[Senate Hearing 115-368]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-368
FEDERAL AND NONFEDERAL COLLABORATION,
INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY, TO REDUCE WILDLAND FIRE RISK
TO COMMUNITIES AND ENHANCE FIREFIGHTING SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
AUGUST 3, 2017
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
26-872 WASHINGTON : 2018
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
CORY GARDNER, Colorado JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
Colin Hayes, Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Chief Counsel
Lucy Murfitt, Senior Counsel and Public Lands & Natural Resources
Policy Director
Angela Becker-Dippmann, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Bryan Petit, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Alaska.... 1
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from
Washington..................................................... 3
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie, a U.S. Senator from Michigan.............. 5
WITNESSES
Christiansen, Victoria C., Deputy Chief, State and Private
Forestry, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture....... 5
Rice, Bryan, Director, Office of Wildland Fire, U.S. Department
of the Interior................................................ 15
Maisch, John ``Chris'', Alaska State Forester and Director,
Division of Forestry, Alaska Department of Natural Resources... 24
King, Steve, Economic Development Director, City of Wenatchee,
Wash-
ington......................................................... 36
Miller, Dr. Mary Ellen, Research Engineer, Michigan Tech Research
Institute...................................................... 44
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Cantwell, Hon. Maria:
Opening Statement............................................ 3
USA Today article by Robin Will dated June 11, 2015 entitled
``St. Marks Refuge staffer wins Fire Safety Award''........ 81
Map issued August 1, 2017 and produced by Predictive
Services, National Interagency Fire Center entitled
``Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook--August
2017''..................................................... 83
Christiansen, Victoria C.:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Written Testimony............................................ 8
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 87
Daines, Hon. Steve:
Map issued August 1, 2017 and produced by Predictive
Services, National Interagency Fire Center entitled
``Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook--September
2017''..................................................... 61
King, Steve:
Opening Statement............................................ 36
Written Testimony............................................ 39
Maisch, Chris:
Opening Statement............................................ 24
Written Testimony............................................ 27
Miller, Dr. Mary Ellen:
Opening Statement............................................ 44
Written Testimony............................................ 46
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 98
Murkowski, Hon. Lisa:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Rice, Bryan:
Opening Statement............................................ 15
Written Testimony............................................ 17
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 92
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Wyden, Hon. Ron, et al.:
Letter of Support for the Crapo/Brown Proposal............... 65
FEDERAL AND NONFEDERAL COLLABORATION, INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF
TECHNOLOGY, TO REDUCE WILDLAND FIRE RISK TO COMMUNITIES AND ENHANCE
FIREFIGHTING SAFETY AND EFFECTIVENESS
----------
THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lisa
Murkowski, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
The Chairman. Good morning. The Committee will come to
order.
We are here today to take a look at wildfire, to examine
our wildfire management programs, the collaboration that is
required to reduce risks to firefighters, communities, and
resources and some of the emerging technologies that are
changing the way that fires are managed.
We are now well into the 2017 fire season. It is certainly
a very active one. My friend from Montana, I think, is going to
share some of what is happening in his state this morning, and
I think it is appropriate to recognize the heroic acts of the
men and women who fight these fires throughout the season and
to recognize the loss of a firefighter in Montana.
Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Madam Chair, thank you. I will talk about
it in my remarks, but we lost a firefighter last night in
Montana.
The Chairman. So I understand.
Senator Daines. It is our second fatality in two weeks in
Montana of firefighters.
The Chairman. Well, know that our hearts and our prayers
are with the families, but again this speaks to the realities
that we face with wildland fires and with fires around the
country, that this is dangerous and unpredictable work. Again,
our thoughts and our prayers are with those who are serving.
As of August 1st, nearly 39,000 fires have burned almost
5.5 million acres of land. For comparison's sake, this is an
area about the size of the State of New Hampshire. In Alaska,
we have had a low fire year this year, we have had more than
300 fires burning about 630,000 acres. It is a lot of land, but
it is below normal for us in Alaska, so we are certainly not
complaining. Just two years ago, back in 2015, over 5 million
acres burned in Alaska alone. Mr. Maisch, from the State of
Alaska, certainly knows and understands this all too well.
Nationally, 2015 was one of the worst seasons on record,
stretching nearly all year and burning over 10 million acres in
total.
This Committee has spent a lot of time, a lot of good work,
working on legislation to address the consequences of wildfire.
We will continue that work until we arrive at legislative
solutions, hopefully sooner than later.
What we really need is a comprehensive solution that
addresses both wildfire budgeting and forest management. We
need to tackle both of those, at once, because we know the
wildfire problem is not just a budgeting problem, it is also a
management problem.
Last year, our Ranking Member, Senator Cantwell, along with
Senators Wyden, Risch, and Crapo joined me in putting forward a
comprehensive solution to address both challenges, we called
this the ``Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management
Act.'' Our proposal included a fiscally responsible fix to
permanently end the destructive practice of fire borrowing. We
required Congress to provide resources to the agencies up
front, enough to cover 100 percent of the average annual cost
of firefighting over the previous 10 years, while allowing for
a limited cap adjustment when we experience those truly
catastrophic years. Our proposal took steps to address the
hurdles that stand in the way of implementing the fuel
treatments needed to mitigate wildfire risk, increase
firefighter safety and make our forests more healthy and more
resilient. We would have increased the use of technologies,
such as drones and GPS trackers and fire risk mapping and made
needed investments in community wildfire protection plans as
well as ``Firewise programs.''
We know that our wildfire strategy needs to include all of
these important pieces of the wildfire management puzzle, and
we know that other members on our Committee also have good
ideas that deserve to be considered.
While our hearing today is focused on oversight of wildfire
management programs and the use of technologies, our goal is a
good bill that will fix these problems so the President will be
able to sign this into law.
We came up a little bit short in the last Congress but, as
we will hear today, fires, again, are continuing to destroy our
lands. There is a lot more that we can do, there is a lot more
that we must do, from budgeting to new technologies to better
management practices, to save them.
Again, I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here
today, and I want to particularly extend my appreciation to
Chris Maisch, Alaska's State Forester.
With that, I will turn to Ranking Member Cantwell for your
opening remarks.
STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for
holding this hearing.
Before I begin I, too, want to thank the over 35,000 men
and women who fight fires everyday throughout our country. And
our thoughts and prayers are with those in Montana who have
lost lives and to the firefighters who are continuing to battle
the blazes there.
These firefighters have been working tirelessly to save
homes, communities, people and assure that they are always
there to answer the call. Their diligent work has managed to
save many hundreds of residents already this year.
