. We must make sure that we do not
put federal agencies in the position where they must borrow from other
accounts to pay emergency costs. Forcing these agencies on an annual
basis to engage in Enron-style accounting practices to pay for
firefighting only continues the vicious cycle in which they are unable
to complete the work that will help maintain the health of our public
lands, while simultaneously detracting from these agencies many, multi-
faceted and important missions.
Second, we need to focus these resources on the Wildland Urban
Interface. That is, we should be focusing federal money and efforts on
the areas that pose the most immediate danger to our nation's rural
communities. I believe that's simply a matter of common-sense.
However, Mr. Chairman, I want to focus the majority of my comments
today on yet another topic which I hope my colleagues will pay close
attention to as the 2004 fire season approaches. That's the issue of
wildland firefighter safety. Many of my colleagues on this Committee
are from the West and are probably aware of the fact that every summer,
we send thousands of our constituents--many of them brave young men and
women, college students on summer break into harm's way to protect our
nation's rural communities and public lands. These men and women serve
our nation bravely. Since 1910, more than 900 wildland firefighters
have lost their lives in the line of duty. According to the U.S. Forest
Service, a total of 30 firefighters across this nation perished in the
line of duty last year.
These firefighters represented a mix of federal and state
employees, volunteers and independent contractors. And they lost their
lives for an array of reasons. We all realize that fighting fires on
our nation's public lands is an inherently dangerous business. But what
we cannot and must not abide are the preventable deaths losing
firefighters because rules were broken, policies ignored and no one was
held accountable.
A number of my colleagues will recall that, in 2001, this issue was
pushed to the fore in the State of Washington, because of a horrible
tragedy. On July 10, 2001, near Winthrop in Okanogan County, in the
midst of the second worst drought in the history of our state, the
Thirtymile fire burned out of control.
Four courageous young firefighters were killed. Their names:
Tom Craven, 30 years old;
Karen FitzPatrick, 18;
Jessica Johnson, 19;
and Devin Weaver, 21.
Sadly, as subsequent investigations revealed, these young men and
women did not have to die. In the words of the Forest Service's own
report on the Thirtymile fire, the tragedy ``could have been
prevented.'' At that time, I said that I believe we in Congress and
management within the firefighting agencies have a responsibility to
ensure that no preventable tragedy like Thirtymile fire ever happened
again.
I'd like to thank my colleague Senator Bingaman, the distinguished
Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee, as well as Senator
Wyden, who was then chair of the Subcommittee on Public Lands and
Forests. In the wake of the Thirtymile Fire, they agreed to convene
hearings on precisely what went wrong that tragic day. We heard from
the grief-stricken families.
In particular, the powerful testimony of Ken Weaver--the father of
one of the lost firefighters--put into focus precisely what's at stake
when we send these men and women into harm's way.
Mr. Chairman, I can think of no worse tragedy that a parent to
confronting the loss of a child, especially when that loss could have
been prevented by better practices on the part of federal agencies.
At the Senate Energy Committee hearing, we also discussed with
experts and the Forest Service itself, ways in which we could improve
the agency's safety performance. And almost a year to the day after
those young people lost their lives, we passed a bill--ensuring an
independent review of tragic incidents such as Thirtymile that lead to
unnecessary fatalities.
Based on subsequent briefings by the Forest Service, revisions to
the agency's training and safety protocols, and what I've heard when I
have visited with firefighters over the past two years, I do believe
the courage of the Thirtymile families to stand up and demand change
has had a positive impact on the safety of the young men and women who
are preparing to battle blazes as wildland firefighters.
Yet, I'm deeply saddened by the fact that it's clear we haven't
done nearly enough. In July 2003--two years after Thirtymile--two more
firefighters perished, this time at the Cramer Fire within Idaho's
Salmon-Challis National Forest. Jeff Allen and Shane Heath were killed
when the fire burned over an area where they were attempting to
construct a landing spot for firefighting helicopters. Certainly some
28 others lost their lives fighting wildfires last year, and we must
recognize the sacrifice and grief befalling their families.
After the Thirtymile Fire, however, I told the Weavers and the
Cravens, the families of Karen FitzPatrick and Jessica Johnson that I
believed we owed it to their children to identify the causes and learn
from the mistakes that were made in the Okanogan, to make wildland
firefighting safer for those who would follow. That is why the findings
associated with the Cramer Fire simply boggle my mind.
We learned at Thirtymile that all ten of the agencies' Standing
Fire Orders and many of the 18 Watch Out Situations--the most basic
safety rules--were violated or disregarded. The same thing happened at
Cramer, where Heath and Allen lost their lives two years later.
After the Thirtymile Fire, the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) conducted an investigation and levied against the
Forest Service five citations for Serious and Willful violations of
safety rules. It was eerie, then, when just this March OSHA concluded
its investigation of Cramer. The result: another five OSHA citations,
for Serious, Willful and Repeat violations. Reading through the list of
causal and contributing factors for Cramer and putting them next to
those associated with the Thirtymile fire, my colleagues would be
struck by the many disturbing similarities. Even more haunting are the
parallels between these lists and the factors cited in the
investigation of 1994's South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain in
Colorado. It's been 10 years since those 14 firefighters lost their
lives on Storm King Mountain--and yet, the same mistakes are being made
over and over again.
Mr. Chairman, I don't believe that's acceptable. The firefighters
we send into harm's way this year-and the ones we've already lost
deserve better.
Training, leadership and management problems have been cited in all
of the incidents I've discussed. Frankly, I have believed since the
Thirtymile tragedy that the Forest Service has on its hands a cultural
problem. What can we do, from the legislative branch, to provide this
agency with enough motivation to change? I believe the first step we
can take is to equip ourselves with improved oversight tools, so these
agencies know that Congress is paying attention. Today I'm introducing
legislation--the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004--that would do
just that.
I believe this is a modest yet important proposal. It was already
passed once by the Senate, as an amendment to last year's Healthy
Forests legislation. However, I was disappointed that it was not
included in the conference version of the bill.
But it is absolutely clear to me--particularly in light of OSHA's
review of the Cramer Fire--that these provisions are needed now more
than ever.
First, the Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 will require the
Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to track the funds the agencies
expend for firefighter safety and training.
Today, these sums are lumped into the agencies' ``wildfire
preparedness'' account. But as I have discussed with various officials
in hearings before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee,
it is difficult for Congress to play its rightful oversight role--
ensuring that these programs are funded in times of wildfire emergency,
and measuring the agencies' commitment to these programs over time--
without a separate break-down of these funds.
Second, it will require the Secretaries to report to Congress
annually on the implementation and effectiveness of its safety and
training programs.
Mr. Chairman, I assure my colleagues who have not spent time
dwelling on this issue, that the maze of policy statements, management
directives and curricula changes associated with federal firefighter
training is dizzying and complicated.
The agencies have a responsibility to continually revise their
policies in the face of new science and lessons learned on the fire
line. Meanwhile, Congress has the responsibility to ensure needed
reforms are implemented. As such, I believe that Congress and the
agencies alike would benefit from an annual check-in on these programs.
I would also hope that this would serve as a vehicle for an ongoing and
healthy dialogue between the Senate and agencies on these issues.
Third, my bill would stipulate that federal contracts with private
firefighting crews require training consistent with the training of
federal wildland firefighters. It would also direct those agencies to
monitor compliance with this requirement. This is important not just
for the private contractor employees' themselves--but for the federal,
state and tribal employees who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them on
the fire line.
Mr. Chairman, this is actually quite a complex issue about which
many of us are just beginning to learn. With the severity of fire
seasons throughout the country over the past two years--and
notwithstanding the Clinton Administration's efforts to hire a
significant number of new firefighters as part of the National Fire
Plan--the number of private contract crews hired by the agencies to
help with fire suppression has tripled since 1998. According to Oregon
Department of Forestry estimates, the number of contract crews at work
has grown from 88 in 1998 to 300 this year--with 95 percent based in
the Pacific Northwest.
In general, these contract crews have grown up in former timber
communities and provide important jobs especially given the fact the
agencies themselves do not at this juncture have the resources to fight
the fires entirely on their own.
And many of these contractors have been in operation for a decade
or more and boast stellar safety records.
Nevertheless, as the number of--and need for--contractors has
grown, there are more and more tales of unscrupulous employers that
take advantage of workers and skirt training and safety requirements.
This is a growing concern for U.S. Forest Service employees and state
officials. This summer, the Seattle Times wrote a detailed feature on
the issue, quoting internal Forest Service memos as well as evidence
from the field.
Among the contractor practices cited in the article:
Breaking safety rules and failing to warn other crews on the
fire line;
Falsifying or forging firefighting credentials and ignoring
training requirements;
Hiring illegal immigrants that cannot understand fire line
commands--and committing various labor abuses;
And rotating a single crew from fire to fire for 50 straight
days--while federal firefighters are not allowed to work more
than 14 or 21 days in a row.
The article quoted from a November 2002 memo written by Joseph
Ferguson, a deputy incident commander for the Forest Service: ``If we
don't improve the quality and accountability of this program, we are
going to kill a bunch of firefighters . . . Although there were two or
three good to excellent crews on each fire, that was offset by 20 to 30
that were hardly worth having,'' Ferguson added. ``It was apparent that
training for most of these crews had been done poorly or not at all.''
Paul Broyles, who heads a safety committee for the National
Interagency Fire Center added that private crews he has seen have
varied from ``fantastic to a he[ck] of a lot less than good and some
were real safety concerns.'' He noted that while state government and
feds were trying to crack down on violations associated with
documentation, ``the assumption is, where there's one problem, there's
probably more.''
The Wildland Firefighter Safety Act of 2004 is a modest beginning
in addressing the challenges posed by integrating private and federal
contract crews--and doing it in a manner that maximizes everyone's
safety on the fire line.
I understand that the federal and state agencies are already
attempting to push contractors in this direction--and this provision
will bolster that momentum.
And so, Mr. Chairman, I hope my colleagues on this Committee will
support this simple legislation. Ultimately, the safety of our federal
firefighters is a critical component of how well prepared our agencies
are to deal with the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
Congress owes it to the families of those brave firefighters we
send into harm's way to provide oversight of these safety and training
programs.
We owe it to our federal wildland firefighters, their families and
their state partners--and to future wildland firefighters.
My bill will provide this body with the additional tools it needs
to do the job. I thank the Chairman, and look forward to the testimony
of today's witnesses.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BINGAMAN, U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW
MEXICO
Senator Bingaman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for
having the hearing. Obviously it's a very important issue to
all of us, particularly those of us from States that are
reflected on this map as expecting enormous problems with fire
again this year. I wanted to just highlight a couple of issues.
I'm afraid that we'll be facing widespread borrowing again from
important programs at the Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior in order to pay for fire suppression costs. This
is something we've seen each year for many years now. The
agencies have borrowed nearly $3 billion since 1999 from
various accounts, and it's my opinion that that borrowing
results in poor management of public lands and soured relations
with the public in these States that we represent. Senator
Nickles deserves credit for his leadership on the Budget
Committee in that he made provision there, as I understand it,
for a little more agile response in Congress. I think it was
$500 million that he set aside in the budget effort. Now, that
may or may not ever be enacted, as you're well aware.
The other, I guess, the issue that's at the bottom of this
is the question of whether or not we are getting realistic
budget submissions from the Administration. We're in a period
of long-term drought in the West; it doesn't seem as though the
budget submissions reflect that. I think we need to have more
accurate and realistic budgets for fire suppression.
The second issue that I wanted to ask a few questions about
when we get through with the statements relates to the whole
issue of natural fires and the extent to which we have policies
in place to accomplish what needs to be accomplished by
managing naturally ignited fires. I think there's an awful lot
that we are spending on prescribed fires; there's a lot we're
spending on putting out fires; there's a lot we're spending on
mechanical treatment of different areas to reduce fuel loads. I
really wonder, though, if we've given enough attention to the
usefulness of managing natural fires for resource benefits. So
I'll ask questions about that when the time is appropriate.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Well, I was going to
proceed, as I indicated, with the witnesses having 15 minutes
each. But I have a personal request from Senator Wyden.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RON WYDEN, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Wyden. Just very briefly, Mr. Chairman, for
unanimous consent request and then I'll put everything off for
the questions. I'd just like to put into the record at this
point the section of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act that
stipulates that $760 million would be spent in each fiscal year
to carry out the Hazardous Fuels Reduction Program. And then an
article from the Ben Bulletin of a few days ago quoting the
Forest Service saying that only $417 million would be spent in
the upcoming year for hazardous fuels reduction projects.* I
authored the amendment in the Budget Committee to increase the
funds; it was accepted unanimously. I'll have some questions
about that but I would like to put into the record those two
documents which highlight in this budget, according to the
Forest Service, that there is a shortfall of more than $300
million in terms of what we did on a bipartisan basis with your
support, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
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* The items submitted by Senator Wyden have been retained in
committee files.
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The Chairman. Thank you. We're going to proceed. Who wants
to go first?
OPENING STATEMENT OF P. LYNN SCARLETT, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
POLICY, MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Ms. Scarlett. Mr. Chairman, I will begin then. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for
this opportunity to discuss our preparations for the 2004 fire
season and our long-term efforts to restore fire-adapted
ecosystems and protect communities. Mark Rey will discuss the
fire season outlook; I will focus on our wildland fire and
forest restoration management efforts and preparedness.
The effects of catastrophic wildfires and the efforts to
reduce hazardous fuels in forests and our rangelands across the
Nation, as we all know, continue to be at the forefront of
local and national interest. Nationwide, the 2003 fire season
had 63,000 fires that burned over four million acres. Of this
total, 18,000 fires burned 2.6 million acres on Federal lands.
Ninety-eight percent of all fires scheduled for suppression
were stopped during initial attack. In 2003, while the number
of acres burned nationally was below the 10-year average,
California suffered its worst wild land fire season in modern
history. Over 3,600 homes were lost and 24 people died,
including one fire fighter.
Nationwide, the build up of fuel and other factors such as
long-term drought have led to increasing concerns about the
overall condition of our forests and rangelands. The
President's Healthy Forests Initiative and the bipartisan
Healthy Forest Restoration Act are helping us more effectively
implement fuels reduction projects, thereby reducing risks to
communities and improving the environment. In 2003, the Forest
Service and the Department of the Interior together treated 2.7
million acres for hazardous fuels. About 1.6 million of those
acres, or nearly 60 percent, were treated in the wildland-urban
interface. Of the total acres, over 450 thousand acres received
mechanical treatments. This fiscal year, the Department of the
Interior and the Forest Service jointly plan to treat an
additional 2.7 million acres of hazardous fuels. These
treatments are making a difference. For example, two
treatments, one a prescribed burn and the other a mechanical
treatment, each significantly altered the behavior of
Colorado's Hayman Fire in 2002. The prescribed burn mitigated
the spread of the Hayman Fire even though the fire approached
the treated area, driven by winds exceeding 30 miles per hour.
In California, when the Cone Fire reached an area where trees
had been thinned and surface fuels had been treated, the fire
dropped from a crown fire to an easily controlled surface fire
in a matter of a few feet.
