    [Senate Hearing 114-337]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                           S. Hrg. 114-337

    A REVIEW OF PAST WILDFIRE SEASONS TO INFORM AND IMPROVE FUTURE FEDERAL
                      WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   ----------

                               NOVEMBER 17, 2015

                                   ----------

                           Printed for the use of the
                   Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

               Available via the World Wide Web: http://fdsys.gov

         A REVIEW OF PAST WILDFIRE SEASONS TO INFORM AND IMPROVE FUTURE
                  FEDERAL WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

                                                            S. Hrg. 114-337

    A REVIEW OF PAST WILDFIRE SEASONS TO INFORM AND IMPROVE FUTURE FEDERAL
                      WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                                  COMMITTEE ON
                          ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                        ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                               NOVEMBER 17, 2015

                                   __________

                           Printed for the use of the
                   Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
                   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

                                  ----------

                               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.....................................................     3

                                   WITNESSES

    Fennell, Anne-Marie, Director, Natural Resources and Environment,
      U.S. Government Accountability Office..........................     6
    Maisch, John ``Chris'', State Forester and Director, Division of
      Forestry, Alaska Department of Natural Resources...............    26
    Covington, Dr. William Wallace, Regents' Professor of Forest
      Ecology and Director, Ecological Restoration Institute,
      Northern Arizona University....................................    43
    Zerkel, Richard, President, Lynden Air Cargo, LLC................    52
    Burnett, Mike, Fire Chief, Chelan County Fire District 1.........    57
    Wyss, Jon, Chairman, Okanogan County Long Term Recovery Group....    64

              ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

    Burnett, Mike:
        Opening Statement............................................    57
        Written Statement............................................    59
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   128
    (The) California Forest and Watershed Alliance:
        Statement for the Record.....................................   278
    Cantwell, Hon. Maria:
        Opening Statement............................................     3
        Chart 1-Wenatchee Complex in 2012............................    87
        Chart 2-Behive Reservoir.....................................    89
        Chart 3-Fire Treated Road....................................    91
    (The) Corps Network:
        Letter for the Record........................................   283
    Covington, Dr. William Wallace:
        Opening Statement............................................    43
        Written Testimony............................................    45
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   119
    Fennell, Anne-Marie:
        Opening Statement............................................     6
        Written Testimony............................................     8
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   114
        GAO-13-684 Wildland Fire Management: Improvements Needed in
          Information, Collaboration, and Planning to Enhance Federal
          Fire Aviation Program Success dated August 2013............   144
        GAO-15-772 Wildland Fire Management: Agencies Have Made
          Several Key Changes but Could Benefit From More Information
          About Effectiveness dated September 2015...................   199
    Maisch, John ``Chris'':
        Opening Statement............................................    26
        Written Testimony............................................    28
    Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
        Opening Statement............................................     1
    Wyss, Jon:
        Opening Statement............................................    64
        Written Testimony............................................    67
        Responses to Questions for the Record........................   129
    Zerkel, Richard:
        Opening Statement............................................    52
        Written Testimony............................................    54

    A REVIEW OF PAST WILDFIRE SEASONS TO INFORM AND IMPROVE FUTURE FEDERAL
                      WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

                                  ----------

                           TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2015

                                           U.S. Senate,
                     Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 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. I call to order the meeting of Energy and
    Natural Resources Committee.
        Before we commence with the hearing, I think it is
    appropriate, and I know that on the floor of the Senate at this
    appointed hour, ten o'clock, a 1-minute moment of silence is
    being observed for those that were the victims of the horrible
    tragedy in Paris. So at this moment I would like to observe a
    1-minute moment of silence. [Moment of silence.]
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        This is a pretty somber way to begin, and it is also a very
    somber subject this morning as we talk about the 2015 fire
    season. It was a tragic one. It was punctuated by some
    fatalities. We lost residents who could not escape the flames
    and the brave firefighters who gave their lives to keep our
    communities safe.
        The Okanogan Complex fire in Washington claimed the lives
    of three heroes, Thomas Zbyszewski, Andrew Zajac and Richard
    Wheeler. I want to start by acknowledging them and offering
    prayers to their families.
        Each year the wildfire season seems to include new worsts
    and historical records. For its part 2015 has been marked by a
    relentless wildfire season that has stretched nearly all year.
    According to the National Interagency Fire Center more than 9.4
    million acres have burned through October 30. This year's
    season is among the most devastating years for wildfires since
    reliable records began in 1960, coming close to 2006 when an
    all time high of nearly 9.9 million acres burned.
        Mega fires, which are the fires over 100,000 acres in size
    and incomprehensible just decades ago, are becoming the new
    norm. Five mega fires were burning at the same time in
    September alone.
        The majority of our nation's fires continue to occur in my
    State of Alaska, and this year was no exception. We had over
    five million acres burned in Alaska. This is an area the size
    of the State of Connecticut. Only the 2004 fire season, where
    nearly 6.6 million acres burned, was worse for us.
        This year the fire season in Alaska was also unique and not
    in a good way. We did not have much snow over the winter and
    the spring featured record warm temperatures creating some
    unusually dry conditions and then came the lightning. On one
    day alone, near the summer solstice, lightning struck our state
    around 15,000 times, so over 15,000 strikes in one day.
    Ultimately lightning caused more than half of the more than 700
    fires in Alaska this season.
        At one point this summer more than 200 fires were burning
    in the state, all over the state and all at once. Numerous
    Native Alaskan villages were evacuated because of fires that
    threatened air quality and structures. The thick smoke in
    Fairbanks pushed air quality to hazardous levels, forcing
    outdoor activities to be canceled. Dozens of homes north and
    south of Anchorage were lost. Anchorage spent 24 days at
    preparedness level five. You all on the panel here clearly know
    what level five is, but for those who are unfamiliar, it is the
    highest level. These wildfires drained budgets and required so
    much manpower to battle that officials enlisted the help of
    international crews at times.
        Unfortunately there is no easy solution. We cannot simply
    match the increasing wildfire threat with greater and greater
    suppression force and call it a day. Wildfire suppression and
    its escalating costs are economically, ecologically, and
    socially unsustainable, and the 2015 fire season underscores
    that point.
        We must recognize that many of the same factors that are
    increasing the size, frequency and intensity of wildfires are
    also driving up wildfire suppression costs both in actual
    dollars and as a portion of the Forest Service total budget.
    These factors include excessive fuel loads, due in part to
    decades of fire exclusion, a changing climate, insect and
    disease infestation, severe drought, the spread of invasive
    species and expanding wildland urban interface. But that is not
    all. Operational factors associated with wildfire management,
    our objectives, strategies and tactics, all have significant
    cost implications. This includes the aviation assets that we
    deploy today.
        We spent $2.1 billion fighting fires this season and $4.2
    billion in total on wildfire management. It is not even clear
    where these dollars were spent and whether they were well
    spent. That is due, in part, to the fact that the agencies do
    not bother to conduct reviews of the large, expensive fires.
        The Forest Service has claimed that the wildfire problem is
    a budget problem, but that is probably an oversimplification.
    We all agree that Congress must end the practice of fire
    borrowing, but we just cannot throw money at the problem.
        In the Interior Appropriations bill that I chair the
    Subcommittee on, we provide a fiscally responsible approach to
    end fire borrowing. It would budget for 100 percent of the 10-
    year average for fire suppression and provide a limited
    emergency reserve, or contingency fund, for fire fighting in
    the above average years. I think that is part of the solution,
    but the wildfire problem is not just a budgeting problem. It is
    also a management problem, and we have failed to appropriately
    manage our fire dependent forests and fire prone landscapes and
    that has predisposed our forests to mega fires.
        We must work with our state agencies, our local communities
    and the public to increase community preparedness and make our
    forests healthy again. Healthy, resilient forests are fire
    resistant forests. Yet, despite knowing the value of fuel
    reduction treatments in mitigating wildfire risks, increasing
    fire fighter safety and restoring the health of our forests,
    active management is still often met with a series of
    discouraging and near insurmountable obstacles. High upfront
    costs, long planning horizons and regulatory environment
    requirements, including what seem like unending environmental
    reviews, are impeding our ability to implement treatments at
    the pace and the scale these wildfires are occurring.
        These are big problems that will take cooperation and
    commitment to solve. Senator Cantwell and I have agreed to work
    together and with members of this Committee to develop a better
    wildfire management strategy for our country. I think it is
    fair to say that Senator Cantwell and I share the view that
    this is strategy that should be guided by some principles.
        The principles include responsibly funding wildfire
    suppression, ending the unsustainable practice of fire
    borrowing, improving operational efficiencies to ensure the
    availability and effectiveness of the aviation fleet and fire
    fighter safety, increasing community preparedness through Fire
    Wise activities and implementing community wildfire protection
    plans, making the necessary investments in a full array of fuel
    treatments to include not just prescribed fire but also
    mechanical thinning, increasing the use of technology on
    wildfires and reducing paperwork to get needed projects
    implemented in a timely manner.
        We know this type of strategy is necessary because we have
    just endured another terrible fire season that has affected
    many of our home states, many of the people that we know and
    many of the lands and the landscapes that we treasure.
        So this is not just any Tuesday morning here at the Energy
    Committee. This cannot be a review without a purpose where we
    turn the page, close the book and consider our responsibility
    is met for another year. We have a lot of work to do, and we
    need to work together to develop real solutions to the wildfire
    problem.
        With that, I turn to Senator Cantwell.

                   STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL,
                      U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

        Senator Cantwell. Well thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank
    you for holding this important hearing. Thank you for the
    witnesses coming today. We look forward to hearing from all of
    you.
        I also want to thank the Chair for allowing us to do a
    field hearing last August in Seattle, Washington that our
    colleague, Senator Barrasso, came out for. We certainly
    appreciate both the field hearing and him joining us for that.
        We learned many things from the hearings that we have had
    so far, and we are going to learn more today. We have learned
    there are actions that agencies can take and that communities
    can take to decrease the risk of forest fires. We learned about
    the benefits of creating surge capacity to respond in these
    cases when we do have extreme events. But what has stood out
    most for me, from one of the witnesses that we had in Seattle,
    Dr. Medler from Western Washington University, was that he
    explained we have not seen the worst yet. This is something
    that requires immediate action.
        I want to thank Jon Wyss and Chief Burnett for being here
    today from the State of Washington. These are two people who
    are intimately familiar with these issues surrounding
    wildfires, particularly given our experience over the past two
    summers.
        In 2014 our state experienced the Carlton Complex, the
    worst fire in our state history. So earlier this year when the
    Committee began work on fire and discussing what we learned
    from that tragedy, we were scheduling listening sessions all
    across the State of Washington about what the Federal
    Government could do better and what we could do to help local
    communities. What we did not realize at the time that we had
    scheduled those meetings is that 2015 was going to be an even
    more dramatic fire season.
        Almost one million acres in my state burned in about a
    month. That is an area the size of Delaware. So in addition to
    severe economic loss to the timber industry, the recreational
    economy, tribes, and the fire fighters in Washington State, who
    suffered a tragic loss, these impacts are unbelievable.
        I want to say that the three Forest Service fire fighters
    that were killed in the line of duty while protecting the
    communities in which they live were the best among us, Andrew
    Zajac, Richard Wheeler and Tom Zbyszewski. A fourth fire
    fighter, Daniel Lyon, was severely burned in the entrapment and
    has been going through recovery. Clearly 2015 was a tragedy.
        As I have traveled across the state looking at various
    issues I heard compelling stories from fire fighters, business
    owners and residents who lost their homes or had to evacuate
    that what we needed to do was to do better. Fire fighters,
    county commissioners, Forest Service people, legislators, all
    came forward with issues about coordination, response, making
    sure that fewer homes burned, making sure our fire fighters are
    safer, and proactively decreasing the intensity of these fires
    so that they can be better managed. I know that the colleagues
    that are present here today have experienced similar fire
    seasons in their states, as Chairman Murkowski just mentioned.
        Unfortunately, there are only so many spots available on
    the witness table, or I am sure that every one of us could have
    filled the whole table with people from our state who are
    stakeholders in this discussion. So before we begin I would
    just like to recognize a couple people who are not at the
    table.
        From Aero-Flite, Mike, if he is here he can wave his hand,
    a company that is in Spokane, Washington. The air tanker fleet
    is very important to how we fight fires and continuing to
    improve that service with the Forest Service giving contracts,
    I think is very important.
        I want to recognize Brian Gunn from the Colville Tribe, who
    is also here. This summer wildfires spread into the reservation
    and destroyed 20 percent of their timber. A quarter of the
    tribe's economy is generated from timber, so to say that this
    was a big deal is an understatement. They lost upwards of $1
    billion of standing timber.
        This hearing is the third in our Committee that we have had
    so far since the wildfires of 2015. I am pretty sure that makes
    a record for the Committee. I think it shows that we are
    serious about getting something done, and I want to thank
    Senator Murkowski for outlining some of the things that she and
    I believe that should be in a bill. Ending the practice of fire
    borrowing so that we actually do more in prevention and
    preparedness up front, improving the efficiencies of our
    operation, ensuring that the fire fighters have the best
    equipment and those in communities that are challenged by how
    broad the map has become have every resource available to them,
    increasing community preparedness through activities such as
    Fire Wise and risk mapping, and investing in fuel treatments
    that we know will make a difference such as prescribed burn or
    mechanical thinning.
        Dr. Covington, I cannot wait to hear from you today about
    this issue particularly because I am very interested and will
    show some maps about thinning success in Washington State and
    where it mattered in prevention. But also just this overlay as
    it relates to where our fires are with ponderosa pine. I really
    want to understand how we are going to protect our forests.
        Increasing our use of technology and including unmanned
    aerial vehicles to give us more information, and for us in the
    central part of the state, it is clear we need a new Doppler
    system to talk about high wind incidents which we certainly
    experienced the day that our fire fighters lost their lives.
        All these are very, very important issues, and I am pleased
    to be working with the Chair on this. We have also had many
    conversations with our colleague, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers in the
    House of Representatives, since her legislative district has
    been front and center in all of this.
        I also want to just say that I know that while we have put
    out a white paper that we discussed in Seattle at our hearing,
    that there are many inputs that we have received along with
    what we are going to hear today.
        I hope, Madam Chairman, that all of us on this Committee of
    Western States can work together, because I think we see that
    those who are represented here today understand that we do not
    want to face the 2016 fire season without better tools, without
    better processes, without better operations to help our
    communities and help our states.
        Thank you very much.
        The Chairman. Well said. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
        With that we will go to the panel before us. Again we
    appreciate you coming to the Committee this morning and giving
    us your perspective.
        The Committee will be led off this morning by Anne-Marie
    Fennell, who is the Director for the Natural Resources and
    Environment Team at the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
    We appreciate you being here.
        Next we have Mr. Chris Maisch. Chris is the State Forester
    and Director for the Division of Forestry with the State of
    Alaska, very skilled and very much an expert in so many of
    these issues. So we appreciate you traveling to be with us this
    morning.
        Next we have Dr. William Wallace Covington, who is the
    Regents' Professor of Forest Ecology, the Executive Director
    for the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona
    University. Thank you for being before the Committee this
    morning.
        Next we have another Alaskan, who will speak to us from the
    air tankers perspective and how we deal with these suppression
    efforts from the air, Mr. Richard Zerkel, who is President of
    Lynden Air Cargo. Thank you for being here this morning.
        We also have Mr. Mike Burnett, who is the Fire Chief from
    the Chelan County Fire.
        Rounding out the panel we have Mr. Jon Wyss, who is the
    Chairman of the Okanogan and Carlton Complex Long Term
    Recovery.
        We have a lot of expertise here this morning before the
    Committee, and we thank you for being with us.
        Ms. Fennell, if you would like to lead off? Please keep
    your oral testimony to five minutes and your full testimony
    will be incorporated as part of the record.