The Chair mentioned our efforts in the last Congress to
work diligently together in a bipartisan effort. I can assure
all my colleagues here that there was no stone unturned, no
late night not visited by she, myself, our staffs, the
leadership in the United States Senate, to try to resolve the
fire borrowing issue and to make a down payment on our fuel
reduction strategies for the future. Unfortunately, we could
not quite get there with our House colleagues. So any of you
who think that you can help us get them to pay attention in a
more serious way, we would be so grateful.
We have come together on a bipartisan solution in the
United States Senate to end fire borrowing and to make
investments for the future. I hope, I certainly hope, that we
can get the attention of the House to reinvigorate those
efforts and pass it when we return later after the summer
session.
Today we are here to talk about what additional tools we
can give firefighters. As of today, 50 percent more acres have
already burned this year than average, and yesterday a forecast
report was released that predicted the West is likely to
experience above-normal wildfires over the next month. That
shouldn't surprise people since we knew exactly what's been
trending the last few years. While in the State of Washington,
we have some fires, the rest of the country is seeing even more
impact. So today's hearing is about the tools that we can give
to help decrease the risks of firefighting.
I also want to thank Steve King for being here from
Washington to talk about the innovative actions that the City
of Wenatchee has been undertaking to mitigate these risks. We
know all too well from the Thirtymile Fire, from the Carlton
Complex, where over 100,000 acres have burned up in one
afternoon, how fast these fires can move.
So we want to make sure that we are giving new tools to
firefighters. If we are seeing a new normal, which I don't want
to think that it is normal because it is very, very stressful
for all our communities. But if we are seeing a new increase
because of the dry conditions and the abilities for fires to
spread in so many more places, more quickly, what can
technology do to help us address this and make us safer for the
future?
A couple of approaches that my colleague, Senator Gardner,
and I have been working on, would make sure that we are using
new technology and tools to help us deal with fires. That is
use, for the first time ever, real-time wildfire mapping
aircraft. That is the ability for aircraft to fly over these
areas or use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to generate real-
time mapping, depicting where the fires are burning. We also
should make GPS locators available to fire crews. Wildfire
Today refers to the combination of crew locations and real-time
fire maps as the Holy Grail of wildland firefighting because of
how it would improve the safety for our firefighters.
This legislation we are proposing would also encourage
federal agencies to take advantage of some of the tools that we
have at NASA in order to speed up the planning that goes into
effect to prevent after-the-fire flooding and erosion. These
are important issues for us--to map these areas.
And I know, as we look every year at NIFC's information,
working with the Forest Service, we know where our bad fire
seasons are going to be. Not that other spots are not going to
see an impact, because you never know where a fire is going to
start, but it gives us information about where to cash and put
resources so they are ready and available.
We also want to make sure that we do better with real-time
weather forecasting information. In the State of Washington, we
have a gap in the central part of our state. We do not want to
have a region of our state less-protected because they don't
have accurate weather forecasting information. We want to build
on the state of the technology and to make sure that every
community knows where and when it should not be sending
firefighters out, given the weather forecast and the challenges
that we face.
So I agree with the Chair, we need to work efficiently; we
need to work together; we need to get, as I'm sure we are going
to hear about, the ``hasty response'' approach that has been
used in the central part of Washington--that is to have
everybody ready. Given the outbreaks of fires in so many
locations, we would be able to have a hasty response. We also
need to have a hasty response in getting this legislation over
the goal line with our House of Representatives.
So, Madam Chair, thank you for holding this important
hearing. I thank our witnesses for being here. Again, our
thoughts and prayers are with those families impacted by this
fire season.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
Know that my commitment remains to help address this in a
way that is going to be more than just, kind of, the herky
jerky way it has been handled. The fire borrowing really limits
the ability of our agencies to do the work that we need them to
do, so having an approach that will yield enduring policy is, I
think, what we are all looking for here.
I am pleased to be able to welcome the panel this morning.
We will have good input, and I appreciate the time that you
will spend with us.
We will be led off by Victoria Christiansen, who is the
Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry at the Forest
Service at the Department of Agriculture. Welcome.
Mr. Bryan Rice is the Director for the Office of Wildland
Fire at Department of the Interior.
I have mentioned my friend, Mr. Chris Maisch, who is a
State Forester for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
He is also here this morning wearing another hat on behalf of
the National Association of State Foresters. We appreciate your
leadership there.
Mr. Steve King is the Economic Development Director for the
City of Wenatchee, Washington. Welcome to you.
And I understand, Senator Stabenow, you would like to
introduce Dr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF DEBBIE STABENOW,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN
Senator Stabenow. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I first want to thank both of you for an incredibly
important hearing. As the Ranking Democrat on Agriculture and
Nutrition and Forestry, I want to work closely with you so that
we can resolve this so that when we are doing the next Farm
bill and we have a forestry title to focus on prevention and
management, all the money is not transferred over to fight
fires. So thank you for holding this hearing.
We have tremendous expertise in Michigan. I want to
introduce Dr. Mary Ellen Miller, who is a research engineer at
Michigan Tech Research Institute in Ann Arbor. Michigan Tech is
actually in the Upper Peninsula, as Senator Cantwell knows, way
up in Houghton, Michigan, where I was not long ago meeting with
them on these issues--a beautiful, beautiful place. But
Michigan Tech is a leader in the use of information technology
to solve security and infrastructure, earth science and
environmental problems. With the help of NASA, Dr. Miller has
used models and earth observations to predict erosion and
runoff after wildfires in Colorado and California. Of course,
not all of her work is high-tech. She also spends plenty of
time out in the field with more low-tech tools like tipping
bucket gauges and a bucket hat.
So thank you for being with us today, Dr. Miller. We look
forward to hearing your unique, scientific insights on how
watersheds are impacted by wildfires. Welcome.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Stabenow.
At this time, Ms. Christiansen, if you want to lead the
panel off, we welcome your comments.
STATEMENT OF VICTORIA C. CHRISTIANSEN, DEPUTY CHIEF, STATE AND
PRIVATE FORESTRY, FOREST SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
AGRICULTURE
Ms. Christiansen. Madam Chairman and Ranking Member
Cantwell and members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to discuss collaboration to reduce wildfire risk.
After the events of yesterday, a loss of one of our own,
we're all, our hearts are heavy and we send our condolences to
our whole community.
It's a very appropriate time for this discussion. Thank
you.