Through the use of stewardship contracting authority
provided to us by the Congress, we are enhancing our ability to
undertake fuels reduction projects while generating economic
benefit for communities. This year the Bureau of Land
Management has planned 35 projects using stewardship
contracting; another 80 projects are proposed for 2005.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, our management
of forest and rangelands to reduce the risk of catastrophic
fires present significant challenges. These challenges do
require close cooperation among Federal agencies, cooperation
with communities, and careful management of fire fighting
resources. Addressing these challenges, the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior established the Wildland Fire
Leadership Council to coordinate wildland fire management
polices under the 10-year implementation plan and to monitor
its accomplishment. The Council includes State and local
governments, as well as tribal representatives dedicated to
achieving consistent implementation of goals, actions and
policies of the National Fire Plan and the Federal Wildland
Fire Management Policy. In its first year of adoption or
operation, the Council adopted field guidance to establish
compatible, broad, national standards for identifying
communities at risk. The Council approved a policy for
emergency stabilization and rehabilitation of burned areas that
ensures interagency consistency in the timing and funding of
treatments and monitoring. And the Council adopted a common
budget structure for wildland fire management appropriations to
better enable us to review accountability.
In addition to agency cooperation through the Wildland Fire
Leadership Council, we are enhancing cooperation with private
land owners and the local fire fighting community. We have, for
the first time ever, signed a cooperative agreement with the
International Association of Fire Chiefs to work with them on
training and other common practices. We are providing help to
homeowners through grant assistance to Firewise programs,
through which communities and land owners undertake fuels
reductions.
As you are well aware, restoring forest and rangeland
health, and suppressing wildland fires, are major undertakings.
In 2003, the Forest Service expended just over $1 billion to
suppress wildland fires. The Department of the Interior
suppression costs came to over $300 million. Federal wildfire
suppression costs for fiscal year 2003 were 50 percent above
the average costs over the last ten years, as major fires
burned in wildland-urban interface areas and in locations with
extremely heavy fuel loads, both factors that contribute to
high costs in suppression. Through preparedness and better pre-
positioning of resources, I'm pleased to say that initial
attack success is around 98 percent.
With the high costs of fire fighting, both agencies are
carefully monitoring costs. Last year we undertook large fire
cost reviews, which began in 2003 and will continue in 2004.
These reviews provide wildland fire management leaders with
detailed, on the ground information with which to make more
cost efficient resource decisions while still focusing on
firefighter safety and community protection. The Wildland Fire
Leadership Council has also responded to key findings from
these reviews, including strengthening business oversight and
financial management on fire incident command teams, also
developing incident cost share agreement guidelines so
agreements can be in place prior to the start of the local fire
season, and improving the use of electronic acquisition
systems, and finally resolving problems with the wildland fire
situation analysis process to improve timeliness and
practicality for field use.
In addition, this year the Wildland Fire Leadership Council
also convened a high level panel comprising senior Federal,
State, tribal and local representatives and incident team
members to look at the relationship of fire management and land
management decisions and their bearing on fire suppression
costs. The panel is expected to present recommendations to the
Wildland Fire Leadership Council over the next several months
on cost controls, and give us a better understanding of what is
driving the costs that we are experiencing.
I will underscore that the safety of firefighters and of
communities is our first priority. I know you are all aware of
the recent National Transportation Safety Board report on air
tankers used in firefighting. Mark Rey will report on our
anticipated actions in response to this report.
We look forward to working with you in implementing the
Agency's programs and would be happy to answer any questions
you might have.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Ms. Scarlett. Let's go
with Mr. Rey, please.
OPENING STATEMENT OF MARK REY, UNDER SECRETARY FOR NATURAL
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Rey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to talk a
little bit about the fire season that we see ahead of us and
then also go into some detail for you about the decision we
reached yesterday regarding the large, fixed wing air tankers.
While the fire season nationally is expected to be near
normal in terms of the expected number of fires and acres, much
of the interior west and southwest Alaska is expected to have
the potential for an above normal fire season for the following
reasons.
First, the combination of continuing drought and an
increase of drought-stressed and insect-damaged trees and
brush, has resulted in a greater potential for large wildfires
in the west. A very warm March has also led to a significant
reduction in Western snow packs and the snow pack in southwest
Alaska has been below normal. Late March and early April storms
in the southwest, particularly in New Mexico, have delayed the
onset of the fire season so far. However, the Southwest is
expecting a rapid escalation to critical fire potential in
Arizona and western New Mexico later this month and during
June. June will also be an important month in determining the
fire severity in the Northwest and the northern Rockies. A hot,
dry June combined with the current low snow pack would likely
result in severe fire seasons for both of those areas. While
dryness in the Southeast is expected to continue into the early
summer, periodic rainfall will keep the overall fire potential
near normal for most of the area.
With the map that we have displayed there you can see our
projections to date for what parts of the country should
experience either above normal or below normal fire seasons.
The green is below normal, the light red is above normal, and
as you can see, many of the Western States are implicated in
above normal fire situation for the balance of this year.
Now let me talk a little bit about the decision yesterday.
Effective yesterday, the Forest Service and the Department of
the Interior have agreed to forgo the use of large, fixed wing
contracted air tankers for fire suppression for the remainder
of the 2004 fire season as we evaluate the long-term options
for our aviation resources. In doing so, the Departments will
terminate the national 2004 air tanker contract. This decision
comes in response to recommendations contained in the April 23,
2004, National Transportation Safety Board report on three
previous air tanker accidents. The NTSB report stated that,
quote, ``It is apparent that no effective mechanism currently
exists to ensure the continuing air worthiness of these
firefighting aircraft.'' The report also concluded that the
Forest Service and the Department of the Interior were
responsible for ensuring the safety of firefighting aircraft.
To continue to use these contract large air tankers when no
mechanism exists to ensure their air worthiness, presents an
unacceptable level of risk to aviators, the firefighters on the
ground and the communities we serve. Large air tankers are but
one of many tools that we use to suppress wildland fires.
During any year thousands of wildland fires are suppressed
without the benefit of air support. We are in the process of
completing a strategy for the 2004 fire season to supplement
our wildland fire fighting efforts with other available
aircraft. These additional aircraft assets will include the use
of large helicopters and helitankers, smaller helicopters,
single-engine air tankers and the military's C-130 aircraft
equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System, or the
MAF System, as we call it. By week's end we should have put in
place a strategy to backfill to make up for the assets that
we've grounded as a result of yesterday's decision.
Yesterday's decision was made with considerable sadness and
regret inasmuch as these tankers and their pilots have served
long and well in our fire fighting effort. But looking at the
NTSB report, there simply did not appear to us to be any other
available options. We are confident that with the supplemental
aircraft that we will be securing to replace the 33 air tankers
that we grounded our fire fighting efforts will continue in
2004 unabated.
And we'd both be happy to respond to any questions that you
have.
[The joint statement of Mr. Rey and Ms. Scarlett follows:]
Prepared Statement of Mark Rey, Under Secretary for Natural Resources
and Environment, Department of Agriculture, and P. Lynn Scarlett,
Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, Department of
the Interior
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to meet with you today. Since the Department of the
Interior and the Department of Agriculture work closely together in
fire management and in implementing the National Fire Plan, it is
appropriate to use one statement to inform you on preparations for the
2004 fire season and our long term efforts to restore fire adapted
ecosystems.
For much of the twentieth century, wildland fires were generally
thought to be bad for the environment, for timber resources, and for
communities that were impacted. As a consequence, fires were suppressed
as soon as possible. The resulting lack of fire had an unintended
consequence across large areas of the landscape where fire had been a
frequent phenomenon. Over time, the amount and structure of shrubs and
trees increased. This build up of fuel, coupled with other factors such
as long term drought, has led to increasing concerns about the overall
wildland condition and particularly the health of our forests and
rangelands.
The President's Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) helped us tackle
our gridlock of process that was impeding our restoration of fire
adapted ecosystems, including treatment of hazardous fuels. HFI
resulted in the development of a number of administrative tools and
included a request for congressional help to further reduce procedural
barriers. On December 3, 2003, the President signed into law the
Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA), giving Federal agencies
additional tools needed to implement the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy
and Implementation Plan. Its passage sent a strong message of
bipartisan support for reducing fuels and restoring forest health,
especially in the wildland-urban interface.
The 2004 fire season is shaping up to be another challenging year.
While most of the nation is anticipated to be near normal in terms of
the expected number of fires and acres burned, portions of some states
in the interior West is expected to have the potential for an above
normal wildland fire season.
The potential for build up of fuels, recognition that long-term
drought persists over much of the interior West, and an increase of
drought-stressed and insect-damaged trees and brush have resulted in a
greater potential for large wildfires in the West. Last week's fires in
Southern California resulted from stifling heat and an abundance of dry
brush. Although last year's fall wildfires in Southern California
charred more than 740,000 acres, they consumed only 7% of the dying
trees and dry chaparral lands that surround the local communities.
2003 FIRE SEASON REVIEW
The effects of catastrophic wildfires and the efforts to reduce
hazardous fuels in forests and on grasslands across this country have
been at the forefront of local and national interest. Nationwide, the
2003 fire season had 63,000 fires which burned more than 4 million
acres. Of this amount, 18,000 fires burned 2.6 million acres on Federal
lands. Ninety-eight percent of all fires on Federal lands were stopped
during initial attack.
In 2003, while the number of acres burned nationally was below the
10-year average, California suffered its worst wildland fire season in
modern history. Over 3,600 homes were lost, and 24 people died,
including one firefighter. The State and Federal agencies spent $157
million to contain the fires. Sixteen people died in the floods and
debris flows that followed as a result of the fires. A large portion of
the damage to resources and improved property occurred on state or
private lands. Santa Ana winds combined with extended drought
conditions and high fuel loads led to extreme fire behavior and
evacuations. October 28, 2003 had the largest acreage burned in one day
with 135,851 acres. The Cedar Fire, on and adjacent to the Cleveland
National Forest, burned 280,293 acres, ultimately becoming the largest
fire in California recorded history. The Cedar fire burned 80,000 acres
in 10 hours. These fires burned in and around wildland-urban interface
areas, requiring extensive evacuations of communities, subdivisions,
and ranches.
2004 SEASONAL WILDLAND FIRE OUTLOOK
Weather patterns reflect a continuing drought trend through much of
the West. The Southwest is the driest area of the West. Warm March
temperatures have resulted in a significant reduction of Western
snowpacks. Late March and April storms in the Southwest (especially in
New Mexico) have delayed the onset of the fire season. However, the
Southwest may experience a rapid escalation to critical fire potential
in Arizona and Western New Mexico for May and June. Spring and summer
are expected to be warmer than normal in the West, while dryness is
expected to continue in the Southeast. Longer-term forecasts call for
no significant improvement in terms of temperature relief or increased
precipitation.
HEALTHY FOREST INITITATIVE
Consistent with the belief that public land policies need to be
based on common sense and common ground the Healthy Forests Initiative
was introduced by the President to help reduce the risks of
catastrophic wildfire to communities and the environment. The Healthy
Forests Initiative implements core components of the National Fire
Plan's 10-year Comprehensive Strategy and Implementation Plan. HFI
improves regulatory processes to insure more timely decisions, greater
efficiency, and better results in reducing the risk of catastrophic
wildfires by restoring healthy, viable ecosystems to our forest and
rangelands.
In May of 2002, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of
Agriculture, the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, and the
Western Governor's Association met to sign an implementation plan for
the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, A Collaborative Approach for
Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and Environment. The
Strategy and Implementation Plan provides a road map for helping
communities to protect themselves from the risk of wildland fire.
The Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior established the
Wildland Fire Leadership Council to coordinate wildland fire management
policies under the 10-Year Plan and to monitor accomplishment. The
Council is a cooperative organization that includes State and local and
tribal representatives, and is dedicated to achieving consistent
implementation of the goals, actions, and policies of the National Fire
Plan and the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy.
The Council has been leading the fire management agencies in
eliminating interagency differences to ensure more seamless delivery of
a coordinated fire protection program. In its first year of operation,
the Council:
adopted field guidance to establish compatible, broad,
national standards for identifying communities at risk, while
still allowing flexibility at the State and regional levels for
risk determinations;
approved a policy for emergency stabilization and
rehabilitation of burned areas that ensures interagency
consistency in the timing and funding of treatments and
monitoring;
adopted a common budget structure for wildland fire
management appropriations; and,
adopted interagency direction for the implementation of the
Federal Wildland Fire Policy.
We are actively using authorities under the President's Healthy
Forests Initiative that offer additional categorical exclusions to
accomplish hazardous fuel reduction before and rehabilitation work
after a fire. These two categorical exclusions facilitate
scientifically sound, efficient, and timely planning and decision
making for the treatment of hazardous fuels and rehabilitation of areas
so as to reduce risks to communities and the environment caused by
severe fires. These new procedures to comply with the National
Environmental Policy Act allow high-priority fuels reduction and forest
restoration projects identified through collaboration with state, local
and tribal governments and interested parties to move forward more
quickly.
The President sought, and in 2003 the Congress provided, long-term
stewardship contracting authority for the Bureau of Land Management and
expanded the limited authority it had previously granted to the Forest
Service. Stewardship contracts or agreements allow communities, tribes,
private companies and others to retain forest and rangeland products in
exchange for performing services for the agencies, such as fuel
reduction treatments, riparian improvements, thinning trees and
removing dead wood.
The results of this strategy are starting to materialize. In FY
2003, the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior together
treated more than 2.7 million acres for hazardous fuels. Of this
amount, almost 1.6 million acres, or 58%, were treated in the wildland
urban interface (WUI). Of the total acres, 2 million were treated by
prescribed fire, more than 460,000 by mechanical treatments, and more
than 210,000 by other treatments.
In addition to the planned treatments, the agencies treated an
additional 719,624 acres through wildland fire use the management of
naturally ignited wildland fires to accomplish specific resource
management objectives, such as ecosystem maintenance and restoration.
For FY 2004, the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service
plan to treat an additional 2.7 million acres of hazardous fuels. We
will focus our resources to optimally mitigate fire risk by effectively
reducing fuels and maintaining healthy forests and grasslands on
priority projects. Forest Service research indicates that well planned
treatments in key areas can successfully influence fire behavior, thus
protecting many more acres than are actually treated. Two treatments,
one a prescribed burn and one a mechanical treatment, each
significantly altered the behavior of Colorado's Hayman Fire in 2002.
The Polhemus prescribed burn mitigated the spread of the Hayman Fire
despite even though the fire approached the treated area driven by
winds exceeding 30 mph. When the fire reached the mechanically treated
area that portion of the fire was more easily suppressed. In 2002 the
Cone Fire entered the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest in northern
California. When it reached an area where trees had been thinned and
surface fuels had been treated, it dropped from a crown fire to an
easily controlled surface fire in a matter of feet.
We continue to use the full range of options available to us to
achieve our goal of restoring fire-adapted ecosystems where
appropriate, through mechanical thinning, prescribed fire, wildland use
fire or through other programs. For example At Oregon's 2002 Biscuit
Fire, areas where thinning had been followed by prescribed burning
exhibited the least burn severity of all portions of the forest that
were studied.
We will also continue our effective and much-needed prescribed fire
program, including our cost efficient program in the southeastern
United States which maintains a vegetation regime of rapidly growing
vegetation. In the Western United States we will restore fire dependent
ecosystems by targeting funds towards projects that achieve this goal.
To achieve more acres treated and become more efficient in the Western
United States, we will continue to seek opportunities to treat these
acres through programs and projects such as stewardship contracting,
bio mass utilization and partnerships with other Federal agencies,
tribes and local governments.