     STATEMENT OF ANNE-MARIE FENNELL, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES
         AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

        Ms. Fennell. Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell
    and members of the Committee, I'm pleased to be here today to
    discuss our recent work on wildland fires.
        Wildland fires play an important ecological role but cost
    billions each year and result in damage and loss of life. As
    you know the 2015 fire season has been especially severe with
    over nine million acres burned.
        The Forest Service and Interior are responsible for
    wildland fire management on Federal lands including contracting
    for aircraft to help suppress fires. Increased fire intensity
    has prompted agency efforts to try to better manage fires.
    Understanding the effectiveness of these efforts takes on a
    heightened importance since these agencies have obligated $8.3
    million over 6 years to suppress fires.
        My statement today focuses on one, how the Forest Service
    and Interior assess the effectiveness of their wildland fire
    management programs, and two, the Forest Service efforts to
    modernize the large air tanker fleet and challenges in doing
    so. My testimony is based on reports we issued in September
    2015 and August 2013.
        First, Forest Service and Interior assess the effectiveness
    of their wildland programs in several ways including through
    performance measures, efforts to assess particular activities
    and reviews of fires. In our September report we found that the
    Forest Service and Interior acknowledged their performance
    measures needed improvement and were developing new ones. In
    addition the agencies are undertaking efforts to assess
    activities to reduce hazardous vegetation that can fuel fires.
        However, the Forest Service and Interior have not
    consistently followed agency policy in selecting and reviewing
    the fires to determine agency effectiveness in responding to
    fires. Their policies generally direct them to review each fire
    involving Federal expenditures of $10 million or more. Agency
    officials told us that these policies over emphasize cost
    rather than effectiveness in responding to fires.
        The agencies, though, have not developed specific criteria
    for selecting fires. For example, Forest Service officials told
    us that they judgmentally select fires based on such broad
    criteria as national significance. Accordingly, the Forest
    Service reviewed five fires that occurred in 2012 and ten that
    occurred in 2013. But given its broad criteria it's not clear
    why the Forest Service selected these fires and not others such
    as the 2013 Rim Fire which burned more than 250,000 acres and
    was the costliest fire to suppress that year.
        We concluded that by developing criteria for selecting and
    reviewing fires the agencies may obtain useful information
    about effectively responding to fires. As a result we
    recommended in our September report that the Forest Service and
    Interior develop specific criteria for selecting and reviewing
    fires and update their policies accordingly. The agencies
    generally agreed.
        Second, in our 2013 report we found that the Forest Service
    faced challenges in modernizing its fleet of large air tankers
    which declined from 44 in 2002 to eight in 2013. Specifically
    we found that the Forest planned to modernize its fleet by
    obtaining aircraft from various sources over the near, medium
    and long term but each component of this approach faced
    challenges. Some of these challenges persist while others are
    less relevant today.
        For example, the Forest Service had awarded contracts for
    seven next generation large air tankers but as of 2013 only one
    had completed necessary Federal approval and certification
    processes. Agency officials told us that they now have 20
    privately-owned, large air tankers under contract and another
    seven air tankers transferring from the Coast Guard.
        In conclusion, the increasing severity and cost of wildland
    fires highlights the importance of Federal agencies
    continuously and systematically assessing the effectiveness of
    their approaches so as to identify possible improvements in
    combating wildland fires in an ever changing landscape.
        Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell and members of
    the Committee, this concludes my prepared statement. I'm happy
    to respond to questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Fennell follows:]

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Fennell.
        Mr. Maisch, welcome.

        STATEMENT OF JOHN ``CHRIS'' MAISCH, STATE FORESTER AND
     DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL
                               RESOURCES

        Mr. Maisch. Good morning, Chairman Murkowski and Ranking
    Member Cantwell and members of the Committee. My name is Chris
    Maisch. I'm the State Forester and Director of the Alaska
    Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry and past
    president of the National Association of State Foresters
    (NASF). The NASF represents the directors of the state forestry
    agencies in all 50 states, eight territories and the District
    of Columbia.
        This was another difficult wildland fire season for us
    nationally, and in Alaska it will go down in the record books
    as the second worst season for acres burned. Approximately 5.1
    million acres or about 54 percent of the 9.4 million acres that
    burned nationally this year were in Alaska. The worst fire
    season on record for Alaska occurred just over a decade ago at
    6.4 million acres a year.
        And if you would, please look at Figure 1 in your handout.
    As you examine the graph you will see a dashed line that
    indicates the rolling 11-year average for acres burned, and you
    can see that 2004 was the tipping point for the state. The
    workload, as represented by acres burned, has doubled from the
    previous long term average and this past season underscored the
    type of wildland fire season we are faced with on a more
    frequent basis.
        I also have to tell you a personal story. It was the year
    my red beard turned grey in 2004. [Laughter.]
        Our season began this year with two large urban interface
    fires, the Sockeye near Willow and the Card Street near
    Soldotna. The Sockeye fire was initially attacked at two acres
    and was 1,000 acres by the end of the day, and by the end of
    the second day it was 9,000 acres. Unfortunately over 100
    structures were lost including 55 primary residents.
        These incidents were a sign of things to come, and in mid-
    June in a 7-day period over 61,000 lightning strikes ignited
    295 fires. And that's Figure 2 in your handout. By the end of
    the season 45 states and two Canadian provinces had provided
    resources to Alaska fires.
        While all this activity was taking place in Alaska, the
    lower 48 season began to develop into a more active and
    challenging series of incidents. Many of the Western states,
    particularly Oregon, Washington and California, were having
    another difficult fire year.
        So what did we learn from this past season and what can we
    do to address these growing problems?
        Communities at risk. In FY2013 the total number of
    communities at risk from wildland fire in the U.S. was 72,000.
    The NASF is a key partner in the development and implementation
    of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and
    its three primary goals: restore and maintain resilient
    landscapes, develop fire adapted communities, and provide
    efficient and effective responses to wildfires.
        I'd like to illustrate the importance of these objectives
    by sharing a story about the Funny River fire from the 2014
    Alaska fire season. The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge has been
    creating fuel breaks. These are large landscape level projects
    designed to protect homes, businesses and other values at risk
    should a fire start on the refuge and move toward the
    community. Take a look at Figure 4 for a picture of one.
        These advanced preparations paid off and in the spring of
    2004 a lightning initiated fire threatened the outskirts of
    Soldotna. The fuel breaks made all the difference. The call
    came in around midnight that the fire was going to hit the
    Funny River Road. By the time crews arrived there was not much
    time to start a burn out to rob the approaching fire of fuel.
    The fuel breaks slowed the fire and allowed crews to safely and
    successfully light a burn out. Over 2,400 structures were
    protected with an assessed value of more than $250 million.
        Next I'd like to talk briefly about another topic, and this
    topic has to do with our aviation programs. An ongoing problem
    for many states with wildland fire aviation programs is the
    issue of carding both individual pilots and aviation platforms.
        Both the Forest Service and the Department of Interior,
    through their Office of Aircraft Services, require additional
    verification of any aviation assets that will be used on a
    Federal fire. The two agencies are not well coordinated in this
    effort despite using the same carding standards for
    certification and this caused some real problems during the
    fire season.
        In my written testimony I've listed several specific
    examples to illustrate the issue, but I'd like to share two
    with you from my home state. A State of Alaska contract
    helicopter that is based out of California had been carded at
    the beginning of the fire season by the Forest Service and had
    to be re-carded by OAS when it reported to Alaska for work
    later in the summer. Also in Alaska two National Guard
    Blackhawk helicopters doing bucket work on a Forest Service
    fire were not utilized for a second mission when it was
    determined they were not carded.
        These examples illustrate some of the challenges faced by
    states this season and the Federal agencies should engage State
    forest agencies as equal partners to update the National
    Wildland Fire Aviation Strategy with an efficient and
    consistently implemented approval process.
        I see my time is short so I'd encourage you to examine two
    other general topics in my written testimony where I've made
    some recommendations for improving or maintaining programs that
    help grow and maintain response capacity and the need for more
    proactive forest management to help address some of the
    underlying causes of this problem.
        In conclusion, thank you for the opportunity to appear
    before the Committee today. My fellow state foresters and I
    stand ready to assist the Committee at finding ways to address
    the challenges we all face as the wildland fire problem
    continues to grow and consume larger and larger portions of our
    State and Federal budgets.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Maisch follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Maisch.
        Dr. Covington, welcome.

