[Senate Hearing 114-331]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-331
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT, THE IMPACT OF
FIRES ON COMMUNITIES, AND POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE IN FIRE
OPERATIONS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 5, 2015
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
STEVE DAINES, Montana AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
CORY GARDNER, Colorado MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia
Karen K. Billups, Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Chief Counsel
Lucy Murfitt, Senior Counsel and Natural Resources Policy Director
Angela Becker-Dippmann, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Bryan Petit, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman, and a U.S. Senator from Alaska... 1
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, Ranking Member, and a U.S. Senator from
Washington..................................................... 2
WITNESSES
Tidwell, Thomas, Chief, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of
Agriculture.................................................... 15
Pyne, Dr. Stephen, Regents' Professor, Distinguished
Sustainability Scholar, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State
University..................................................... 23
Hood, Dr. Sharon, Post-Doctoral Researcher, College of Forestry
and Conservation, University of Montana........................ 28
Eisele, Robert, Watershed and Fire Analyst, County of San Diego,
California (Retired)........................................... 38
Hallin, Bruce, Director, Water Rights and Contracts, Salt River
Project........................................................ 53
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
Letter for the Record........................................ 125
Cantwell, Hon. Maria
Opening Statement............................................ 2
Calkin et al, Forest Ecosystems 2015 Review.................. 4
Caplin, Michael
Letter for the Record........................................ 127
Eisele, Robert
Opening Statement............................................ 38
Written Testimony............................................ 40
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 119
Hallin, Bruce
Opening Statement............................................ 53
Written Testimony............................................ 55
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 123
Hood, Dr. Sharon
Opening Statement............................................ 28
Written Testimony............................................ 30
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 115
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Partner Caucus on Fire Suppression Funding Solutions
Letter for the Record........................................ 185
Placer County Water Agency
Statement for the Record..................................... 190
Pyne, Dr. Stephen
Opening Statement............................................ 23
Written Testimony............................................ 25
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 108
Tidwell, Thomas
Opening Statement............................................ 15
Written Testimony............................................ 17
Responses to Questions from Senator Risch
Chart entitled ``U.S. Forest Service Regions 1 and 4:
Projects in Designated Insect and Disease Areas in Idaho
thru FY 2019/20''.......................................... 79
Chart entitled ``Projects in Idaho Occurring within Section
602 Designated Landscapes FY 2015-2019''................... 82
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 94
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S ROLE IN WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT, THE IMPACT OF
FIRES ON COMMUNITIES, AND POTENTIAL IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE IN FIRE
OPERATIONS
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TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2015
U.S. Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa
Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI, U.S. SENATOR FROM
ALASKA
The Chairman. Good morning. We will call to order the
Energy Committee hearing this morning. Welcome everyone.
We are discussing logistics here because we theoretically
have a vote at 10:15. It is my intention to offer my opening
statement and then turn to the Ranking Member for hers. If in
fact they have called a vote at that point in time, I think
what we will do is just take a quick break and go vote, so we
can come back and hear the testimony from our witnesses this
morning.
Obviously this is a very important issue to all of us
around the country. We are here to examine our wildfire
management policies including the impacts of wildfire on
communities and our current fire operations. Unfortunately
today may be a day where we struggle to find a whole lot that
is positive about all of this.
Over the last 50 years we have seen a rapid escalation in
the size, frequency and severity of wildfires. The most often
cited causes are severe drought, a changing climate, hazardous
fuel buildup due in part to decades of fire exclusion, insect
and disease infestation and an explosion of non-native invasive
species.
These are big problems. They are daunting problems, and
they are problems that are not easily going away.
We have already seen the consequences unfold firsthand in
my home state of Alaska. Last May we had the Funny River Fire
just about this time actually, mid-May. It burned through the
Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and spread smoke as far away as
Fairbanks, more than 500 miles away.
The fire burned nearly 200,000 acres, or 300 square miles,
before it was finally extinguished. It was the second largest
ever recorded on the Kenai Peninsula. It threatened Kasilof,
Sterling and lower Skilak Lake forcing residents of those
communities to evacuate. We are all thankful that there were no
apparent fatalities.
The Funny River Fire was likely started by human activity,
but the area has also changed dramatically in the last 20 years
due in part to mass spruce bark beetle kill. Grasses have
replaced forests and those grasses are simply more susceptible
to fire. More than half of the peninsula's total forested land,
nearly a million acres, has been lost which is, of course, a
worrisome sign for the future.
Already this year the concern back home is that we will
have an aggressive fire season. We have very low snowfall
throughout the state, and it is dry. I was in Fairbanks this
weekend, and I cannot recall a time on the first of May when
not only the rivers are out but there is no snow pack anywhere.
The same factors that we are seeing up north and in the
peninsula that are increasing the size, frequency and severity
of wildfires are also driving up wildfire suppression costs
both in actual dollars and as a portion of the total budget of
the Forest Service. Beyond that the expansion of the Wildland
Urban Interface, the WUI, and fire operation strategies and
tactics cannot be overlooked. According to a recent USDA
Inspector General report, 50 to 95 percent of Forest Service
suppression costs were attributable to the defense of private
property, much of which is located in the Wildland Urban
Interface.
It is looking more and more like the Forest Service is
morphing into an emergency fire service that throws everything
that it has at every wildfire whether effective or not. Last
year was a good example. The Forest Service spent $200 million
more on suppression than it spent on average over the last ten
years despite there being less than half the number of fires,
less than half the number of acres burned and less than half
the number of homes burned.
We need to see a paradigm shift from fire control at all
costs to actual fire management. It is my hope that we can
implement a wildfire policy that responsibly funds wildfire
suppression needs, ends the unsustainable practice of fire
borrowing, helps Fire Wise our communities and makes the
necessary investments in a full suite of fuel treatments.
These will be my policy goals here in the Committee. It
will not be easy to achieve them, but if we do I think we
create fire resilient landscapes in which wildfires can occur
without such devastating consequences for our lands, our
communities and for our budgets.
I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses here this
morning. Thank you all.
Senator Cantwell, we will now turn to you for your
comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for
calling this important hearing. I, too, want to thank the
witnesses for joining us today.
The fire season is upon us, and we are looking to you as
experts to tell us how we can better prepare for this year's
fire season.
For some time now the Committee has heard time and again
that our fires are getting noticeably worse. The extreme
weather conditions, the amount of hazardous fuel in our
forests, suboptimal management schemes and an increasing inter
urban wildland interface, as the Chair was saying, are
combining to produce more lethal fires. So the people in my
state are all too familiar with this and want to know what we
can do to better prepare.
Throughout the country we saw fires, but, I think, the
State of Washington was probably the most hard hit. I see Chief
Tidwell nodding his head. We had more than twice the average in
number of acres burned across the northwest. Last July
Washington suffered the Carlton Complex Fire. We spent a lot of
time talking to people in the community. This fire alone burned
149,000 acres in a single day. It burned an average of five
acres per second for 24 hours straight. So with the combination
of extreme weather and this fire, over 353 homes were lost.
Despite many efforts for people to coordinate resources,
the people in those towns lacked the power of communication for
weeks. Because of downed telephone lines, homeowners were not
able to call to warn about the continued encroaching fires.
Instead police had to drive around from town to town calling
for evacuation from their vehicles using a megaphone.
One thing that I will be calling for is better coordination
between the Forest Service and FEMA on communication responses
during these natural disasters. If they are becoming worse, we
need better memorandums of understanding that require
communications be set up right away so that our communities can
continue to deal with these disasters.
I know that we can get ahead of these issues, and as the
Chair mentioned, we need more hazardous fuel reduction in the
wildland urban interface. We need to figure out how to use
resulting biomass to offset these costs. I know we are going to
hear testimony about that today, and I look forward to it.
I am also eager to hear from the witnesses on more
prescribed fire burns. Also we need to address fresh ideas on
how to fund Forest Service efforts to protect our communities.
Senator Wyden, as we know, has introduced legislation on this.
I am happy to be a co-sponsor, and I look forward to discussing
that.
The science is clearly telling us that wildfires are not
behaving the same way they have in the past decades. The
witnesses will talk more about why this is, but I want to make
sure that we discuss today what our response is going to be to
this evolving problem.
Researchers from the Forest Service, just last week,
published a major scientific report. The report made it clear
that if we were ever going to get ahead of the problem, the
Forest Service needs to respond to wildfires in a fundamentally
different way.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
To quote the report: ``Our modern wildfire problems derive
from a self-reinforcing cycle of counter-effective actions.''
We cannot keep using the same tired approaches that we have
for the last 100 years. We need to make sure we are focusing on
getting different results.
Common sense tells us that a response needs to be modified
now that the problem is different. The Forest Service report
does a great job of summing up what the Forest Service needs to
do. The report says that altering the current trajectory will
require a total system transformation. It bluntly states that
maintaining the status quo will actually increase wildland
fires, increase the losses we suffer from wildfires, and
significantly affect the Forest Service's ability to meet its
core mission.
So we need new solutions. I am certainly going to work with
the Chair and my colleagues here on the Committee over the next
few months to find some of those solutions. I see four areas
ripe for us to work on.
First, we need to do what we can to reduce the probability
of catastrophic fires. We need to see at least double the
amount of hazardous fuel treatments and double the amount of
prescribed fire.
Second, fighting large wildland fires is becoming very
expensive. Since 2000 the Federal Government has spent nearly
$24 billion just fighting the large wildfires. We need to
ensure that Federal agencies have the money necessary to
protect our communities, and we need to treat large wildfires
differently in our budget.
Third, we need to make sure that spending and the
management on the ground is being done to ensure
accountability. We have seen questions about spending practices
in the media, and we need to make sure that we are
incentivizing the right kind of cost savings in the budget.
Finally, but most importantly, as I mentioned earlier, the
assistance communities receive after the wildfire has started
needs to be different. The assistance needs to show up quicker,
and the assistance needs to be tailored to the issues that are
being raised.
The Federal Government is responding to a new type of
disaster where these events are blowing up in greater degree
and reaching communities with unbelievable lightning speed. We
need to have more proactive, upfront coordination with our
Federal agencies--the Forest Service and FEMA, for example--in
delivering real time communications and making sure that the
resources, and I know the Chief will address this, are actually
on the ground.
The fire season forecast came out last week, and it's
particularly troubling for our state. I hope the Forest Service
is ready to help, and I hope FEMA will work to stage things
like generators and assistance equipment closer to these areas
so that they can respond more quickly.
Again, Madam Chair, thank you so much for this hearing. I
look forward to the witnesses, and I look forward to working
with our Committee to try to institute some new approaches.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
Let's go ahead and get started with our witnesses.
Depending on what happens with the vote we may just keep
powering through or we may take a pause in the hearing.
I would like to welcome all of our witnesses before the
Committee, particularly you, Chief Tidwell. I appreciate your
leadership at the U.S. Forest Service. Next to Chief Tidwell we
have Dr. Stephen Pyne who is a Regents' Professor at the School
of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Dr. Sharon Hood
is with us this morning, and she is a post-doctoral researcher
at the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University
of Montana. We also have Mr. Bob Eisele. Am I pronouncing that
correct?
Mr. Eisele. Eisele.
The Chairman. Eisele, okay. Mr. Eisele is the Watershed and
Fire Analyst at the County of San Diego, California. I
understand you are retired, so it is great to have you with us.