We do not anticipate that we will treat every acre of wildland
forest or grassland that has a high fuel hazard. Neither the Forest
Service the Department of the Interior or other Federal, state or local
fire agencies can absolutely protect the growing number of homes and
businesses adjacent to wildland areas. Given severe fire conditions and
high home ignitability, exposure to flames and particularly firebrands
can result in residential destruction. It is critical that private
landowners also take steps on their own to protect their property. We
are providing help to homeowners through research on adequate
defensible space, educational materials and grant assistance to
FIREWISE programs.
FIREFIGHTING COST
In FY 2003, the Forest Service expended $1.02 billion to suppress
wildfires, and the Department of the Interior's suppression costs were
$303 million. Federal wildfire suppression costs for FY 2003 were 50
percent above the average costs over the last 10 years. Initial attack
success was higher than normal and both the number of fires and number
of acres burned were below average. Three out of the last four fiscal
years have seen Federal suppression costs exceeding $1 billion per
year.
We recognize that the cost of suppressing wildland fire is high. We
need to strike a balance between the costs of suppressing fires and the
need to protect property and resources. Large fire cost reviews, which
began in 2003 will be continued in 2004. These reviews provide wildland
fire management leaders with detailed on-the-ground cost information
with which to make more cost-efficient resource decisions.
The Departments will continue to implement appropriate cost
reduction actions stemming from the Large Fire Cost Reduction Action
Plan and the Fire and Aviation Management Operations Action Plan). By
the end of this year, each Federal agency land unit will have in place
a current or compliant Fire Management Plan. We will continue to use
large fire cost containment oversight teams on those incidents that
meet certain size, cost, and duration criteria. We will implement those
recommendations contained in reports from that will improve efficiency
and reduce costs. We will focus on making improvements as identified
through the PART process. Finally, the President's FY 2005 Budget
includes several cost containment initiatives such as a requirement by
the Forest Service to establish and use cost containment performance
measures as well as actions, together with targets and milestones.
This year, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council also convened a
high level panel comprised of senior State, local, Tribal and Federal
representatives, and incident team members, representing a mix of on-
the-ground and policy expertise, to examine cost containment issues in
a broader, land management- context to integrate suppression and
vegetation management. The Council has taken positive actions to
respond to key findings from the reviews including:
strengthening business oversight and financial management on
fire incident command teams;
developing incident cost-share agreement guidelines so
agreements can be in place prior to start of the local fire
season; and,
resolving problems with the Wildland Fire Situation Analysis
process to improve timeliness and practicality for field use.
SUMMARY
With the outlook for an upcoming potentially difficult fire season,
the five Federal land-managing agencies and our partners at the State
and local level are doing all that we can to be prepared. Safety of
firefighters and communities is our first priority. With the fire
adapted ecosystems of North America, we have the challenging task of
reducing fuels and the vulnerability of our communities to wildfire
while restoring the health of our forests and rangelands. This
challenge is national and long term in scope. With your continued help,
all the agencies can accomplish robust performance-based programs for
the nation's forests and rangelands, and do so in full collaboration
with state governments, communities, Congress and the American people.
We look forward to working with you in implementing the agency's
programs and would be happy to answer any questions.
______
Prepared Statement of Mark Rey on Large Air Tanker Contract
Effective today, the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the
Interior have agreed to forgo the use of large fixed-winged contracted
airtankers for fire suppression for the remainder of the 2004 fire
season as we evaluate the long-term options for aviation resources. In
doing so, the Departments will terminate the national 2004 airtanker
contract.
This decision comes in response to recommendations contained in the
April 23, 2004 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report on
three previous airtanker accidents.
The NTSB report stated that ``it was apparent that no effective
mechanism currently exists to ensure the continuing airworthiness of
these firefighting aircraft.'' The report also concluded that the
Forest Service and the Department of the Interior were responsible for
ensuring the safety of firefighting aircraft.
To continue to use these contract large airtankers when no
mechanism exists to ensure their airworthiness, presents an
unacceptable level of risk to aviators, the firefighters on the ground
and the communities that we serve.
Large airtankers are but one of the many tools that we use to
suppress wildland fires. During any year, thousands of wildland fires
are suppressed without the benefit of air support. We have developed a
strategy for the 2004 fire season to supplement our wildland
firefighting efforts with other available aircraft.
These additional aircraft assets include the use of large
helicopters and helitankers, single engine airtankers (SEATS) and
military C-130 aircraft equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting
System (MAFFS).
A long-term evaluation of the mission and composition of aviation
assets that includes certification, maintenance and inspection programs
based on available funding will be developed by the leadership of the
Forest Service and the Department of the Interior agencies.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. We welcome the Senators
that arrived. And our rule here was that we are now going to
proceed at time of arrival, 5 minutes each. Let me proceed and
I'll try to be brief and then yield to Senator Bingaman.
Let me talk about the aerial fire fighting. Under Secretary
Rey, I understand you will announce the grounding, or you have,
of the heavy slurry bombers due to the National Transportation
Safety Board's recommendation. I think we need a better
understanding of what the grounding of these fire bombers will
mean to your efforts to fight fires this Summer. Where will you
find the heavy lift helicopters and single-engine fire bombers
to fill in?
Mr. Rey. Most of those will be available from existing
contractors who have additional aircraft that they can make
available to us for the fire fighting effort. We're now in the
process of deciding what the best configuration of additional
aerial assets is and then we will commence to modify the
contracts to secure the additional planes.
The Chairman. So are you telling us that what you think
will be available by virtue of assets that are out there is a
new configuration and new contracts that will end up with the
same kind of fire fighting ability from the air as we have now?
Mr. Rey. It's our judgment that there are alternative
aircraft available which should give us comparable fire
fighting capability.
The Chairman. How much more money will this cost as
compared to the cost of the heavy bombers that you need to rely
on?
Mr. Rey. Depending on the exact configuration that we
ultimately select, we anticipate that the additional cost will
run somewhere between $26 and $40 million.
The Chairman. Do you expect to use more military C-130s
this year?
Mr. Rey. Yes. That would be part of the backfill plan.
The Chairman. If the C-130s that the contractors provided
are not safe, why do you consider the military reserve aircraft
to get called up for fires to be safe?
Mr. Rey. The military reserve aircraft are newer models of
the C-130s than our private contractors were flying.
Additionally, the military takes responsibility for the
operation and maintenance of the aircraft and we have every
reason to believe that the aircraft are safe to operate.
The Chairman. Ms. Scarlett, these aircraft are critical to
fighting fires in Alaska. What will the BLM do to provide
enough aerial support to combat the fires in Alaska?
Ms. Scarlett. Senator, we have, in light of the NTSB report
put out to the field a request that each field location come
back with projections on how they would plan to replace those
aircraft. We have not yet received those but when we get that
information that will come together and we'll certainly provide
you with that plan ultimately.
The Chairman. Let me continue. The 2003 fire season cost
more money per acre per fire than any other fire season in
history. We need to make the point that agencies' fire spending
seems to be out of control. Mr. Rey, last year you only burned
3.9 million acres and had only 63,000 fires, the lowest number
since 1922, but your agency and the DOI agency spent over $1.2
billion. What steps have you taken to control your fire
suppression costs or is that not possible and not warranted?
Mr. Rey. Controlling fire suppression costs is both
possible and necessary. The number of acres burned is not
necessarily the best metric in evaluating how severe or costly
a fire season will be, however. A lot depends on what burns and
where it burns. In some years we can burn several hundred
thousand acres in interior Alaska at no cost because we don't
do much to suppress fires that are in that remote a location.
Unfortunately, in 2003, we had a significant number of
ignitions in areas with either extreme fuel loads or in the
wildland-urban interface, where fire fighting is most expensive
on a per acre basis because of the assets and property that
we're trying to protect. And that's why the costs were up and
acres down in 2003.
An important thing to keep in mind, as you're looking at
fire fighting costs, is that 85 percent of the money that's
expended on fire fighting is expended on the one to two percent
of fires that escape initial attack. So when you look at how
you're going to try to control fire fighting costs, the first
thing you look at is your positioning of assets to maximize
your success in initial attack. That more than anything is
going to reduce your fire fighting costs. Then you go to your
large incident fires and you do a cost review to see where
costs can be reduced or contained, and we've done several of
those reviews over the last couple of years.
The Chairman. My last question is a follow-up on an
observation that Senator Bingaman made. I can't think of an
issue, with reference to fire fighting, that has more burdened
us than the one of us putting in the appropriation and then
finding that during the year you don't have enough and you have
to go borrow from the ongoing accounts. Frustration with
reference to that is rampant. What do we do about that? Now,
are we making a mistake in not putting enough in? Are you
giving us the wrong estimates? Or just why do we have to
continually borrow from Peter to pay Paul when, as Senator
Bingaman said, it isn't as if we're taking it from something we
don't need; it's taking it from ongoing efforts that we all
think we paid for.
Mr. Rey. The frustration over fire borrowing is not limited
to your side of the dias. It's an extraordinarily frustrating
aspect of the program to administer for us as well. Our budget
requests for fire suppression are not mysterious. We request
the 10-year average of what we spend the previous 10 years
simply because it's impossible to predict upwards of 18 months
out how a fire season is going to shape up. Unfortunately, the
last several fire seasons have been bad ones and so we've been
exceeding the 10-year average in every instance. I think that
the change that you, Mr. Chairman, helped to produce in this
year's budget resolution would help. That would provide
significant assistance in avoiding that sort of borrowing, if
the budget resolution passes.
The Chairman. Senator Bingaman.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me follow-up
on this same issue, because I do think that a significant part
of the problem that causes all this borrowing is, in my view,
the fact that the administration doesn't ask for enough money
for fire suppression each year. Now, I understand you ask for
the 10-year average. We have all of these folks who are expert
in predicting where we are. We've got this forecast up here on
the chart; this is done, as I understand it, by the National
Interagency Fire Center up in Boise, where there are a lot of
experts such as meteorologists. It strikes me that there is a
total disconnect between our ability to predict and our
budgeting. It doesn't matter what the prediction is for 18
months from now; we're going to ask for the 10-year average. I
mean, that's our basic policy, as I understand it. So the
predictive capability that we've developed is totally unrelated
to our budgeting decisions in requesting money. Has there been
any thought that maybe you ought to go back and look at whether
or not this is the right method, this 10-year average? We are
in a long-term drought in the West. Every year we have this
same hearing or several hearings like this where we come in and
talk about how we're going to have a worse than usual fire
season. At some point you'd think that would be factored into
the budgeting and to the budget requests we get from the
administration.
Ms. Scarlett. As Mark said, we have continued to use the
10-year average because that is the only tool that we really
have had available to us in recent years and as recently as the
mid-90s, actually, we were putting forth fire suppression
budgets that were above, in fact, what was utilized in those
years. Having said that, we are looking at other models, and I
know that the GAO, for example, is doing a report; we look
forward to that report. We ourselves----
Senator Bingaman. When will that report--who's doing that
report?
Ms. Scarlett. I believe there's a GAO report that is
looking at fire suppression.
Senator Bingaman. But internally you're not doing anything?
Ms. Scarlett. We are also internally looking at the 10-year
average, looking at how well that has served us. It's highly
variable year-by-year so that, as I said, as recently as 1998,
our fire suppression budgets exceeded what we actually
utilized.
Senator Bingaman. But you were using the 10-year average
then, too.
Ms. Scarlett. That's right.
Senator Bingaman. What I'm saying is, you've got all of
these experts sitting around Boise, Idaho, who are supposed to
be able to predict this stuff to some extent. Why don't you
take their suggestion, and if it's low then ask for less; if
it's high, then ask for more? But why don't we budget on the
basis of the information that we've got?
Ms. Scarlett. Senator, as Mark Rey alluded, one of the
challenges that we face is that we craft our budgets a good 18
months before the actual fire season and the budget in question
occurs. At that point in time critical information, such as,
for example, snow pack runoff and weather patterns are really
not available to us.
Senator Bingaman. Well, I understand that. But it does seem
like even 18 months out it would be better to make our best
estimate than it would to just take a 10-year average. I think
that the best estimate these experts could give us would be
more accurate than what we've been doing. Anyway, I would just
urge you to go look at the method and the models that are being
used and see if we can't revise those to get a little closer to
reality.
Let me ask about two other issues. When Chief Bosworth was
here a couple of months ago, I asked him about the, what I
considered the unsafe and inefficient operation or working
conditions we have at the fire cache down in my hometown of
Silver City, New Mexico. He said he was going to look into that
and see if anything could be done to upgrade that or make the
facility more useful. It serves all of New Mexico and
significant parts of Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma as well. Do
you know, Mr. Rey, if anything's been done about that?
Mr. Rey. We've looked at the facility; it's less than
ideal. We're now costing out what it would take to reconfigure
or replace the facility.
Senator Bingaman. Okay. So I appreciate that and I hope
something can be done along those lines.
Let me also ask about fire use. My understanding is that
when you start trying to head off fires there are sort of three
things that are helpful here. One is natural fires, which
reduce fuel load, of course. Second is prescribed burns, which
is sort of a substitute for natural fires. And third is this
mechanical removal of underbrush and excess fuel. I guess I'm
concerned that I don't think that the management of natural
fires to accomplish this thinning activity is given enough
attention. I don't know that your policies have adjusted so
that, in fact, you are seeing this as an integral part of
dealing with the problem of too much fuel load. I'd be
interested in any thoughts you've got on that.
Ms. Scarlett. Yes, Senator, we agree that wildland fire use
is very much an integral part of getting our hands around the
forest restoration challenges we face. In 2003, we actually, in
addition to the 2.7 million acres of hazardous fuels reduction
projects that we undertook, we did have 700,000 acres of
wildland fire use. We do those when a fire management plan
indicates that an area, should a fire strike, can simply be
safe to have that fire burn out. One thing we are doing,
though, is to re-examine those fire management plans to see if
they really do adequately and fully take into account the
ability to utilize wildland fire use to its greatest extent.
Mr. Rey. As our fire plans are updated, I think you'll see
a greater reliance on wildland fire use. And we plan to have
all of our fire plans updated by the end of this year. The
important thing, when we choose to let a fire burn, is that we
have enough information about the fuel conditions, the weather
at the time and the other variables to make sure that the fire
will burn in the way and in the fashion and in the places we
expect it to.
Ms. Scarlett. Senator, I might add one more comment. The
Wildland Fire Leadership Council has convened a high level
panel that I mentioned in my testimony. One of the charges of
that panel is to look precisely at that question of whether we
can better utilize wildland fire use as a means both of
achieving healthy forests but also of reducing our suppression
costs.
Senator Bingaman. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Bingaman.
Senator Craig.
Senator Craig. Mark, the chairman and I were just saying,
``Remember Los Alamos.'' We want you to have that ringing in
your ear as you assess fuel loads and weather conditions for
wildfire environment. We burned a town down and had to pay for
it and I don't think we want to get caught in that scenario
again.
The Chairman. A billion dollars.
Senator Craig. A billion dollars worth. The Agency expended
$1.2 billion before October-November fire storms in southern
California; the Senator from California is with us. Preliminary
cost estimates of the 13 southern California fires exceeded
$122 million; two of the fires exceeded $30 million each, the
Cedar Fire in San Diego, the Old Fire in the San Bernardino.
These last season costs will account against the 2004 fire
season and could force, in my opinion, if we get the kind of
seasons we've been having, massive fire borrowing in the
current fiscal year if the season turns out to be an average,
as expected. Would you concur with that?