    STATEMENT OF DR. WILLIAM WALLACE COVINGTON, REGENTS' PROFESSOR
        OF FOREST ECOLOGY, AND DIRECTOR, ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION
                 INSTITUTE, NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY

        Dr. Covington. Chairman Murkowski, Senator Cantwell,
    members of the Committee, thank you so much for the opportunity
    to testify before you today about a problem that's important to
    all of us. It's been important to me for almost 50 years now.
        My name is Wally Covington. I'm Regents' Professor of
    Forest Ecology at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and
    Executive Director of the Ecological Restoration Institute
    which was established in 2004 by Federal authorizing
    legislation. We have three institutes, one at Arizona, one at
    Colorado and one at New Mexico. All of them, working together
    to provide the best available information that can be had for
    restoring forest health and preventing the kinds of devastating
    fires that we're talking about today.
        Being at NAU for over 40 years now I have had the
    opportunity to teach fire ecology and management, wildlife
    forest operations, virtually any topic in the area of forestry
    and I've also conducted research, primarily fire-based
    research, confronting the problem of steadily increasing
    wildfires.
        In 1976 I'd been there for just a year when my house was
    threatened by a fire which was then called the biggest and most
    devastating fire in Arizona history. It was almost 4,700 acres.
    And then during this 40 years I've seen these increasing
    gradually, you know, to 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, and now
    hundreds of thousands of acres.
        At no great surprise we've seen a couple of things
    happening.
        One is that we see fuel building up in the understory of
    frequent fire forests, like Ponderosa Pine forests. And then in
    forests that naturally have catastrophic fires like Lodgepole
    Pine, Spruce, Fir, interior Alaska forests, we see landscapes
    becoming more and more homogonous. So larger and larger patches
    of the land are available to burning.
        The other thing that has driven this clearly has been an
    increase in the severity and duration of fires, of the fire
    season. We're now seeing fires burn in at times of the year
    that are completely unprecedented. We have fires now, we've had
    fires in Arizona called the January fire and the February fire
    because we never had fires during that period of time. And now
    they're coming. They can burn just about any time of year.
        So my testimony then has five major points, and I'm just
    going to highlight that briefly.
        The disruption of natural fires has resulted in a shift in
    fire regimes and frequent forest types like Ponderosa Pine from
    surface fires to crown fires. The attempted suppression of fire
    in areas that are naturally catastrophic fires, like I
    mentioned before, has resulted in more homogonous landscapes
    that require heroic efforts to try to suppress.
        My final point is that the research has shown that there
    are things we can do about it. One in crown fire regimes where
    fires are natural, we can break up fuel continuity with fire
    breaks. You thin it out. You make it so that instead of a
    million acres being available to burn, maybe you have 50,000
    acres available to burn. That's one approach.
        In frequent fire forests you need to thin across the
    landscape and remove the excess trees that have come in since
    fire suppression, conserve the old growth trees and then start
    burning on a natural cycle. In that way these forests are
    consistent with their evolutionary environment, no threat to
    endangered species. Watersheds are protected and so on.
        We've looked at fires post fire. We've had, as you know,
    some very large fires in Arizona, half million acres plus. And
    one of the projects that has been particularly instructive to
    us was to look at the wall of fire, post wall of fire, look at
    what happened there and then use a Forest Service developed
    fire behavior models to determine what the fire behavior would
    have been had treatments been put in place beforehand,
    different treatments then we had.
        What we found was that if you just focused on urban
    wildland interface treatments, you could reduce the fire size
    by about 12 percent. You could reduce flame lengths by about 6
    percent. However, if you strategically located these treatments
    across the entire landscape, you could reduce the size of the
    area burned under high severity by 40 percent and flame lengths
    by 30 percent.
        So in closing I'd just like to say that there is strong
    science available to help inform how we can do these preventive
    treatments, and using that science we have demonstrated, as
    have others, time and again that an ounce of prevention is
    worth a pound of pure. If you invest up front you can save
    houses, you can protect lives, and you can restore landscapes
    for current and future generations.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Covington follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Covington.
        Mr. Zerkel, welcome.

                STATEMENT OF RICHARD ZERKEL, PRESIDENT,
                         LYNDEN AIR CARGO, LLC

        Mr. Zerkel. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, thank
    you for this opportunity to discuss aerial firefighting policy
    with you today.
        My name is Rick Zerkel, and I'm the President of Lynden Air
    Cargo, an all cargo operator of L382G aircraft based in
    Anchorage, Alaska.
        Lynden's seven aircraft are the civilian version of the
    Lockheed C130 and are operated under Federal Aviation
    Administration Part 121 Air Carrier Regulations, the same
    requirements followed by all major U.S. airlines including
    Delta, American and United. This is the highest safety standard
    under FAA regulations.
        The U.S. Forest Service is currently operating one C130H
    under public aircraft rules and plans to add more. This is in
    direct conflict with the findings of the 2002 Blue Ribbon panel
    report to the Forest Service titled, ``Federal Aerial
    Firefighting: Assessing Safety and Effectiveness.'' And I'd
    like to read a couple of those findings real briefly.
        Under Finding 3, Aircraft. Under the current system of
    aircraft certification, contracting and operation key elements
    of the aerial wildland firefighting fleet are unsustainable.
    The FAA has essentially said. ``It's a public use aircraft.
    You're on your own.''
        Under Finding 6, Certification. The Federal Aviation
    Administration has abrogated any responsibility to ensure the
    continued airworthiness of public use aircraft including ex
    military aircraft converted to firefighting air tankers.
    Although these aircraft are awarded FAA type certificates, the
    associated certifications do not require testing and inspection
    to ensure the aircraft are air worthy to prepare for their
    intended missions. The panel found that the Forest Service and
    BLM leaders do not have a good understanding of the FAA
    certification and oversight rule regarding public use aircraft.
    Just like the Blue Ribbon panel, we are opposed to the U.S.
    Forest Service operating a government-owned airline under
    public aircraft format for the purpose of fighting wildfires
    when qualified civilian aircraft are available. Lynden spent
    substantial capital in one year complying with the regulatory,
    technical and physical conversion of one of our Hercules in
    order to lease to a qualified operator under the next
    generation 2.0 solicitation. A very tight timetable and rigid
    requirements resulted in our aircraft being rejected while the
    U.S. Forest Service operated the first of seven C130H aircraft
    equipped with an obsolete dispersion system and operated
    without FAA oversight. By necessity the Lynden aircraft was
    deployed to Australia where it is in service to the National
    Aerial Firefighting Center.
        Our message this morning can be summarized in three main
    points.
        First, the commercial aerial firefighting industry is
    entirely capable of providing all of the Forest Service large
    air tanker requirements at considerably less expense than the
    current planned use of the C130H aircraft.
        Second, the acquisition and use of the C130H, in this
    depends on the structure of the program, may be in conflict
    with Federal acquisition regulations and the Economy Act.
        Most importantly though, the non-regulated, public aircraft
    format proposed for the government-owned large air tanker fleet
    is inherently less safe than the rigorous standards a
    commercial fleet must adhere to and has set an unfair double
    standard. This double standard resulted in the most capable and
    safest firefighting aircraft being deployed elsewhere while an
    unregulated and expensive government aircraft fought fires in
    our country.
        More importantly we believe that regulatory certification
    and safety standards mandated by the FAA been established for a
    sound reason, to mitigate the possibility of loss of life and
    property. These standards should be applied to all aircraft
    operating in the harsh environment of aerial firefighting
    without exception.
        As we speak it appears the Forest Service intends to
    operate the C130Hs under the public aircraft category accepting
    responsibility for their continuing airworthiness and for
    certifying the design safety of the retardant tank
    installation. If the Coast Guard is retained as the engineering
    authority, the expertise of the FAA is completely removed from
    the process.
        The Forest Service has been very specific that all
    commercial large air tankers be modified in accordance with the
    very demanding and time consuming FAA certification process.
    Now the industry accepts these parameters and the time and
    expense it involve, but we strongly disagree the Forest Service
    should waive this requirement for itself and opt for the less
    stringent public aircraft option. There should be one safety
    standard for all aircraft involved in aerial firefighting and
    it should be the most robust safety standards contained in the
    FAA regulations.
        Lynden Air Cargo provides the following recommendations.
    Number one, commercial aircraft operators, including Lynden and
    others, are available and ready to meet aerial firefighting
    requirements of the Forest Service. We urge the Committee to
    provide direction to the Forest Service to utilize available
    and qualified aircraft prior to employing any government-owned
    aircraft. The U.S. Forest Service should be required to certify
    any aircraft they do operate, certify and maintain the aircraft
    and dispersant systems to the same rigorous standards as
    industry. And Number three, no funds should be authorized or
    appropriated to the Forest Service to acquire or upgrade
    additional aircraft until private industry has had an
    opportunity to respond to a final round of the next generation
    solicitation. As long as commercial operatives can meet the
    Forest Service requirements the Forest Service should refrain
    from competing.
        Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, I welcome your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Zerkel follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Zerkel.
        Mr. Burnett, welcome.

                STATEMENT OF MIKE BURNETT, FIRE CHIEF,
                     CHELAN COUNTY FIRE DISTRICT 1

        Mr. Burnett. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Senators.
    Thank you for the opportunity to offer this testimony to the
    Committee.
        My perspective comes from that of a Fire Chief in North
    Central Washington as well as an incident management team
    member as a planning section chief, one of the type one teams
    that are put together on a national basis.
        The fire season for us in our county started in late June
    with the Sleepy Hollow fire in Wenatchee. We had 30 homes that
    were lost and three warehouses. Followed by the next tragic
    fire which was the Reach fire in Lake Chelan. The Reach fire
    combined with the other fires in the area became part of the
    Chelan Complex that grew to almost 90,000 acres and destroyed
    51 homes and an additional three warehouses. Five days later we
    had the tragic loss of three firefighters outside of Twist, all
    that's happened in North Central Washington.
        The 2015 fire season was also my busiest year as an
    incident management team member. Our team was deployed to four
    different fires, the Newby Lake fire which came out of Canada
    into Northern Washington, the National Creek Complex fire in
    Crater Lake National Park and then North Central Washington
    again for the North Star fire and the Tunk Block fire.
        Efforts are being made to address the growing costs and
    severities of wildfires. On a regional level the Okanogan/
    Wenatchee National Forest, BLM, the Washington Department of
    Natural Resources and all of the local fire districts have
    worked together to ensure that we work more collaboratively
    when a fire occurs.
        Recently our community hosted a one day summit titled,
    ``The Wildfire and Us.'' The goal of the summit was to develop
    a regional approach to reduce the risk of wildfires. Attended
    by approximately 500 residents it was a great success and
    illustrated the interest that people in our region have on the
    subject.
        Locally Chelan County Fire District 1 has established a
    connection with the Forest Ridge Wildfire Coalition. Our
    department has partnered with the Forest Ridge Coalition to
    assist them with grant funding for fuel reduction projects,
    participates with their Fire Wise community outreach and has
    initiated an alert system to notify their board members who in
    turn activate their phone tree.
        From a local perspective if we're to improve our ability to
    respond to wildfires, I believe that we need to address four
    issues: increase our efforts on education and prevention,
    support quicker initial attack, continue fuel reduction
    efforts, and allow for earlier utilization of air resources.
        Education and prevention needs to occur on a local level.
    Our firefighters are part of our community and they're trusted,
    respected and capable of providing the education to the public.
    The problem is most rural fire districts have limited staffing
    due to funding. The Sleepy Hollow fire that I referenced
    earlier had approximately 150 firefighters assigned to it, of
    which 120 of them were volunteers.
        Any Federal funding to support a wildfire education and
    prevention program would pay substantial dividends. Training
    local firefighters to perform home assessments, cost shares on
    hardening homes, conducting evacuation preparedness drills and
    education on the value of beneficial fires are all examples of
    a good prevention program. The value of a prepared community
    translates directly to a safer environment for firefighters.
        Next we need to augment the initial attack capabilities of
    local resources. I measure initial attack response times in
    minutes and catching a wildfire in hours. Local jurisdictions
    need resources available to them and much quicker than what
    wildland agencies are currently able to provide. We have--we
    need funding for the seasonal firefighters to be available on a
    local level so that the initial attack can be more robust and
    more rapid. These seasonal hires could also be used to enhance
    the community's outreach with a focus on building a more fire
    adapted community.
        We need to continue the fuel modification efforts. The
    treatment area near the Beehive Reservoir just outside of
    Wenatchee is a great example of how it can reduce the impacts
    of wildfire. The Peavine fire in 2012 burned through the area,
    stayed on the ground as a surface fire and was stopped on a
    Forest Service road system.
        And last, the use of aviation resources early on can keep a
    small fire from becoming another expensive, large fire.
    Unfortunately as an incident commander from a local fire
    district I have to rely on the Forest Service or a state duty
    officer to arrive on the scene, make a determination if the
    fire is in their jurisdiction or a threat to their jurisdiction
    before a helicopter can be ordered. Most fire districts cannot
    afford the cost of air attack resources. If the State and
    Federal Government want the fire extinguished when they are
    small and manageable, we need the resources to do the job. Give
    the local fire chief the authority to call for them when
    they're needed and have the State or Federal Government pay for
    it so that the local fire district is not financially
    devastated.
        I provided my perception of the complex issue. By no means
    do I feel that the system is broken; however, there are
    opportunities to improve our efforts via the funding for rural
    fire departments, enhancing education and prevention strategies
    and continuing fuel reduction efforts.
        In closing I want to thank the Committee again for hearing
    my testimony and I appreciate the opportunity to provide a
    voice in this important discussion.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Burnett follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Chief.
        Mr. Wyss, welcome.