Finally, we have Mr. Bruce Hallin, who is the Director of Water
Rights and Contracts at the Salt River Project.
Chief, if we can begin with you. To each of the witnesses,
we would ask that you try to limit your testimony to five
minutes. Your full statement will be included as part of the
record, but we look forward to your comments and the
opportunity to ask questions afterwards.
Chief, good morning.
STATEMENT OF THOMAS TIDWELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST SERVICE, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Mr. Tidwell. Good morning, Madam Chair, Ranking Member,
members of the Committee. Thank you for giving us the
opportunity to be here and especially with the other panel
members today to be able to talk about not only our upcoming
fire season but the things that we're currently doing and the
things that we need to continue to do to address this issue.
As you both have already shared, the predictions for this
coming fire season are similar to what we had last year with
definitely a much more, more than an active fire season,
primarily out in the West. And as the summer develops that's
going to just continue to expand up to the northwest and then
over into parts of Utah, Idaho and even into Montana.
You know, that being said, I can't stress enough that the
fire seasons we're seeing today, these are the normal fire
seasons. And so we can look at it and say, yes, they're more
active than they were a decade ago, but it's important for us
to understand that today this is the fire seasons that we're
going to continue to have.
Once again, we have the resources. We made sure that we're
going to have an adequate number of large air tankers to
respond to these fires. The helicopters that we have, we
already have 100 for our exclusive use and we can bring up
another 200 helicopters if we need them. We'll have our fire
fighters, our type one crews, over 900 engines just for the
Forest Service. And then as always we have the MAFFs airplanes
from the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve that are
ready to come on when we hit those surge times of the year.
We are making a difference with the field treatments. When
I look at the past, the millions of acres that we've been
treating and the combination of managing a natural fire in the
back country using prescribed fire and then our fuels
treatments, primarily in the wildland urban interface, we are
making a difference.
This year we plan to treat another 2.5 million acres of
hazardous fuels in FY'15, and our FY'16 budget is calling for
that same level. And every year and I can point back to the
Slide Fire from just last year where these fuel treatments are
making a significant difference to allow our fire fighters to
more safely be able to suppress these fires. It reduces the
severity, has less impact on the watershed and less impact on
our communities.
Our challenge remains to be able to find more ways so that
we can continue to increase the pace and scale of this work.
I want to thank the Committee for your support for our
budget this year with that considerable increase in hazardous
fuels funding. If we can maintain that going forward I think it
will allow us to continue to increase this pace and scale along
with the new authorities that we have with the Farm bill. As we
move forward to being able to use that work, to be able to work
closer and increase our coordination with the states and other
partners to be able to get additional work accomplished.
The other thing I need to stress and it was pointed out
already, the wildland urban interface. Not only are our fire
seasons longer, hotter and drier, they're another 60 to 80 days
longer than what they were just 15 years ago. We have over 50
million acres of wildland urban interface that we have to deal
with.
And Madam Chair, as you pointed out in your statement,
often the first thing we have to do with every fire is take the
actions to be able to protect that community before we can even
take on really suppressing these large wildfires.
Now, we continue to suppress 98 percent of the fires that
we take initial attack on. That doesn't include the ones that
we manage in the back country for the benefits, so I need to
stress that. But even with 98 percent there's that one to two
percent that escape. They're the ones that we see on the news.
The ones that create the large costs. So again, I appreciate
the support from members of this Committee to find a solution
to deal with the cost of fire suppression.
Once again this year we're predicting there's a 90 percent
chance that we will not have enough money. We will have to look
at transferring funds. It is really past time. I know some of
you are tired of listening to me talk about this, but it's
really past time for us to find a solution and to be able to
move on and to stop this disruptive practice of shutting down
operations in the fall to be able to transfer money.
I think there is no question that one percent, this concept
of one percent of our fires, should be considered natural
disasters. And again last year the ten largest fires, the ten
most costly fires, equaled about over $320 million which really
tracks with what we've been talking about, one percent, 30
percent of the cost.
So thank you again for having the opportunity to be here,
and thank you again for the support you're providing us, not
only to increase the work we're getting done, but also to find
a solution to dealing with the cost of fire suppression.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Tidwell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Chief. I think if there is one
thing that we would agree on as members of this Committee is
that we have got to figure out a way to stop the fire
borrowing, because as we talk about all of the other things
that go on within the Forest Service mission it comes back to
the fact that you do not have the funds if you are using all of
your budget to deal with these catastrophic fires.
I think what I would like to do in deference to the other
members of the panel so that we can all hear your important
testimony is just take a quick, three minute break. We are
going to race fast to go vote and come back.
Senator Cantwell. You are fast.
The Chairman. A minute and half there and back.
We stand adjourned for three minutes.
[RECESS]
The Chairman. We will come back to order. That is three
minutes in Senate time. [Laughter.] We apologize for that
break, but again, I think there are enough members here who
wanted to hear the testimony from all the witnesses and as a
courtesy to you we have made you hold over for a little bit
longer.
Dr. Pyne, why don't we turn to you for your comments this
morning? Again, thank you for your indulgence on time.
STATEMENT OF DR. STEPHEN PYNE, REGENTS' PROFESSOR,
DISTINGUISHED SUSTAINABILITY SCHOLAR, SCHOOL OF LIFE SCIENCES,
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Pyne. Well, good morning and thank you for the
opportunity to speak.
After the great fires of 1910 we spent 50 years trying to
remove fire from the land. Call it a strategy of resistance. It
sought to eliminate threats before they could become serious.
That doctrine failed because it excluded good fires as well as
bad ones.
We then tried to put good fire back in, and called this a
strategy of restoration. Well, this strategy has now run its
own 50 year course and the prospects and problems of its
foundational doctrine, fire by prescription, are better
understood.
Which leads to a consideration of what might the next 50
years hold. A strategy seems to be congealing in the West that
we might label, resilience, that seems to make the best of the
hand that we are being dealt.
So let me consider these strategies in turn.
Resistance. There remains an old guard who would like to
return to the former order, and there are more progressive
thinkers who want to upgrade that tradition into an all hazard,
emergency service model, effectively urban fire departments in
the woods or in a national sense, a kind of Coast Guard for the
interior. Well, this makes sense if your primary land use is
urban or ex urban, but it's expensive and it has not shown it
can manage fires. If it retains the strengths of fire
suppression it also magnifies suppression's weaknesses.
Restoration. Restoration too, has upgraded its mission from
the simple hope that prescribed fire might substitute for
wildfires. It now embraces complex collaborations, supplements
prescribed burning with other treatments and tries to operate
on the scale of landscapes but determination endures, however,
to get ahead of the problem. Yet the vision has proved costly,
not only in money but in political and social capital. There is
little reason to believe that the country will muster the will
to rehabilitate at the rate or the scale required the tens of
millions of acres believed out of whack.
Resilience. In the West a strategy is emerging that accepts
that we are unlikely to get ahead of the problems coming at us.
Instead it allows for the management of wildland fires to
shift, where feasible, from attempts at direct control to more
indirect reliance on confining and containing outbreaks. Of
course there are some fires that simply bolt away from the
moment of ignition and there are some that threaten people or
critical sites right from the onset, but many fires offer
opportunities to back off and burn out. These are not let burns
rather fire officers concentrate their efforts at point
protection where assets are most valuable. Elsewhere they will
try to pick places, draw boxes, which they hold with minimum
expenses, risks and damages.
While this strategy is compatible with Federal policy and
in many respects moves in directions long urged by critics,
though it can look like a mash up and the outcomes will be
mixed because the fires are patchy, some patches will burn more
severely than we would like. Some patches may hardly burn at
all, but the rest will likely burn within a range of tolerance.
Such burn outs may well be the future of prescribed fire in the
West.
So without wishing to push an analogy too closely, we might
liken the resistance strategy to a rock, the restoration
strategy to scissors and the resilience strategy to paper. At
any given time and place one trumps another and is in turn,
trumped. We need all three. We need rocks around our prized
assets and communities when they are threatened by going fires.
We need scissors to buffer against bad burns and nudge toward
good ones, and we need paper because the ideal can be the enemy
of the good and a mixed strategy that includes boxing and
burning may be the best we can hope for.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Pyne follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Pyne.
Dr. Hood, welcome.
STATEMENT OF DR. SHARON HOOD, POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER, COLLEGE
OF FORESTRY AND CONSERVATION, UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA
Dr. Hood. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member
Cantwell and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting
me here today.
My name is Sharon Hood. I'm a post-doctoral researcher at
the University of Montana. Previously I worked as a U.S. Forest
Service ecologist prior to earning my Ph.D. in organismal
biology and ecology at the University of Montana in 2014.
Fire and native bark beetles have huge impacts on conifer
forests across our country. Today my testimony focuses on my
research showing that fire and thinning can increase Ponderosa
Pine resistance to Mountain Pine Beetle, but also that thinning
is not a substitute for fire.
Ponderosa Pine has adapted to survive frequent, low
severity fire, a type of fire that burns through the forest
understory, but generally causes little mortality to larger
trees; however, lack of fire since the late 1800's has
increased tree density and change species composition in many
areas. We continue to actively suppress the majority of
wildfires today; however, there is recent acknowledgement such
as the 2014 National Action Plan for the National Cohesive
Wildland Fire Management Strategy that we must allow more fires
to burn to promote healthy forests, resilient to wildfire,
insects, disease and drought.
To achieve the goal of allowing more fires to burn we must
accept the critical role of fire as a natural ecological
process. My research supports the need for frequent, low
severity fire in Ponderosa Pine forest in three ways.
One, low severity fire increases resin ducts. These ducts
are used by trees to make resin, or pitch, that helps resist
bark beetle attacks and trees with more ducts are more likely
to survive attack.
Two, when frequent low severity fires were moved from
Ponderosa Pine forests resin duct defenses decline over time.
And three, low severity fire acts as a natural thinning
agent to reduce forest density. This also promotes an increase
in resin duct defenses that increases resistance to Mountain
Pine Beetle.
I examined the effects of thinning and fire on resistance
to a Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak at a long term study site in
Western Montana. These treatments were originally designed to
study how to effectively restore Ponderosa Pine forest and
increase resilience to wildfire. They were implemented five
years before the outbreak began. Resin ducts increased after
thinning with and without burning and remained higher than the
control and burn only treatments throughout the length of the
study. Mortality for Mountain Pine Beetle differed markedly
between treatments. In the control 50 percent of the Ponderosa
Pine was killed in an outbreak compared to 20 percent in the
burn only and almost no mortality in the thin only and thin
burn combination treatments.
High levels of Douglas Fir in both the control and burn
only treatments due to over 100 years of fire exclusion,
coupled with a high pine mortality from bark beetles has
reduced stand resilience beyond the ability to return to a
Ponderosa Pine dominated system and the absence of further
disturbance or management.
My results applied a dry pine, Ponderosa Pine, forest in
the inland Northwest. A forest type where there is strong,
scientific support that frequent low and mixed severity fires
were once common. Further research is needed to determine if
fire increases tree defenses in other fire dependent, pine
forest types throughout the U.S. I found thinning with and
without prescribed fire increased resistance to a Mountain Pine
Beetle outbreak, greatly reducing tree mortality.