My name is Vicki Christiansen, and I am the Deputy Chief of
State and Private Forestry for the USDA Forest Service. My
remarks today will be framed by the National Cohesive Wildland
Fire Management Strategy (Cohesive Strategy), an all-lands
blueprint for building synergies to address the nation's
growing wildfire challenges. The three goals of the Cohesive
Strategy are restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes,
creating fire-adapted communities, and having an effective
risk-based wildfire response. The Forest Service is committed
to restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes across all
jurisdictions.
On our national forests, we achieved over three million
acres of hazardous fuels treatments last year. We also work
across boundaries with our partners. In 2006, we provided
financial support to carry out nearly 150,000 acres of
treatment on non-federal lands.
Since 2006, we have assessed more than 3,000 fuel
treatments. And when tested by wildfire, 90 percent of these
fuel treatments have shown to reduce the impacts of wildfire.
For example, in Arizona, the fuel treatments associated with
the White Mountain Stewardship Project dramatically slowed the
rate of spread of the Wallow Fire to allow firefighters to
safely attack the fire and protect homes and property.
The Forest Service collaborates with state and local
partners to help prepare communities to withstand a wildfire.
This is challenging because of the increasing development in
the Wildland-Urban Interface.
We work with state partners to assist communities in
developing community wildfire protection plans. These plans
bring community members together to address wildfire response,
hazard mitigation and community preparedness.
As our risk assessment technology has developed, our
capability to help communities reduce their risk to wildfire,
has really evolved. For example, you will hear more from Mr.
King about our community planning assistance for the wildfire
program.
Wildfire prevention is a critical element to working
collaboratively across land ownership boundaries. Nationally,
nearly nine out of ten wildfires are caused by humans,
including some of the most costly fires. If we prevent
unwanted, human-caused fires, we can proactively use our
resources to create resilient landscapes, improve our response,
and help communities be prepared.
A long-standing example of federal and non-federal
collaboration is Smokey Bear. His campaign is administered by
the Forest Service, the National Association of State
Foresters, and the Ad Council. Smokey will be 73 next week, and
he is one of the world's most recognizable characters.
Our goal at the Forest Service is to work with partners to
continuously improve our risk-based response to wildfire. No
one agency has the capability or the surge capacity to respond
to wildfire alone, so we have a collaborative approach in the
U.S. It includes federal, state, tribal, city, county,
contract, and volunteer firefighters.
We continue to work with our cooperators and industry on
emerging technology to help respond to the challenges of fire.
The Forest Service invests $34 million each year in wildland
fire information and technology systems, and we work very
closely with the Department of the Interior to develop an
integrated approach and prioritize our investments to be able
to update our legacy systems.
The central platform is the Enterprise Geospatial Portal.
The portal provides up-to-date wildland fire situational
information to first responders, to fire managers and the
public. Through our research and development branch, we
continue to collaborate with additional partners, such as NASA,
on new and emerging technologies. We also partner and DOI takes
the lead on interagency capability on unmanned aircraft
operations in wildland fire management.
Although our missions and priorities among our partners are
diverse, we are united with a common vision and set of goals
defined by the Cohesive Strategy established to collectively
address our nation's wildland fire challenges so we can redeem
our responsibilities to the citizens of the U.S.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss wildfire risk and
collaboration. We look forward to working with the Committee on
these important issues.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Christiansen follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Christiansen.
Mr. Rice, welcome.
STATEMENT OF BRYAN RICE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF WILDLAND FIRE,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Rice. Good morning.
Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell, members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today and have this discussion. It's important. Thank you for
the opportunity to talk about the Department of the Interior's
Wildland Fire Program.
First, I'd like to start by saying that we in the
Department are saddened by yesterday's news of the fatality in
Montana. The Department of the Interior's (DOI/Department)
heartfelt condolences go out to the family and friends and
others that are affected by this situation.
Overall, we are seeing the cumulative impacts of climate
variability, drought, and invasive species that are creating
this situation that leads us to being more susceptible to large
and devastating wildfires. So far this season, we've seen
outbreaks across the country in numerous, if not all, of the
geographic areas.
In working through this, the National Cohesive Strategy,
which my partner here alluded to, is the backbone of the
National Wildland Fire Management Policy and it's built on
collaboration with federal, state, tribal, local, all the
partners and represents a determined effort by the Federal
Government to actively involve partners in planning and
decision-making.
Fuels management work, active management work, either done
collaboratively with our partners or done directly on
Department lands managed through each of the Bureaus within the
Department of the Interior, is one of the most effective
strategies for mitigating wildland fire risk.
For example, in the Department of the Interior's Resilient
Landscapes Initiative, DOI bureaus actively engage partners at
the local level on fuels management projects that achieve fire
resiliency across multiple jurisdictions and broad landscapes.
This year the Department-supported initiative has added
value to private landowners, tribal, state, local governments,
and other federal agencies who work hand-in-hand with the
Department to safeguard communities. Together we continue to
plan and execute these activities to reduce overstocked forests
and woodlands, as well as improve the health of our rangeland
landscapes.
It's important also to talk about the advancements in
technology that play a critical role in many areas of the
Department's fire program.
The use of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) is becoming
increasingly important in our day-to-day fire suppression
operations. Interior is the government leader in research and
development in the practical deployment of UASs for non-defense
purposes. Currently, the Department uses UASs to support
firefighters in the field through mapping of fires, use of
infrared technologies, and the gathering of data for strategic
fire planning. In addition, the Department has established fire
operation guidelines for the coordinated use of UASs with state
agencies, as well as developing the specifications for a
government-owned fleet of UASs.
Looking ahead, we're studying the potential role UASs will
play in fire suppression operations, including their
effectiveness at delivering fire retardant and cargo in
environments that may prohibit the safe use of larger piloted
aircraft.
In June of this year the Department announced the expansion
of its wildland fire location data-sharing service named
current wildland fires available to the public through
geoplatform.gov and, in addition, the early adopters of Alaska
and Texas. Other states are added which include Wyoming, North
Dakota, and California and we're expecting others to engage as
well. The system informs drone operators, so it is available to
the public, and informs those drone operators in near real time
where not to fly so they can avoid interference with ongoing
fire operations.
Another important technology advancement that is helping
improve the Department's response to wildland fires is the use
of high definition cameras with infrared technologies that help
spot fires in remote geographic areas across Nevada. The Bureau
of Land Management's Fire Camera Network Program is a joint
effort with the University of Nevada, Reno's seismological lab.
Eight cameras have been installed on remote mountain peaks and
are used by fire personnel for early fire detection, allowing
managers to shift resources as needed, to better manage fires,
reduce costs, and protect local communities. This is yet
another service available to the public. The data is readily
available.