      STATEMENT OF JON WYSS, CHAIRMAN, OKANOGAN COUNTY LONG TERM
                             RECOVERY GROUP

        Mr. Wyss. Senator Murkowski, Senator Cantwell and members
    of the Committee, thank you for holding this hearing today.
        I was born in Thermopolis, Wyoming, son of a seventh and
    eighth grade science teacher and raised in Worland, Wyoming
    just east of Yellowstone National Park. Growing up in Wyoming
    allowed me to have great respect for our natural environment,
    natural resources, natural parks and people. It also allowed me
    to see my first wildfire disaster in 1988 when Yellowstone was
    set ablaze by a lightning strike. Who knew 27 years later I'd
    be in the middle of back-to-back wildfires in Eastern
    Washington which have destroyed over 500 structures in a
    community with less than one percent vacancy rate.
        After graduating high school I attended college in Texas,
    and I worked for the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee offices in four
    separate states, then served as a Chief Deputy Assessor in
    Spokane County and even served three days as a state senator
    when Senator Benson was on military leave. I now work for my
    wife's family company, Gebbers Farms, who provided suppression
    resources in 2014 and in 2015. We also lost 7,000 acres of our
    private timberlands that abut the Forest Service and DNR.
        My upbringing and background and Chair as the Long Term
    Recovery Group give me a perspective at looking how these fires
    disrupted our communities. The 2015 Washington wildfires
    consumed one million acres and consisted of eight fires. The
    fire storms called multiple level 3 evacuations including my
    own home. When it came time to evacuate not all the memories
    could be packed up, not all the animals could fit in one
    trailer and so gates swung open, fences were cut and animals
    were left to fend for themselves.
        When people could return some came back to their homes
    standing. Others lost everything including their animals, only
    to be known by the bangs tag in the dead animal's ear. Then as
    the fires raged on and the winds picked up we heard over the
    radio a call that no firefighter ever wants to hear. We have
    seven firefighters trapped.
        On that fateful day the bell rang for the last time for
    three brave souls, excuse me, as they tried to escape. We pay
    our respects to the victims and their families where they
    sacrificed everything.
        At the time Washington State's FEMA application, an
    estimated $123 million in suppression costs were expended. We
    question if some of these costs could have been avoided with
    better real time weather information. The National Weather
    Service Doppler radar network has a gap in coverage in our
    state where we can't see below 10,000 feet in Chelan, Douglas
    or Okanogan Counties where most of these fires occurred.
        In Washington State the U.S. Forest Service has four times
    more land than that owned by the state. Over the last 27 years
    we've seen a change in forest management practices and a
    decline in timber harvest in our state. By not allowing fires
    to burn as they historically have or thinning out all the trees
    that have resulting growing up we've increased the fuel load
    and lowered the timber value and increased chances for massive
    wildfire.
        After back-to-back fires many are saying log it, graze it
    or watch it burn. But we do not want to promote unabated
    logging and landscape alterations. Common ground can be found
    on these issues.
        A local rancher and forester told me, ``We must remember,
    fire is good for the environment when it can burn along the
    ground in a controlled manner. Fire is not good when it races
    through untreated corridors of riparian area that have been
    untouched for 30 years leading to bad fire. These conditions
    can be changed with proper management that isn't paralyzed by
    incessant threats and appeals. It's not a zero sum game where
    these disasters have to happen before we hit the reset
    button.''
        What lessons can and have we learned from the fires?
        Lesson one. It starts here, right here today is what
    decides it all. The Committee hearing and the comments from
    those testifying will be decided where we go in the future. It
    starts right here with you, the elected officials who can pass
    legislation and have oversight so this doesn't happen again. It
    starts from the agencies wanting to make sure the changes that
    are needed are being bold in their choices to ensure this
    doesn't happen again.
        For example, on this summer's fire near me a state
    contracted CAT was being used to build a fire suppression line
    through state and private lands. When the CAT and driver hit
    the Forest Service grounds the CAT was stopped, stopping
    suppression activities because the CAT didn't have a Federal
    certification.
        Lesson two. For the first time in decades Washington put
    out a call for volunteers to come help fight fires, but we
    didn't have enough fire-trained bosses to lead those
    volunteers.
        Lesson three. The land is precious. What we can all agree
    is the land is precious. We've learned over the years that it's
    expensive to manage lands, but even more so to repair them
    devastated by fire.
        It's time we end fire borrowing and put the money back into
    the proper management of lands to make our lands healthier, our
    forests healthier and our national, our natural resource
    economy vibrant in our local and tribal communities.
        What are the cascading impacts of wildfire in our
    communities? As you heard 20 percent of the managed timber
    lands of the Colville Reservation burned with up to $1 billion
    in value. The Spokane Tribes estimated in the Carpenter Road
    fire they lost $1 million of timber. Citizens of this great
    nation are owners of the land. It ought to mean something.
        After the Carlton Complex fire the State House passed
    Representative Joel Kretz's bill, House Bill 2093, unanimously.
    Passage of this bill was important as on August 14th the
    lightning strike struck in the Carlton Complex donut hole, as
    we call it. The Paradise fire was threatening 22,000 acres of
    which half was Forest Service ground.
        Gebbers Farm mobilized the necessary equipment to surround
    the fire, contain it from spreading, utilizing the new law.
    What could have been a 22,000 acre fire was 2.7 acres and out
    immediately.
        I would be remiss if I didn't thank the Forest Service,
    USDA, Department of Interior, FEMA and a host of other Federal
    agencies who have worked closely with our long term recovery
    group to assist our community in recovery efforts.
        Last, Senator Cantwell, we appreciate that you held the
    meeting in Wenatchee and then co-hosted a meeting in Spokane
    with Representative Morris Rogers. The meetings with various
    fire chiefs, industry leaders and elected officials kept this
    issue in the forefront and has led to ideas gathered that will
    lead to change.
        Right here today we can make a difference, and right now
    it's up to us.
        Thank you for your time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Wyss follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Wyss. Your testimony reminds
    us that there are true consequences, unfortunately, very tragic
    consequences when we fail to manage properly. There is a lot of
    discussion around these halls about needing to end fire
    borrowing, and it is more than just about money. We have to
    make sure that we have the resources, but I think we also
    recognize that we have some management issues that we have to
    deal with. We need to make sure these resources that we direct
    are spent wisely.
        So to listen to some of what you have just pointed out,
    what Mr. Maisch has pointed out, what Mr. Zerkel has pointed
    out, in terms of the lack of coordination, the double
    standards, the failure to manage some of what we are looking
    at, these are some of the concerns that I hope we will get out
    on the table today as we try to address the bigger picture that
    we are facing and again, the ever increasing threat to our
    forests.
        I wanted to ask a little bit about aviation coordination.
    Mr. Maisch, you brought it up initially, and I think, Ms.
    Fennell, you alluded to it a little bit with your discussion
    about the aviation assets.
        It is really discouraging, extraordinarily discouraging, to
    hear that you have different standards for aircraft used for
    fire suppression between the Forest Service and the Department
    of the Interior and that you can literally be poised to move in
    to address the fire and you are held back because you do not
    have the proper certification. You do not have the aircraft
    carded.
        How do we get around this? Mr. Maisch, you have been
    dealing with these different standards and you see how it
    impacts the efficiency and the ability of our agencies to
    effectively engage in these fire suppression efforts. What do
    we need to do here? It should not be this hard, and we have had
    hearings before this Committee that I have been part of where
    we say, particularly in a state like Alaska where you have got
    your BLM lands, you have your Forest Service lands, you have
    your State lands, and you have tribal lands. The fire does not
    care whose land it is. The fire is going to go where the fire
    is going to go.
        Why can't we do a better job with this interagency
    coordination? What do we need to do? I will start with you, Mr.
    Maisch, and anyone else that would like to contribute is
    welcome to join.
        Mr. Maisch. Ah yes, thank you, Senator, for the question.
        It's a good question but unfortunately it's not an easy
    solution. We've been working on this for several years to try
    and streamline and get the two agencies to basically have a
    seamless process that if one agency cards a ship, it's good to
    go. It's not another cooperator letter or another carding
    process that it has to go through. They are carding to the
    exact same standards, so it's very perplexing.
        The Chairman. Then if they are carding to the same
    standards, why do you have to have multiple cards or multiple
    certifications? That makes no sense.
        Mr. Maisch. That's an excellent question. I wish I had an
    answer for you on that, but we've been frustrated for years.
    And you see the about eight examples we gave, specifically in
    the written testimony, about other examples around the country.
    Incidents happened in Oregon, Nevada, Alaska, Montana. So it's
    not just a one off situation, unfortunately.
        And the point I made about treating the states as equals
    and allowing them to basically modify the agreements we
    currently have with the Federal Government to reflect that if
    one agency does the process and approves the ship and the
    pilot, it's basically good to go across the board. And it's
    basically some bureaucracy there.
        The Chairman. Does anyone else have an answer for how we
    address it? I hear the frustration. We all have the
    frustration, but it ought not be this hard and recognizing that
    we do have the same standards that should be okay.
        What Mr. Zerkel raised with the standards that we have
    between the commercial aircraft and the government-owned
    aircraft that, to me, is absolutely unacceptable. You go with
    your highest standard, and those set by the FAA, it seems to
    me, makes sense. But to have safety standards that are less, if
    a government-owned aircraft verses a commercial aircraft, we
    have got to get that one worked out.
        Ms. Fennell, do you have any observations based on your
    reviews?
        Ms. Fennell. We haven't looked specifically at the carding
    issue that is mentioned here, but we did note in our reports
    that there are challenges associated with collaboration amongst
    the agencies. And in fact, for one of our reports we did have a
    recommendation where we called for enhanced collaboration
    amongst the agencies in terms of looking at the performance of
    aircraft.
        But to date--
        The Chairman. We have been doing that for years. This is
    not a case of first impression here. This has been going on for
    years. I am just stunned that we are not any better, not
    further along.
        Let me turn to Senator Cantwell and then we will come back
    for a second round of questions.
        Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        There are a couple things I wanted to mention before I ask
    questions.
        First of all, Mr. Wyss, thank you and Gebbers for
    everything you did in the Carlton Complex. I think you are
    talking in testimony about so many things. You mentioned it,
    but I do not think it really is crystal clear what you were
    saying that is that you and individual citizens and employees
    of Gebbers basically went out and held the line and really
    prevented a lot more acres from burning and did an incredible
    job of also helping the Town of Pateros. So thank you, and
    thanks for being here.
        Chief Burnett, thank you so much for everything that you
    have done over these fire seasons and for helping us illuminate
    some of the issues about what I have heard on the ground in
    Washington State that I just call hasty response, which is just
    how can we be more active in using people to jump on fires
    immediately when they start. So thank you for articulating
    that.
        I also want to mention that last night the Forest Service
    did announce $300,000 to Chelan for recovery.
        But I wanted to get to these handouts I gave my colleagues.
    So if we could put these up, there are handouts that actually
    show three slides.
        One, the 2012 Wenatchee Complex and fires.
        [The information referred to follows:]