In the long term, however, thinning with prescribed fire
created the most resilient forest by stimulating tree defenses
and through the beneficial effects of killing understory
vegetation. These and other critical ecological effects of fire
cannot be replicated by thinning alone. While thinning is a
very useful and oftentimes necessary restoration and management
tool, fire is crucial for long term maintenance of low to mid
elevation fire of Ponderosa Pine forests through both impacts
of forest structure and composition and by stimulating defenses
that can increase tree survival from bark beetle attacks.
There is no one size fits all approach to restoring fire
dependent forests. Proactive restoration treatments should aim
to increase forest resilience to a multitude of stressors and
foster conditions that allow wildfires to burn under more
natural intensities.
While my study is just one example, these findings are
supported by other scientific literature showing the critical
role of fire in creating resilient Ponderosa Pine forest.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify here today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hood follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Hood.
Mr. Eisele, welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT EISELE, WATERSHED AND FIRE ANALYST, COUNTY
OF SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA (RETIRED)
Mr. Eisele. Good morning, Senator Murkowski, Senator
Cantwell and the members of the Committee. It's an honor for me
to be here to share my experience with you today.
I've been involved with fire my entire life. I started with
the volunteer fire fighter to prescribed burner for the County
of San Diego, fire behavior analyst on a Federal incident
management team for 15 years, and I like to think of myself as
a student of fire.
I've learned in Southern California that we will always
have extreme fire weather. We will always have a drought, but
there will always be ignitions and ignitions are plentiful and
they are random so the driver of the entire system is fuel. A
young fuel does not burn very well and doesn't burn very fast
even under extreme conditions. Old fuel conversely burns
extremely hot and extremely well, extremely fast.
For example, the origin and the age of the fuel of origin,
at origin of fires in Southern San Diego County in the past,
since 1950, the average age of the fuel where the fires, the
big fires start, was 71 years. And we don't find any fires
starting in fuels less than 20 years old go to become major
fires.
The fire problem in San Diego County has gotten worse and
it's kind of leading the nation. Again, California is not a
good spot to be in the lead, but what we've seen in California
in the past 50 years is becoming the norm in the Western United
States.
So I see two main issues with the fire. Fire and cost.
We recognize that the fire problem is the fuels. We're now
treating close to two percent of the hazardous fuels which is a
50 year rotation cycle which means that as we're doing a great
job we're not even getting close. So we need to be doubling at
least our fuel treatment and it has to be mechanical and fire
because it is, the forests, have overgrown to the point that
the fire will not thin them. It has to be thinned and then
maintain thin with the fire.
We need projects that are picked by Forest Service multi-
disciplinary teams of people not just fire, but forest health
people and sociologists and risk assessments to pick the ones
that are going to get us the big bang for the buck because we
don't have enough money to do it all. We need to spend our
dollars wisely.
We need to look at NEPA. San Bernardino National Forest is
on its fourth year of a one-year NEPA proposal or EIS for
20,000 acre, general EIS document. People are gaming the system
on NEPA, and NEPA is a good idea. We need to be doing it, but
we're not building a shopping center or freeways. We're
mitigating the damage to the forests.
The budget process, I'd point out that there is a FEMA does
a plan for state and local and tribal governments when the
fires meet a certain criteria, FEMA picks up 75 percent of the
costs. It seems like they could do that for the Federal
agencies also or somewhat similar.
We can reduce the cost of fires by managing them better,
and I think there's a technological asset here. We need to be
able to have the guy on the ground with a laptop computer that
can predict where the fire is going and then measure the
results of what they're doing based on that.
We need to know where the fire is. It's hard to believe
that we don't know where the fire is on some of these fires
because we can't see them through the smoke and we can't map
them. And they need to map them in the first day, not three
days later.
So that kind of technology is, I believe, it's going to go
a long way to managing things like managing the fire and then
managing the air assets. We can model where our aircraft are
good and effective and where they're not so good, and we can
then let the fire managers make those kinds of decisions based
on sound science.
A safety issue with our fire fighters is every so often we
wind up having a disaster like Yarnell Hill. We need to know
where the fire is. We need to know where the fire fighters are,
and the people that are supervising those fire fighters need to
have a map in their hand that shows them where everybody is on
the ground. That's totally doable. It would have to be
satellite-based, but just knowing where they are doesn't help.
It's the guy in charge of them that needs to know where they
are.
So I put a bunch of other suggestions inside my testimony,
and I appreciate the opportunity to comment today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eisele follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Eisele.
Last we will go to Mr. Hallin, welcome to the Committee.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE HALLIN, DIRECTOR, WATER RIGHTS AND
CONTRACTS, SALT RIVER PROJECT
Mr. Hallin. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell and
members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today. My name is Bruce Hallin, and I'm the
Director of Water Rights and Contracts for Salt River Project,
or SRP.
For over 100 years the Salt River Project has provided a
reliable water supply to metropolitan Phoenix. To fulfill this
responsibility SRP operates seven dams, 1,300 miles of canals
and numerous ground water wells. Importantly we're also
dependent on the health of a 13,000 square mile watershed to
provide a renewable water supply and protecting these
headwaters has been a priority of SRP since its founding.
Around the turn of the 20th century watershed protection
efforts focused on setting aside lands in the Federal forest
system to ensure development in timber harvest were conducted
in a way that preserved a sustainable water supply for Arizona.
Today, the unhealthy state of these national forests are
causing catastrophic wildfires that threaten the sustainability
and quality of drinking water for millions in Arizona. This
situation is not unique to Arizona. We are working closely with
the National Water Resources Association and others who are
facing similar threats to their headwaters.
Catastrophic fires have severe and long term impacts to
watersheds which are felt far beyond the area directly impacted
by the fire. Unlike the low intensity fires seen in healthy
forests, the aftermath from the severe fires we are
experiencing as a result of the unnatural forest conditions
increase sediment loads and debris that reduce storage capacity
at our reservoirs and affect the predictability of runoff.
Water quality is deteriorating as a result of fire activity
on our watershed. Increased organics and sediment in the SRP
water supply have led to increased capital and operational
costs at city water treatment plants. These treatment
facilities have been upgraded to handle the increased levels at
a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
We know from science and experience exactly what needs to
be done to mitigate these impacts. We know that we need to act
quickly to thin overcrowded and unhealthy forests. We know we
need to reestablish a forest products industry to carry out
treatments and create an economy around forest restoration, and
we know we need public policy at all levels of government to
facilitate and invest in forest restoration.
SRP is actively involved in efforts to expedite forest
restoration by committing resources in all of these areas. Few
are engagement in public/private partnerships. For example, we
have started the Northern Arizona Forest Fund in partnership
with the National Forest Foundation to raise funds and invest
in forest restoration projects that protect our watershed. We
are also involved in a project with the Forest Service, Bureau
of Reclamation, City of Payson and the National Forest
Foundation to treat the 64,000 acre watershed that drains into
the CC Cragin Reservoir.
The projects that we are currently involved with highlight
the need to improve Federal policy to more efficiently make
progress in restoring our forests and protecting our
watersheds. Specifically there is a need to improve both fire
suppression budgeting and the planning and compliance process
for restoration projects.
The CC Cragin Project I mentioned is a perfect example of
why we need to address both of these issues at the same time.
We greatly appreciate the priority the Forest Service and the
Department of Interior has placed on this project; however,
despite the significant funding and staff dedicated to
undertake the project, it is expected to take at least two, if
not three, years before any thinning can be done on the ground.
This is too long to simply hope that a fire doesn't destroy
the Cragin Watershed. We must find a way to move forward more
quickly on critical projects like this by utilizing the
significant data and knowledge that already exists within the
Forest Service.
My written testimony includes some additional policy
suggestions but I wanted to highlight one issue related to fire
borrowing. As the Committee continues to address fire
suppression budgets it is also important that the provisions
include a dedicated and secure funding stream for forest
restoration in order to promote the certainty needed to
encourage private sector investment.
The greatest risk to our forests is catastrophic wildfire,
and we need to rebalance the requirements placed on these types
of projects to reflect that reality. The problems, the
solutions and the consequences of inaction are clear. I look
forward to working together with this Committee on our shared
goals of protecting the forests and watersheds our communities
rely on and enjoy.
Thank you, again, and I look forward to answering any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hallin follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hallin. Thank you to all of
our witnesses here this morning. As I mentioned after the
Chief's testimony, I think we would all agree we have to figure
out how to stop this fire borrowing because when we are talking
about how we deal with treatment, how we work to mitigate the
risk here, it takes dollars. When you spend all of your dollars
on suppression, it does not leave much room for further
treatments.
The concern here is that these suppression costs are out of
control. Chief, I know you are very supportive of a wildfire
cap adjustment, but from what we have heard from just about
everybody here this morning, it is not necessarily the silver
bullet to address the skyrocketing costs of wildfire
suppression spending. How we deal with that is something that I
would like to focus on this morning.
Both you, Mr. Hallin, and Mr. Eisele, to a certain extent,
have described the hazardous fuel reduction projects that are
critical to protecting whether it is the watersheds that you
have noted, the Cragin Watershed or other areas there. The
comment that you made, Mr. Hallin, that we know what it is that
we need to do and yet we can't get to that point, and it takes
two to possibly three years to implement these projects. We
talk a lot about analysis/paralysis around here where we have
endless process. Again, we hope that there is not going to be a
lightning strike that is going to bring about disaster. Chief,
can you speak to this? I mean, are we in a situation where we
are more worried about checking the boxes in making sure that
we have gone through a critical process or are we acting with a
level of urgency that I think you have heard from everybody
here at this table with regards to these critical projects that
will help us from the preventive perspective? I think we would
agree that if we can prevent these in the first place we can
get a better handle on these suppression costs. What is our
problem with the process that seems to be slowing things up
when we are dealing with treatment of hazardous fuels?
Mr. Tidwell. Madam Chair, one of the issues we dealt with
in the past is needing to do a large enough project where it
actually makes a difference, and that's where we've moved to
taking a more landscape-scale approach.
In the past the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which you
passed a few years ago which gave us the streamlined NEPA
process, was a very good tool. The problem with that is that it
was limited to certain criteria. And so when we looked at
larger landscapes we could use that authority on a piece of the
project but it wouldn't apply to these tens of thousands of
acres.
Now with the Farm bill authorities with insect and disease
it gives us some more flexibility to be able to use that
approach looking at just one action alternative and a no action
so we can streamline the process.
But the key is----
The Chairman. Let me ask you about that if I----
Mr. Tidwell. To look at these larger landscapes.
The Chairman. Let me ask you about that because when we
were going to vote Senator Stabenow, who is not able to return
back to the Committee, raised this issue with me saying that in
the Farm bill there were additional authorities that were given
to do just exactly as you have said. Are these additional
authorities being utilized at this point and are they making a
difference?
Mr. Tidwell. We're beginning to utilize, especially the CE
authority in the Farm bill. We have projects that are going
forward with that. And you'll see, especially in FY'16, many of
our projects we'll be implementing will be using these new
authorities. But we often take a year of planning and going
through NEPA before we implement, so you'll see those projects
being implemented in '16.
The Chairman. I think that has been the concern here is
that we have got this process that we have to go through. Is
this what you were speaking to Mr. Eisele and Mr. Hallin? Is
there any way to expedite that, in your view? You know what you
have to do.