Mr. Rey. I think there's that possibility, yes.
Senator Craig. Why aren't we then doing 5-year averages on
fire costs instead of 10-year averages, because the last 5
years seem to have been exceptionally costly. We could do that,
you could push a computer button and get a 5-year average
versus a 10-year average and the money would rachet up
dramatically. But then you'd have to request more and OMB
probably wouldn't like that. How do you propose to solve that
problem?
Mr. Rey. They generally don't like to request more, that is
a true statement.
The Chairman. Get rid of OMB.
Senator Craig. I think you've got a unanimous vote on this
committee to get rid of OMB. Your answer?
Mr. Rey. I think the compressing the average to a 5-year
average, while it serves you better in an up cycle may serve
you less well if you have five relatively mild years because
then your 5-year average is going to catch you very short if
you follow that then with a very bad year. The fact is, as
Assistant Secretary Scarlett indicated, the factors that give
you good predictive ability about what a fire year is going to
be like don't come into play with any kind of precision until
about January or February of the year you're in. And by that
time our budget is already up here on the Hill. So almost
anything we do is either going to be an average or an estimate,
and some years we'll hit it better than others. But we really
don't have the kind of information we're sharing with you now
about snow pack, about river flow, about fuel moisture until
we're into the April time frame in any given year.
Senator Craig. Well, both the Senator from Montana and I
have driven across our respective States in the last two weeks.
We will tell you, we're damned dry out there and it's going to
get drier.
Ms. Scarlett. Senator?
Senator Craig. Go ahead, Ms. Scarlett.
Ms. Scarlett. I was going to add another complicating
factor here. Right now, for example, year-to-date, we're
actually slightly behind, even including the California fires,
of the 10-year average number of acres burned. But what's
driving some of these costs is not the acres and our ability to
predict that we might have a bad fire year but also where they
are occurring. The very high costs----
Senator Craig. Part of the California costs----
Ms. Scarlett. That's exactly right.
Senator Craig. Was in a quasi-urbanized area.
Ms. Scarlett. That's right.
Senator Craig. I understand that.
Ms. Scarlett. And that's what makes, of course, the
wildland-urban interface treatment so critically important in
our fire wise activities with communities so important.
Senator Craig. Well, I understand your effort to explain
it. But I think the first response was the most logical. To ask
for more money means you're going to have to fight with OMB and
the overall budget problem and that's a fight frustrating to
have. Now, here are the consequences of failing to do that. The
Senator from Oregon just spoke to the amount of money we wanted
to put in for Healthy Forests. During the last 5 years the
Agency has borrowed $2.7 billion from numerous accounts for
fire fighting. Approximately 80 percent of those funds were
eventually replenished. What wasn't replenished was about $540
million that was programmed, across the agencies, to be put on
the ground for a variety of purposes that never got there. But
the day of the K-V funds in the Fire Service, the Knudsen-
Vanderberg funds are gone. They were depleted by the Clinton
administration, we don't have green sale cut anymore to
replenish them. You used to be able to borrow out of them, we
could do a supplemental appropriation and we'd get ourselves
whole at the end of the season or end of the next fiscal year.
Those are scenarios that don't exist today. Fire fighting costs
more. So we can talk about time and location and condition or
we can take the reality of where we are and start funding it.
Because if we fail to do that the other kind of work that the
agencies do, both Forest Service and BLM, on the ground, that
we expect you to do as programmed efforts, won't get done or
aren't getting done. And over the spread of that 5 years, if
you take out $100 million a year, and this, in the case of the
Forest Service, that's a very real problem. And we're feeling
it on the ground, ranger district by ranger district across my
state.
Mr. Rey. I don't think either of us are here to defend fire
borrowing as a tool for funding fire fighting. And I think
you're correct, that the days that that process worked well
were days of yore when there were sufficient balances in trust
funds that the borrowing could be made from those trust funds
without interfering with the day-to-day operation of other
programs. Unfortunately, those trust funds were not fully
repaid and they've diminished as well for other reasons also.
So I don't think anybody on this side of the dias is defending
fire borrowing. We need an alternative. Fortunately, you all
have come up with one that I think is workable in the budget
resolution.
Senator Craig. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Rey, Ms.
Scarlett, there's no question in my mind that very soon
thousands of people in fire-prone communities are again going
to be tossing everything they can fit into their cars and
fleeing from their homes without knowing if anything will
remain when they return. That's the reality of the West. We've
already had fires in Oregon; Senator Feinstein's already had
fires, her colleagues have mentioned their concerns as well. I
agree with everything said by Senator Domenici, Senator Craig,
Senator Bingaman. But I'll tell you, I'm concerned about this
year, right now. And the whole point of the forest health
effort has been to try to make a break with the past. And I put
into the record, as you heard me say, the documentary evidence
of the under funding of the Hazardous Fuels Reduction programs.
Every one of those Hazardous Fuels Reduction programs that is
funded means that much less acreage is at risk from the
catastrophic fires; that's what we do when we fund them and you
all know this, you know, better than I. I was able to get in
the budget resolution an increase that would be more than $300
million per year, as a member of the Budget Committee, so that
we could fully fund those Hazardous Funds Reduction programs.
My first question to you is, and perhaps to start with you,
Mr. Rey, is what is the administration doing, given the fact
that the budget resolution is in conference now--went to the
floor and spoke just a couple days ago to try to get it
funded--what's the administration doing to try to get full
funding for the Hazardous Fuels Reduction programs that you put
so much more acreage at less risk? Mr. Rey?
Mr. Rey. The simple answer is we think our fiscal year 2005
budget request did ask for full funding for the projects
described in the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and that that
request was about $100 million increase over fiscal year 2004
levels. It will produce close to 4 million acres of fuels
treatment work in 2005, maybe slightly more than 4 million
acres of fuels treatment work, and that number would be an all-
time record. And so I think that's good progress toward an
ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is we've probably got
somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 or 90 million acres of
priority treatments that need to be made, either in the
wildland-urban interface or where other critical ecological
values are at risk. And we're on a path to continue to ramp up
our effort, both by requesting increased funds and by trying to
reduce the unit costs of the work involved to make those funds
go further.
Senator Wyden. I think before we get into the eye-glazing
sort of exercise of which account is here and which account is
there, I already mentioned that your spokesman, Joe Walsh, was
quoted as saying the budget only calls for $417 million. This
is your person for hazardous fuels----
Mr. Rey. That's 2004.
Senator Wyden. I'm reading right from--however, the 2005
proposed budget calls for only about $417 million for hazardous
fuels reduction efforts according to Forest Service Spokesman,
Joe Walsh.
Mr. Rey. Strictly speaking, he was quoting the number in
that line item. But that line item alone doesn't encompass all
of the work that we do in this area.
Senator Wyden. That's fine. What I want to hear is what's
the administration doing with both the budget, which is in
conference now, where I'm trying to get it to $760 million and
if we're not successful there we're going to be uphill in terms
of the appropriations process, what's the administration doing
on the budget and on appropriations to get us to the full $760
million which we worked so hard on a bipartisan basis to turn
this situation around?
Mr. Rey. It's our judgment that if you accept our 2005
request you'll be at $760 million.
Senator Wyden. I can only tell you that both the budget and
the appropriations process leaves me very much in doubt whether
we are going to get full funding of hazardous fuels reduction.
And when we look at the sleight of hand that has already been
described, of robbing one account to another, and that's what
it is. It's not sleight of hand if you live in Cave Junction or
Joseph. Those people are not seeing the money get out there. I
mean, period. That's what they tell us. They are not seeing the
money get out there. And I hope that the administration will do
everything possible with the budget conferees who are meeting
now. I mean, that conference is going on now. And if I and
others are not successful we'll be $300 million plus short
there of $760 million. And that's, again, that is the quote of
your spokesman. And then we've got to go to the appropriations
process where we're fortunate to have Chairman Domenici,
Chairman Burns and others there. But we need the administration
to be vocal and visible on the budget and appropriations issue
because the dollars are not getting out there. And the whole
point of the hazardous fuels reduction provision in Forest
Health was to change this and to put less acreage at risk. And
I can tell you, Senator Smith is here as well; he hears that
our acreage, we still have enormous amounts of acreage that's
at risk and I don't think you can justify this under funding.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rey. Well, we can debate whether the amount is too
large or too small. But what is indisputable is this is the
most any administration has ever asked for to do this work.
That's indisputable.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. On our side, Senator
Thomas is next.
Senator Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, thank you
both for being here. This is a difficult issue, of course and
Mark, we've been talking about the money, which I understand is
a difficult thing but the fact is that fires are a part of
nature and we have less fires than we used to because we want
to. We used to let them burn and now we don't. But
notwithstanding the money, we've talked about clean forests,
we've talked about beetle kill, we've talked about thinning,
and the forests I'm familiar with, I haven't seen much of that
happening. Aside from the money, what's really happened in
terms of Healthy Forests?
Mr. Rey. What's happened is we hit an all-time record of
2.6 million acres treated last year. That's the most----
Senator Thomas. Treated? What do you mean treated?
Mr. Rey. Thinned. Fuel reduced.
Senator Thomas. Where?
Mr. Rey. Throughout the country, including some in Wyoming.
I'll take you out and show you some in Wyoming.
Senator Thomas. I'll take you out and show you some where
there's tons of beetle kill that's never been touched.
Mr. Rey. There's no question----
Senator Thomas. I'll take you to the Shoshone and they have
a plan that's never been implemented.
Mr. Rey. There's no question that there are 80 to 90
million acres of priority treatments that need to be made, that
we've got to ramp the program up to get to the point where we
can do that job in an eight to 12 year time frame. But
realistically, that's what it's going to take. It took us 100
years to get into this situation and we're not going to get out
of it overnight.
Senator Thomas. I don't accept the 12-year thing. I just
don't understand that. You've got the various people on the
ground now in the various forests that can do some of those
things, and it seems like we wait until the fire season's upon
us and then we get all excited about it. But I don't hear much
about it off-season, which is when we really ought to be doing
the protection.
At any rate, let me go back to the airplanes just a minute.
We've been through the airplane thing, as you know, for several
years in Wyoming. Critical problems happened in 2002. Now we're
going into 2004. A lot of these owners have spent literally
hundreds of thousands of dollars on these airplanes and now,
right into the beginning of the season you suddenly say we're
not going to use them. Isn't the timing a little strange? Now,
I know you're going to say, well, we got the report. But why
didn't we get the report a year ago? Those things happened in
2002.
Mr. Rey. I can't tell you why it took the NTSB a year-and-
a-half to complete their investigation. What I can tell you is
that in 2002 we undertook our own review of the safety of the
large air tanker fleet and made several changes that we hoped
would assure the air worthiness of these aircraft.
Unfortunately, the NTSB disagrees. Their report is, I think,
not something that can be disputed and so now we're going to
have to adjust and move on. Would I have liked to have gotten
the NTSB report five months ago or six months ago? Sure. But I
don't always get what I want around here.
Senator Thomas. Really?
Mr. Rey. If I got what I wanted we'd be in a period of
budget surpluses and above average rainfall. But neither is the
case.
Senator Thomas. Well, you don't have much to do with
rainfall but you do have something to do with the oversight of
these airplanes. And why you haven't been involved more with
the FAA over the years I don't know. The Forest Service is not
the people to take a look at the safety of airplanes.
Mr. Rey. We freely acknowledge we lack that expertise.
Senator Thomas. That's exactly true. But it took a long
time to even do that, Mark, and I guess the timing, again, why
didn't you tell these people last fall that this was likely to
happen? Now they've invested a lot of dough and have already
used some of the airplanes and now they can't use them. And
you're going to be shorthanded.
Mr. Rey. I think we will not be shorthanded. We will have
to stretch to move quickly to reconfigure the fleet but I think
we'll be just fine in terms of fire fighting capability.
Senator Thomas. Well, we'll see. We've been working with
the Wyoming National Guard to do some of that, now the National
Guard's very involved in Iraq and I think you're going to find
that there are going to be some real difficulties there. In any
event, the point is, if you're going to use the private sector,
which I endorse, then you have to use the FAA and you have to
use the others to go through the question of the viability of
the aircraft. And you can't wait until it's time for the forest
fires to begin and then suddenly say that we aren't going to
use them.
The Chairman. Senator, I think you can say you can't wait
for the accidents.
Senator Thomas. Oh, absolutely not.
The Chairman. That's what happened.
Senator Thomas. Well, we had the accidents 2 years ago.
The Chairman. Yeah, well, that didn't bring it either.
Senator Thomas. Well, in any event, I think we're going to
have to do some other things. And I hope you can get out and
get your various forces going on some things in terms of this
Healthy Forest business, particularly in the area where there
are facilities. One of the problems there is when you begin to
thin around the facilities why, the owners of the facilities
don't want you to touch it and your guys back away. And I
understand that. At any rate, it's a tough problem and I know
we need to work together to get some work done on it. And thank
you.
The Chairman. Senator Feinstein. Well, Senator Bunning, I
believe, has arrived next. Senator Bunning, would you permit me
to have half-a-minute and then I would ask Senator Thomas if he
could preside for just about 10 minutes, could you do that?
Senator Bunning. Go right ahead, Chairman.
The Chairman. All right. Senator Bunning, could I just take
a minute? I want to ask you, you made a statement awhile ago
and I noted it in your testimony, that with reference to
activity on the part of the Federal Government to thin and
reduce this overage that causes the fires, that we've done more
than we've ever done before. Can you just tell us a little bit
about what that means? It would seem to me you gave us a big
number but we have Senators here who seem to wonder, looking at
their own States, whether that's really a lot or whether that's
just a little bit, or just tell us what that means.
Mr. Rey. Okay. Let me just start with the larger numbers
and then move to annual accomplishments. Our estimates are that
there's about 190 million acres of Federally owned forest and
rangeland at risk because the stands are too dense, the brush
is too thick, there are insect- or disease-infestations or
other sorts of things but those are the main factors. Of that
190 million acres, not all of it needs to be treated. Not all
of it should be treated. Some of it's in remote locations in
areas where fire frequency is not that great, like interior
Alaska. So you deduct the areas that don't need to be treated.
That leaves you with about 80 to 90 million acres of priority
treatments in the wildland-urban interface, in municipal
watersheds, in other areas where there are ecological values at
risk. Our accomplishment last year was 2.6 million acres. Our
accomplishment this coming year will be just under four. Our
proposed accomplishment for 2005 will be just over 4 million
acres. We're going to need to get to the point, I think, where
we are reliably treating about ten million acres a year. And if
we can get to that point then we have, I think, a program of
work that addresses the problem of treating the 80 to 90
million acres in about 10 years' time. I don't honestly think
it's going to happen any sooner than that because we've
basically doubled our annual rate of performance from where it
was in 2000; we're coming at the end of 2005 to doubling it
again. We'll have to double it a third time in order to get to
eight to ten million acres of annual treatment and I don't
think you're going to see Federal programs, many Federal
programs, accelerate that rapidly. That's going to have to be
an increase in investment and funding and a significant
increase in the efficiency with which we undertake these
activities. We're going to have to continue to streamline our
procedures, hopefully win all of the administrative appeals and
legal challenges that are presented by people who oppose this
work, and try to resolve this problem in about that time frame.
The Chairman. All right, thank you.
Senator Bunning.
Senator Bunning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a
statement I'd like to put into the record.
The Chairman. It will be made part of the record.