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        One thing, Mr. Burnett, you did not mention when you kept
    saying warehouses were burned down. Could you explain to people
    what was in these warehouses?
        Mr. Burnett. Yes, the community of Wenatchee, we lost
    approximately $110 million worth of assessed value. The fire
    spotted from the Broadview neighborhood over a mile into an
    industrial area, took hold initially in a recycling plant and
    spread to the roofs of a chemical warehouse storage building
    and then spread to two large fruit packing plants.
        So yes.
        Senator Cantwell. All of this is the home to the apple
    industry in Washington State and why it is so--okay so the next
    chart demonstrates the Beehive Reservoir.
        [The information referred to follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        So the red is encroaching fire from this season and the
    community that was trying to be protected. This Beehive
    Reservoir area is where you did actual treatment. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Burnett. Right. So you can barely see it there, but the
    Forest Ridge neighborhood is a Fire Wise community. They've
    taken a lot of efforts to protect the approximately 70 homes
    that are there, and we've done grant funding with them to do
    fuel modifications right around the neighborhood. We've tried
    to partner with the state agencies as well as the Federal
    agencies on choosing those areas where the fuel treatments
    would be best suited.
        The Beehive Reservoir has had a lot of fuel treatment
    around there by Forest Service and that fire that, you see the
    perimeter, is the Peavine fire that was coming into,
    threatening that area. It's less than two miles away. The fuel
    treatment in Beehive Reservoir area was significant in
    controlling the fire.
        In 2012, the Wenatchee Complex had over 60 fires that we
    were dealing with and so being able to allocate a limited
    number of resources in that area on a fire suppression effort
    that took a minimal amount of resources was significant for us.
        Senator Cantwell. Well and fuel treatment, you are saying
    that was a success in a year that we actually even saw places
    where the fire jumped the Columbia River. So we had extreme
    weather conditions blowing that up.
        Mr. Burnett. Yes.
        Senator Cantwell. So can you go to the last page which I
    actually wanted Dr. Covington or Mr. Wyss to comment on. This
    is an up close of the area that Bryan Petit from our staff was
    just there visiting.
        [The information referred to follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        You can see on one side of the road the treated area, and
    on the other side the burned area, so basically it did not jump
    over to the other side of the road.
        I think one of the most important things that you said in
    your testimony is this issue about surface to crown. From our
    state agency, from our DNR Director and everybody, it is all
    about the crowns, right? The ferocity of our fires are from
    crown to crown.
        What we are talking about here is reducing the ability to
    get to crown level by basically reducing the surface timber. So
    if you wanted to further elaborate on the challenge that we
    have with all this Ponderosa Pine not having been treated for
    some time and what that means as far as the ability to go crown
    to crown and the kind of devastation we're seeing?
        Dr. Covington. Yes. So about 90 percent of our mega fires
    are in the dry forest types in the West. This last season we
    saw mega fires in areas where crown fires are normal, just not
    crown fires of that size, of the size that we encountered. So
    they are separate problems.
        On the one hand with frequent fire forests, like Ponderosa
    Pine, they were originally, before fire regime suppression,
    were open and park like. The fires naturally burned through the
    understory. The plants and animals were adapted to these fires.
    These fires are easy to control, if you want to control them,
    although it's not always clear why you might want to control
    surface fires.
        As the forest filled in we moved from a frequent fire
    regime in Ponderosa Pine to a crown fire regime. So we
    essentially created the kinds of fuels that occur naturally in
    Spruce, Fir and Lodgepole Pine over tens of millions of acres
    throughout the West. So the solution in that type is
    restoration, is thinning out the post-settlement trees,
    conserving the old growth trees which are so important for
    wildlife and aesthetics, biodiversity and then reintroducing
    natural fires, fires that would burn on the two to maybe, 15
    year interval.
        In the crown fire types, in Spruce, Fir, like in interior
    Alaska, Lodgepole Pine types, we have a different problem.
    There the fires have always been crown fires but they were
    smaller crown fires on the scale of like in the case of the
    Yellowstone ecosystem, somewhere on the order of 100,000 acres,
    200,000 acres. But what we've seen over time with fire
    suppression is that we get an area that's ready to burn now.
    Fifty years from now being adjacent to five other areas that
    have accumulated crown fuels to the point that they'll support
    fires, it's a lot easier to fight a 100,000 acre fire where you
    know that's as far as it's going to go than it is a million
    acre fire.
        When we're dealing with mega fires we--this is very recent.
    We just don't have the capability to deal with fires of that
    size, so the restoration in that area of sizes, it's patch
    sizes, involves putting in fuel breaks.
        If you weren't worried about aesthetics, it would probably
    be clear cut fuel breaks between these different patches to
    break them up so that they can then burn at a more normal size.
        Senator Cantwell. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chairman,
    I know my time is up.
        The Chairman. Senator Daines?
        Senator Daines. Thank you, Chairman Murkowski and Ranking
    Member Cantwell for holding this critically important hearing.
        I have got to say I am tired of talking about this. I want
    to see action out of Congress. We need to do something.
        Like much of the West, Montana had a very difficult fire
    season. Over 300,000 acres burned, multiple evacuations of
    populated communities were ordered. In fact one firefighter
    from Stevensville, Montana was the only survivor of that four
    member crew where three of them lost their lives in Western
    Washington that was referenced twice in this hearing already.
        This year's fire season demonstrated the need for a strong
    wildfire funding solution that is a support of the Wildfire
    Disaster Funding Act. I strongly believe Congress should
    relieve the Forest Service of the suppression costs of fires
    that are truly natural disasters, but at the same time the fire
    season also demonstrated the urgent need for restoration work
    to be done in Montana and other parts of the country.
        Consider, for example, lessons of the Bear Creek fire in
    the Flathead National Forest. I was up at the Incident Command
    Center of West Glacier here when the big fires in Glacier were
    burning this summer. Bear Creek is not too far away.
        It was incredibly hot with flame lengths reaching 100 feet.
    As the fire progressed to the Meadow Creek trailhead, it went
    to a spot where we had a recently completed a thinning project.
    However, when it hit the recently completed thinning project,
    guess what happened? It settled down considerably.
        Local Forest Service officials said the thinning project
    really worked. That is the good news. Now here is the bad news.
    The thinning project was part of the larger Spotted River
    project that was hamstrung by litigation for several years.
    According to nonpartisan research done by the Bureau of
    Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana the
    case was in court for over 1,000 days. So instead of planning
    for a new forest restoration project, 18 Forest Service
    personnel spent nearly 2,000 hours responding to the lawsuit.
        Further, the study found that over 100 forest project jobs
    were threatened. It pointed out that the litigation delayed
    efforts to improve recreation access and wildlife habitat. I
    was chasing elk just this last weekend in Montana, and you hear
    both the quantitative as well as qualitative stories about when
    you thin the forest it improves the habitat for the wildlife.
        It is quite possible that the work that was upended by the
    litigation could have further mitigated the damage when that
    fierce, fierce, Bear Creek fire swept through. The Forest
    Service ultimately prevailed in court, but the impacts of
    litigation against this project and many, many others are
    extensive and they are severe and they should not be accepted.
        I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, let's come
    together and pass a wildfire funding solution as well as timber
    management that includes some litigation reform so we can move
    forward here and protect our forests, protect our jobs and
    protect the lives of the men and women who fight these fires.
        Dr. Covington, you talked about the importance of thinning
    and prescribed burns, you also talk about the dangers of
    excessive stand densities. Do you think that providing the
    Forest Service with additional tools such as expanded
    categorical exclusion authorities could help the agency get
    substantially more restoration work done?
        Dr. Covington. Yes, of course it could. One of the problems
    that we've solved, I think, in a lot of the collaborative work
    is that when you get local people together to support a
    project, if you have strong, local, political support, you can,
    kind of, head off legal action that might otherwise stop a
    project.
        So there's the one approach that you're describing is let's
    have more categorical exclusions and that, obviously, if that
    could get through, you'd still have potential political blow
    back from it that could slow a project down.
        If you have local, political support that's well organized
    and engaged in it, in many ways I think that would be more
    robust.
        Senator Daines. Yes.
        Mr. Covington, in addition to, I think, that reform is
    needed, would include incentives for the collaborative efforts
    as well.
        It is working in Montana. The problem is the extreme
    environmental groups that litigate the collaborations are not
    part of the collaboration. They are waiting at the courthouse
    to file the lawsuit once the collaboration wants to move
    forward.
        Dr. Covington. That's right, and so it seems to me, Senator
    Daines, that there's, just like there are variations across the
    landscape in fuel accumulation and forest types, there are
    variations across the political landscape that make different
    solutions more helpful in one area than in another. And we
    don't typically analyze that.
        Senator Daines. Right.
        Let me ask one last question, Ms. Fennell, because my time
    is out.
        Ms. Fennell, I think performance metrics and accountability
    are vital and thank you for being here. You note in your
    testimony that the Forest Service is beginning to improve at
    understanding fuel treatment effectiveness.
        Do you have any other thoughts on how Congress can further
    enhance accountability on the agency in terms of both finding
    the most effective fuels reduction treatment for a given area
    and in maximizing the amount of effective fuels reduction
    projects it does each year?
        Ms. Fennell. Senator, I think it would be important to
    continue oversight in terms of the new efforts that they are
    putting into place regarding looking at the effectiveness of
    their fuel treatment program. They--we noted in 2007 that, they
    did not have sufficient information by which to evaluate the
    effectiveness of the fuel treatment programs, and therefore had
    impacts in terms of how they would allocate the resources
    accordingly.
        Since that time they have established a new system called
    the Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Monitoring Program. It is in
    process, and I think it would be important to continue
    oversight over it to see how it's progressing and whether it's
    getting the information that's needed to evaluate the
    effectiveness of the fuel treatment program.
        Senator Daines. Thank you. I am out of time.
        The Chairman. Senator Heinrich?
        Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Dr. Covington, I want to start with you, and I want to
    start with a thank you actually because I think in oh, seven
    years of Natural Resources Committee meetings on both sides of
    the Capitol in both the House and the Senate, I think you are
    probably the first person to succinctly articulate that we need
    different strategies for different forest types and that what
    works in a Ponderosa Pine forest that should be burning every 2
    to 15 years is not exactly the same prescription that we are
    going to need in a closed canopy forest, be it Spruce, Fir, or
    Lodgepole Pine further north. I think that is really helpful.
        I think we tend to oversimplify things here in Washington,
    but I think that comes with the territory.
        You said you used the phrase, ``an ounce of prevention is
    worth a pound of cure.'' I think we all wish that everyone
    agreed with that approach, but one of the challenges we have
    had has simply been being able to show and justify the
    restoration efforts and show that they actually do pay off
    economically in the long run. And that goes back to the
    question that Senator Daines was raising as well about
    evaluation of those.
        Can you talk a little bit about data capture and
    particularly one you are able to wrap things in like the
    potential impacts to municipal water supplies and soil impacts,
    about the cost effectiveness of being able to do, especially
    these Ponderosa Pine, restoration projects rather than waiting
    for these areas to burn and starting from scratch?
        Dr. Covington. So quickly then there. We have studies where
    we've approached this two ways.
        One is looking at areas that have already burned over,
    large landscapes and then examining the portions of those
    landscapes that had been treated before with restoration
    treatments. And repeatedly what we see is that in areas where
    the forest had been restored to more natural conditions they
    stand up, even under the most severe fire conditions.
        Senator Heinrich. Right.
        Dr. Covington. They survive well. Fires burn through the
    understory, and then once they get out of the treatment they
    get up in the crowns again and run.
        These kinds of fuel breaks, restoration-based fuel breaks
    in Ponderosa Pine, we see have saved houses, have saved entire
    communities as well. In the back country this works also to
    protect Mexican spotted owl nest sites and other highly-valued
    portions of the landscape. So one way is an ex post facto is to
    go out there, see what happens and the evidence is
    overwhelming. It works.
        The other thing that we've done is what I mentioned in my
    testimony, is we've looked at fires and then analyzed what the
    potential fire behavior would have been had treatments been put
    in elsewhere. When we do that sort of analysis what we see is,
    by breaking up landscape scale fuel community, continuity.
        Senator Heinrich. Right.
        Dr. Covington. You can protect values at risk, including
    homes, where if embers are coming two to four miles away.
        Senator Heinrich. Gotcha.
        Dr. Covington. Being dropped into communities.
        Senator Heinrich. Thank you.
        I want to shift real quick to Ms. Fennell. I want to start
    by just saying that I think it is clear that at this point
    using the 10-year average to budget for fires is no longer
    working for us. If you look back at the last 9 of 11 years,
    using the 10-year average has underestimated the Forest
    Service's suppression costs 9 out of those 11 years and it was
    actually 40 percent below actual costs during that period.
        With the climate shifting that we are seeing we do not see
    that trend exactly slowing down, so the ten-year average
    standard was created at a time to ensure that in most years the
    agencies would have the funds that they needed to cover those
    costs. That is not what we are seeing work out today.
        So if that no longer works as a construct do you have
    advice for how we should be budgeting for something that can be
    as variable as fire suppression costs from year to year?
        Ms. Fennell. Senator, we haven't specifically looked at
    that particular issue as part of our current effort. I think
    the last time we looked at various options available for
    legislative action was about 2004. We noted that there are
    various pros and cons with each approach that's taken, but we
    haven't specifically looked at the current issue that you're
    raising as part of our current work.
        Senator Heinrich. Does anyone else have a comment?
        Mr. Maisch. Yes, I'd like to respond to that.
        We do much the same in the state. We talk about a 10-year