Mr. Hallin. One of the difficulties that we've had with the
Cragin Watershed, we do appreciate the opportunity to utilize
the Healthy Forest Restoration Act as an alternative to full
scale restoration. We would prefer full scale restoration, but
at this point we decided to move forward with the Healthy
Restoration Act.
The Forest Service personnel have over 25 years in
understanding the types of fires that have occurred on this
watershed where the endangered species are located and the
extent of the watershed itself on those areas that are highly
susceptible to wildfire risk. The problem is they have to go
through an entire EIS process that essentially is designed,
from what I gather in watching staff, is designed to
essentially avoid litigation.
We know what the issue is, we know that these forests need
to be thinned, we know that the greatest threat to the species
that the EIS is designed to protect is catastrophic wildfire,
but unfortunately we have to go the same process another two
years before we can ultimately get in there and thin those
forests.
The Chairman. Yes, we hear this story so often that what we
are attempting to do is to avoid litigation and in the meantime
lightning strikes and we are paying the cost.
Senator Cantwell?
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and again, thank
you to the witnesses.
Dr. Hood, thank you for your testimony, and thank you for
your work in this area. It is very important.
Your key point was about the fact that thinning and
prescribed fire created the most long term resilient forest to
future disturbances, so I want to drill down on that because I
think that is a culmination of your conclusions which is very
important in looking at all these options.
Chief Tidwell, your testimony stated that the Forest
Service has identified about 12 million acres that really need
hazardous fuel reduction treatment, but the budget year after
year only requests about $300 million for those treatments. Is
that sufficient funding for those highest priority areas and
what do we need to do to get a more realistic number? Sorry to
put all this out there, but that is the best way to get all the
answers we need and some of them you can give me in writing
too.
Secondly, regarding this whole issue of, you know, do we
have the best communication that we need for communities during
these fires? Do we need more coordination with FEMA? Should
FEMA be a permanent part of the incident command team? What can
we do? Do we need to get an MOU, memorandum of understanding,
between you and FEMA to ensure you can communicate while with
the community responsibilities--you are busy fighting fires? If
the communication infrastructure does not exist anymore, then
how are we making sure that we do not have to wait two weeks to
communicate about the ongoing crisis, given the level of huge
fire increases that we are seeing?
Third, does your agency have a permanent agreement with the
FAA on an application with them on drones? I would like to see
this not be an issue where every state that has a fire and then
wants to know whether the drones can be deployed to get a
better understanding of the fire or mapping or what have you. I
would just like it to be a natural course between the Forest
Service so that we do not have delays, because I think they are
providing us very, very vital information about these fires.
Mr. Tidwell. I'll start with the last question there.
We're working very closely with FAA to be able to use the
unmanned aircraft to be able to collect the information, and we
have a team that's gone, put in place this year to be able to
explore.
The challenge for us is to be able to understand what
information we need and when we need it so that because the
potential there is there's so much data that's available, but
we've got to be able to prioritize it so we can quickly be able
to use that. So we're going to be moving forward this year.
We'll be working, not only with FAA, but also with the states
to work very closely to be able to start to use this
information, probably simply mapping is one of the simple and
looking for hot spots, especially outside the line where we've
had success in the past.
Senator Cantwell. But you'll do a permanent application so
you won't have to keep going back and forth all the time?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, we're going to be working in that
direction so that it's automatic.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Mr. Tidwell. And that under these conditions we can use the
aircraft.
Your question about what happened with the aftermath there
or even during the Carlton Fire--it really stresses how we need
to do a better job with our preplanning. We do a good job and
work with communities so they're ready for the fire, but based
on that experience we need to do a better job to also deal with
things like communications. The things that we need to make
sure communities have an emergency communication system that's
in place so that when that happens that those, whatever it
takes, that we're going to be able to maintain communications.
From when I was up there visiting with the homeowners,
especially, one of the things they stress is that they didn't
know. They didn't know what was going on. They had no way to
contact anyone, I can't imagine that level of stress that would
come from that situation, so it's one of the things that we've
learned. We need to get that in place.
We need to actually do a better job than we have been with
utility companies. They're always great to step right in and
ready to roll, but we need to include them also in our
preplanning meetings. So that when the next Carlton happens,
yes, we'll have the fire to deal with, but at the same time we
can provide a higher and better level of support to those
communities to be able to eliminate some of the impact and get
their services restored faster.
Senator Cantwell. Does FEMA need to be a permanent part of
the equation?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, FEMA definitely needs to be working with
us. They are a part of the solution, and we'll continue to work
with them.
Senator Cantwell. I just want to point out for my
colleagues, because this is after 149,000 acres burned, the
Winthrop/Twist Valley area was without communication and yet
fires were still all around them.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Cantwell. Without any communication because the
broadband burned up, no one had any way to communicate with
people other than, as I said, trying to go through the town. I
think this and Oso taught me that we need----
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Cantwell. Communities need to be able to get a
mobile, broadband unit more easily deployed as opposed to
waiting for two or three weeks for the state to apply for a
FEMA declaration.
If this is all about who is going to pay for this in the
end and we are hesitating, our constituents are without the
vital communications in a disaster. If this is what we are
seeing because of the impacts of these drastic events because
of weather, I think we need to look at these events and say we
need better communication response in the aftermath and to
figure out how to do that for these communities.
So thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Daines?
Senator Daines. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chief Tidwell, let me first start by saying I share your
support for a solution to the wildfire funding challenge. I
have spent a lot of time traveling across Montana hearing from
conservation groups, sportsmen groups, the timber industry. I
think we have a great, broad spectrum of agreement that
something has to change in the way wildfires are funded or
wildfire fighting is funded, and I am hoping that we resolve it
this year. I am going to do everything I can to make that
happen.
Your office provided me information that indicated over
seven million Federal acres in Montana are at high or very high
risk of wildfire, most of which are managed by the Forest
Service. That is approximately one in four Federally-controlled
acres in Montana. I was further told that nearly two million of
these acres are most in need of treatment because they are near
populated communities or watersheds.
Unfortunately I was informed that the Forest Service did
hazardous fuels treatment on only about 52,000 of those acres
in the last Fiscal Year out of two million that are needed. I
have no doubt that the work that was done there was important,
but the current pace of treatment is simply not acceptable.
Certainly our communities, our watersheds, our wildlife
habitat, our access to recreation, all of these critical
Montana treasures are at real risk to wildfire.
More than ten years ago Congress provided enhanced
authorities to the Forest Service to reduce hazardous fuels
through the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA). You
mentioned that, but as noted these authorities are clearly not
adequate and the HFRA clearly has shortfalls. What, in your
view, are the barriers to getting more done there?
Mr. Tidwell. Well as I shared earlier the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act continues to be a good authority for us, but it
is limited to certain areas based on the criteria that's
required and that is having community wildfire protection
plans. You need to have a hazardous fuel component. And we
really need to be looking at the entire landscapes, the full
restoration work, not only the hazardous fuels work next to the
community, but what we need to do in the entire watershed. And
as we pointed out from, you know, some of the witnesses that is
a much better approach.
And so we look at Healthy Forest Restoration Act and now
with the new Farm bill authorities that allow us to be able to
use the similar type of NEPA approach, but also address where
it has insect and disease. By putting those together it's going
to allow us to take more of a total landscape approach to be
able to look at everything that needs to be done on that
landscape and to be able to look at not thousands of acres, we
just have to be looking at tens of thousands to hundreds of
thousands of acres at a time. And to be able to have the NEPA
in place so for the next ten years we can be able to get in
there and do the work that needs to be done. Those are the
things that are really going to make the difference.
Senator Daines. Well, I truly appreciate your commitment to
finding solutions that will improve forest health and also
increase responsible timber harvest in Montana, and we really
look forward to further discussions with you to achieve that
goal.
I want to ask Dr. Hood a question. Dr. Hood, first of all
welcome to our nation's capitol. It is good to have another
Montanan in the room, and it is great to have the perspective
of someone who intimately knows the challenges facing our
national forests in Montana.
Your testimony focused largely on the role of fire and the
role of fire management on increasing resistance of the bark
beetle. I remember seeing this when I was a kid back in the
70's, and now we are seeing it again and my children are seeing
it now in Montana as well.
I know your research was primarily focused in the Rocky
Mountain region, but as you know Montana has millions of acres
that are damaged by beetle kill. I am pleased that Congress
recently gave the Forest Service new authorities to tackle this
huge challenge in Montana. Based on your research how could
increased management, including thinning and prudently removing
dead timber, be used to improve the health of forests in
Montana and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire?
Dr. Hood. So in order to increase the health of our forests
thinning should be a valid or a good management tool.
My research also showed that having prescribed fires and
low severity naturally occurring wildfires stimulates tree
defenses. So having that combination of thinning and prescribed
burning and then areas that we have treated to allow,
naturally, allowing to consider allowing ignitions to burn,
allow fires to burn, further perpetuates a healthy forest that
could be resistant to bark beetles.
I think we're always going to have some level of bark
beetles. They're native insects to our forests, but having/
doing such treatments and promoting a patchy landscape can
certainly help reduce the severity of those outbreaks.
Senator Daines. Thanks, Doctor.
The Chairman. Senator Franken?
Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chief Tidwell, you and I have talked before about the role
of climate change in all of this, and we have talked about the
removal of hazardous fuel as we have been talking about today
in different ways.
One of the ways that I think that we could, possibly, and I
want to ask anybody about this, to remove more hazardous fuel
and be able to do it in a way that it costs less is by
monetizing that biomass. By monetizing it, by using it, burning
it, to create electricity and in combined heat and power which
is something that the Chair and I have talked about. There is a
lot of, obviously, areas in Alaska where this hazardous fuel,
after all biomass is, as we can argue, is zero carbon
footprint, we can solve a lot of things at the same time.
There is obviously a lot of challenges to this in terms of
remoteness and moving the stuff and using it, but we are
talking about the wildland urban interface so there are,
obviously, areas where this is near/in a populated area. What
are some of the challenges standing in the way of more
utilization of this tremendous resource, and this is for
anyone, and what are your recommendations for overcoming these
challenges or are these challenges?
Mr. Tidwell. Well I'll start, Senator.
You know, the challenge is to be able to demonstrate that
it's economically viable. And so to be able to create these
markets and we need to continue to make the investments to help
people to do the business case analysis before they make the
investment. We need to continue to use our authorities like the
BCAP Authority where we can subsidize, actually, the
transportation of this biomass material to a facility, and to
be able to get more and more demonstration projects.
At the same time we need to continue our research, not only
to increase the efficiency of these systems, but also for
things like with pellet production to be able to find a more
efficient way to develop a pellet to increase the BTUs to
increase the economics on it.
I think we also need to just factor in the consequences if
we don't. What's this cost avoidance? And if we could ever
capture a way to really consider that, I think it would really
help with the economics of this.
If we think about by thinning out these forests the
reduction of risk that's occurred and then by being able to use
the material for either to use it into a wood product material
or for energy consumption. If we could factor in the cost
avoidance benefit on that, I think that the economics would
sell itself on this.
But we're going to have to continue with our research,
continue with demonstration projects and to be able to also
have a guaranteed supply of biomass. If you're going to make an
investment, you're going to need to have the bank loan money.