The Department acknowledges we still have plenty of room
for improvement when it comes to fighting fire efficiently and
safely. We believe these technology advancements allow us to be
better positioned to address wildland fire. We look forward to
continuing to build on these efforts in ways that support the
safety of the firefighters and the public, enhance our
firefighting responsibilities, and promote further
collaboration with our partners.
Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss the
Department's fire program, and I'll be happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rice follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Rice.
Welcome, Mr. Maisch.
STATEMENT OF JOHN ``CHRIS'' MAISCH, ALASKA STATE FORESTER AND
DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF FORESTRY, ALASKA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL
RESOURCES
Mr. Maisch. Thank you.
Good morning, Chairman Murkowski, Ranking Member Cantwell,
and members of the Committee and my fellow panel members.
My name is Chris Maisch, and I am the State Forester and
Director of the Alaska Division of Forestry and past President
of the National Association of State Foresters. I appreciate
the opportunity to speak with you today on the topics of
wildfire risk mitigation and the use of new technology on the
fire line.
The mission of my division is to proudly serve Alaskans
through forest management and wildland fire protection. The
Division is the lead agency for fire management services on 150
million acres of land with a primary goal to protect life and
property.
My staff works closely with two key partners in Alaska, the
USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior, Alaska
Fire Service with the latter agency being our main partner in
Alaska.
I'd like to address my first topic on reducing risk to
communities and firefighters by walking you through the process
of how a fuel mitigation project is created and then deployed
on the ground.
My written statement has included several case studies of
fuel reduction projects that were used in actual wildland fire
incidents, but I'm going to focus on one project in Alaska. The
process starts with the State Action Plan which is a key
document that focuses limited resources via a publicly vetted
process and reflects individual state priorities. This tiers
into a CWPP, or Community Wildfire Protection Plan, that goes
into more detail and can be for a whole community, a
neighborhood or any jurisdictional unit that works well for the
planning process.
Agencies provide science-based input to the types of fuel
breaks or other fuel treatments that are appropriate for the
circumstances. Work is conducted at the landscape level and for
individual properties in Alaska, via our Forest Stewardship
Program and a nexus with Firewise USA principles. Stewardship
foresters are experts at working with small landowners and, in
our program, we offer cost share incentives to work with and
encourage landowners to fully implement recommendations to
reduce risk. This work is cross boundary and at scale and
follows the strategy of defense and depth.
If you are students of military tactics, you will recognize
this doctrine--outer rings of landscape fuel breaks and forest
management that scale into individual treatments and for
individual properties as you move further into the interface.
In 2014, the Funny River Fire on the Kenai National
Wildlife Refuge was successfully stopped at the outskirts of
the community along the Funny River Road by a landscape scale
fuel break and a burnout operation as the main fire approached.
And if you have the written testimony, you can look at page 2,
Figures 1 and 2, for examples of what these treatments actually
look like.
The fire log for the incident reports the progression of
the fire, and I'd like to read to you several entries:
--May 19th, at 1600 hours, the Funny River Fire is reported.
It's driven by strong northerly winds and by 2230, the
fire is seven miles long and three-quarters of a mile
wide. That's in two and a half hours.
--May 20th, the fire grows an additional 21,000 acres and the
Alaska Type 2 team takes command of the fire.
--May 21st through May 24th, the fire increases by another
83,000 acres.
--And finally, on May 25th, the fire grows an additional
45,500 acres and the fuel break is used in a burnout
operation.
You can refer to page 4, Figure 3, to see this operation
taking place as the actual fire hits the fire line.
Property values protected were over $250 million in value.
This was a significant test for this type of a fuel break.
Around the country there are other examples and there are three
other case studies cited in my written statement, one
additional project in Alaska and two in Arizona.
It is worth mentioning that last year 82 percent of
wildfires and almost 50 percent of acreage burned were on state
or private lands. Collectively, we need to get in front of this
problem and continue to provide solid, fiscal support for the
full range of state and private forestry programs, particularly
for the SFA and VFA line items. These programs help create
fire-adapted communities, increased capacity of agencies to
respond, create defensive space and educate the public.
Turning to my other topic, I would like to briefly address
the use of technology incentive--some of the innovative uses of
UAVs. In my testimony, page 6, Figure 4, you'll see this figure
shows the Texas Forest Service utilizing a UAV during an
initial attack fire. This technology has great potential to
improve fire line safety, increase situational awareness for
the Incident Commander and operation staff, as well as become a
standard tool utilized for several purposes.
The addition of an infrared camera to a UAV platform shows
great promise for assisting mop-up operations by identifying
heat in the areas being gridded in real time for crews. My
written testimony goes into the details of the Texas Forest
Service Program and joint efforts by the Alaska Fire Service
and Division of Forestry to incorporate UAVs into our
operations, including training, equipment needs, and the next
steps to continue this process.
In closing, I would like to stress the importance of cross
boundary fuels work on federal, state and private lands for
protecting the communities as well as increasing operational
value and safety benefits of new technologies, such as UAVs and
fire suppression operations.
The Forest Service state and private programs are critical
funding sources for these types of activities and, as
demonstrated in today's panel, states and the rural fire
departments are at the forefront of the nation's wildland fire
problem.
In addition to the activities discussed, there is an urgent
need to increase the amount of active forest management taking
place on federal lands throughout the country. There are good
examples of federal land managers that are rising to this
challenge, but too often the appeal process or litigation of
NEPA documents delay needed projects. Reform is needed to
address this problem.
Another helpful tool is the Good Neighbor Authority which
allows state agencies to partner with the Forest Service and
BLM to get work done on the ground. Improvements in this
authority can also be made and that would be based on
experience of the 95 Good Neighbor Authority agreements and the
29 states throughout the country.
Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss these
important issues and topics with you. This concludes my
testimony, and I would be happy to answer any questions you
might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Maisch follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Chris.
Mr. King, welcome.
STATEMENT OF STEVE KING, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR, CITY OF
WENATCHEE, WASHINGTON
Mr. King. Good morning, Madam Chairman Murkowski and
Ranking Member Cantwell and members of the Committee. Thank you
so much for this opportunity to come to DC and present to you.
It's my first time.
And let me present just a little bit of background about my
career. I serve the City of Wenatchee as Economic Development
Director and interestingly, 15 years ago, I started performing
civil engineering work to design water systems for fire
response based on structure loss in the 1992 Castle Rock fires
in which over 20 structures were lost in Wenatchee. In 2015
when the Sleepy Hollow fires hit our city, we did not run out
of water, so that was a successful mitigation effort.