    average and budget for that but what we found, as you alluded
    to because of changing weather patterns and climate, you have
    these extreme events much more frequently. And it's hard for a
    10-year average to fit to that kind of a scenario.
        So you really need the flexibility from an agency
    perspective to do a disaster declaration which is what we do in
    our state and the supplement suppression accounts when those
    kinds of events have occurred. You've got to have some kind of
    system that allows that flexibility because it's hard to
    anticipate the kinds of events that we're seeing.
        Senator Heinrich. That is helpful, thank you very much.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Senator Barrasso?
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        You know this year is another example why it is a necessity
    to conduct more prescribed fires, perform more fuel reduction
    treatments and undertake more vegetation management projects to
    thin our unnaturally, overcrowded forests. According to the
    Forest Service between 62 and 82 million acres are in need of
    treatment and are at risk of catastrophic wildfire over 40
    percent of the entire National Forest system and the number is
    growing.
        We simply cannot allow the status quo to continue. That is
    why I have introduced S. 1691, a bill called the National
    Forest Ecosystem Improvement Act. It is designed to make
    treating our forests a priority it needs to be.
        The Forest Service also states specifically there are about
    12 and a half million acres in need of mechanical treatment
    such as thinning. With these numbers in mind do each of you
    agree that Congress must take action to increase the pace of
    treatment using both prescribed fire and mechanical methods to
    restore forest health and reduce the severity and the size of
    wildfires?
        Everyone agrees with that? [Witnesses shaking heads yes,
    simultaneously.]
        Senator Barrasso. Alright.
        Dr. Covington, in your written testimony you say it is too
    late to use controlled burning alone to protect communities and
    restore forest health. You then explain why first thinning and
    removing unnaturally high tree densities and then introducing
    fire produced stunning results. Would you elaborate on why you
    think it is too late to just use controlled burns alone and
    what are some of the stunning results that you are seeing?
        Dr. Covington. Okay. So when I first started out in this
    work back in `75/'76 I was pretty much thinking that if fire
    exclusion had caused this problem you just put fire back in. It
    ought to solve the problem, and so I embarked on a 6-year
    program of study working with cooperatives with the Forest
    Service to try this.
        What we found in dense forests of Ponderosa Pine which is
    95 percent of the Ponderosa Pine type is that we could not
    develop a safe prescription. On several circumstances we had
    fires get into the canopy, become independent crown fires and
    fortunately we had enough suppression force around to knock
    them down again. But I was on the verge of becoming the
    shortest lived professor in the school of forestry. I would
    have been fired if we'd burned up the San Francisco Peaks from
    those early experiments.
        Then that caused us to look at thinning out the post
    settlement trees to try to restore natural conditions, and
    those first experiments have just been so stunning. We've now
    done this throughout areas in the West, especially Arizona, New
    Mexico and Colorado. What we see is old growth trees that have
    put on no growth at all for decades start growing like
    teenagers. We see abundant grass production and wildfire
    production understory, a tremendous blossoming of birds,
    songbirds, butterflies and everything. So every aspect that we
    look at in forest health shows that these work.
        The difficulty that we've got, Senator Barrasso, is not all
    areas are accessible for being able to remove all of the
    biomass and the thin material. So a problem that we're dealing
    with right now is trying to figure out how can you do onsite
    disposal of some of these materials while not creating
    excessive fire hazard or dumping a lot of smoke into the
    atmosphere. We're talking about putting a lot of treatments
    down there around urban interface areas, and that's where
    people live and people have asthma and they have lung diseases
    and they like to breathe clean air. So right now we're putting
    a lot of focus on how we can deal with that biomass issue.
        Senator Barrasso. In terms of this wildland urban interface
    that you just made reference to, you also write about the
    reduced mega fire potential when treatments in all high risk
    areas were performed verses treatments only in the wildland
    urban interface. Why are the risks of the mega fires reduced
    when treatment is not limited to around communities only but
    also treating the greater landscape as a whole?
        Dr. Covington. Well, thank you for the question.
        The treatments around communities are designed to protect
    houses, primarily, you know, to help out with fire department
    operations. When you're talking about mega fires across the
    landscape, that's only 5 percent or less of the landscape in
    most circumstances. In the back country is where we have our
    natural resource values, the watershed function, biological
    diversity, wildlife, recreation opportunities and so on. So I
    don't think anyone wants just the houses in burned over
    landscapes.
        I had one study area over in Los Alamos back with the Cerro
    Grande fire. This one elderly couple had a brick home. They had
    cleared out around their house. It survived the Cerro Grande
    fire. They got smoke damage payments. All the houses around
    them burned, but they didn't want to live in a burned over
    landscape. Out back, you know, from their door was a wonderful
    little canyon that just burned to a crisp, killed all the old
    growth trees. And ironically on their property there was an old
    growth tree that had been labeled in Forest Service research in
    1911--it was 480 years old--that had survived. It had fire
    scars on it. It survived 40, 50 fires, and then in that one
    fire it burned up.
        So most people that are living in this country don't want
    their cabin or their house or their subdivision in a burned
    over landscape. So we've got to look at it in the whole habitat
    point of view, I think.
        Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        The Chairman. Senator Stabenow?
        Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and
    our Ranking Member for holding this hearing. These are very,
    very important issues and it is interesting to me that I find
    myself on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee,
    Energy Committee and Budget Committee, I am, I think, the only
    member on all three committees that are touching all of this,
    and it is incredibly important.
        Let me start out by saying we just held a hearing in the
    Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee a few weeks ago,
    and we found amazing consensus around the issue on the budget
    and on Senators Crapo and Wyden's bill. In fact it was
    interesting. Every single person that testified from across the
    political spectrum was saying that we needed to start the
    wildfire discussion by fixing the Forest Service budget and the
    Wildfire Disaster Funding Act. So I want to applaud Senator
    Wyden and Senator Crapo for that because I do think when we are
    looking at mega fires, like you have been talking about today
    and natural disasters, that it is incredibly important that we
    understand what is coming and more and more and deal with it in
    a different way.
        I would like though to start, Mr. Maisch, with talking
    about what happens, because we are taking all the funding. I
    mean, we passed a Farm bill in 2014 with the most robust
    funding we have ever had in a forestry title to try to get
    ahead of things by doing it and creating a number of tools to
    deal with prevention and so on. All that money is going to
    fight the fires, so we are not able to get ahead of it.
        Because you concluded in your written testimony support for
    the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, I wonder if you might talk
    some about the basic Forest Service functions and programs in
    Alaska that are suffering because the agency is forced to spend
    so much of their budget on wildfire suppression?
        Mr. Maisch. Ah yes, thank you for that question, Senator.
        It's not as much in Alaska as in other parts of the country
    because, of course, the Tongass is not a fire driven ecosystem.
    So there's different issues affecting the Tongass of which I'm
    sure we don't have time to go into. But I can speak to the
    issue of more active management on Forest Service lands.
        When they have to divert funds, essentially borrow funds,
    to pay for suppression costs it takes away from all the
    proactive activities, pre-commercial thinning, commercial
    thinning, restoration work. You can almost name the type of
    activity. It restricts the funds available for that type of
    work.
        I think you heard from everyone on this panel and as you
    alluded from other panels that you've heard from that you have
    to get in front of this problem. You have to be proactive, and
    you can't just pay for fighting fire. We need to pay to prevent
    fire where we don't want fire.
        Senator Stabenow. Thank you.
        To that point, Mr. Burnett, I wondered if you might speak a
    little bit more to the fact that our forests are not just on
    Federal lands, as we have all said, or even on state lands,
    there is private land as well. And our private landowners and
    states have a huge role in making forests more resilient to
    wildfire, both to protect lives and property and safeguard
    drinking water and so on, all the issues we have talked about
    today.
        We have worked again back into what we did in the forestry
    title of the Farm bill to expand what is called Good Neighbor
    Authority a couple of years ago, and we have seen some Good
    Neighbor Agreements signed recently in Wisconsin and Michigan
    that are positive.
        I wonder if you could speak a bit from your experience to
    the importance of forest health efforts between Federal, State,
    and private land boundaries and what types of policies and
    concepts should we be thinking about as we build on the Good
    Neighbor Authority?
        Mr. Burnett. Thank you, Senator.
        So it is not just a Federal issue. The local fire districts
    are your first line of defense in protecting those homes that
    are in the wildland urban interface. The homeowners also have
    to understand that they have a responsibility to help harden
    their homes and to take the efforts to reduce the fuel around
    their homes. They need to work as a community.
        The Sleepy Hollow fire, part of the neighborhoods that were
    affected, had defensible spaces around them and we were able to
    steer the fire around that. It got into the Broadview
    neighborhood and those homes are tightly packed together and
    they're sitting right on top of a ravine that has old growth
    sage in it. When the fire hit that it came up over the homes
    and was basically a tidal wave of flames, and there's nothing
    that we could have done to protect those homes. It is not just
    the Federal efforts, but it is the local efforts as well. The
    city of Wenatchee has enacted the WUI fire codes from ICC, and
    those types of efforts need to happen both on a city and a
    county level to help us give us the tools to be successful when
    the fire does come into a WUI interface area.
        Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
        Senator Risch [presiding]: Thank you, Senator Stabenow.
        Senator Gardner, you are up.
        Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Risch. And to the
    panelists, thank you for being here.
        According to the Congressional Research Service, since 2000
    we have had an average of about 74,000 wildfires burning an
    average of 6.6 million acres. We have talked about the numbers
    and how 7 of the past 11 years have been beyond that. During
    the 1990's the annual average of burned acres was 3.6 million
    acres.
        So I appreciate the work Dr. Covington is doing and
    appreciate the presence in Colorado at the Institute. We have
    obviously felt the burn as well in Colorado in terms of the
    forest fires and the destruction that has occurred.
        In June 2013 the Black Forest fire, northeast of Colorado
    Springs, saw 14,280 acres and 488 structures destroyed. A year
    earlier in June 2012 the Wallow Canyon fire, outside of
    Colorado Springs, saw 18,000, nearly 19,000 acres burned and
    346 homes destroyed. In 2012 we saw the High Park fire in
    Larimer County destroy nearly 87,000 acres and 259 structures.
    In 2010 the Four Mile Canyon, northwest of Boulder, saw 6,000
    acres burned and 170 structures burned down. And of course, one
    of the most infamous wildfires in Colorado history occurred in
    June 2002 when the Hayman fire burned 136,000 acres and saw the
    destruction of 600 structures.
        While we have experienced significant wildfires over the
    past 15 years, our state's development, like the rest of the
    country with an interest to fire developing in the wildland
    urban interface, as we have talked about here this morning.
    According to a 2007 Colorado State University study between
    2000 and 2030 there will be a 300 percent increase in
    Colorado's WUI interface from 715,000 acres to more than 2.1
    million acres.
        Building upon that study in late October of this year the
    American Forest Foundation came out with a report on wildfires
    that highlights areas of our nation that are most at risk for
    wildfires and threat to watersheds. The analysis found that
    there are 52 million acres at high risk for fire on private
    land, on family forest land in addition to the 93 million acres
    on public land. Of these 52 million acres, 1.3 million of them
    are in Colorado.
        And so, Mr. Burnett, I have a question for you. Given that
    you serve in an area of Washington with significant fire risk
    that also has considerable wildland urban interface, what steps
    do you think we should take to address the risk to private or
    family forest land?
        Mr. Burnett. As I said before, the rural fire departments
    are staffed with primarily volunteers, and there's a need for
    additional resources to make an initial attack and keep the
    fires small and prevent it from becoming one of the larger
    fires. The ability for us to extinguish the fire on that
    initial attack is critical.
        I mentioned the fact that we need the ability to activate
    air resources in order to fight those fires and not wait for
    the Federal or State agencies to come in to assist us with that
    and to call for those assets. I think that's my answer.
        Senator Gardner. Yes and I think at the beginning of your
    testimony you talked about four points. I think you talked
    about education, quick attack, fuel reduction, and aerial
    response.
        Mr. Burnett. Yes.
        Senator Gardner. When it comes to aerial response in
    Colorado there has been significant debate about whether or not
    there should be a state aerial firefighting fleet. Is that
    something that you have seen in Washington or other states
    looking at that?
        Mr. Burnett. Yes. The Washington State Department of
    Natural Resources has eight helicopters available for
    deployment. Chelan County Fire District One actually has a UH1
    medium helicopter that we acquired years and years ago. It was
    leased to DNR for many years and then they built up their fleet
    and decided that they no longer needed it.
        As you've heard in testimony here, our helicopter is not
    available to be utilized on State and Federal fires because our
    pilots aren't carded for long line operations. The helicopter
    itself is carded but not our pilots.
        Senator Gardner. That is something I think that we have
    seen in Colorado too, because down in the Southwest corner of
    the state where you have the narrow gauge railroads and you
    have a privately-owned railroad that draws thousands of
    tourists every year. The railroad company has a firefighting
    fleet but they are restricted to activities within 50, I cannot
    remember the number of feet, the right of way that they are
    allowed to act in, but if they go beyond that they get in
    trouble from the Forest Service for trying to put out a fire.
        I understand the Forest Service has to try and protect
    themselves and make sure that people are taking safety into
    account and doing the right thing, but do you see the Forest
    Service willing to work with you and others on this
    certification issue so that we can address questions like this
    railroad issue to allow more private resources to be brought to
    bear, to allow the state to be able to provide resources more
    timely when available?
        Mr. Burnett. There have been efforts regionally for us to
    be able to utilize our helicopter, for example. Two years ago
    we would have to set down when the State or Federal helicopters