And so we've got to use more of our stewardship authority where
we can show that's a ten year contract. And you can take that
to the bank that without any question material is going to be
there. So those are some of the things we need to continue to
work on.
Senator Franken. I agree with you, and I think there is a
cost to not doing this. Are we doing the pilot projects? Are we
exploring this enough? And do we need to do anything here in
this Committee and in Congress to facilitate overcoming this
challenge so we can do something, especially with energy
storage and the more use of distributive energy? How we can
make this a piece so that you will have the ability to remove
hazardous fuel because it is monetized so we can do more of it
and make it make sense? Anybody? Yes, Mr. Hallin.
Mr. Hallin. Thank you for the question, Senator.
At Salt River Project there is a biomass plant that we
actually buy half of the power at that facility. One of the
challenges, as Chief Tidwell mentioned, was the fact of
ensuring that you have material at that plant so we don't need
any undue delays to ensure that there is material available at
the biomass plant. I think, second, there's another added value
benefit. By going in and thinning these forests there's
essentially an avoided release of carbon. When you have these
catastrophic wildfires there's a major release of carbon into
the air.
Senator Franken. Sure.
Mr. Hallin. So there's another benefit associated with
utilizing.
Senator Franken. Better to release it as energy that we use
for electricity rather than just go up into the atmosphere.
Mr. Hallin. Yes.
Senator Franken. Yes.
Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. I really want to continue.
Every time you testify I bring this a little bit further, but I
really want to keep exploring that and especially with the
Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Franken.
Senator Flake?
Senator Flake. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for the testimony. It is nice to have a couple of
Arizonans here. Dr. Pyne and Bruce, it is good to see you. I
know we have talked on a number of occasions, and I appreciate
the testimony from those who know so much on this.
I appreciate the work of Chief Tidwell. I think it is
important to acknowledge some of the positive developments that
we have seen recently related to forest management. Last month
I think all of us were encouraged to learn that Phase One,
4FRI, the record of decision was signed. That will allow us,
the Chief talked about, large scale management rather than just
a couple of thousand acres here or there, the paltry 3,000-plus
acres that have so far been treated is emblematic of the pace
that we have that is simply too slow. We have to do it on a
much, much larger scale.
Chief, you have noted, 58 million acres, are at high or
very high risk. We have to move on a larger scale, so we all
recognize achieving reduction in hazardous fuels is critical.
And we have got to find a way to solve this fire borrowing
issue. I like some of the proposals that have been put forward.
Myself, Senator McCain, Senator Barrasso, and others have put
forward some as well.
By way of disrupting these activities, in terms of
suppression, we are putting hazardous fuels reduction on hold.
We are also putting communities and fire fighters at risk as we
know all too well in Arizona. As Bruce talked about today, we
are also increasingly creating challenges for maintaining a
healthy watershed and for what that does to drinking water
supplies.
For all these reasons I am, obviously, supportive of
efforts to resolve the fire borrowing issue by allowing a
limited adjustment to statutory budget caps under specific
circumstances or scenarios. For example, when the Forest
Service and DOI exceed anticipatable or those that we can
forecast, wildfire suppression costs. There is no doubt that
wildfires are disastrous. They have a tremendous impact on
communities that derive their livelihood from the national
forest on water quality and on wildlife. But we cannot let the
disastrous nature of wildfire make us lose sight of many of the
costs of fighting fires and that we can't anticipate them.
Let me be clear about that. Many of the costs of both
preventing as well as fighting fires can be anticipated like
municipal fire departments that budget for expected personnel
and incident response costs. I believe that we can do much the
same here. I would agree on the significance of the problems
that wildfires present, but where there is some disagreement is
dealing with these so called anticipatable costs.
I would support efforts to recognize that in some years
there will be large fires that drive the wildfire suppression
costs well above those that were anticipated. In those years if
the agencies have been appropriated 100 percent of the
anticipated costs, I think that limited budget cap adjustments
to allow the agencies to fight fire without borrowing from
other sources would make sense.
If they have been fully budgeted for what is easily
anticipated as a realistic cost of suppression then that would
apply. Frankly I would like to see sufficient funds on the
front end. I think we all would like to see that put into
suppression activities as well. Sound budgeting requires
dealing with both preventable symptoms as well as resulting
disasters.
What I disagree with is the notion that we should simply
move 30 percent of those anticipated costs off budget because
it is convenient nor because it creates additional flexibility
for increased spending under the statutory budget caps, paying
for one disaster while furthering our current fiscal disaster
does not make sense. We need to be realistic here about what we
can do. We need to deal with the House as well, and be
realistic about what we can budget for and what we can't.
There is a solution to be found on the issue I believe that
involves flexibility but only after 100 percent of those
anticipatable suppression costs have been expended. Let's not
confuse disasters with unanticipated costs. We need to plan for
what is likely to occur to take steps necessary to prevent
those disasters from occurring, and then use flexibility in
those rare years where we go over those costs.
I hope that my colleagues and the Administration will come
together and find a solution, a long term solution, on this
issue.
I did not want to use all my time speaking here, but I
believe I have. So thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Senator Flake, I think this is a key part of
what this Committee will be grappling with is exactly how we
deal with this. I, too, hope we can find that agreement here,
but we have to be realistic in terms of what we are facing and
it has to be a solution that is more lasting than what we are
dealing with right now which is, kind of, an interim stop gap
and again, borrowing that hurts everybody. So know that we will
be working with you on this.
Senator Heinrich?
Senator Heinrich. Thank you.
Chief, at the beginning I think you apologized for bringing
up fire borrowing. Once again, I think, most of us up here
would say don't apologize and keep bringing it up until we find
a workable way forward on this because it is, sort of, the
elephant in the room here. We have to fix that piece of all of
this one way or the other to be able to really scale these
projects up to the kind of landscape levels that you were
talking about.
Mr. Hallin, I wanted to ask you if you would go into a
little more detail about the kinds of projects that you are
doing and the partnerships. I know in New Mexico we started to
look at this, so we have a couple of different things going.
One in the Santa Fe watershed, the Santa Fe water fund which
uses contributions from water uses to match up with Forest
Service funding and treat the watershed above Santa Fe. In
addition the Rio Grande water fund is now doing a similar
partnership on a much larger geographic area of the Rio
Grande's watershed, south of Colorado in Northern New Mexico.
If you would tell us a little bit more about those
partnerships and how we might be able to learn from those
things and scale them to other regions to get some of those
benefits that we see when we are able to connect downstream
water users effectively to the health of their watershed which
may be hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
Mr. Hallin. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
We found very quickly that there was a definite disconnect
with many of the businesses and water users in the valley. And
when I'm talking about the valley, the Phoenix metropolitan
area disconnect between a healthy forest and a healthy
watershed. To begin getting the subject matter to a broader
base group of individuals we decided to work together with some
of our larger power customers and other customers that receive
energy from SRP. Many of those organizations have green
initiatives and other initiatives that if they're looking at
spending money to improve, not only their products that they're
delivering but also to improve their image.
We sat down and realized that there are opportunities
within our watershed to link this issue with end users, so we
established this Northern Arizona Forest Fund together with the
National Forest Foundation. Now the National Forest Foundation
is congressionally authorized to use private funds as a
501(c)(3) organization. We didn't want end users to think that
there was something in this for the Salt River Project. It's
actually something in it for the watershed.
So this Northern Arizona Forest Fund, essentially, we
identified projects and partnership with the Forest Service
that are outside of these large, full scale restoration
projects, but they're smaller projects that have a begin date
and an end date so that when you invest your money, you know
specifically what you're investing in as a result of that
project.
Senator Heinrich. I think that is really key. Connecting up
these users who do not or have not in the past had an intuitive
connection to where their water comes from. In Santa Fe's case,
they can actually see their watershed. But for someone, say, in
Albuquerque or in Phoenix, that watershed may be a long way
away and connecting those things together is a pretty powerful
tool.
Chief, I want to just ask you a quick question with my
remaining time. We heard a lot from Dr. Hood about the benefits
of using these treatments together if not just having stove
pipes around, mechanical treatment and then prescribed, low
intensity fire but using them in combination having by far the
best results. Are you able to do that as you scale up these
landscape level fuel treatments? Are you able to plan both the
prescribed and natural fire piece and the mechanical thinning
piece together in concert?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. A lot of places it's necessary for us to
have at least two entries into these areas. So the first year
we'll come in and do the thinning.
Senator Heinrich. Right.
Mr. Tidwell. To reduce the total biomass and then follow it
up, you know, with prescribed fire. And that is the right
approach, especially in our dry forest types. And then once you
have that thinning done, then you can continue to run that fire
through there, either prescribed fire or with our natural fire.
Senator Heinrich. Right.
Mr. Tidwell. But often we need to do that mechanical
treatment first, the timber harvest, to reduce the stand down
to a level of biomass that we can then handle when we do have a
fire.
Senator Heinrich. And probably a more historical level, at
least within the Ponderosa Pine dry forest of the West.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
Senator Barrasso?
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chief Tidwell, as a doctor I appreciate the adage that an
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I am concerned
with the ever increasing need to fire borrow money from fire
prevention activities in the declining health of our national
forests. The Administration seems intent on wanting more money
for a fire cure while refusing to engage, I believe, in any
serious land management fire prevention reforms. The
Administration is set on maintaining the failed status quo
policies and the culture of litigation surrounding forest
management. As I said to Under Secretary Bonnie last month, the
Forest Service has, I believe, lost its direction and its
purpose. The Forest Service has become a bureaucracy of
bureaucratic agency emphasizing internal processes over real
results and improvements on the ground. It is my view that if
we are going to increase fire prevention activities that
Congress needs to direct and mandate results and outcomes.
Does either the Administration proposal of S. 235, the
Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, contain language guaranteeing
that funds actually go to prevention activities such as
hazardous fuels reduction and does either proposal contain the
language providing legislative reforms aimed at streamlining
active management and reducing litigation?
Mr. Tidwell. No, it only eliminates the need to transfer
and eliminates the stoppage of work in the fall.
Senator Barrasso. I look at this and say we must prevent
the practice of fire borrowing and prioritize funding for
treatment activities to reduce future wildlife suppression
costs. That is why I co-sponsored Senator McCain's bill, S.
508, the FLAME Act amendments of 2015.
I think we also have to streamline the way forest
management activities are approved, meaningful policy reforms.
S. 508 also includes innovative ideas like arbitration to get
the Forest Service out of the courtroom back into the forests.
We need to solve the challenges facing our national forests in
a financially responsible way. Is the Forest Service willing to
work with this Committee and the sponsors of the different
bills to find solutions?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, we're, of course, very interested in
working with the Committee to find those solutions. And as
we've discussed in the past, this concept of arbitration, it's
something that I'm interested in trying. I'd like to see us
take on a pilot approach on to that, and part of that is I need
to see that it's a better solution. It sounds good in concept,
but I really think we need to, kind of, move into that, do some
pilot approaches and just to see where that can take us. But I
think it's one of the things we want to continue to work with
you on.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Hallin, so often those who oppose
active management of our forests claim hazardous fuel projects,
timber production or thinning activities will destroy watershed
health and wildlife habitat. Your testimony paints a different
picture of what is threatening watersheds, wildlife and the
sustainability of high quality drinking water.