[The prepared statement of Senator Bunning follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Jim Bunning, U.S. Senator From Kentucky
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing on wildfires is important for the protection of
communities, natural resources, and forests nation wide. I believe that
assessing the factors behind the rash of recent devastating forest
fires, as well as advancing the determination of solutions to such
problems, is significant for the health and welfare of communities,
industry, and environmental treasures across America.
Kentucky boasts two national forests: the Daniel Boone National
Forest and the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. The
preservation of these lands from forest fires and other forms of
natural disaster is of paramount importance to myself and my fellow
Kentuckians.
Kentucky has worked hard to maintain healthy forests. While I know
that western forests have been more affected by wildfires in recent
years, I hope that Kentucky's forests are not forgotten in future
forest fire programs.
I appreciate the time that our witnesses have taken today to
testify. I look forward to hearing their thoughts on fire risk
reduction and restoration practices.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Bunning. Okay. I'd like to just briefly touch back
on the large tanker air support and the untimely removal of
that support for fighting fires. I seriously doubt that your
agency will be able to fight the oncoming fires efficiently and
effectively as though they were used using large tankers in the
past. I have serious doubts and only after the fact we'll be
able to determine whether you are right, the NTSB was right,
and if there isn't contractors out there who could furnish air
worthy aircraft to do the same job that not air worthy aircraft
have been asked to do in the past. I think it's up to your
agency and your responsibility to find aircraft that are air
worthy, whether it be in the public or the private sector. That
said, I'll go to other places.
The recent rash of wildfire outbreaks that have occurred in
the Western part of the United States have turned our focus on
wildfire prevention and forest restoration initiatives.
However, many States in other areas of this country also boast
forests that have been and will be subject to forest fires.
Kentucky in particular is home to two of the largest forest
areas, the Daniel Boone National Park and Forest and the land
between the Lakes National Recreation Area. How does the
restoration-based fire fuel reduction and Forest Health Project
address the different geographic needs of these regions?
Mr. Rey. When we looked at the Southeast, we were looking
at a system that is every bit as fire prone as the West.
Fortunately, the forests in the Southeast are in better shape
right now, generally speaking, and we do a lot of varied fuels
treatments works, including a significant amount of prescribed
burning because we can burn more safely given the reduced fuel
loads in our Southeastern national forests. That region, in
fact, is where we do the lion's share of our prescribed
burning. So that the issues aren't too much different. The
techniques aren't that much different. I guess the biggest
difference in the Southeast versus the inner-mountain West, in
particular, is that our forest ownership aren't as large and
unbroken, which means there is better access to do fuels
treatment work and to do prescribed burning, number one. And
number two, the fuel loads aren't quite as heavy in the
Southeast because of the program of fuel reduction and
prescribed burning that we've done over the years.
Senator Bunning. This has been brought out before but I
have to bring it out one more time. Last 5 years, agencies,
you've borrowed $2.7 billion from other accounts. Why are the
agencies so under funded over the last few years to fight
fires?
Mr. Rey. It's not that we've been so under funded, it's
just that the 10-year average hasn't been a very reliable
barometer of the fire seasons that we've been experiencing.
Senator Bunning. Yet there has been no adjustment to that
in the 2005 budget, is that correct?
Mr. Rey. There wasn't a basis for making an adjustment
other than just rough predictions.
Senator Bunning. Other than the fact that you've borrowed
$2.7 billion over the last 5 years. That's a pretty good
indication that you've been falling a little short in your
requests.
Mr. Rey. It's a good indication that the fire seasons have
been bad, that's right.
Senator Bunning. Well, 2003 was only bad in the point of
location of the fires. I mean, the amount of fires, the acreage
burned, was not as bad as in the past.
Mr. Rey. That's right.
Senator Bunning. So, I mean, if we could pick and choose
where they have a fire it would be wonderful but we can't do
that.
Mr. Rey. That's also correct.
Senator Bunning. So your agency hasn't anticipated the fact
that we could have a fire in a very populous or fringe area
where we burn 30-some hundred homes down. Have you?
Mr. Rey. We don't have the predictive capability to know
where the fires are going to ignite.
Senator Bunning. Well, we understand that. I mean, that's a
given. But there is a given that you've overused--by borrowing
$2.7 billion, you've overused the money that's in other
accounts and therefore, in the future, to make up the money
that's been used you're going to have to request a larger--
whether OMB likes it or not--a larger request from OMB. You've
got to face the facts.
Mr. Rey. The facts may change.
Senator Bunning. Yeah, they may change but are you going to
make the two-seven up somewhere else? How are you going to make
it up?
Mr. Rey. The traditional way has been through a
supplemental appropriations bill that----
Senator Bunning. Well, we're not going to be able to do
that. You understand that?
Mr. Rey. I understand.
Senator Bunning. So, how are you going to do it?
Mr. Rey. We'll do it by borrowing from whatever accounts
are available to continue the fire fighting effort.
Senator Bunning. That's just a continuation of bad policy.
Period.
Mr. Rey. I don't disagree with that but that's the only
avenue available right now.
Senator Bunning. Ask for more from OMB so we can put it in
the budget. That's the answer, whether you like it or whether
you don't like it.
Mr. Rey. Okay.
Senator Thomas [presiding]. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Bunning. Thank you.
Senator Thomas. Senator Feinstein.
Senator Feinstein. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. In
listening to this, Senator Burns is the chairman of the
Appropriations Subcommittee and I'm a member of that
subcommittee. I think we've got some work to do to see that the
funding, as it comes out of our subcommittee, is adequate for
this.
Senator Smith. Don't listen to him.
Senator Feinstein. Right. Right. Let me just begin, Mr.
Rey, with thanking you and the Secretary for changing the local
county match from 25 percent to nothing for the Natural
Resources Conservation Services for watershed protection. It's
very much appreciated. And Ms. Scarlett, I'd also like to thank
you and the Interior Department for at least reducing the
Forest Service match from 50 to 25 percent. I think that's
appreciated as well. I want you to know that I agree with
Senator Craig that it would be much better, I think, for the
times we're in if a 5-year average could be used instead of the
10-year average. I think it's much more realistic.
Now, only $30 million of the $120 million is projected to
be spent this year for removal of dead trees. And I'm very
concerned with the Bark Beetle Forest in California, which has
to be probably our largest priority. I was talking to someone
from Sierra Pacific Industries and, as you know, there's a
certain use for even the bark beetle-infested trees if you can
get to them in the first 6 months to a year. But they said it's
almost impossible because they've got to bring the trees out to
Senora to a rail line, and the thought occurs whether it's
realistic to build a mill in that area for a company. Do you
have any analysis on that, whether it could be a realistic
enterprise to develop a mill to get to these trees fast enough,
since there's so many of them?
Mr. Rey. I don't think that, given the reviews associated
with a siting decision of a new manufacturing facility in
southern California, it's realistic to look at that option, in
all honesty. I mean, I think it would probably take somebody--
even somebody who had the capital available--3 to 4 years just
to get through the permitting process in those southern
California counties. So I think our better bet is to try to
move as much of that material as we can and then just deal with
the rest as a landfill problem. Right now the market for pine
is up, so that's helping. Material that would have otherwise
been land filled will move to mills in the southern Sierra or
in the northern part of the State and we can hope that that
will continue. But I'm sorry to say I find it difficult to
imagine that you could get a fully permitted, new manufacturing
facility in place in that part of the State in a time frame
that would help.
By the way, the $30 million, that will increase now with
the waiver of the local match; the counties should be able to
more faster. So you'll see more of that money spent this year.
Senator Feinstein. I would very much appreciate it if you
could pay some special attention to it. Because in reading the
staff memo, the number of acres in California that have been
treated, in comparison to others, are very low. BLM treated
438,500 acres of which California was just 12,000. And the
hazardous fuels treatments in--so far, 2.3 million acres, where
only 167,000 acres. So I am very concerned. The weather has
been abnormally warm so far this year in southern California
and there is so much of that bark beetle stuff that we have
already had 20 fires; it can get much, much worse. So anything
that you could do, and I'll certainly work with you in any way
I can, to move that along. But if you would please, both of
you, to your Secretaries relay my thanks on the county match, I
think that will be a big help. Appreciate it very much.
Mr. Rey. Thank you.
Senator Feinstein. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Thomas. Thank you very much. I hope--from both of
you--I hope we don't forget the possibility of using the
private sector to harvest some of these places. And if they're
supervised properly you don't have to worry about the
environmental aspect of it. So, to talk always about not having
enough money, there are people willing to actually pay, or at
least remove these things and I hope we use the private sector.
Senator Burns.
Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've just got a
couple of questions and I have a statement I'd like to have put
in the record. And also, there is going to be some testimony
offered by Douglas Herlihy, I think, before the House next
Thursday, with regard to those tankers. Secretary Rey and I
would appreciate if maybe after that testimony is offered and
some of the questions that he raises about those tankers we
might have a visit, and we'll do that off-camera, so we'll take
care of that.
In these areas where we have an interface, an urban
interface with the Forest Service and the BLM, we've seen
homes--I know in my State they were built in the wrong place,
to be honest with you. They're built in the forest and those
areas. What kind of a fire prevention responsibility do those
homeowners have?
Mr. Rey. I think they have responsibility to try to make
their homes as safe and fireproof as they can. And I think that
over time we're going to see that enforced by the insurance
industry.
Senator Burns. Well, they tell me you can't get insurance
now. But I mean, do they have any responsibility of getting
some of that fuel load off of the floor of that forest that
would burn? And how much--how far can they get that away from
their property?
Mr. Rey. Well, it depends on how much property they own.
Senator Burns. No, but can they do it in the forest though?
Mr. Rey. On the Federal land?
Senator Burns. On their own? On their own and pay for it?
Mr. Rey. No. I'm afraid that we could not have them do work
on Federal land on their own.
Senator Burns. Why?
Mr. Rey. I would imagine that the usual people who object
to these kinds of projects would have something to say about us
allowing homeowners the ability to start to do fuels treatment
work on the Federal forest on their own.
Senator Burns. I mean, removal of underbrush and grass
that's grown up and--they can't remove that?
Mr. Rey. They're not supposed to. Some probably do. But
generally speaking we like to make sure that----
Senator Burns. I know if I owned a big old house up there
I'd go out as far as I could go.
Mr. Rey. Yeah.
Senator Burns. Tell me about grazing permits. Where are you
on the issuance of grazing permits? Are we still behind?
Mr. Rey. We're still behind but catching up.
Senator Burns. See, I think that has a lot to do with it
and I can show you a lot of places where you allowed grazing,
you have less fires.
Mr. Rey. That's--there's no question about that, that
grazing is part of----
Senator Burns. And I think part--another thing is those are
areas that could be accelerated for underbrush and removal of
some fuels that are there.
Mr. Rey. We do actually use grazing as a form of fuels
treatment in several forests.
Senator Burns. I got to tell you, the other day I saw--you
know, this is a couple of years ago--a place over there that
environmentalists are paying a sheep man to turn his sheep out
to control a spot of nap weed. Isn't that wonderful, that they
thought about that? Gosh, a miracle. How come we didn't think
about that?
Mr. Rey. We do do a lot of grazing for that reason.
Senator Burns. We spent years of running grazing off of
there and now they're paying the sheep men where the sheep men
used to come over and pay you for grazing, you know. Gosh,
wonderful thought.
Mr. Rey. We're paying goat herders in the Southern
California National Forest to run their goats in our field
breaks to keep the vegetation down.
Senator Burns. We can do that, we can do that. Those are
the things, I just wondered if, on the amount of responsibility
of these because we get into an interface home I think
sometimes we spend money protecting things that could be
protected by the homeowner themselves, that they have a certain
responsibility of maintaining and taking preventative actions
around their homes to prevent some of this. At least when
there's a fire they can save the home.
Mr. Rey. And that's the point and the purpose behind our
Firewise program, to give homeowners enough information to know
what they should do, what they can do, to make their own
property more fireproof.
Senator Burns. We're going to look at this airplane
situation. I don't know enough about it right now to ask an
intelligent question. But I just feel like we're headed down
maybe a wrong road here but I can't comment on that right now.
And Mr. Chairman, thank you. What's?
Senator Thomas. I said you didn't--you just said you didn't
know enough about it to ask a question. I said that's never
stopped you before. And I was just kidding.
[Laughter]
Senator Thomas. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Smith.
Senator Burns. You know what? All team ropers are like
that. And usually they're a thumb short, too.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
include a more extended statement in the record.
Senator Thomas. Yes sir, it will be in the record.
Senator Smith. Mark, thank you for being here. And also,
Ms. Scarlett, appreciate your service to our country and to our
forests.
As you probably know, I was a proponent of the Healthy
Forest Initiative and have great hope in the promises that are
contained in it about our ability to get ahead of these fires,
and yet there are some projects that were being developed by
local communities with Federal authorities and State
authorities before the Healthy Forest Initiative was passed and
signed by the President. One of those in my State is called the
Metolius Project. Are you familiar with that Mark?
Mr. Rey. Yes.
Senator Smith. And can you give me an update on whether the
lawsuit brought by extremist environmentalists is going to
leave Camp Sherman vulnerable to another fire this year?
Mr. Rey. If the suit is successful I believe that Camp
Sherman will be more vulnerable than would otherwise have been
the case. It's not clear yet what the disposition of the
litigation will be. We're hopeful that we can prevail and
resist a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction.
Senator Smith. I have sent a letter to Attorney General
Ashcroft asking that he vigorously defend your agency in this
suit because I don't think there's any accident in the fact
that when President Bush announced he was going to go there
last year the place went up in flames. I think that's very
regrettable but clearly it's a beautiful and magnificent area
and it ought to receive some scientific treatment and not just
be the subject of environmental lip saw.
Mr. Rey. I can't speak for the Department of Justice but I
can tell you that we've been very pleased with the
aggressiveness of their defense on these kinds of projects so
far. In March the Federal District Courts handed down 15
decisions and the Government prevailed in 15 out of 15 of them.
Senator Smith. So you would be optimistic about the
Metrolius Project being successful in its defense?
Mr. Rey. I would be more optimistic if this weren't a Ninth
Circuit case but I remain optimistic that we'll get a strong
and vigorous defense.
Senator Smith. And Mark, I understand you were in Oregon
last week. Is that correct?
Mr. Rey. I did pay a visit to Ashland last Friday.
Senator Smith. How were you received?
Mr. Rey. Well, it depends on----
Senator Smith. I think I know, I read the papers.
Mr. Rey. It depends on by whom.
Senator Smith. Mark, I am, as you know, concerned about how
we deal with the remnants of the Biscuit Fire and, as you know,
we burned up a half-a-million acres of old growth timber there,
and it's hard to calculate the damage to the environment and
certainly the salvage effort that is ongoing now is small but
important. And I have received reports that the area that is
known as the Biscuit Fire is now being choked off by underbrush
that is growing back, choking off the chance of the next
generation of forest from growing out of the ashes there. I'm
also mindful that recently some Federal land managers tried to
go there but were obstructed because of the roadblocks that
were built from some of the logs there. Did the Forest Service
have anything to do with using those logs to obstruct the roads
so that its foresters could not get in to see this area?
Mr. Rey. No.
Senator Smith. Do you know who did obstruct these areas?
Mr. Rey. I don't know who did and my expectation is that
it's probably somebody who's opposed to the Biscuit Fire
recovery effort.