    entered into the air space. Last year we were allowed to
    actually continue flying when they entered into the air space,
    but they will not call or utilize our helicopter.
        Senator Gardner. I know I am running out of time.
        Ms. Fennell, has GAO taken a look at some of the ways that
    our Federal disaster designations work? Here is what I mean by
    that question. If you have a significant burn we know that any
    significant moisture event after that fire is going to result
    in flooding because of hydrophobic soil conditions and other
    problems that occur. Oftentimes though that next or that
    secondary disaster is not included in that first disaster and
    people have to go back and reapply, resubmit, adding cost when
    if they were able to address the damage done to the soil
    conditions to prevent that flood from occurring which you know
    will occur because of the next moisture event, you would have
    saved money in the first place. Has the GAO done any kind of
    look into whether we could be more efficient and effective with
    the initial disaster dollars by preventing the secondary
    disaster that comes from a fire?
        Ms. Fennell. We haven't specifically looked at that
    particular issue, but we would be happy to work with the
    Committee staff in terms of any interest in terms of looking at
    other, perhaps relevant GAO disaster work that could be
    applicable to this particular situation.
        Senator Gardner. Very good, thank you.
        Senator Risch. Thank you, Senator Gardner.
        I am going to exercise the Chairman's prerogative here and
    just say that I think, probably, Mr. Zerkel might have some
    thoughts on that exchange between Mr. Burnett and Senator
    Gardner. Would I be correct on that?
        Mr. Zerkel. Pertaining to?
        Senator Risch. The aerial firefighting that was referred to
    in the exchange between the Senator and Mr. Burnett.
        Mr. Zerkel. Well I can say that from our perspective the
    method by which the Forest Service wants to operate the C130's
    that they're designated is probably not the best way to go
    about it, that public use format. And that's really our message
    today is it is a poor way to go about operating aircraft.
        Industry has very rigid standards that must be met in order
    to modify an aircraft, such as putting a tanker into it. Under
    that public use aircraft format those rules are not applicable.
    I'm not saying that they don't do a good job of engineering or
    whoever they get to do it wouldn't do a good job of
    engineering, but there is not prescribed process to make sure
    there's no pieces missing, no holes that haven't been filled,
    and that's the real danger of that type of operation.
        Senator Risch. Thank you for thoughts, Mr. Zerkel.
        Mr. Maisch. Senator, might I add to that answer?
        Senator Risch. Please.
        Mr. Maisch. Yes, thank you.
        I didn't answer a question earlier from Senator Murkowski
    as well as I could have on this topic of carding, but you did
    have an excellent example in Colorado this year of this which
    illustrates this problem. You have a multi-mission aircraft the
    State owns. It was requested on an infrared mission in Oregon.
    The aircraft had been carded in Region 2, the Forest Service
    region, in your area and then it went over there to Region 6
    and had to be re-carded again. So that's the situation, and I
    think the way to get at fixing this is we have various
    memorandums of understanding, cooperator standards, and
    mobilization guides that the agencies use to move things like
    this around the country. We need to ensure that those
    agreements with the states and the agencies recognize each
    other's standards and will accept them right up front, so
    there's no more of this back and forth well, it's Region 2,
    it's Region 6, it's OAS. Those agreements have to explicitly
    state if it's carded in one jurisdiction, it's good to go
    nationally. I think that would really help.
        Senator Risch. That unfortunately makes too much sense.
    [Laughter.]
        Senator Franken?
        Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I heard Senator Gardner say that Colorado felt the burn,
    and I was actually at the HELP Committee with Senator Sanders
    and apologize for not being here but I am sure that he
    appreciated the shout out. [Laughter.]
        And--
        Senator Gardner. I was hoping nobody was paying attention
    as those words left. [Laughter.]
        Senator Franken. I did.
        Last night I read a lot of the testimony, and we are
    hearing common themes about the balance that is spent of
    suppression as opposed to prevention, the balance shifting, of
    course, to suppression. Also in prevention you are trying to
    get rid of hazardous materials as part of that. And then we
    heard just a lot of talk, a lot of testimony about the wildland
    urban interface. I would like to see and I think this is an
    opportunity for helping to pay for the removal of hazardous
    fuels from the, especially from the wildland urban interface,
    if we use this waste as a source for electricity because this
    would put a value to that biomass and also reduce the risk of
    fire in that space which as all the testimony says is growing.
    We can utilize this in terms of combined heat and power and
    other facilities that use woody biomass.
        Dr. Covington, let me ask you, are there places where
    forest waste is being used for biomass electricity generation,
    and what are the benefits of that from a forestry perspective?
        Dr. Covington. Yes, there are a number of places throughout
    the West where biomass, the slash material that's not suitable
    for making traditional dimension lumber or engineered forest
    products are being converted to electricity. So that technology
    exists. It's mostly an older technology that's there.
        So for example, in Arizona we have a plant that takes
    biomass from within about a 50 mile radius and generates
    electricity. That plant has contracts with a couple of the
    universities, I mean, the electrical providers in Arizona to
    buy that.
        One of the problems we've got is that with the decrease in
    the price of fossil fuels there's a disincentive then to use
    biomass which now is more expensive, even than solar.
        But still as part of a comprehensive package it's
    important. We're talking about health a few minutes ago. That
    biomass that's burned in a plant generates very little smoke
    and other items in smoke that threaten human health. So instead
    of burning it out in the woods if you can burn it in a
    facility, a biomass conversion facility, you can solve that
    problem.
        Right now the biomass part of this is a major stumbling
    block to how we can pay for and do effective landscape scale
    restoration, more work needs to be done. We've got ecological
    restoration institutes, state foresters and University of Idaho
    are working together in February to examine this biomass issue
    to try to look at innovative ways to do that, both for onsite
    disposal back in the woods without generating as much smoke and
    then being able to use it actually for electricity.
        Senator Franken. Now I have great interest in that and
    have.
        Ms. Fennell, last May Chief Tidwell testified to this
    Committee on the interaction wildfire and climate change and
    has done this a number of times. This is, in a way, I think
    that climate change, we have seen a change in the duration of
    the wildfire season. We have seen the change in the intensity
    of these fires and the size of these fires. This is now the new
    normal.
        I am supporting Senator Wyden's bill, the Wildfire Disaster
    Funding Act of 2015 because, and Mr. Chairman I am just going
    to go a little bit over, if that is okay, just a minute or so.
        Senator Risch. Do I have any choice? [Laughter.]
        Senator Franken. Actually, you do.
        Senator Risch. Go ahead.
        Senator Franken. Okay, thank you. Thank you for exercising
    your option to give me the minute or so.
        It seems to me that we have so much, that we are doing so
    much fire borrowing that we should be treating this as the new
    normal and that is disastrous.
        Superstorm Sandy caused about $60 billion in damage, or at
    least the cost to Federal Government that this, I think, should
    be treated as a new normal. I think we should be treating these
    as disasters, especially these super huge fires, and about 30
    percent of the cost comes from that.
        So I would just make a plea for Senator Wyden's act which
    would use 30 percent as a disaster fund and treat it in that
    way because I think that is what it is.
        Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Senator Risch. Thank you, Senator Franken.
        Let me help you out a little bit with your interest in
    biomass.
        This is not new, particularly in Idaho. They have been
    running at this for over ten years, and they have been
    notoriously unsuccessful in doing it.
        Dr. Covington, rightly pointed out there's additional
    research going on it. I would disagree a little bit with Dr.
    Covington in that one of the real challenges is the fumes and
    smoke and what have you that is put off by the burning of the
    biomass. Now certainly, it is better in a controlled atmosphere
    than it is in the woods. But having said that, the EPA would
    probably disagree a bit with you, Dr. Covington, that this is
    something that needs additional work because the private
    companies that have tried to do this have not been successful
    at it.
        There have been some successes but they are very, very
    limited. The only way, I think, that is it is going to be done,
    at least under present circumstances, is with subsidies from
    the Federal Government. I know that does not particularly
    trouble you, but there are those of us who are not looking down
    that road very favorably, but--
        Senator Franken. May I respond very quickly?
        Senator Risch. Please.
        Senator Franken. We have a combined heat and power plant in
    St. Paul, Minnesota that generates electricity and also does
    the end, does the heat and cooling for downtown St. Paul. I
    think they have been successful and that this has been done
    successfully in other places.
        Senator Risch. That is correct, and in the old days it was
    very, very common. Every small town in Idaho had a sawmill, and
    that sawmill had what they called a tepee right next to it. The
    tepee was a co-gen facility that generated heat and steam and
    electricity, and it was very, very, common. Every small town
    had one. They are all gone.
        I don't know, do you guys have tepees left in your states?
    They are gone from Idaho. But Senator Franken, you were
    correct. It was very, very common, but because of the cost of
    it and because of the environmental challenges they have been
    wiped out. They are gone.
        I am not saying it should not continue to be pursued. The
    University of Idaho is doing some great work in that regard.
        Senator Franken. It is a great university.
        Senator Risch. It is. It is my alma mater, I might add.
    [Laughter.]
        As long as we have mentioned that, my undergrad, as most of
    you know, was in Forest Management. A little over half a
    century ago I sat in the classroom. I took a couple of
    semesters of fire behaviors. If it was not the class, it was at
    least part of the studies in that particular class.
        But really, with all due respect, the things I have heard
    here today and the things I have heard over the many, many
    hearings we have had on this have really not put anything new
    on the table. Back then, half a century ago, we were only 53
    years from the Big Burn in Idaho. Now we are over a century but
    back then it was only a half a century ago. The professors who
    taught, the people who worked in the woods, they all knew the
    Big Burn and they knew what had happened and they knew how fire
    behaved and what caused it and what the problems were. So this
    is not new.
        The problem here is not the problems that you, all of you,
    have described. Those problems have been known for a long, long
    time. The problem here is very, very political, and I do not
    mean republican versus democrat. With all due respect to our
    colleagues that live east of the Mississippi River, they really
    do not have an understanding of what fire is like in the
    ecosystem that we live in the West. And with all due respect to
    Senator Stabenow, who talked about private lands, look, in
    Idaho two out of every three acres is owned by the Federal
    Government. We never had a major fire in Idaho that it was not
    the Federal Government that was in it up to their ears and a
    lot of it due to poor management.
        The Good Neighbor laws or policies Senator Stabenow talked
    about, the people in Idaho do not particularly look at the
    Federal Government as a good neighbor when it comes to
    management of their yard. They do not cleanup their yard, and
    the result of that is we have major, major catastrophic fires
    and are sitting on the edge of it.
        When I was Governor we had a summer that had particularly
    bad fires, so I spent a lot of time in an airplane looking at
    those fires from the air. It was stunning to me. I knew this
    before this happened and it is not rocket science, but it was
    stunning what happens when a fire comes up against land that
    has been treated or even land that has been harvested, just
    harvested, or and more commonly and we have it in Idaho very
    commonly, and that is it comes against an area that had been
    burned within recent years and the fire just stops. It changes,
    its character changes, everything changes and the fire is much
    more containable.
        So the problem, I guess I am following the camp with
    Senator Daines, and that is I am just tired of talking about
    this, you know? We all know what the problem is, and assent of
    the Crapo/Wyden bill is a really, really important and good
    response to this. What it does so simply, it tells the Forest
    Service that you should be using your prevention money for
    prevention instead of putting the fire out.
        If we did that one of you said, and I do not remember who
    it was, that this whole thing starts right here with this
    Committee. You are absolutely right. This is where it starts,
    and we really need to get it done.
        Thank you for holding the hearing, again, Madam Chairman.
    One would hope that at some point in time we are going to be
    able to move forward on this. So, thank you.
        Mr. Wyss. Senator Risch, if I may?
        The Chairman [presiding]: Mr. Wyss?
        Mr. Wyss. The one thing that is not being discussed in all
    of this, we're talking about pretreatment and treatments. My
    job is to do long-term recovery for all the fires that have
    occurred in our state and around, and it comes with post-
    treatment as well.
        Once the timber has burned and it is still standing,
    cleaning up the fuel load of the burned timber which if not
    done will fall and become the next fire, and coming up with
    options for that including bio-char are significant items that
    we can look at. Because the market becomes so flooded with the
    burned timber, we have to find alternative options. And our
    state is looking significantly at bio-char and other options
    with that burned timber to get it out of the forest so it
    doesn't become fire again and fuel for the next fire. So I
    think we have to look at it not only as pretreatment, but post-
    treatment as well.
        Senator Risch. Thank you very much, I appreciate it.
        Madam Chairman, thanks.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Risch.
        There has been a lot of discussion about the need to do
    more treatment either pre- or post- and I certainly understand
    that. Of course it does come down, to a certain extent, to the
    dollars, the resources that are made available. But we also
    know that we have got some obstacles just in doing that and
    obtaining the necessary permits. I think Senator Daines was one
    who mentioned it.
        I would throw this out to you, Mr. Maisch, maybe to Chief
    Burnett or Mr. Wyss as well. In terms of those obstacles that
    keep us from really carrying out the hazardous fuels reduction
    program, what is in our way? Is it just a matter of dollars?
    Are there more politics to it that we need to address? Can you
    outline some of that for me?
        Mr. Maisch. Yes, I'd be happy to.
        I think it is a suite of things. It is, in part, funding
    but probably the bigger part is at least on Federal lands, as
    we had some discussion here in the Committee, on the litigation
    side of this issue.
        Do you get at it through some kind of categorical exclusion
    process that would help with some of that? Do you do
    programmatic level NEPA that would clear very large projects on
    a landscape level so there's only one NEPA process and then you
    implement projects that are covered by that, in that umbrella
    NEPA project? So the potential litigants only get one bite at
    the apple instead of repeated bites every time we do smaller
    scale projects across the landscape.
        I think we have to start thinking in bigger terms and a
    broader, all hands, all lands. I think you've probably heard