In your view what are the primary roadblocks to improving
watershed health and wildlife habitat?
Mr. Hallin. In our experience to date it's been partially
the process associated with NEPA. If we can find opportunities
to accelerate NEPA we see that as an opportunity to move more
rapidly forward.
I think secondly, too, there is a need, and we're seeing
this begin to change when it comes to the attitude of the
Forest Service that to be in the project management business,
to manage those forests and to refocus their efforts on the
reason why many of those forest reserves were created,
essentially, to protect the water supply.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Eisele, thinking about your
professional career, one of your responsibilities was to
protect and improve watersheds. You described the National
Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, as a weapon in the hands of a
few. In your testimony you talk about the amount of time it is
taking to complete the Santa Ana Watershed Environmental Impact
Statement. I think you said it took over three years to
undertake an action that is prudent and necessary for economic
health and the protection of life and property is a
misapplication of the intent of the law. How often do you see
NEPA being used as a weapon or a barrier to actually improving
watershed health?
Mr. Eisele. I think it's common. It's a long process and
the whole deal is to avoid litigation from people that are
obstructionists, in my view.
Senator Barrasso. So in your view if we do nothing, what
are the consequences of, you know, what is happening with fires
then?
Mr. Eisele. Well to do nothing is catastrophic fires and
continuing catastrophic fires and having unhealthy forests and
all the other things we've talked about today.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Hirono?
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all
for testifying.
I wanted to note for the record, Madam Chair, that Hawaii
has a fire problem also. It is estimated that 0.5 percent of
land in Hawaii burns each year, a percentage that is equal to
or higher than what is experienced in Western states. Given
that Hawaii's native ecosystems are not fire adapted, we are
losing an alarming amount of native flora and fauna to
wildfires often to be replaced by non-native grasses and other
invasive species that then fuel future fires. In fact, the non-
native grasses and shrub lands cover some 24 percent of
Hawaii's land creating landscapes that are flammable and highly
susceptible to wildfires, so clearly this issue touches every
single state.
Chief Tidwell, you talked about the Healthy Forest
Restoration Act. It sounded as though you have thought about
making some or asking for some amendments to this law that
would enable the Forest Service to, as you put it, take a total
landscape approach, not just looking at thousands of acres, but
to be able to look at tens of thousands of acres. Do you have
some suggestive language that would provide more flexibility
for the Forest Service to deal with this problem?
Mr. Tidwell. Well Senator, with the passage of the Farm
bill and thank you, again, for the 2014 Farm bill, it did
expand the use of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act to deal
with these insect and disease. So if you combine that authority
plus what we have with the original Healthy Forest Restoration
Act, it does really expand on our ability to use that more
efficient NEPA process on much larger landscapes. One thing
that may be helpful is if we just had one authority instead of
the two so that would be a little, I think, a little easier for
folks or communities to understand.
The thing I want to stress is that the reason we are able
to get more and more work done each year is the level of
support we have through these collaborative efforts. And it's
been mentioned with the panelists here, we need to be looking
at not just a hazardous fuel issue, but also the total
restoration projects, the work that needs to be done to restore
the overall watersheds, reduce the hazardous fuels and create
this resilient system.
So it's essential that we always recognize that need to be
able to have the engagement with our communities, but being
able to really reduce the number of alternatives that we need
to address definitely speeds up the process and it keeps
everybody at the table and allows us to get the work done
sooner.
Senator Hirono. So are you saying that with the combination
of the Farm bill provisions and what you have under the Healthy
Forest Restoration Act that you have enough authority but it
would be clearer if we could put it all in one----
Mr. Tidwell. It's one way just to simplify it to make it
easier for, you know, the public to understand and that we have
both of these authorities and now we can use it on a larger
landscape. So it's one thing that we're thinking about if
that's something that would really help us. But we've had some
discussion on it.
Senator Hirono. You talked about the need for collaborating
with communities across the board. Do you have a state-by-state
program or plan that would enable communities and fire
departments and the state and counties to work collaboratively
with the Forest Service to prevent these wildfires?
Mr. Tidwell. We----
Senator Hirono. We have something for Hawaii.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes. In the past we've done it more community-
by-community with communities that developed a Community
Wildfire Protection Plan. Now with the cohesive strategy that
we've just put out, it allows us to take a much larger
landscape approach. So it recognizes not only do we need to
have fire adapted natural communities so we have these
restored, resilient forests, but we also need to have fire
adapted human communities so that we're taking the actions
around people's homes and on private land so that we're working
together to reduce this threat. These two efforts along with
the need to keep the suppression resources we have is really
going to be, I think, very helpful for us to be able to move
forward and address this problem that goes way beyond just the
Federal land.
Senator Hirono. Chief, I am sorry I am running out of time,
but you said that you work community-by-community? Are you
working with any particular communities in Hawaii? You can get
back to me.
Mr. Tidwell. I'll have to get back to you on it.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Mr. Tidwell. But the point that you raised about the
invasives that you're dealing with in Hawaii, I mean, that's
what we're doing with so many states. It's what comes in after
these fires, and so I appreciate you bringing that forward that
you also, your state also deals with this issue. We'll get back
to you with the list of communities we're working with.
Senator Hirono. We are basically the invasive species
capital of the country. [Laughter.]
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
Senator Gardner?
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to
Chief Tidwell and the other witnesses for being here today. It
is a timely hearing we are having.
On Saturday Senator Bennet and I in Colorado are hosting a
fire summit in Colorado Springs which is, of course, the site
to the Black Forest fire a couple of years ago, the Waldo
Canyon Fire and a number of other devastating events have
occurred throughout the state. Over two dozen wildfire experts,
community experts and mitigation experts will be joining us. I
will ask you about that in a little bit.
I wanted to follow up on some of your testimony. Where you
talked about progress in retrofitting the HC31H aircraft that
the service acquired from the U.S. Coast Guard. How many of
these aircrafts will be ready to perform wildfire suppression
missions this summer?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, we'll have one of those aircraft in
the latter part of the fire season that we're going to be
putting the MAFFs tank in it to be able to start to use that
this year. And then by the end of the year we expect to receive
the second one. It will be 2019 before we'll have probably all
seven of them with the tanks built into the planes.
Senator Gardner. The timeline for completing it, that gives
the timeline for completing the wing box and the tank work that
is required to bring them into service is 2019?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, we'll have all seven of them in operation
by then.
Senator Gardner. Okay, very good, thank you.
Do you have an update on the Forest Service ground water
rule? What is the status of that right now?
Mr. Tidwell. We have withdrawn our initial proposed rule to
allow us more time to continue to work with the states and the
stakeholders to really address this issue. Our concern about
making sure that we're not impacting ground water.
I'm working with our regional foresters to ensure that as
we have to address these issues, especially on some large mines
and oil and gas leases, is that the lack of having a
systematic, consistent process doesn't become a barrier from
being able to move forward and address those projects. We've
withdrawn for this time and we're going to continue to work
with the states to be able to, sometime in the future, to have
a solution to this issue so that we do not become the barrier
to implementing some of these projects.
Senator Gardner. One of the things I think you heard is a
common theme for many members of the Committee is just
continuing to talk about the litigation and the parent
paralysis that sometimes that presents in terms of making sure
that we are managing our forests in an appropriate way so we
can avoid or prevent the catastrophic wildfire from happening
in the first place.
If there was one particular avenue of litigation or perhaps
a piece of legislation that you could draft yourself to avoid
some of the litigation that is stopping or holding up some of
the forest management activities that are so needed around the
country, what would it be?
Mr. Tidwell. I would first start with looking at ways to
incentivize collaboration. As I look at the success that we're
having, today verses earlier in my career, that is the one
thing that's making the difference, the level of support and
understanding that we have to be able to do these projects. So
any way we can continue to, you know, encourage that. I also
think this concept of arbitration is something that I'm
interested in exploring in a pilot fashion to see if that might
be a better way.
The other thing is also when we talk about our using the
Farm bill authorities to be able to reduce the amount of
analysis we have to do instead of looking at sometimes five and
six alternatives, we look at two. That also allows us to be
able to ensure that we're addressing the issues around those
alternatives verses having to look at a much broader piece of
work. I think that will also help us to be more efficient and
more effective. But those are the things that I've been
thinking of.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Talking about some of the FEMA and the disaster
declarations, are you aware of some of the challenges we have
after a fire when it comes to the FEMA declarations themselves?
Has the Forest Service weighed in on any proposal to perhaps
change our disaster declarations?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, we work very closely with the states
during the fire on those to be able to make sure that they're
getting, send those in as quickly as they possibly can and to
be able to provide our interpretation.
Senator Gardner. I guess what I am talking about is long
after the fire is out we have the ongoing flooding issues, we
have landslide issues, hydrophobic soil conditions, and FEMA
can sometimes leave the scene even though that creates
secondary emergencies that then have to receive their own
designation. Has the Forest Service weighed in on perhaps
changing our national disaster declaration process so we can
avoid some of the regulatory hurdles that are naturally
occurring after a fire?
Mr. Tidwell. You know, we have not engaged on that, but we
definitely recognize the problem. I think it's another area
that we need to work together to be able to find a way to be
able to recognize that, yes, there's the fire and then there's
the recovery afterwards. And often that's more detrimental,
more impacting than actually the fire itself, as you've seen,
you know, in your state.
I think it's an opportunity where, I think, we can look at
taking a different approach so that we can do a better job to
work with our communities to be able to have a timely response
that goes way beyond what we're currently doing just with our
area emergency rehab work.
Senator Gardner. I was on the Western Slope this past
weekend and have just one final question. I was talking to an
individual who manages a narrow gauge railroad. He has his own
fire fighting fleet because, if there is a fire that is started
by the railroad that creates, obviously, liability and
substantial damage to his community.
As a result of some conflict between Forest Service
regulations he is sometimes limited in where he can send that
fire fighting fleet out to actually put a fire out before it
becomes a major fire and there are some challenges with a
helicopter that they have contracted to go in. I would love to
work with you in terms of trying to find out a way that we
could partner with the Forest Service and this fire fighting
fleet.
Both the Forest Service and this individual have the same
goal in mind and that is to prevent the forest fire from
happening in the first place, and perhaps we can make sure that
we can get the regulations into place where we are able to put
the fire out without finger pointing.
Mr. Tidwell. We'd be glad to work with you and the
individual on that. I mean, that's the sort of thing that
through, especially working with the state foresters that we
have the authorities to be able to do that. It may just be
making sure that we've got everything in place, and then also
we always share--have the concern with safety.
Senator Gardner. Right.
Mr. Tidwell. To make sure that whoever is responding to the
fire has the equipment, has the knowledge and the skills so
they can do it safely.
Senator Gardner. Right, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Risch?
Senator Risch. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chief Tidwell, you and I spoke just very briefly before the
hearing about some correspondence that your office received
from the State Land Board in Idaho. As you lived in Idaho you
are well familiar with the State Land Board, and they oversee
the state forest holdings and other holdings. They are
concerned, as you and I have discussed and as you have
discussed with many Members of Congress, and really focused on
some optimism, hopefully around the provisions in the Farm
bill, that are going to give us the opportunity to do some of
these treatment projects that we have wanted to do.