However, the disaster still occurred which tells us we need
to look more comprehensively at how we address wildfire.
I hope that my testimony today will communicate to you the
value and the power in communities to act, and the value of
implementing the risk reduction strategies through multiagency
collaboratives and partnerships.
Just a little context for Wenatchee. Most people, when I
tell them I'm from Wenatchee in Washington State, they assume
where I am from, we have lush rainforests all around us.
Wenatchee is on the east slope of the Cascades. It's beautiful,
but we get ten inches of rain a year and our communities lie on
the downgradient, downwind sides of the foothills of the
Cascades. The forests give way to shrub steppe environments and
wildfire is a reality.
I grew up in Omak, Washington, two hours north, just shy of
the Canadian border and next to a retardant base, or back then
they called it ``borate bombers,'' where we had the World War
II aircrafts dropping borate on fires just about every year. We
didn't have large structure loss or huge human impacts at that
time. I barely remember any losses other than a few
outbuildings being lost in those events.
Times have changed. Our communities have grown as we push
into the Wildland-Urban Interface, and it requires a different
approach. My uncle served for 30 years with the Okanogan-
Wenatchee National Forest as the spokesperson. I remember
specifically two times when he had to deal with firefighter
deaths, so my heart goes out to the folks in Montana.
In 2015, we had the Sleepy Hollow fires one year after the
Carlton fires when 322 homes were lost in the Okanogan area.
The Sleepy Hollow fires caused the loss of 29 homes and 30
acres of warehouses right in the middle of our community.
I was there during the event. I saw the fire turn from a
calm, brush fire and when the winds picked up in the afternoon,
the fire traveled over a mile in 20 minutes and was in the
edges of our city and houses were exploding. I saw that and
watched in horror as the firefighter response efforts were
quickly overwhelmed, and we then saw house embers leaping from
house to house. And then over a two-mile jump into the heart of
the city. It's hard to imagine, as you're in the middle of
that, that all of a sudden, the radio calls out, and we have
structures in downtown and a chemical facility ablaze, and it
was like, oh boy, this just went to a whole new level. So, I
will never forget this, but people do, people that aren't
directly impacted do forget, and new people come to a
community. And so, keeping that presence of understanding that
we live in an environment where this can happen is really
important. And I'll talk a little bit about how risk mapping
does that, it helps keep that in the forefront.
I also want to say thank you for the effort or the
investment in training opportunities through the National Fire
Academy, through the Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire
Programs. The Chief of our fire department and us have taken up
these opportunities. One of our goals is to become better
educated in the understanding of this, of the realities of
these events.
Risk mapping. Two weeks ago, I sat down with the staff from
the Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, and we
worked on the risk map for Chelan County. There's some
significant values that come out of risk mapping and one of
them, as evident last week or the last couple weeks, was that
it brings everybody together. Agencies have different value
sets and that comes out when you start talking about risk
mapping and fire behavior.
It's also a tool for call-to-action. As I mentioned before,
people forget. Risk mapping lets you simulate a disaster
without actually having to go through the disaster. It lets us
inform. It informs us on how to implement our codes, our
wildland-urban interface codes. It tells us the effectiveness
of risk reduction strategies such as vegetation management. It
provides us information on how to protect critical
infrastructure, like water systems or communication systems.
And then, the technology is changing and will continue to
change. For example, there's a lot of studies being done right
now on ember transport, especially from structures. And so,
risk mapping, ultimately, will incorporate that new science and
technologies to help us grow as the science becomes available.
I just want to, again, come back and stress that our
Wenatchee Foothills are made up of lands owned by the Forest
Service, the Department of the Interior, our local non-profit
land trusts, our State Natural Resources Department and the
City of Wenatchee, Chelan County, and the private property
owners. It's absolutely paramount that everybody participates
in these activities.
Risk mapping also shows the importance of that. One
property owner can lose their house, then you can lose it all
if somebody doesn't participate. So, once again, it's a call-
to-action. It's a leveraging tool, as well as a technology tool
that brings people together.
So I hope you can see our passion at the City of Wenatchee
and how we're trying to prevent this from happening again.
I had to tell our planning commission that we live in a
world of wildfire and that wildfires will continue to happen,
and disasters will happen. But if we do this successfully, we
can--maybe instead of 20 years, it will be 100 years before the
next disaster, or better yet, not even 100 years. And it takes
this comprehensive approach to actually achieve that goal.
So, with that, again thank you, and I would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. King, I greatly appreciate it.
Dr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF DR. MARY ELLEN MILLER, RESEARCH ENGINEER, MICHIGAN
TECH RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Dr. Miller. Good morning, Chairwoman Murkowski, Ranking
Member Cantwell and members of the Committee. My name is Dr.
Mary Ellen Miller, and I'm a Research Engineer at Michigan Tech
Research Institute. My Ph.D. is in Environmental Engineering
with a Master's in Imaging Science. Thank you for inviting me
here today to share with you my NASA-applied science work in
post-fire remediation.
My team has built an online data base to rapidly combine
earth observations of burn severity with process-based model
inputs. Post-fire flooding and erosion can pose a significant
threat to life, property, and natural resources such as our
valuable water supplies.
As part of my Ph.D. program, I worked on a very large-scale
EPA project designed to help plan fuel reduction treatments
with a goal of protecting our water resources from high-
severity fire impacts. When this project ended, I used the data
sets and tools that had been developed to rapidly predict post-
fire erosion for Forest Service BAER teams in Colorado.
BAER, or Burned Area Emergency Response teams, just have
one week to assess a wildfire scar and decide if they need to
make remediation plans or not. So earth observations of burn
severity are critical in this process but I was very surprised
to learn from my Forest Service research colleagues that
spatial process-based, hydrological models were being
underutilized.
I really didn't understand why until 2011 when the National
Park Service asked me to model a small watershed that burned
within the Rock House Fire in Texas. It was only 500 acres, and
I had previously modeled 75 percent of the forests in the West
in three months. So I thought, this is going to be easy, I can
do this.
I was wrong. Texas was not part of the original EPA area,
and it took me over a week to assemble the inputs that I
needed. I was one day late in getting the modeling to the BAER
team so it could not be used in the analysis. A year later, in
2012, I modeled 80,000 acres of the High Park Fire for the BAER
team in two to three days.
The difference between success and failure was, simply,
preparation. I didn't want what happened at the Rock House Fire
to happen again, so I'm very proud to introduce a new, online,
Rapid Response Erosion Database. We're calling it RRED, for
short. RRED allows users to upload a soil-burn severity map
into the online database and within seconds download all the
properly formatted spatial model inputs needed to use process-
based models. RRED was created through a collaboration between
Michigan Tech, the NASA Applied Sciences Wildfire Program, and
the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station.