    that term from previous committees. It's not just the Federal
    lands. It's the State. It's local jurisdictions.
        But we do have to get a handle on that Federal piece,
    because that's where the road block often is right now.
        The Chairman. Any other comments?
        Mr. Wyss. I would concur that in getting a handle on that.
    We have a DNR section of state land owned in the Carlton
    Complex fire that was cleared for treatment. NEPA, CEPA were
    both done, and the DNR was going to clear the burned timber.
    That is still tied up in litigation, and that timber is now
    falling to the ground and the wind storms and unable to clean
    it up or even recover dollars from that. So the litigation
    piece is a significant challenge to it.
        But it's not only litigation. We have another track that's
    above Highway 20 in between Twist, Washington and Okanogan,
    Washington where it's a multiple jurisdiction ownership. The
    BLM has ownership, and the Forest Service has some ownership.
    Trying to do the necessary treatment, post-fire, has been
    slowed down because the two agencies do not work together.
        They need to streamline that piece to get, I mean, it's all
    approved. But the BLM and the Forest Service are still having a
    slight disagreement, so on the best way to manage the removal
    of the timber. And that's what's causing our challenges of not
    being able to get this done.
        The Chairman. Ms. Fennell, you have in your report looked
    at the, just the reviews, the fire reviews and the concerns
    that we are seeing that we have not been doing the reviews as
    has been directed. Are some of the things, for instance, that
    Mr. Wyss just mentioned in terms of the agencies not
    coordinating well with one another? Is that something that we
    need to beef up or make sure are included as part of these
    reviews is what happens after the fire?
        Ms. Fennell. We think that the reviews are a very important
    way of assessing the effectiveness of their ability to respond
    to fires and to suppress fires. And we called for,
    specifically, that they consider specific, clear criteria that
    they can use to select fires and then to conduct the fires and
    update their policies accordingly. We think that they can
    consider a multitude of criteria in selecting those fires and
    look for reducing how they are going to implement our
    recommendation to do so.
        The Chairman. This might not be a fair question, but I am
    going to ask it anyway. Is there one agency--does Forest
    Service do a better job than BLM or a State? Can you give me an
    indicator as to whether or not there is one model that might be
    working better than others or are all of these equally fraught
    with problems?
        Ms. Fennell. Our work has shown that both Forest Service
    and Interior could benefit from greater information to make
    informed decisions. And we've noted in our recent work that
    both are looking to implement a number of different efforts to
    improve the way that they are fighting wildland fire. But there
    has been a lot of studies that have gone before these
    particular reports and we still think that they need to target
    better information in terms of what the large fire reviews have
    shown, what the performance of different aircraft to fight
    fires has shown and also better ways to deal with preparedness
    and effectiveness. So we think there are opportunities for both
    agencies.
        The Chairman. Well coming from a state where we have got a
    lot of land that goes up in smoke every year and as a state we
    feel like we are pretty in tuned with what is going on with
    fires, and the state is a pretty good example to look to of how
    you bring all hands in to address threats, not only to
    communities, property, but just to the land itself.
        Are our Federal agencies not synching in sufficiently with
    our States and our local fire experts here? Is this part of our
    problem? Chief Burnett, you are smiling.
        Mr. Burnett. You're asking the tough question. I can't tell
    you why it doesn't happen. I can tell you that it needs to
    happen and that the benefits are clearly articulated in this
    panel.
        So, you know, Forest Ridge Wildfire Coalition has received
    grants from the Department of Natural Resources to do fuel
    modification efforts around there. We coordinate with the State
    agencies as well as the Federal agencies to do fuel treatments
    in that prescribed or in that general jurisdiction or
    geographical area.
        We're working well with our partners as far as the
    restrictions that they have to go through in order to make it
    happen. You know, that's and it's, I think it's a political
    issue and a logistic or a litigious concern.
        The Chairman. I appreciate that.
        I am going to ask Senator Cantwell to wrap up with the
    final questions, but I do not want to conclude without a final
    question to you, Mr. Zerkel, because you have raised the issue
    of aviation assets and where we are. You have questioned, very
    clearly, I think, the wisdom of the government-owned tankers
    and the proposal going forward with these next gen air tankers.
    You have noted, very clearly, I think, for the record that what
    we have is not only an inconsistency. You call it a double
    standard between the government-owned aircraft like the C130Hs
    and the fact that you have a different standard that is held
    toward the commercial aircraft that are stepping up.
        Do you think that the private air tanker industry can meet
    the need for 18 to 28 next gen air tankers with the
    specifications that the Forest Service has called for?
        Mr. Zerkel. Senator, given a specific defined requirement
    and a specific contractual procedure I have no doubt that
    industry can meet any requirement that the Forest Service might
    have for large air tankers.
        We have a large amount of experience. The industry has been
    at it for an awful long time, but the problem in the past has
    been a mixture and an undefined set of qualifications that
    industry faces. We're not going to spend a whole lot of capital
    if we don't know exactly what it is the Forest Service requires
    and for how long they require it.
        The Chairman. So you would not only need specific criteria
    for standards, although you are saying look, we just go by the
    FAA standards. You also need some definition in terms of how
    long that commitment from Forest Service would be to whether it
    is Lynden or other operators that would provide such aircraft.
        Mr. Zerkel. That's correct for the industry at large.
        First of all the range of tankers that they think they
    require. The 18 to 28 is a little difficult for industry to
    comprehend. Is it 18? Is it 20? Is it 25? Is it 40, which it
    was before 2002. So that's what I mean by defined set of
    requirements in terms of the numbers of large air tankers and
    then clear, concise contracting procedures.
        The Chairman. Just for the record, you had indicated you
    had stepped up to make the build out for your Hercules so it
    could meet the requirements that had been set forth by Forest
    Service, but because of tight timeframes, you were not accepted
    into that pool of eligible aircraft for contracting. What does
    it cost to basically outfit an aircraft to meet these standards
    in terms of investment that you made to prepare for this what
    was the commitment there? Because I understand now this
    aircraft is not even being used here in the country, and it is
    being used for fire fighting in Australia, I think you said?
        Mr. Zerkel. That's correct.
        Lynden spent about $4.5 million in the procurement of a
    retardant tank drop system, the installation and the training
    of our personnel to bid for that next gen 2.0 contract. We were
    not successful in the bid and maybe rightfully so because of
    one portion of our supplemental type certificate was
    incomplete. We accepted that. We're going to fix that, and we
    are going to bid at the next opportunity. But the point is that
    we have those requirements, all of industry, not just Lynden,
    not just any of the other ones.
        The Forest Service, under this program, the public format
    program, would not have that. They could basically do whatever
    they wanted to do. Now I'm not saying they wouldn't do a good
    job or the Coast Guard or a vendor or whatever that they get to
    do it wouldn't do a good job. But the fact is they don't have
    to whereas the rest of industry does. And it's--
        The Chairman. So it is--
        Mr. Zerkel. Yes.
        The Chairman. A different standard.
        Mr. Zerkel. Absolutely.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Senator Cantwell?
        Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        I wanted to go back Chief Burnett and Mr. Wyss about the
    after effects because we are talking a lot here about obviously
    the economic loss of timber lands. But I am not sure we have
    given everybody a clear picture of how long it takes to
    recover. And one thing I mentioned earlier, the $300,000 from
    the Forest Service to help restore the impacts from the
    Wolverine fire-but can we talk about where we are one year
    after the Carlton Complex?
        Mr. Wyss. Sure.
        Senator Cantwell. And what we need to do and what happens
    when the money runs out? What happens? Chief Burnett, if you
    wanted to comment on that as well.
        Mr. Wyss. Okay.
        So one year after the Carlton Complex, I mean, we had $100
    million worth of damage in a community and a county that's the
    13th largest county in the United States and 39,000 people. So
    39,000 people are trying to dig out of $100 million hole.
        It makes it challenging when you lose 500 structures. Our
    community took a significant financial impact to the loss of
    value. 20 percent of our school district value is gone, 20
    percent of our hospital district value is gone, and that drives
    significant cost factors.
        When you lose 50 people out of the community in Pateros
    because 34 homes burned inside the city limits, you no longer
    have people paying into the water system and the water fees go
    up double because there's less people paying into the system
    and it has to be repaired.
        Our communities, our small businesses, when including in
    Chelan this year with the Wolverine fire in Chelan and the
    Reach fire, for 10 days were closed, completely. Our small
    businesses paid the credit card impact fees for the reservation
    in and the reservation out which are non-reimbursable.
        The communities and the small businesses who rely on
    tourism lost $1 million a day in the Winthrop and Twist area
    and $2.5 million in Chelan because the tourists were not
    allowed to come in because we were under immediate evacuations.
        When you look at the forestry and timber, the value of
    timber has dropped in half because the timber that was
    marketable burned and now there's limited market. When you burn
    200,000 acres last year and then 500,000 acres this year and
    then millions of acres in Alaska, the timber market starts to
    get pretty flooded with burned timber and you have to get that
    off within a short period of time before it blue stains.
        Then you look at our reservations where, you know, they're
    going to face 20 to 25 percent of their budget comes from
    timber and a billion dollar hole comes over a span. So our
    long-term recovery efforts are going to be 10 to 15 years in
    our small community to try to recover.
        For the rebuilding of homes and construction, only 40
    people qualified, who were the most needy of needy to have
    homes rebuilt by volunteers through the VOAD partners and the
    national VOAD partners in donations. So we have 11 of those
    homes completed and done, and we were thinking we were on the
    upward trend when this fire hit and we lost 100 more homes.
        So back-to-back impacts have really hit our economy hard,
    our budgets hard, our roads, our transportation and
    infrastructure, but not only that, we're going to suffer
    ramifications of unintended consequences with flood. We
    actually washed out a highway with just one inch of rain this
    last year because the trees couldn't absorb it, and we'll have
    it again this year with floods and snow pack.
        And we have 10,000 wildlife without a place to eat because
    we've burned all their habitat which then goes, Senator
    Stabenow talked about agriculture and Senator Cantwell you know
    we have the best apples and cherries in the world in our state.
    Well those deer eating the limbs and the buds off the trees
    which are impacting the agriculturalist's future because they
    don't have anything to eat.
        So our ramifications and long-term impacts are going to be
    felt for a number of years, and it's going to cause some of our
    folks to lose their businesses, their farms and ranches. And we
    will recover. I mean, that is my job as the lead recovery
    efforts, and we will do it. But we will come out of it
    stronger, more efficient and better.
        We just thank you, Senator Cantwell and Senator Murkowski,
    for holding these hearings to bring these issues to the
    forefront.
        Senator Cantwell. Mr. Burnett, did you want to say anything
    about, you had a concern about logs, potentially, you know,
    more trees falling and potentially putting more at risk in the
    future?
        Mr. Burnett. Right.
        As Jon was speaking that there is a lot of timber that's
    harvested afterwards. But back to the competing interests of
    how to best deal with the wildfires and post-wildfires there's
    a lot of logs that are not, a lot of standing timber, that is
    not allowed to be logged post-fire. And it creates a
    significant danger with hazard trees. We've lost many wildland
    firefighters from tree hazards.
        The burn scars area that we look at for trying to catch a
    fire, as an incident management team we'll look out ahead for
    any kind of natural barriers or manmade barriers. The natural
    barriers are, you know, rocks, trees, rivers or previous fire
    scars. If those previous fire scars are left untreated that is
    a hazard area that we can't send our fire fighters into in
    order to gain access to other areas or to fight the fire in
    that area.
        Senator Cantwell. Well Madam Chairman, thank you for this
    hearing. I want to thank all the witnesses, and obviously each
    of you have been dealing with this from one or more facets so
    we thank you for that.
        That is why, Madam Chairman, I want to work with you and
    see what we can do to move forward.
        I think the thing that might be different than some of the
    discussions that we have had before is the fact that, as Mr.
    Wyss said, the economic impacts here are something that we are
    going to feel for a long time. I think the threat that we see
    coming at us, that these are not the two worst years we are
    going to see, that the worst is still yet to come, I think
    demands us to think in new ways and figure out how to better
    prepare our nation for the economic, incredible economic,
    damage and loss that is going to occur and figure out a
    strategy for prevention and preparedness.
        So I look forward to working with you on that.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell, and know that we
    both agree we have got a lot of work to do. I do think that we
    gained some good insight from the panel this morning and from
    the questions that were raised by other colleagues.
        You speak to the economic damage and the economic impact,
    post-disaster, post-fire, and you clearly have seen that in
    your state. Typically in Alaska we will see more acreage burned
    and very little lost in terms of property value. This year was
    different losing 55 homes in and around the south central area.
        I think that causes us to recognize that when we think
    about the economic impact, the loss, not only from a financial,
    but really from an emotional perspective is something that we
    need to be very, very cognizant of, but we also then need to be
    very wise, very smart and very strategic in how we manage these
    fires and finding these levels of efficiency because, as you
    and I both know, the Federal dollars here are not getting that
    much more generous.
        I know in my state we have made dramatic reductions in our
    state's budget this year which further restricts the ability of
    our state to be engaged. We need to be smart in how we are
    managing this, so to hear that we have assets that are either
    being held back or are somehow or other just not being as
    efficient as we need them to be, when you have agencies that
    are not coordinating, when you have differing standards, when
    you have inefficiencies that are built into this system, that
    is something that we can control.
        You and I cannot stop that fire today, but we can make sure
    that as we are dealing with these fires we are working smart
    and we are working efficiently and collaboratively.
        So I look forward to working with you and all of you.
        We appreciate the time this morning.
        Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]

                          APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

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