Senator Smith. Isn't it a fact, though, that in that area
where there had been fuels reduction work done that the fire
had a diminimous impact, it did not burn with the intensity
that it did in other areas because the slash had been cleared
out, the undergrowth had been cleared out and it did not get
into the crowns of the trees?
Mr. Rey. Within the perimeter of the 500,000 acre fire
there were both areas that had been treated where fire
intensity was reduced significantly and there were also some
areas that were previously burned in an earlier fire where the
same net effect occurred and the fire burned less intensively.
Senator Smith. And so the American public should know that
where this treatment goes on, both the environment is improved,
made more fire resistant, and there were actual economic values
that were also derived from these thinning projects? Should the
American public know that?
Mr. Rey. I would hope so.
Senator Smith. And isn't it a fact that these foresters
were met by this obstruction that forest rangers did not build
but others built and there were messages greeting them, ``No
salvage here, stay the f out''? Is that what happened?
Mr. Rey. I've heard that--basically that same rendition.
Senator Smith. What are you going to do about that? I mean,
obviously the foresters didn't get in there to see this, to
evaluate it. How do you deal with that kind of stuff in the
future? Do you just have to turn around and go back or is there
a lawful way to proceed?
Mr. Rey. Oh, there's a lawful way to proceed once we have a
final decision, assuming that it's upheld by the courts and I
think it's a pretty safe bet that it's going to be challenged
in court. Assuming it's upheld by the courts then we'll
undertake to execute the project as it's defined. And we expect
that that will create some contention, that there will be
subsequent demonstrations and we'll deal with them as needed
when they occur.
Senator Smith. When they were greeting you with the
expletive, they said to stay out because this is our home. This
is their words, their home. Do they live there? Are there
people living there?
Mr. Rey. Not in the forest per se, no.
Senator Smith. So it's their home only in a symbolic way, I
suppose, not in an actual way.
Mr. Rey. In spirit.
Senator Smith. In spirit. Well, I wish you well. Thank you,
Mark, for going to Oregon. Thank you for caring. And I would
only ask if you had a comment. You know, Senator Wyden was--my
colleague, noting that there is--the money's not getting to the
ground. You correctly also noted that there is more money being
spent now to get to the ground than ever before by any
administration in the history of the American nation. What's
stopping the money from getting to the ground?
Mr. Rey. We're still pulling impediments in our
administrative processes out of the way. That's going to be a
continuing effort as we seek to make ourselves more efficient
and more effective in doing this kind of work. But I think the
one strong impression I'd like to leave the committee with is
that this is not something that's going to be solved overnight.
Even when we worked together to write the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act and you were good enough to pass it and the
President signed it last December, it was with an understanding
that this is going to be a multi-year effort that isn't going
to be fixed overnight. We're going to move as fast and as
furiously as we can but simply passing new legislation isn't
going to stop all forest fires or all environmental lawsuits
either.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Thomas. Thank you, Senator.
Well, thanks to both of you. I know you're both dedicated
to what you're doing. I hope that, you know, the first
responders are still the local folks and so on. We need to make
sure we help that and the local involvement. As we close--2
minutes each--what are your priorities? We've talked about this
broad problem. What do you think are the most important things
for us to address? Miss Scarlett?
Ms. Scarlett. Well Senator, we have touched on a number of
them today but I would say at Department of the Interior we
have two fundamental priorities. One is to get those projects
on the ground for those fuels treatments and in that regard, at
Interior we have increased our projects over 50 percent just in
three short years. In 2003 we got so much better at it that we
actually were able to spend down our carryover balances. And
we're getting a lot better at contracting and using contractors
to get the job done. And we look forward to the Stewardship
contracting, drawing value from those. So that would be our
number one priority, to get those fuels reduction projects
done, done efficiently, and to try and capture some economic
value.
The second is on the matter of our wildland fire management
and suppression cost issue. Last year we did five fire
suppression, large fire cost containment reports to try and
better understand what's driving those costs. We now have with
our Wildland Fire Leadership Council a high level panel that is
further looking at that. We understand the issues and
challenges with borrowing and as Mark said, that's not our
preferred option.
Senator Thomas. Good. Thank you. Mark? Two minutes.
Priorities.
Mr. Rey. At the end of January I met with all 120 and some
of our forest supervisors, our line managers. And I left them
with a single challenge. I told them that dealing with this
issue, with the health of our forests and rangelands, and
executing the program of treatment that's necessary to restore
their health, will define their success as 100 years before
their predecessors' success was defined through the formation
of the National Forest System. So there's only one priority,
and that's to get that work done as quickly as possible, as
safely as possible.
Senator Thomas. All right. Well, thank you very much, we
appreciate what you're doing and we'll look forward to
continuing to work with you.
Mr. Rey. Thank you.
Senator Thomas. The committee's adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
Responses to Additional Questions
----------
Department of the Interior,
Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs,
Washington, DC, July 9, 2004.
Hon. Pete V. Domenici,
Chairman, Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: Enclosed are responses prepared by the Office of
Wildland Fire Coordination to questions submitted following the May 11,
2004, hearing on Fire Preparedness of the DOI and DOA Firefighting
Agencies.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this material to the
Committee.
Sincerely,
Jane M. Lyder,
Legislative Counsel.
[Enclosure]
Question. These aircraft are critical to fighting fires in Alaska.
What will the BLM do to provide enough aerial support to combat fires
in Alaska?
Answer. For the 2004 fire season in Alaska, BLM has 68
smokejumpers, seven helicopters, four jump ships, four air attack
aircraft, three Type I crews, 44 Type II crews sponsored either by the
Federal government or the State, as well as other miscellaneous
specialists available for combating wildfire.
To supplement these resources and to address the termination of the
heavy airtankers contracts we have initiated the procurement process
for 3 CL215's (large Canadian-built, certified fire fighting aircraft,
up to 1200 gallon capacity), 3 SEAT (single engine airtanker, up to 800
gallon capacity), and 2 type II helicopters (medium size, can carry up
to 700 gallons). These aviation resources came to AK via the regular
resource order system (dispatch system) and some through the
supplemental strategy to mitigate the loss of the large airtankers.
5 P3's have been returned to service. They are available for use
anywhere in the country, depending on the National Multiagency
Coordination Group's prioritization.
Question. When I look at the Park Service's cost of fire fighting
over the last decade and compare that to the other DOI agencies and to
the Forest Service, the Park Service is always very high, why is that?
Answer. The Department does not currently have historical
firefighting cost data that would necessarily support the premise of
the question. However, improved data to make certain comparisons will
be available in the future. Beginning in FY 2004, the Department of the
Interior and the U.S. Forest Service are implementing FireCode, a new
financial management system in which the same fire incident codes will
be used by all five firefighting agencies. This will enable us to more
precisely report on the total funds spent to address a specific
wildfire incident. By using common fire incident codes, FireCode will
also enable us to determine the amount of funds spent by each agency on
a particular type of land unit, as all of the fire agencies share fire
resources across jurisdictions without reimbursement. For example, the
Bureau of Land Management may respond to fires on national park lands,
on FWS refuges, on Indian reservations, and on national forest lands.
With the FireCode information, one could calculate the average cost to
suppress a fire on each particular type of land unit, but it would not
necessarily enable one to accurately compute each agency's firefighting
costs on a per-acre basis. The unified approach to firefighting will
likely continue to create some problems in making acreage cost
comparisons for participating fire agencies.
Question. We have been working very hard to include a reserve
account in the Budget resolution to help cover the costs of emergency
fire borrowing. I want to know what you believe reasonable criteria for
fire suppression cost containment would be.
Answer. Reasonable criteria for fire suppression cost containment
would, in our view, need to consider the whole range of cost drivers
and tools for responding to wildfires. Several underlying conditions
set the stage for high fire activity and increased firefighting costs--
the accumulation of hazardous fuels, prolonged drought, and movement of
people into the wildland urban interface. Nonetheless, some aspects of
fire readiness and response can be controlled better. This year, for
example, all incident command teams on large fires will have business
advisors assigned to help ensure that firefighting forces will be
supplied in a cost efficient manner. The incident command teams will
also have strengthened contract oversight in 2004 as compared to
previous years. Incident commanders have been directed to emphasize
cost accountability when making fire response decisions. Incident
suppression cost objectives will be included as a performance measure
in Incident Management Team evaluations.
In addition to the large fire cost reviews that were begun in 2003
and will continue in 2004, the agencies are taking a much more
comprehensive view of fire suppression costs. The Wildland Fire
Leadership Council convened an independent senior-level panel of
government managers to explore the strategic issues associated with
large fire costs, including the relationship of fire to management and
land and resource management plans. This panel has conducted a thorough
literature review, interviewed many experts, and received presentations
on a multitude of related issues. The panel's findings and
recommendations will be presented to the Council this summer. We
anticipate that the panel's findings will help identify the most
significant factors driving the costs of wildland fire suppression and
key opportunities for improving cost effectiveness.
HEALTHY FORESTS RESTORATION IMPLEMENTATION
1. Ms. Scarlett, we passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act last
November and the data we have from your agencies show that in FY 2004
about half your HFRA projects will be prescribed burning about half
mechanical removal of fuels.
Question. Can you tell me how we will treat enough of the
overstocked forests if we keep trying to use prescribed burning as the
main means of treatment?
Answer. We use several methods to remove hazardous fuels from our
forests, often in combination. It is important to note that the
treatment method is not the objective, but a means to reducing fire
risk and restoring healthy forests. The projects are developed with an
eye toward achieving treatment goals in the most cost effective manner
regardless of treatment method. In forested areas, mechanical means
often precede use of prescribed fire which is usually the most cost
effective way to remove finer surface fuels.
Our use of mechanical means continues to grow. We expect to apply
mechanical treatments to about 90,000 more acres in 2004 than in 2001.
Use of mechanical methods will continue to grow in importance over time
as the private sector finds more uses for woody biomass and as the use
of stewardship contracting helps make these treatments more cost
effective.
For specific projects, the choice of treatment methods depends on a
variety of factors, including the cost of treatment, treatment goals,
vegetation types, fuel conditions, topography, settlement patterns,
habitat considerations, and climate. In national parks, for instance,
the use of prescribed fire is often determined to be more in keeping
with Congressional intent than mechanical means. Prescribed fire is
more akin to natural processes than are mechanical treatments and,
hence, closer to Congress' preservationist mandate for the National
Park Service (NPS) Thus, the NPS depends heavily on prescribed fire.
However, the NPS will use mechanical treatments when it is appropriate.
For example, the NPS used the Healthy Forests Initiative categorical
exclusion for mechanical treatment of 1,000 acres in Big Cypress
National Preserve because the vegetation being removed was in an
abandoned, overgrown agricultural field where fuel loads would have
made prescribed fire too risky. By contrast, the Bureau of Land
Management has used mechanical treatments on approximately 45% of its
fuels treatment acres since FY 2001. The BLM's multiple use mission and
the types of lands it manages often lend themselves to the use of
mechanical treatments.
______
Responses of the Forest Service to Questions From Senator Domenici
In relation to the announcement that the large airtanker aircraft
contracts have been terminated.
Question 1. In each of the last five years, how much slurry was
delivered (in gallons dropped) by the multi-engine slurry bombers, the
single engine slurry bombers, the heavy lift helicopters, the light and
medium helicopters, and Canadian water and slurry bombers?
Answer. Annual retardant usage is accumulated as total number of
gallons per air tanker base annually and not by type of aircraft. The
average number of gallons of retardant dropped over the last five year
period is 40 million gallons per year.
Question 2. In each of the last five years, how much water was
delivered (in gallons dropped) by the multi-engine slurry bombers, the
single engine slurry bombers, the heavy lift helicopters, the light and
medium helicopters, and Canadian water and slurry bombers?
Answer. Data is not kept at the national level on the amount of
water that is delivered to the numerous fires that occur on public
lands. Reports can be pulled from AMIS (Aviation Management Information
System) which could provide some information; however, the data would
reflect only gallons dropped and in some cases helicopters are dropping
a mixture of foam and water--not retardant. Please let us know if you
would like these reports.
Question 3. On average, what is the daily cost of each of the
following aircraft types (assuming you have them under long-term
contract): multi-engine heavy bomber, single engine bombers, military
Reserve C-130's, heavy lift helicopter, light and medium lift
helicopters, and Canadian water and slurry bombers?
Answer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average
Aircraft type daily cost
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Helicopters--Type 1 (EX)............................. $8,500
Large Helicopters--Type 1 (CWN)............................ $20,000
Medium Helicopter--Type 2 (EX)............................. $2,900
Medium Helicopter--Type 2 (CWN)............................ $5,470
Light Helicopter--Type 3 (All)............................. $1,000
Single Engine Air Tankers (EX)............................. $1,800
Single Engine Air Tankers (CWN)............................ $1,800
Helitankers................................................ $8,500
MAFFS...................................................... $10,000
Large Fixed Wing Airtankers................................ *$9,400
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Based on avg. daily avail. of $4,000 with 2 hrs. flight time at
$2,70Whr.
CWN--Call-When-Needed EX--Exclusive Use
Question 4. By aircraft or helicopter type, please provide the
slurry capacity of each aircraft type that the agency has contracted in
the last five years, or plans on contracting this year?
Answer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maximum # currently
suppressant Type of under
Aircraft type gallon contract/ contract/
capacity agreement agreement
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lame Helicopters--Type 1....... 2,000 EX/CWN 112
Medium Helicopter--Type 2...... 700 EX/CWN 288
Light Helicopter--Type 3....... <300 EX/CWN 217
Single Engine Air Tankers...... 800 EX/CWN 70
Helitankers.................... 2,000 EX 7
MAFFS.......................... 3,000 MOU 8
Large Fixed Wing Airtanker..... 2,550 EX 0
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CWN--Call-When-Needed EX--Exclusive Use
Question 5. Please provide us data that compare and contrast the
speed and range capabilities of the multi-engine slurry bombers, the
single engine slurry bombers, the heavy lift helicopters, the light and
medium helicopters, and Canadian water and slurry bombers.
Answer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aircraft type Average speed Range
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Airtankers (including P2V=184 knots
Canadian assets). 3=240 knots....... 500 Nautical Miles
Large Helicopters--Type 1....... 80-120 knots...... 400 Nautical Miles
Medium Helicopter--Type 2....... 98 knots.......... 250 Nautical Miles
Light Helicopter--Type 3........ 110 knots......... 300 Nautical Miles
Single Engine Air Tankers....... 150-170 knots..... 500 Nautical Miles
MAFFS........................... 236 knots......... 1,500 Nautical
Miles
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 6. In the hearing you suggested that military reserve
aircraft should be considered safe because the military has records on
each aircraft and they continue to receive manufacturer's support. You
also indicated that the FAA does not certify these aircraft. Why should
we believe that the FAA is any more comfortable with these military
aircraft, than they are with the privately contracted multi-engine
aircraft?
Answer. The current military fleet has the history and baseline
data on all of their aircraft. The commercial fleet does not have
access to nor do they maintain this level of information on their
aircraft. The FAA has no responsibility to oversee military aircraft
operations. We cannot address concerns of the FAA.
Question 7. Why are the P2Vs and P-3 Orion's, which still receive
manufacture's support from Lockheed Martin, not certifiable? And why
are the heavy lift helicopters of similar age certifiable?