Data preparation that used to take a week can now be done
in seconds. Spatial predictions of runoff and erosion will
allow the BAER teams to spatially prioritize costly, post-fire
remediation treatments.
I'm proud to say RRED has been used on several major
fires--last year on the Soberanes Fire. The year before, in
2015, the modeling results were used to spatially place $3
million worth of projects in watersheds. And the year before in
the King Fire, $1 million worth of mulching in order to protect
a valuable hydroelectric water reservoir. RRED has also been
used on four large fuels planning projects to protect our water
supplies, including one in the Mokelumne Basin in California.
Our future goals include expanding our spatial coverage to
include Alaska and Hawaii. We would also like to improve RRED's
capabilities for supporting fuels planning projects, and we are
developing a new modeling interface to work in conjunction with
RRED to make it even easier.
Thank you very much for your interest in fire science. It
is very important. Research and education outreach are vital in
order to support our brave, wildland firefighters and BAER
teams.
Thank you very much, and I will be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Miller follows:]
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The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Miller.
I thank each of you. I think we recognize that how we are
approaching firefighting, how we are approaching forest
management, has changed over the years. And when you listen to
the technologies that are now available to us, we have seen a
lot of innovation.
Dr. Miller, I appreciate the research and the mapping that
you are doing.
I think we recognize that we have new tools, which is
great, but we are dealing across multiple agencies, dealing
with tribal lands, dealing with state and private and federal
lands. It is an example where if you are not working together,
collaboratively, bad things can happen.
Sitting in this Committee for the past 14, 15 years,
listening every year to where we are with fire status report
and how we are working across agencies, the discussion is
always, oh yes, we are working together. It is interagency. It
is collaborative. I really do think that we have made
extraordinary gains in doing just that.
Chris, you mention the cross-boundary fuel efforts. I will
direct this question to you, Ms. Christiansen, and Mr. Rice and
Mr. Maisch as well. With regards to how we determine or the
process that the federal agencies utilize to determine where
these fuel mitigation projects should occur on federal or
across boundary lines, what is the process? I am assuming that
your offices work with the land managers to help make these
decisions?
What more do we need to be doing to make sure that we are
not just talking about good collaboration but that any
impediments to that are removed because, as we all know, the
fire does not know the boundary between BLM lands or state or
private lands? What more do we need to be doing in this realm?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator. I'll take a first go
at this.
I really appreciate the perspective and that really is the
articulation of the Cohesive Strategy, the three national
implementation principles of the cohesive strategies
collectively across jurisdictions in a landscape scale
inclusive of communities to which we say, co-manage risk, to
look at the risk factors in an entire landscape and what those
critical values are at risk.
And no one agency can take on an activity that might
transfer risk to others. Prescribed fire is a perfect example.
Prescribed fire is often a very important tool to--it's taking
on some short-term risk, but to greatly reduce the long-term
risk by----
The Chairman. Well, translate that into real application
though. You have one agency that believes you should move
forward with prescribed burn, but your community says no, this
is a dangerous time of year to be doing that. We know we get
high winds and the conditions on the ground. There is inherent
tension between the desire of one agency----
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
The Chairman. ----and what you may have in another agency
or out in the community.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, thank you.
As Mr. Maisch mentioned, tiering from some very state level
plans or federal level plans into community wildfire protection
plans, we, our analytics are so improved that we can sit down
together with different jurisdictions and community members and
we can map and show the risk, as Mr. King suggested. So it's
our real-time analytics are so advanced than they were even
five years ago that brings the collaboration principles for
decision-making in that risk sharing.
So----
The Chairman. Right.
Let me interrupt because I am running out of time here.
Ms. Christiansen. Sure.
The Chairman. Let me ask, Mr. Rice and Mr. Maisch, are you
satisfied that we really are as integrated as we need to be?
Mr. Rice. Chairman, thanks for the question, the topic. I
know your time here is short, but it's complicated, right? And
with it being complicated, the conversations that need to take
place, the engagement that needs to happen across all the
jurisdictions. So, whether it's dealing with Indian tribes,
federal lands, state lands, counties, all the other
jurisdictions, it takes this level of personal engagement for
all of our managers, our leaders, everyone that's involved.
Can we improve? I think we can improve, but as Ms.
Christiansen was just saying, we're making leaps and bounds
from where we've been in the past.
The Chairman. Mr. Maisch?
Mr. Maisch. Yes, thank you, Senator.
I would agree with our previous two speakers here that
there's places in the country where we're definitely very
coordinated and then there's other places where there are
challenges.
The Chairman. Hopefully, we can learn from that, though.
Mr. Maisch. Yup, for sure.
You want to do the lessons learned and then definitely
learn from mistakes that have been made in the past.
I think one of the ways to help with the community piece in
terms of buy-in, getting communities to buy in, is
demonstrating that these projects actually do work and when
there is an incident that there is payback, that we are able
to, in many cases, use those fuel breaks and the preparations
have been taken to reduce the risk, not only to the community,
but more important, not more importantly, but equally
importantly, to the firefighters that are actually protecting
the values at risk.
The Chairman. I think we saw that with the Funny River
Fire.
Mr. Maisch. For sure.
The Chairman. Yes.
Mr. Maisch. And some of that is using, you know,
technology.
The Joint Fire Sciences Program is a key program that
really provides a lot of very good information to practitioners
at the operational level.
One project in Alaska that program is working on at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks is showing and demonstrating
that the fuel mitigation projects, the different types, a
shaded fuel break, a masticated fuel break, pruning, all the
different things we can do, how effective those actually are in
different fuel types when a fire impacts one of those
treatments.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Maisch. So that buys confidence from a community that
what you recommended will work.
The Chairman. Which is key.
Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. King, the only thing you didn't say was that Wenatchee
is the apple capital of the world.
[Laughter.]
When you think about apples and our economic input/output
in that central part of the state, it is about $2.4 billion or
$2.5 billion a year. So it's a big risk when fire impacts it.
And you did a good job of explaining that we are on the slope.
One of the questions I have for the panel is this: use of
new technology, because that is really what we are finding with
these changes of conditions, that having data and information
can help us know when to go and when not to go.
I think we can all say there were probably some incidents
in the last two big fires we had in Washington where people
probably did go and that was probably the wrong decision. The
conditions were just too volatile to try and create a stand
there.
So my questions are--Mr. King, what is the output? Right
now I know that when you were talking about house-to-house,
literally a community was at risk when one person had shrubs.