I do not think I need to tell you, but there is a lot of
frustration out there that it is not moving as fast as we would
like. I think maybe people had expectations raised beyond what
is reality when you are dealing with the Federal Government,
unfortunately, but I would urge you to continue. I think it is
still untested. We are making some progress on it, but I would
sure urge you that we continue to put one foot in front of the
other and try to mature this process as rapidly as we can.
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, I agree with that. We will be glad to
provide the Land Board out in Idaho and also to you and your
staff, just a list of all the projects we have planned in Idaho
using the Farm bill authorities.
Senator Risch. Okay.
[The information referred to follows:]
All projects included in the attached list are occurring in
the designated insect and disease areas (aka priority
landscapes) and are using or have potential to use Farm Bill
authorities. Projects that show ``pre-Farm Bill'' in the NEPA
Process column were already in progress or completed prior to
the 2014 Farm Bill and did not use Farm Bill authorities but
are occurring in the priority landscapes.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Tidwell. And then later this summer we'll finish the
Paperwork Reduction Act requirements so we can move forward
with the Good Neighbor Authority.
We have taken some additional time to work with the state
foresters to produce templates about how to use that. And
because of taking out additional time and actually doing some
scenarios with them, we call them Sand Table exercises, where
you'd actually go through a process to see how would this
actually play out to be able to work together to implement a
project. Because of that we've made significant changes to
template the feedback I'm getting from the state foresters that
they feel that's going to be a much better tool. So taking a
little more time on it is going to, I think, really help us in
the long run.
Senator Risch. I have spoken with Mr. Schultz, who I think
you know, who heads our State Land Board. He is very anxious to
see this move forward, and he is in agreement that this has
some real potential if it is moved expeditiously and
appropriately. I appreciate your efforts in that regard.
Mr. Eisele, I was surprised to hear you say that you were
short on the ground of overhead photography in a fire. When I
was Governor we had a summer that there was a lot of fire on
and every morning before it got light I had in hand a map of
what the fire had done from satellite imagery and some other
overhead imagery of what the fire had done the day before. I am
surprised to hear you say that that is not available to you in
San Diego. I am assuming you have satellite imagery in San
Diego like we do in Idaho? What can you tell me about that?
Mr. Eisele. So the process you're referring to is the
NIROPS program where the Forest Service airplane flies an
infrared plane over all the fires burning in, basically, the
Western United States. Then the fire teams have that
information before six o'clock in the morning, and I do know
where the fire is then. The issue is that fires change during
the day. We now know where the fire was last night and we know
where the fire was the night before. We don't have real time
information.
Now the Forest Service research does have an airplane with
a fire mapper program that can fly at above the altitude of the
air tankers and all of the helicopters and now can continuously
map that fire and send real time data down, but it's a research
program.
Senator Risch. So you are looking for hour-by-hour as
opposed to what happened the day before?
Mr. Eisele. Certainly or at least more than once every 24
hours.
Senator Risch. Sure, yes, that clearly makes sense. In
today's world with the technology we have it would seem to me
that that would not be that difficult to do. Predictability
obviously is important, and with weather changing and what have
you, sometimes it is relatively predictable and sometimes not.
Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Risch.
Senator Hoeven?
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chief, it is good to see you again. Thanks for your recent
visit to North Dakota. I would just like to follow up on that.
My first question goes to the environmental assessment and
the allotment plan for the grazers. In both cases they wanted
changes made proactively. Can you give me a status report on
how you are coming with that?
Mr. Tidwell. Senator, the follow up with that meeting our
folks, our staff, are going to continue, we're going to
continue to work with the Grazing Association members to be
able to address their concerns. I think I want to thank you for
hosting that meeting, because I also think it helped to clarify
a few issues to help us to be able to move forward and address
their concerns.
Senator Hoeven. So you feel you will be, working with your
state director, be able to make adjustments that should work
for the grazing associations and the ranchers?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, I was optimistic after listening, you
know, from the work there done at the university that I think
we provide a slightly different approach, one that I think
would work for both the ranchers and also address our needs.
So that was the thing I left with that meeting is that a
little different approach that was being proposed there that
could help, I think, really once and for all, kind of, settled
this one issue that we've had there.
Senator Hoeven. I appreciate that.
The other thing I would like to emphasize is working with
NDSU range scientists, particularly Dr. Souvik. I think that
not only are they very knowledgeable and they focus on the
science, but they also have a lot of credibility with the
ranchers and their area. So I would emphasize that you work
closely with NDSU and their range scientists, particularly on
the three and a half inch visual obstruction reading. I think
they can really help get to a solution that the ranchers feel
is common sense and workable.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, and that's the issue that the university
and the doctor, he has come up with a different approach to
really determine which areas actually have the capability to
produce that stubble height. I think from the discussions we
had there at your meeting and a little bit of follow up
discussion, I left there being more optimistic than I've been
for a while that hey, this is a better approach that the
university is coming up with for us to be able to answer that
question about which areas are capable or not. And it seems
like that's really been the issue. The ranchers can manage
their livestock to be able to produce the stubble height we'd
need. We just need to be able to understand which areas are
actually capable and which ones are not.
Senator Hoeven. Right.
Mr. Tidwell. And I think once we can come to an agreement
on that I'm optimistic that we can put this issue behind us and
move forward.
Senator Hoeven. In order to continue the Dakota Prairie
Grasslands demonstration project, does that require legislation
or is that something you can do without legislation?
Mr. Tidwell. We can continue to work under that
demonstration project. At this point we don't need any
additional legislation.
Senator Hoeven. Okay, It is important that we continue it.
Let me switch to the fire piece. I know you are getting a
lot of question on fires, but it looks like we are drier this
year. We certainly are drier this year starting out than we
have been the last several, particularly in the West.
So address for a minute your approach to the grasslands in
terms of steps you are taking to be prepared for fires this
season. Obviously we are very focused on the forests, but the
grasslands have fire issues as well.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, well the grasslands are part of the
national forest so it's for when I talk about the national
forest I'm always including the grasslands.
What we're doing there in the state is what we're doing
across the country is to be working with our cooperators, with
the volunteer fire departments, so that we're ready to go when
the fire season which in your case has already started. If I
recall the day I was up there just a couple days before we'd
already had several fires in your state that people were
explaining to me they just never see this level fire behavior
occurring so early in the year.
Those are the things to make sure that we have the
resources we need, that people are ready and that if there's
anything that we need to address that we can take care of ahead
of time.
In your state, like many states, it's those volunteer fire
departments that are a big part of our initial attack
resources. They're responsible for being able to get there
quickly and be able to suppress so many of the fires. And so
it's like in your state and the rest of the country, it takes
all of us working together, the Federal Government, the State,
counties and local fire to be able to deal with this.
Senator Hoeven. Then address the controlled burn issue for
a moment too. Obviously I am particularly sensitive to this
issue because it is dry, and we really want you working with
the people on the ground, not just the land owners, but
obviously volunteer fire departments and everyone else. So
let's touch on controlled burn for just a minute. Are you going
to stay away from it this year because it is drier? What is
your plan?
Mr. Tidwell. Well, definitely. When we have those
conditions that we have up there we often are not going to get
in prescription to begin with. But we're only going to be doing
prescribed burns where we have, you know, kind of the agreement
and the support from the grazing associations where in part of
your state it's a little bit wetter. That association is very
supportive of more fire. Other parts that are drier we don't
have that, at least that agreement at this point. So we're not
going to be using a lot of prescribed fire in those areas until
we have the right conditions and the level of agreement so that
everyone's together on what's the value of this and make sure
that we're factoring in the risk to avoid the situation we had
a couple years ago.
Senator Hoeven. Thanks again, Chief. I appreciate it.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hoeven.
We were discussing about how we get the accurate imaging of
the fire. During the Funny River fire that we had last year on
the peninsula the state was able to use drones to determine
where that hot spot was and found it very effective, because it
was one of those situations where the smoke was so thick you
did not know what was happening and there was no real way to
pinpoint it at that time. So the technologies that are out
there, I think, that can clearly help to make a difference as
we try to battle these fires.
Mr. Eisele, you mentioned the significance of having an app
where people know who is where and from a safety perspective,
making sure that those who are fighting our fires have some
tools that, perhaps, we have not had in the past.
We have not really had much discussion this morning about
the wildland urban interface and the fact that 50 to 95 percent
of Forest Service's fire suppression costs are incurred
protecting private property, and we all know about the Fire
Wise program. We certainly see the benefits of when a homeowner
takes very proactive steps to ensure a level of safety through
clearing around their areas.
I remember flying over the Kenai Peninsula some years ago
after horrible fires, and you would see just nothing but
charred blackness and then there would be this little island of
green where they had created defensible space. Just because of
the education that goes on with the Fire Wise program I think
we recognize that we can reduce the cost of suppression if the
homeowners as well take an active role in management.
Chief, can you speak to what we are doing to encourage that
end of it? Again, it is preventive, but are we using sufficient
resources to allow for an understanding, a training and an
education for folks so that they too are making a difference?
Mr. Tidwell. Madam Chair, we are making, I think, even more
and more progress each year. Especially with our cohesive
strategy that we put together working very closely with the
states, the counties, the boroughs and you know, with cities to
come up with an understanding of really what's it's going to
take and then the tools to be able to create that level of
awareness, especially with the private land owners. And then to
be able to set up demonstration projects around the country to
be able to show the difference that we're making. We're also
prioritizing some of our fuels money so that it's going to
those areas where the state, the private land owner is doing
the work on their land and so that we can make a more effective
treatment area. So those are the things that we're continuing
to do, and I think it encourages more people to maybe do the
right thing with their private land than to have those
demonstration projects where they can see the difference that
it makes and what it really takes, because some folks think
they have to like completely clear all of their land of all
trees and brush and we don't need to do anything to that level.
Those demonstration projects are really helping the private
land owners to be able to see, okay, this is really what I need
to do.
We're working very closely with our state foresters through
our state fire assistance programs to help provide some funding
to be able to do this work not only on the national forests,
but also on the private land together. Through this cohesive
strategy I do believe that it's going to really help us to move
forward in a bigger way than we have in the past. I've never
seen this level of support and understanding from our partners,
from the states and the counties, the boroughs and the cities
that I have based on this cohesive strategy.
The Chairman. If you are looking for demonstration projects
I would just suggest you put people in an airplane and fly over
some of these areas where you see the blue tarps that arc.
Mr. Tidwell. Yes.
The Chairman. Where you still have surviving structures,
again, amidst some pretty tough devastation here.
I was up in Iqaluit, Nunavut territory for the Arctic
Ministerial meeting with Secretary Kerry, and one of the
frameworks that was discussed there at the Arctic Council was a
focus on an effort to reduce black carbon emissions in the
Arctic. The Council's action is probably more focused on
manmade black carbon, but the reality is that the largest
contributor to black carbon is really the wildfire. I would
just ask if the Forest Service is going to have any role at all
in this black carbon initiative with the Council? If you do not
know you can get back to me or submit your answer for the
record, but I do want to put that on your radar screen because
it is something that, I think, we have not really talked about.
We are talking about the manmade, but, I think, again, the
issue of wildfire is where we see the vast majority of that
black carbon.