Answer. These aircraft were not designed and built for specifically
dropping fire retardant. In addition, the history of these aircraft, as
mentioned previously, are not available for review to enable
certification. Helicopters were built to lift and release materials and
operate within the design intent.
Question 8. Please provide a map for the last two years that shows
where the multi-engine slurry bombers were stationed during fire
seasons. On that map indicate the working circle for each aircraft
assuming a one hour transit time, and a two hour transit time from base
to potential fires. If the aircraft were re-assigned during the year
provide maps that show the new coverage areas as those planes were
moved.
Answer. Attached are the maps showing location of airtanker bases.
This is the information we have available.
Question 9. Please also provide us a map showing where the military
reserve C-130's, heavy lift helicopters, and single engine slurry
planes will be assigned this year, and what their one hour and two hour
working circles are.
Answer. A map of this nature is not available this year as the
resources will be under national mobilization procedures and will not
be based at any one location at any given time. As national assets,
they will be moved as necessary to meet fire needs.
Question 10. In both the Monday, May 10th briefing, and in the
agencies' testimony on May 11th, it was stated that the primary mission
for the multi-engine slurry bombers is initial attack and extended
initial attack. Then you described using the heavy lift helicopters to
perform this task and suggested that these helicopters could make six
times the number of drops as the multi-engine planes. Isn't it true
that in the past helicopters have not been used for initial attack, but
have been utilized for crew support during extended initial attack and
mop up?
Answer. Helicopters are routinely used for initial and extended
attack. We conducted initial attack on 1,960 fires last year with USDA
Forest Service exclusive use contract helicopters.
Question 11. Do any of the state fire fighting organizations
utilize these multi-engine slurry bombers through state contracts, and
what effect will this have on those state agencies that maintain their
own aerial fire fighting assets?
Answer. Several states do contract for medium and large airtankers.
The following interim guidance has been issued for use of state
contracted airtankers.
Federal lands not under State protection: Unauthorized
airtankers will not be utilized.
Federal lands under State protection: State may use State-
contracted airtankers on federal lands, when the State has
formal protection responsibility so long as the State maintains
``operational control.''
Question 12. If a state contracts for multi-engine slurry bombers,
will they be allowed to send them to assist on federal fires?
Answer. See previous answer.
Question 13. On page 9 of the NTSB letter to the Secretaries the
NTSB said. ``Many of the aircraft used for public firefighting are also
used for non-public (that is civil) flights, which are governed by FAA
maintenance and airworthiness standards and are subject to FAA
oversight. For example, some of the aircraft owned by Hawkins and
Powers that are under contract to the Forest Service or Bureau of Land
Management and are therefore considered public aircraft (for
approximately 3 months of the year) are used for civil operations (and
are therefore subject to FAA oversight) during the remaining 9 months
of the year.'' They then go on to prescribe the conditions and
inspections that must be followed to keep these aircraft available for
both public use and civilian use. They clearly did not recommend the
grounding of these aircraft. Please provide additional information to
the Committee that describes why you have decided to ground these
aircraft and why you determined that developing an inspection program
would be too difficult.
Answer. Aircraft that are certified by FAA for non-public (civil)
use are under FAA oversight for that type of use. When these aircraft
serve a dual purpose, the FAA certification only applies to the civil
use. The public use of these aircraft for firefighting purposes as
described in the NTSB report, are operating outside their design intent
(i.e. were not designed for the stress of firefighting operations).
The owner operator is responsible for determining the airworthiness
of aircraft. The NTSB report recommended that the land management
agencies develop a maintenance and inspection program to determine
airworthiness and to be responsible for the program. The Forest Service
and the Department of the Interior, do not have the in-house expertise
or funding to take over these inspection and maintenance
responsibilities. We are working with the FAA to clarify the criteria,
information or methodology needed before we could take any actions to
restore any or all of the large airtankers to service. We are also
asking for their assistance on defining what type of organizational
structure and staff requirements would be needed to develop the
expertise to manage this unique and complex program.
Question 14. In your testimony, in response to a question
concerning the costs of adding additional heavy lift helicopters and
single engine slurry bombers, you suggest it would cost an additional
$26 to $46 million per year. What would it cost to put the inspection
and oversight process in place to certify the 35 multi-engine bombers?
Answer. As described in the previous question, the Forest Service
and DOI previously relied on the owner/operator to determine the
airworthiness of aircraft. The land management agencies do not have the
in-house expertise or funding to take over these inspection and
maintenance responsibilities.
The Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management worked with the
FAA and the NTSB to evaluate options and methods for returning
qualifying airtankers to service. To ensure the safety of these
aircraft, the FS, BLM and FAA engineers established criteria and
thresholds for decisions about returning aircraft to service.
There are three main areas of concern, all directly related to
airworthiness in the firefighting environment, that need to be
addressed
a. Current Condition of the Aircraft--related to inspections
to provide baseline data on the condition of the aircraft.
b. Adequacy of the maintenance and inspection programs for
continued airworthiness in the firefighting environment--the
Phase 1 recommendations from Sandia National Laboratories were
only meant to be a starting point for developing maintenance
and inspection programs to prevent fatigue related structural
failures. The NTSB recommendations established higher standards
against which return to service decisions will be evaluated.
c. Operational life limit of aircraft--establishing a valid
life limit and determining where each aircraft is in relation
to its life limit. Some airtanker structures may already have
exceeded this fatigue life limit from prolonged firefighting
operations.
2. After the documentation is received on each aircraft, the Forest
Service, BLM and FAA qualified Designated Engineering Representatives
(DERs) will analyze the information to evaluate the airworthiness of
the aircraft and make a recommendation as to its return to service.
That recommendation will be reviewed by the FAA for concurrence,
and then forwarded to the NTSB for an opinion as to whether the
documentation and analysis meet the intent of the safety
recommendations issued April 23, 2004.
Question 15. Would it be possible to assign FAA and or military
aircraft inspection personnel to this task until such time as the
Forest Service and DOI agencies develop these capabilities?
Answer. As we stated earlier, we are working with the FAA to
clarify what criteria, information or methodology needed before we take
any actions to restore any or all of the large airtankers to service.
We are also asking for their assistance on defining what type of
organizational structure and staff requirements would be needed to
develop the expertise to manage this unique and complex program.
Question 16. When you convert to heavy lift helicopters, why won't
the FAA and NTSB require that you develop a similar inspection program
for the time that the heavy lift helicopters are in public-use status?
Answer. There is already a required FAA time-change inspection
program for every helicopter that we contract. This program requires
the replacement of rotor blades and critical components including the
main rotor. Helicopters used for firefighting are operating within
their design capabilities.
Question 17. After the Blue Ribbon Report the Forest Service and
the Sandia Lab examined the maintenance records of all 33 or 35 multi-
engine slurry aircraft and cleared them to continue flying last season.
What specifically was found in those inspections that helped lead the
agency to its decision to discontinue the use of these aircraft?
Answer. Inspections were completed by the operators following
criteria that was developed by Sandia Labs and funded by the Forest
Service. The agencies discontinued the use of large airtankers not
because the inspections were not carried out, but rather because the
NTSB determined the inspections were not adequate to assure safe
operations.
Additional Questions from Senator Domenici
Question 1. I need to better understand what the grounding of these
fire bombers will mean to your efforts to fight fires this summer.
Where will you find the heavy lift helicopters and single engine fire
bombers to fill in?
Answer. The result of the loss of the airtanker fleet is the rapid
response of air assets that can fly fast and cover large amount of
territory and have national mobilization capability. Large airtankers
were primarily used for initial attack and extended initial attack.
Without the large airtankers our strategy will include greater
prioritization for protection of high-value resources and the reliance
on other aviation assets to maintain our aerial resource capability.
There will be a greater reliance on single engine air tankers (SEATS),
large and medium helicopters, state aviation assets, as well as MAFFS
for the remainder of the fire season. On the many thousands of initial
attack fires, airtankers are not generally used. Airtankers are used on
less than 20% of all wildland fires. Additional assets are already
under contract or are being added to exclusive use contracts as needs
warrant it.
Question 2. How much more money will this cost, as compared to the
cost of heavy bombers that you used to rely on?
Answer. Our estimates based on the National Multiagency
Coordinating Group (NMAC) Aerial Operations Strategy for this season is
that $66.6 million (USDA Forest Service--$48.0 million and Department
of Interior land management agencies--$18.6 million plus $8 million for
MACFFS to be shared by the agencies based on usage.) in additional
costs will be required to acquire further aerial assets to supplement
the loss of large airtankers.
Question 3. Do you expect to utilize more military C-130's this
year? If the C-130's that the contractors provided are not safe why do
we consider the military reserve aircraft that get called to the fires
to be safe?
Answer. We will be utilizing up to eight military C-130 E and H
model aircraft equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System
(MAFFS) as needed. The Department of Defense is responsible for
airworthiness inspections and maintenance of these aircraft. The C-130E
and H models are newer, more modern aircraft compared to the C-130A
aircraft that have been used by contractors.
Question 4. Mr. Rey--last year you only burned 3.9 million acres
and had only 63,000 fire starts (the lowest number since 1922) but your
agency and the DOI agencies spent over $1.2 billion. What specific
steps have you taken to control your fire suppression costs?
Answer. The Administration shares your concern with the costs of
wildfire suppression. With respect to planning for similar years, the
Departments will continue to implement cost reduction actions stemming
from two reports released in the Spring 2003 (Large Fire Cost Reduction
Action Plan and the Fire and Aviation Management 2003 Operations Action
Plan). Specific actions include:
The Departments have established wildland fire cost
oversight teams. We will continue to use large fire cost
containment oversight teams on those incidents that meet
certain size, cost, and duration criteria. The teams review the
decisionmaking processes of large incidents. In September 2003,
the teams released the Consolidation of 2003 National and
Regional Large Incident Strategic Assessment and Oversight
Review Key Findings. The report summarizes the key findings of
the teams and makes recommendations to improve suppression cost
containment and other wildfire management efforts. The
Departments will implement recommendations contained in the
2003 report and continue to conduct national cost containment
reviews on selected incidents.
The Departments are developing improved Decision Support
Systems. Managers are clarifying the definition of the least
cost suppression alternatives within decision support models
and establishing this alternative as the default option for
suppression activities for a given incident.
The Departments are developing improved Fire Management
Plans (FMPs). The improved FMPs will link updated geospatially-
based fire management plans to the National Fire Plan
Operations & Reporting System (NFPORS) database. This link will
improve information manager's ability to predict more accurate
wildfire conditions that will serve as the basis for a
significant and measurable increase in the utilization of
Wildland Fire Use fires, as appropriate.
Following the findings of the Administration's Program
Assessment Rating Tool (PART) the agency has focused on
improved performance with cost containment studies.
The Departments are working with their partners to develop a
process through which rural fire department training,
experience, and qualifications can be recognized as equivalent
to National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) qualifications.
Additionally, the President's Budget provides Department
specific cost containment incentives, such as the Forest
Service's authority to allocate no less than 50 percent of
suppression funds to the field and providing for retention of
unobligated balances to perform vegetative treatments.
The President's Budget also includes cost containment
actions and performance measures, expands the use of risk
mitigation, updates fire management plans to increase wildland
fire use, and implements suppression cost savings incentives.
The Forest Service and DOI will also establish and use cost
containment performance measures as well as actions, together
with targets and milestones. These agencies will also review
state cost share agreements to ensure that the Federal
government is not paying a disproportionately high share of
suppression costs.
Finally, the President's Budget requires agencies to
stratify wildfire incidents by scope and extent to provide a
range of alternatives for each stratum on the basis of risk
assessment together with guidance to line officers concerning
the appropriate application of suppression resources for each
stratum based on optimal wildfire risk mitigation. In this
manner, appropriate resources will be allocated on the most
efficacious manner.
The Departments of Agriculture and the Interior will continue to
expand and enhance cost containment measures, such as those mentioned
above. These improvements, however, only address the efficiency of fire
suppression operations: not the fundamental cause of the extensive
number and severity of wildfires over the last five years. We cannot
contain wildfire suppression costs unless we address the cause of
catastrophic large wildfires.
The most important cost containment effort is full implementation
of the President's Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI). Implementation of
the administrative and legislation tools of the HFI; Healthy Forests
Restoration Act, Stewardship Contracting authority, new NEPA procedures
and ESA regulations, amended regulations to the Appeals Reform Act, and
government and agency guidance; work in tandem to achieve more
effective and efficient fuel reduction. Together they are designed to
restore our forests to healthy, natural conditions and assist in
executing the core components of the National Fire Plan.
Question 5. How much money did you expend after October 1st on the
California fires? Those costs will have to be paid out of this year's
budget, isn't that correct?
Answer. Yes, the funds expended for the Southern California fires
came out of the FY2004 Suppression accounts. State and Federal agencies
spent $157 million to control the fires in Southern California. Of the
total, Forest Service funds amounted to $86 million in suppression
funds and $11 million in Burned Area Rehabilitation Team (BAER) funds.
A portion of these expenditures will be reimbursed by the State of
California under agreements in place.
Question 6. If we have another 7 million acre fire year, how much
additional funding will be needed to cover the cost of the extra heavy
lift helicopters and single-engine slurry bombers that you are telling
us will be needed to fill in for the heavy bombers?
Answer. Our estimate based on the National Multiagency Coordinating
Group (NMAC) Aerial Operations Strategy for this season includes $66.6
million in additional costs that will be required to acquire further
aerial assets to supplement aerial firefighting capacity associated
with the cancellation of large airtanker contracts.
Question 7. Over 1.3 million acres of prescribed burning (over 75%
in the southeastern United States) in FY2004 and only 227,000 acres of
mechanical fuel removal. How do we make progress on the overall healthy
forest problem using that strategy?
Answer. We will continue to use the full range of options available
to us to achieve our goal of restoring fire adapted ecosystems through
the appropriate use of mechanical thinning, prescribed fire, wildland
use fire and other programs. We have a highly effective and cost
efficient program in the Southeast United States to maintain a
vegetation regime that is fast growing and potentially a high fire
hazard if it is not continually maintained. We currently spend $33
million or 13% of the total hazardous fuels dollars available to us to
accomplish 963,315 acres of hazardous fuels reduction in the SE. This
is 60% of our total accomplished acres nationwide. We are targeting any
increases in hazardous fuels funding towards hazardous fuel treatments
in the Western states to achieve our goals. To achieve more acres
treated with mechanical thinning, we will seek opportunities to treat
acres through programs and projects such as stewardship contracting,
biomass utilization and partnerships with other Federal agencies,
tribes and local governments.
As illustrated in the following chart for FY 2003, average per acre
costs for prescribed burns compare favorably with other costs:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cost per
Treatment/event type Acres Dollars spent acre
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mechanical Treatments............. 201,394 $82,435,100 $409
Prescribed Burns.................. 1,250,836 $67,446,900 $54
Wildfire Suppression.............. 1,287,907 $1,023,302,000 $795
Wildland Fire Use................. 290,963 $11,384,404 $39
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our efforts are moving to develop a method that quantifies, in a
more systematic way, the relative contributions of proposed hazardous
fuels projects toward reducing wildfire risks compared to the costs of
each project. This process would analyze tradeoffs between investments
for fuels treatments and fire preparedness to achieve the most
effective fire management program at any budget level. For WUI
projects, the focus will be on lives and infrastructure risks. For
projects outside the WUI, the focus will be on prioritizing areas based
on their ecological significance and relative risk.