You go along and you would see that these houses would be
burned and this house would be saved. So what is it you think
risk mapping is going to give you?
Mr. Rice, can you talk about the GPS system and whether you
support the GPS system and the aerial mapping my colleague,
Senator Gardner, and I plan on introducing to encourage
monitoring, real-time mapping?
Ms. Christiansen, if you or Mr. Rice want to comment, I
don't understand why we have foreclosed on this water scooping
contract with the Forest Service. I don't know that we have
conclusive data on its cost versus effectiveness. One of the
things we've learned in the central part of the state is when
you need hasty response, one of the best tools that you have is
scoopers to access and dump water on these sites. Why would you
conclude right now that we really don't want to have that kind
of capacity at all?
If you could address those, thank you.
Mr. King. Yes, good question.
The risk mapping has been phenomenal in informing us about
the characteristics of how the fire approaches a city and gives
us some idea of how to implement mitigation strategies along
the structures.
And so, two things. One, it tells us how to manage the
landscape so that that predictable fire behavior is what we
understand will happen. And then two, it tells us, for example,
ember casts from the vegetation, what depth into the city do we
expect to have a risk of structure loss.
The number one strategy is you don't want any structures to
go up. Once the structures go up, you're into a new fuel type.
It's called housing fuel types and it's--that's a whole
different game.
It really demonstrates the importance of, as I mentioned
earlier, engaging all the property owners, whether they're
spread out into the wildland areas or in the city themselves,
to make sure and implement those practices to prevent that
structure from going up.
Then it also empowers the land managers, whether it's BLM,
DNR, city or county, to implement the right type of fuel
mitigation strategy so that, basically, the flames lay down
before they get to the houses.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Mr. Rice, does DOI support GPS for firefighters?
Mr. Rice. Senator, great question and thank you for that.
The way that we're looking at GPS and the technology that
we're using within fires, there's a litany of options. There
are numerous types of capabilities that are out there.
We're looking at cost capability, what can actually be
deployed and then how do we manage that data on the back end to
make it useful.
In terms of do we support looking at ways--we support
looking at different options and how we can actually come up
with a solution that's beneficial to the firefighters on the
ground, the managers in the field, the leadership that's
actually involved at all levels.
Senator Cantwell. Okay. I'm going to come back for more
clarity on that.
Ms. Christiansen, what about using these water scoopers?
Why have we concluded right now that that's not a good idea?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
Water scoopers are certainly a tool in our aviation
toolbox, our aviation strategy. We have not concluded that
they're ineffective, but as you know in our proposed FY'18
budget we had to make some critical choices and look at being
good stewards of the taxpayer's dollars. And so, in that
choice-making, we will not, we're not planning to hold an
exclusive-use contract that can access these water scoopers
through, what we call, the call-when-needed mechanism.
Currently this year, we have two under exclusive-use contract
and two on call-when-needed.
Senator Cantwell. I'll follow up with this on another
round.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Chair Murkowski, Ranking Member
Cantwell, for holding this hearing.
As it has already been discussed earlier, Montana is
experiencing a very busy wildfire season. We have seen over
1,200 fires so far this year. In fact, as we speak, there are
31 fires burning across the state. Just yesterday, the top ten
national priority fires were all burning in Montana.
Much of Western Montana is clouded by smoke. It is leaving
unhealthy air quality for tens of thousands of Montanans.
Hundreds more are under evacuation orders.
Tragically and worst of all, Trenton Johnson, a courageous,
19-year-old from Missoula, who also was a sophomore at Montana
State University, my alma mater, died while battling a fire.
Then just yesterday afternoon, we received word of another loss
of life. We lost a firefighter while fighting the Lolo Peak
Fire. The name has not yet been released. Our thoughts, our
prayers, go to the families of these brave men and women, who
are protecting our lives, protecting our property while risking
their lives on these wildfires on the front lines. Both appear
to have been hit by falling trees.
Unfortunately, the National Interagency Fire Center
anticipates above normal wildfire potential in Montana. Ranking
Member Cantwell shared the map, the August map. Looking forward
now, the September map shows that the dire conditions look to
continue.
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Senator Daines. We are having discussions now in early
August that normally happen in early September, so we have a
long way to go yet in this fire season.
We do need to address how we fund and prepare communities
for wildfires.
We also need to recognize wildland firefighters for what
they do and give injured firefighters flexibility in the
retirement compensation. This legislation that Ranking Member
Cantwell and I have introduced would do just that.
It is also critical that we pursue management reforms that
allow us to use proven tactics that reduce the threat of
wildfires near our Montana communities and do what we can to
reduce the intensity of the fires during these times of higher
potential.
Furthermore, we know that wildfires will never know the
difference, as the Ranking Member and the Chair have just said,
between Forest Service, BLM, and private property, so reducing
fuel loads across boundaries is integral to reducing fire
severity.
On a phone call I had last night, it seems like I am on the
phone a lot at the moment with our county commissioners, our
sheriffs, other law enforcement officials, those who are
running these fires, incident commanders. Just last night I had
a conversation with one of our county commissioners in
southwest Montana in the midst here of evacuation orders being
issued of a large fire that is rapidly spreading. He mentioned
to me that they cannot get near one of the large transmission
lines that cuts across our state because of the additional
carbon particulate in the air which creates arching with high
voltage transmission lines and it presents a risk to the
firefighters. So it just reminds us that we need to move
forward here.
There is a bill that I am going to be working on and am
planning to introduce, that has passed the House, called the
Electric Reliability and Forest Protection Act. It passed the
House 300 to 118 in June.
What it does. It will speed up the process for removing
hazardous fuels that are adjacent to electrical infrastructure,
because I will tell you what, when the fires are burning like
this, we cannot even get our firefighters near it because it
presents a risk to their lives. We need to do that proactively
ahead of time.
We need to get to the heart of the discussion and showcase
the value of collaboration, this cross-boundary work. Our
forest communities will only continue to be frustrated by a
lack of management as they live in fear of wildfires.
Ms. Christiansen, the Park Creek and Arrastra Creek fires
in the Helena National Forest are burning in the location of
the Stonewall Vegetation Management Project. This area was
identified by the Forest Service and local collaborative as an
area in need of restored treatment and in need of hazardous
fuel reduction, but this project was blocked through an
injunction due to the disastrous Cottonwood decision. Now we
unfortunately have intense wildfires burning over 8,000 acres
and one can only wonder if implementing the project without
delay might have made a difference. This is infuriating.
My question is, was the Stonewall Project conceived through
a collaborative process?