Mr. Tidwell. Madam Chair, I'll follow up, but I do know
that we have a couple of our research scientists that are
working with that group. The point that you bring up about the
carbon that's released from these fires, we can make a
difference if we can reduce the level of severity and the
catastrophic size of some of these fires as far as the total
release verses doing it through more of a prescribed fire and a
much lower severity.
So those are the things that, as we really look at this
problem, we need to be factoring in all of the benefits that
come in from having an approach that can restore these forests
and at the same time take suppression where we need to take
suppression to protect our communities.
The Chairman. One last question, very quickly.
In the Fire Potential Outlook Alaska's highest risk of
significant wildfire potential is in the May time period, and
it is my understanding that we are seeing fire season earlier
and earlier. I mentioned to you, just my own personal view,
from flying into the interior this weekend. Do we track that so
that we can actually identify that the fire season has started
in places like Alaska even earlier than traditionally seen?
Mr. Tidwell. Yes, we track the changing conditions to make
sure that if we need to bring on resources earlier than what we
normally would do that we bring those, that we have those
resources available.
The Chairman. That was specifically what I was going to ask
because you basically budget for this. You have got your assets
that are on standby, but if in fact we are seeing our fires
start earlier do we have them co-located in areas that we can
be responsive or do we wait until the calendar says fire season
begins in Alaska?
Mr. Tidwell. We do not wait.
The Chairman. Okay.
Mr. Tidwell. We----
The Chairman. That is what I need to know.
Mr. Tidwell. We reposition our resources where they're
needed.
The Chairman. Okay.
Senator Cantwell?
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chief Tidwell, I wanted to go back to you on the question
that I asked before. I did not think we got a chance to get to
that, and that was the amount of funding that is available
versus the amount of need that we have on the wildland urban
interface. Where do you think we need to go in terms of getting
resources and what do you think the advent of a biomass program
might be able to do to help?
Mr. Tidwell. Well first, with the increase in funding that
we received this year for hazardous fuels and where the
majority of our work is in the wildland urban interface, that
is going to allow us to be able to expand that program and be
able to treat more acres. For instance, we're having 2.5
million acres as our target for this year, and out of that 2.1
of that is going to actually occur in these highest priority
areas. The second part of it is with finding more use for the
biomass and whether it's through an integrated wood product
that can expand markets or to be able to use it for energy
conversion and substitute that for other energy sources. I
think those are the things we have to continue to work on.
I think where we've been able to use the BCAP authorities
that subsidize the transportation of biomass, it's allowed for
new facilities to come online to be able to provide some
additional support for those new businesses. Those are the
things we just need to continue to be able to work on, and then
the program that we have to help folks be able to receive
grants to do the economic analysis, to put a business case
together, so that they're in a much better place before they
make the decision to make that investment.
The last point that's been brought up a couple times is the
certainty. It's essential that we provide some level of
certainty, especially for these new operations, so that that's
the one thing they don't have to worry about that there is
going to be x amount of biomass that's guaranteed to be
available for at least a ten year period.
Senator Cantwell. Why do I think of the set aside issue
when you say that? The notion that the Forest Service needs to
adhere to the set aside for small businesses?
Mr. Tidwell. Well it's one of the things, with our
stewardship contracting, it's one of the issues that once,
thank you again for making that permanent for us, but we're
working with the Small Business Administration to be able to go
through rulemaking to address that issue.
Senator Cantwell. Okay. We definitely want to see us make
progress. And if you're saying that part of this is getting,
you know, a flow of the biomass to create these businesses.
Of the, you said $300 million, what do you think that
represents as far as addressing need? Do you think there is a
number that is double or triple that that you could easily do
if you had the resources?
Mr. Tidwell. Well I would respond with what we requested in
our budget for FY'16 to maintain the increase in hazardous
fuels that we received last year to be able to expand the
collaborative forest landscape restoration work, to be able to
get more funding for our basic forest restoration work and then
also some additional funding to work with the states to be able
to expand the work that they're doing.
Those are the things that we asked for in our budget, along
with recognizing that our ten year average for fire suppression
went up $115 million again just this last year. So when you
total those numbers together, our budget request plus what
we're asking, needing for fire suppression and ten year
average, it's, I think it actually comes out to a little over
$300 million.
Senator Cantwell. When you say what you've said today in
your testimony and questions, it sounds to me more, I am not
saying status quo, but it is sounding more like we are on the
right trajectory. Then when I see this research report from
your organization it says something different. So where are you
on that research report because it is within the Forest
Service?
Mr. Tidwell. Yeah, I just was reading that at the start of
the hearing. You know, the research I think, identifies really
what we're focused on and the shifts that we've made over the
last few years to recognize the need for us to manage fire, not
only the natural fire in the back country, but we'll have our
fires where we're taking very active suppression on part of
that fire and then at the same time allowing another portion of
that fire to be able to burn, to be able to reduce fuels.
A good example of this was the Rim Fire a couple years ago
in California. Aggressive suppression to keep the fire out of
the communities, but at the same time we allowed that fire to
burn up until Yosemite National Park where the park had been
doing some prescribed burning. So those are the things that we
need to continue to do. When I look at that research paper, for
me, it describes really where we're at, but we do need to
expand. We're going to need to be able to use more natural fire
to manage more natural fire, we need to increase our prescribed
fire, and we also need to increase our mechanical treatments,
especially in those places that we need to do that work before
we can put fire into the landscape.
The other challenge we have, and it's pointed out in this
paper, is for our communities to really understand what needs
to occur. When we're managing fire in the back country there's
still a lot of concern. And at times I think some of our
communities, that they're scared or worried about where that
fire is going to go verses if they know that they see the
planes flying and the resources and stuff. So we need to do a
better job to work with our communities so that they understand
the actions we're going to take and that they recognize the
work that we've done to reduce the threat to their communities
but to build more support for it.
The other thing, and it hasn't been mentioned yet at the
hearing, we're going to have to work together with the states
to be able to address smoke management. There are times when
we're going to have to, I think, put up with a little more
smoke from a managed fire, a low severity fire, to reduce those
catastrophic situations.
It's something I think we're going to have to work together
to be able to provide that flexibility so that there is less
impact, not only to our communities but I think about the loss
of tourism, the loss of economic activity when we have these
large fires. You saw it in your own state with the Carlton that
those communities, there was nobody going up there to go
fishing or float the rivers, etcetera, when that fire was going
on.
That's another reason why we need to increase our pace and
scale with this work, and I think an incremental approach like
what we're taking with our FY'16 budget is the right way so we
can continue to ramp this up.
I know I'm way over time, but I just have to mention, like
the Salt River. The partnerships that are coming together from
communities or water companies that recognize that it's a good
investment to be able to change the conditions so that they
don't have to deal with the aftermath of a more catastrophic
fire.We're seeing that spring up across the country where
people are willing. Communities, water companies, and water
boards are willing to make that investment to be able to change
the conditions on our landscape.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Dr. Pyne, I see you listening intently to every word that
Chief Tidwell was saying. Do you have any comments about that?
Dr. Pyne. No, I'm currently admiring his mastery of the
venue and his material.
I think the only comment I would add to some of the
observations you made is on the wildland urban interface issue.
We've tended to define that as a wildland problem that affects
communities, but you can pick up the other end of that stick.
Isn't this an urban fire problem with wildland landscaping? If
you think of it that way then we know how to keep houses from
burning. We've solved that problem before. So in some ways it's
a definitional issue. If we start thinking about these as
little fragments of cities then we start applying the same
solutions we've had, and we can solve it technically.
Senator Cantwell. Even in these extreme situations like
Carlton because it was such a blow up, because of weather and
wind and everything?
Dr. Pyne. Yes, I think you can. We know how to harden those
communities. We know how to solve some of that. Under truly
extreme conditions you're going to have some damage. You're not
going to stop everything, but think of it as a kind of
hurricane event. We know how to prepare and take action. So in
some ways, I think, we're mis-defining it.
I'm struck how often with aerial photos of these
communities that have been burned the houses are reduced to the
concrete slab, but you still see so many trees around it,
surviving. And you're struck by this is a house, an urban fire
problem with funding landscaping not just a wildland fire
problem. So we need to do both. But I would put more resources,
thinking about the other half of that equation.
Senator Cantwell. So you are definitely describing Pateros
because those houses, in a matter of minutes, burned down to
the foundation.
Dr. Pyne. Yes.
Senator Cantwell. But why were you saying that there are
trees?
Dr. Pyne. Well, I'm not familiar enough with the Carlton
complex. I know there was a lot of disperse stuff. But I'm
thinking of, we had comments from Colorado earlier, the Black
Forest fire, Waldo Canyon, some of these others. Looking at the
overviews of these and repeatedly that's what you see in forest
situations, communities. The fire is going house to house. It's
going along the ground of these, and you're wondering why are
some of these communities burning? That's a house problem.
That's an urban fire problem or an ex-urban fire problem, not
just a wildland fire problem.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
Chief, I am not going to go back to Fairbanks and tell them
that they have got to suffer through more smoke. As you know,
we have just some extraordinary summers where there is no
soccer that is being played, there is a health alert every
morning, and some mornings it is so dense you literally need to
have your headlights on during the summertime. It is an issue
that we deal with. Fairbanks has some of the poorest air
quality during the winter because of inversion issues, but
during the summer it is because of the wildland fires that are
all around. It is something that we struggle with most
certainly.
I listened to some of what you said in terms of the average
that we spent last year. I think you said about $150 million
more than it has been on average over the last ten years. I
have seen something that says almost $200 million more spent on
average. But what we have seen is that there have been less
than half the number of fires, less than half the number of
acres burned and less than half the number of houses burned.
So again it speaks to the issue that we have here where we
are experiencing skyrocketing suppression costs. I think we get
to a point where we cannot continue to throw everything that we
have at every fire whether it is effective or not. You just
cannot take a blank check approach to fighting the fires. It is
not sustainable, economically or perhaps ecologically, so it is
something that we must look at.
I think we need to strategically address the fuel
accumulation problem in our forests and integrate our fuels
management objectives into the wildfire management operations.
I do not think that we can have fire management divorced from
land management, and I think we heard that from several of our
witnesses here today.
Clearly, we have got a great deal that we have to do. It
sounds weak to say it, but I hope, for our sake, from a budget
perspective that it is not going to be a bad fire season. I
hope that for the sake of those who have properties or perhaps
concerns about their own safety that it is not a bad fire
season. I certainly hope for the men and women who, in the face
of pretty serious danger, are willing to go out there and
battle these forest fires. I hope for them it is not a bad fire
season.
But that is not a good policy to hope that we get lucky
that we do not have a bad fire season. I think we are seeing
things set up for a tough year this year with the drought in
the West, low snow pack everywhere it seems except here in the
East. So we have some real issues to deal with.
I think, again, you have got a real commitment to figure
out how we can deal with this fire borrowing because we cannot
get to the fuels treatments. We cannot get to the important
aspects of what we can do on the preventive side if we do not
have dollars in the budget, if they have been spent on these
sky high suppression costs. So we have some work to do, and I
think you have the commitment from many around this dais to
work with you to find some solutions.
To those of you who traveled far to be here with us this
morning, you may not have gotten the bulk of the questions, but
know that your testimony and your input is greatly appreciated
as we look to resolve these issues that have considerable
impact, particularly to those of us in the West.
With that, we stand adjourned and thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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