Responses of the Forest Service to Questions From Senator Jeff Bingaman
Question 1. How many National Forests currently have Wildland Fire
Use plans in place and how many acres do they cover? Please provide the
data for each National Forest by State.
Answer. Forty-five forests have Fire Management Plans allowing
wildland fire use. See the attached table for a listing of forests (by
state) with Fire Management plans allowing wildland fire use. The Fire
Management Plans do not list the number of acres available for Wildland
Fire Use.
Question 2. Will Wildland Fire Use be a required component of each
National Forest's Fire Plan that will be updated by the end of the
year? If not, what are the criteria that must be met to exclude
Wildland Fire Use from a Fire Plan?
Answer. Wildland Fire Use is not a required component of each
National Forest Fire Management Plan. There are no criteria ``to
exclude fire use'' from a National Forest Fire Management Plan. At this
time, each National Forest must make an individual decision on whether
or not to incorporate Wildland Fire Use as an option for an Appropriate
Management Response to a natural ignition. The decision to include or
exclude wildland fire use should be part of the scoping and alternative
development process in Forest Land and Resource Management Planning.
Question 3. What official Wildland Fire Use guidance and directives
are available to Supervisors? Please provide copies.
Answer. Guidance for implementation of wildland fire use exists in
the following interagency guide: Wildland and Prescribed Fire
Management Policy Implementation Procedures Reference Guide. Dave
Bunnell and Tom Zimmerman. 1998. Forest Service Manual 5140 provides
additional direction on planning and implementation of wildland fire
use.
Question 4. Is each unit required to keep uniform Wildland Fire Use
statistics? If so, what statistics are kept, and are they compiled and
published?
Answer. The National Fire Plan Operation and Reporting System
(NFPORS), tracks acres of wildland fire use accomplished. Those fires
managed for resource benefit are included in the wildfire reporting
system (Form FS 5100-29), where the lands burned are covered by a land
use plan in which fire use has been integrated into the Forests Land
Management Resource Plan. However, this system currently does not
differentiate wildland fire use from all other wildfires. The Forest
Service accounting system (FFIS) tracks expenditures for wildland fire
use.
Question 5. How many acres of National Forest land was wildland
fire used for resource benefits during each of the last ten years?
2003--290,963 acres
2002--65,687 acres
2001--60,672 acres
2000--37,889 acres
1999--33,891 acres
1998--48,432 acres
Question 6. What is the average cost per acre of mechanical fuel
treatments, prescribed burns, emergency wildfire suppression, and
Wildland Fire Use on National Forests?
Answer. For FY03 average per acre costs were:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cost per
Treatment/event type Acres Dollars spent acre
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mechanical Treatments............. 201,394 $82,435,100 $409
Prescribed Burns.................. 1,250,836 $67,446,900 $54
Wildfire Suppression.............. 1,287,907 $1,023,302,000 $795
Wildland Fire Use................. 290,963 $11,384,404 $39
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question 7. What mechanisms are in place to coordinate Wildland
Fire Use policies, plans, and information collection among the Forest
Service and Department of the Interior land management agencies?
Answer. The Interagency Fuels Committee is working on aligning fire
use policies among the Forest Service and Interior wildland management
agencies. At this time only minor differences exist. These differences
should be eliminated by 2005.
Question 8. How many dollars has the Forest Service spent
specifically on carrying out Wildland Fire Use projects for each of the
last 5 years?
FY03--$11,384,404
FY02--$4,156,325
FY01--$2,815,600
FY00--$893,917
FY99--$330,047
Question 9. What is the Forest Service's plan to make up for the
lost fire suppression capability resulting from the grounding of the
large airtanker feet?
Answer. The following table is the 2004 Interagency Plan to
compensate for the 33 airtankers we terminated on May 10, 2004.
The plan reflects additional aerial assets that will remain
dedicated to the firefighting mission through the fire season. Other
assets remain available that will be called upon, as the fire danger
conditions warrant.
This plan was developed with an objective to maintain an
approximately-98% success rate on initial attack.
NUMBER (BY MONTH) AND ESTIMATED COST OF ADDITIONAL ASSETS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimated
Asset type June July August September cost
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SEATs........................................................ 46 39 43 36 $8,992,800
T1 Helicopter................................................ 18 26 21 20 32,256,000
T2 Helicopter................................................ 33 45 33 24 12,384,000
T2 H-Seat offset............................................. ...... 12 3 .......... 2,790,000
CL-215....................................................... 2 2 2 2 2,200,000
Air Attack Group Supervisor.................................. ...... ...... ........ .......... 1,200,000
MUFFS........................................................ (*) (*) (*) (*) 8,000,000
Total Estimated Cost of Additional Assets.................. ...... ...... ........ .......... $66,622,800
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The total represents the amount needed for ALL agencies. The breakdown is:
$40,000,000 of the total will be funded by USDA Forest Service
$18,622,800 of the total will be funded by Department of Interior Bureaus
$8,000,000 for MUFFS, will be committed to by the USDA Forest Service; actual charges will be based on the use
by agency.
* 8 MAFFS units are available to be deployed as needed
COMPARATIVE DELIVERY CAPABILITY (AIR TANKERS VS. OTHER SUPPRESSANT DELIVERY RESOURCES)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Change
Average from 2003 Efficiency Capacity in
Resource type capacity fire multiplier gallons per
season hour
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contract Airtankers............................................. 2500 (33) 1 82500
MAFFS........................................................... 3000 <8> 1 24000
SEAT............................................................ 650 16 1.5 15600
Helitanker...................................................... 2000 5 6 60000
Large Helicopter................................................ 1000 17 6 102000
Medium Helicopter............................................... 250 11 6 16500
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The termination of the large airtanker contract produced a
lost capacity of approximately 82,500 gallons per hour. MAFFS
provided an additional 24,000 gallons per hour
With the implementation of the Airtanker Replacement
Strategy the gallons per hour (gph) capacity will be restored
by 194,100 for net gain of 111,600 gph.
The efficiency multiplier indicates the number of cycles to
the fire that can be expected by the resource.
WILDLAND FIRE USE PLANS BY STATE AND FOREST
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wildland fire use
State Forest plan (yes/no)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alabama......................... National Forests No
of Alabama.
Alaska.......................... Chugach........... No
Tongass........... No
Arizona......................... Apache-Sitgreaves. Yes
Coconino.......... No
Coronado.......... Yes
Kaibab............ Yes
Prescott.......... No
Tonto............. Yes
Arkansas........................ Ouchita........... No
Ozark-St Francis.. No
California...................... Angeles........... No
Cleveland......... No
Eldorado.......... Yes
Inyo.............. Yes
Klamath........... Yes
Lake Tahoe Basin No
MU.
Lassen............ Yes
Los Padres........ No
Mendocino......... No
Modoc............. Yes
Plumas............ No
San Bernadi....... No
Sequoia........... Yes
Shasta-Trinity.... Yes
Sierra............ Yes
Six Rivers........ No
Stanislaus........ Yes
Tahoe............. Yes
Colorado........................ Arapaho and Yes
Roosevelt, Pawnee
NG.
Grand Mesa, No
Uncomphagre,
Gunnison.
Pike & San Isabel No
NF.
Rio Grande........ Yes
San Juan.......... Yes
White River....... Yes
Delaware
Florida......................... Florida National Yes
Forests.
Georgia......................... Chattahoochee and No
Oconee.
Hawaii
Idaho........................... Boise............. Yes
Caribou-Targhee... Yes
Clearwater........ Yes
Idaho Panhandle... No
Nez Perce......... Yes
Payette........... Yes
Salmon-Challis.... Yes
Sawtooth.......... Yes
Illinois........................ Midewin........... No
Shawnee........... No
Indiana......................... Hoosier........... No
Iowa
Kansas.......................... Commanche NG...... No
Kentucky........................ Daniel Boone...... No
Land Between the No
Lakes.
Louisiana....................... Kisatchie......... No
Maine........................... White Mountain-- No
see NH.
Maryland
Massachusetts
Mississippi..................... National Forests No
in Mississippi.
Michigan........................ Hiawatha.......... No
Huron-Manistee.... No
Ottawa............ No
Minnesota....................... Chippewa.......... No
Superior.......... Yes
Missouri........................ Mark Twain........ No
Montana......................... Beaverhead- Yes
Deerlodge.
Bitterroot........ Yes
Custer............ Yes
Flathead.......... Yes
Gallatin.......... Yes
Helena............ Yes
Kootenai.......... No
Lewis and Clark... Yes
Lolo.............. Yes
Nebraska........................ Nebraska and Sam No
McKelvie NF.
Buffalo Gap, Fort No
Pierre and Oglala
NG.
Nevada.......................... Humboldt-Toiyabe.. No
New Hampshire................... White Mountain.... No
New Jersey
New York........................ Green Mt and No
Finger Lakes--see
VT.
New Mexico...................... Carson............ No
Cibola............ No
Gila.............. Yes
Lincoln........... No
Santa Fe.......... No
North Carolina.................. National Forests No
in North Carolina.
North Dakota.................... Dakota Prairie No
Grasslands.
Ohio............................ Wayne............. No
Oklahoma
Oregon.......................... Deschutes......... No
Fremont-Winema.... No
Malheur........... No
Mt Hood........... No
Ochoco............ No
Rogue River and No
Siskiyou.
Siuslaw........... No
Umatilla.......... No
Umpqua............ No
Wallowa-Whitman... Yes
Willamette........ No
Pennsylvania.................... Allegheny......... No
Puerto Rico..................... Caribbean......... No
Rhode Island
South Carolina.................. Francis Marion and No
Sumter.
South Dakota.................... Black Hills....... No
Tennessee....................... Cherokee.......... No
Texas........................... National Forests No
in Texas.
Utah............................ Ashley............ Yes
Dixie............. Yes
Fishlake.......... Yes
Manti-La Sal...... Yes
Uinta............. Yes
Wasatch-Cache..... Yes
Vermont......................... Green Mountain and No
Finger Lakes.
Virginia........................ George Washington No
and Jefferson.
Washington...................... Colville.......... No
Gifford Pinchot... No
Mt Baker- No
Snoqualmie.
Okanogan and Yes
Wenatchee.
Olympic........... No
West Virginia................... Monongahela....... No
Wisconsin....................... Chequemegon- No
Nicolet.
Wyoming......................... Bighorn........... No
Bridger-Teton..... Yes
Medicine Bow and No
Routt NF.
Thunder Basin NG.. No
Shoshone.......... No
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Responses of the Forest Service to Questions From Senator Murkowski
Question 1. With the recent announcement of the USDA Forest Service
and the Department of the Interior to forgo the use of large fixed-
winged contracted airtankers for fire suppression for the remainder of
the 2004 fire season, what is the Administration doing to alleviate any
possible impacts to fire fighting capabilities in the State of Alaska?
What is each agency's on-the-ground plan to help the State? I would
like a specific plan of action by each federal agency.
Answer. Specifically for the State of Alaska, the BLM has been
authorized to order 2 CL-215s, one Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT) and
one medium helicopter to replace the capacity lost when the large
airtankers became unavailable. States can continue to utilize on
federal lands, the type of large airtankers that had been terminated on
federal contracts, if the federal lands are under state suppression
protection and as long as the state maintains operational control. We
accept Canadian certification for the same ``purpose built aircraft''
we use such as the CL-215, 415 and AT-802s. What we are not accepting
are the certifications of the same make/model of aircraft that were
terminated under the federal large airtanker contract.
Question 2. Please explain why the Department of the Interior and
the USFS do not utilize a five-year average to determine fire
suppression costs and needs for upcoming fiscal years?
Answer. We have traditionally used the 10 year average to spread
out fire suppression costs because they include more years of
historical data that smooth out fluctuations in economic conditions
from year to year. Truncating the data at a five-year point in time
introduces bias into the calculation. This bias is particularly acute
when the more limited five-year data represents on the one hand years
with the highest cost suppression or on the other years with unusually
low suppression costs. If we went to a five year average, the last few
years have had high costs. But if we used the five-average following
years of low costs, we would be significantly underfunding suppression.
As a result, the five-year average produces wide ranges of variability
that would actually support an appropriation request that either is
much higher or much lower than what is needed.
Question 3. Please explain why is there not a greater priority for
funding in the FY 2005 budget regarding restoration & rehabilitation
work, work that is critical to avoid exhorbatant costs of suppressing
fires each year? The Rehabilitation and Restoration Program under the
Wildland Fire Management Account is decreased for this Fiscal Year
request.
Answer. The President's Budget proposes $3.0 million dollars in FY
05 for Rehabilitation and Restoration. Critical rehabilitation work not
covered by the Fire Rehabilitation budget line item in the Wildland
Fire Management appropriation will be addressed by utilizing regularly
appropriated funds and carryover funds from prior years including any
funds that were appropriated for repayment of funds transferred for
fire suppression. The critical rehabilitation and restoration work will
be funded from several of the various National Forest System budget
line items, Capital Improvement and Maintenance budget line items, as
well as, from the Permanent Appropriations and Trust Funds. The $3.9
million decrease from the FY 2004 enacted level is modest when compared
to the $445 million in rehabilitation work that the Forest Service has
estimated will be funded through regularly appropriated funds.
Responses of the Forest Service to Questions From Senator Akaka
Another fire season is approaching and I am concerned about
adequate funding to enable fuels reduction projects to be completed and
fire fighters to do their job on the ground. I am also concerned about
the costs of outsourcing studies, because in FY 2004 the Forest Service
spent $72 million, according to analyses by the National Federation of
Federal Employees; yet no funds were requested for outsourcing
activities for FY 2005.
(1) As standard operating procedure, the USFS reprograms funding
from other accounts and projects to cover the perpetually underfunded
fire fighting accounts. I would like to know how much of the costs for
the competitive sourcing studies and implementation come from projects
or funding to fight or prevent fires, or from Healthy Forest Initiative
funding.
If the answer is ``no funds will be transferred''
(2) If NO FUNDS are to be reprogrammed from the aforementioned
accounts, please provide information on which accounts and projects
will have funds reprogrammed from them to reimburse the USFS for fire
fighting activities, and an estimate of how much will be required from
each account.
Answer. As reported in the 2005 Budget Justification, the Forest
Service estimates a cost of $16.3 million for Competitive Sourcing
costs, not $72 million as quoted by National Federation of Federal
Employees.
Competitive sourcing studies and implementation are funded from a
variety of sources depending on the work being studied. Work being
studied that is defined as direct project work gets paid for out of the
funds appropriated for that kind of project. Work being studied that is
defined as indirect or administrative work gets charged to a pool of
funds similar to Forest Service indirect costs. For example, Facility
Maintenance studies were paid for out of Capital Improvement and
Maintenance-Facilities funds. So far, fire fighting has not been
studied and firefighting funds have not been used for any studies
completed to date. The Investment Technology (IT) study, which is still
underway, has been based on a formula which assigns costs to programs
in proportion to direct permanent FTEs. As a result, fire preparedness
funding, hazardous fuels funds and programs associated with Healthy
Forests Initiative were used to pay for the IT study. Fire fighting
funds are excluded from costs pools and from the IT study. The total
cost for the IT study and the amount paid from various programs is not
yet known.
It is not possible to say with certainty whether funds will be
transferred for Fire Fighting activities this year as it is dependent
on the severity of the fire season and whether the appropriated funds
will be sufficient for the needs. We have not yet identified areas from
which fire suppression funds would be transferred from for this fiscal
year.