Ms. Christiansen?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Senator Daines. Did the Forest Service do robust,
scientific analysis in preparing the project?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, Senator, we did.
Senator Daines. Absent the injunction, would the Stonewall
Project have reduced the area's susceptibility to wildfire?
Ms. Christiansen. For this particular project, I cannot say
for certain, but in the over 3,000 assessments of hazardous
fuels treatments we have assessed, 90 percent of them, when
tested by wildfire, have changed the behavior of the fire.
Senator Daines. I am out of time.
I will say I appreciate Secretary Purdue, as well as
Secretary Zinke's clear support of my legislation to undo the
damage of the Cottonwood decision.
Senator Tester and I are together on this. The Obama
Administration was supporting us in these efforts, and we will
keep fighting until it is signed into law.
Thank you.
Senator Barrasso [presiding]. Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you very much.
I want to thank all our witnesses. I think it is very clear
that the system of fighting fire in this country is a broken,
dysfunctional mess. This fight has been going on. It is the
longest running battle since the Trojan War. And now we have an
emergency, a wildfire emergency, declared by our Governor.
Now Senator Crapo and I went with one approach. Two hundred
fifty groups--forestry groups, scientists, environmental folks,
all of whom endorsed the legislation. Still nothing happened.
I asked the Chief here a few weeks ago about the costs of
inaction, and the Chief said, ``It is millions of acres
untreated and we're out $1 billion over a 10-year period.''
This just cannot continue.
So what I would like to ask is about a new approach that
reflects that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
recently said that wildfires change landscapes so dramatically
that communities affected by them are at a significantly higher
risk of flooding.
Now a few weeks ago, the Banking Committee, led by Chairman
Crapo and Senator Brown, introduced a Flood Insurance bill that
incorporates a wildfire fix.
Ms. Christiansen, to what extent do wildfires increase the
risk of catastrophic flooding?
Ms. Christiansen. The--there is an association, Senator.
Often, the catastrophic fires that are very intense, burn hot,
they scar the soils and the water is not able to penetrate into
the soil bed. So that's why we have our BAER process, as Ms.
Miller described.
Senator Wyden. You do not have difference of opinion,
though, with respect to FEMA, that the wildfires can cause a
significantly higher risk of flooding?
Ms. Christiansen. We, the Administration, have not taken a
position on that particular bill.
Senator Wyden. I asked you.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Senator Wyden. I am not asking you about your position. I
am asking about the science. FEMA is talking about the science.
Do you disagree with the science?
Ms. Christiansen. No, sir.
Senator Wyden. Thank you.
One other question and also Mr. Chairman, as a matter for
the record, Senator Risch, Senator Heinrich and Senator Merkley
and I would like to have put into the record a support, a
letter of support for the Crapo/Brown proposal.
Senator Barrasso. Without objection.
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Senator Wyden. One last question, if I might, Ms.
Christiansen. The Obama Administration supported finding an end
to fire borrowing. Every year, more and more of the budget is
used to pay for wildfires, leaving forests in poor health and
at an even greater risk of catastrophic wildfires.
I would just like to get, for the record, because I don't
think you all have been asked about this, is the Trump
Administration's position the same as the Obama
Administration's position on this? Do you support ending fire
borrowing and finding a way to address the rising 10-year
average? I just think Senators need to know whether the Trump
Administration, on that issue, is willing to support the Obama
Administration's position?
Ms. Christiansen. Senator, thank you.
Yes, the Administration is absolutely committed to finding
a solution that addresses the increasing 10-year average as
well as ends the practice of fire transfer.
Senator Wyden. I think I am going to say that you are
pretty much in sync with the Obama position on that.
Ms. Christiansen. This Administration supports a fire
funding fix. Yes.
Senator Wyden. Do you have a problem with saying you are
pretty much in sync with the previous Administration?
I just don't want us to have to start over. I want to work
in a bipartisan way with the Administration.
Ms. Christiansen. I would say it is a continuation of, as
you suggested, a long-standing issue that we know needs to be
resolved, Senator.
Senator Wyden. Mr. Chairman.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Senator Lee.
Senator Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of you
for being here.
Ms. Christiansen, I would like to start with you, if
possible.
Utah recently suffered a catastrophic, 70,000-acre wildfire
in the Dixie National Forest in Southern Utah. The fire
destroyed a total of 21 structures, including 13 homes, and it
also resulted in a 13-day evacuation of the nearby town of
Brian Head. So we have two 13 numbers there. It sounds like a
lot of bad luck, and it is.
But there is more than just bad luck at play here. I think
there is some policy at play that needs to be looked at. While
the Brian Head fire began, of course, on private land, it was
of no surprise to local residents that once that fire started
it quickly spread into the Dixie National Forest which was soon
engulfed in flames.
I have heard frequently from local leaders at the area who
have described this entire area as a tinder box. This was a
wildfire that was just waiting to happen, in part, because it
was overrun with dead and insect-infested timber and that this
area was just full of hazardous fuels. A fire of this magnitude
of this area was, as a result, all but inevitable, largely
because of poor management.
Now you mentioned that the Forest Service treats about two
million acres of forest land each year for hazardous fuel
treatments.
Ms. Christiansen. Three million, Senator.
Senator Lee. Three million, which is great that you are
treating three million.
It is my understanding that only about 200,000 of that
involves timber harvest. Is that right?
Ms. Christiansen. That's correct.
Senator Lee. Okay, so I think this ought to be examined,
because beyond its use in wildfire prevention this also carries
other benefits with it as well.
This is a reliable, renewable source of income for a lot of
these communities where there is a lot of forest land. But I
consistently hear from county commissioners and other officials
in my state and local residents in many of these affected areas
that forest management policies make it harder to harvest
timber, even where doing so, as I am certain would have been
the case here, would result in significant mitigation against
the risk of wildfires.
So what can you tell me? What is the Forest Service doing
or planning to promote timber harvesting as a mutually
beneficial means of preventing wildfires and reducing hazardous
fuels?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator.
The Forest Service is very committed and working
aggressively on increasing the scale and the pace of our forest
management and fuels treatment. We are working to streamline
our environmental clearances processes and working with others
on new tools and ways to do that, but the bottom line is the
community engagement, the collaboration early.
Secretary Purdue has said it's an absolute priority. We
absolutely are on board that we engage communities, that would
be the environmental community, the industry, those that their
jobs and livelihoods are dependent on these forest resources,
early, in project proposals. So that's how we can get to
agreement and we can get the work done in the clearance.
Now, as you know, more and more of our resources have gone
to wildland firefighting. In just the last three years, as the
increasing 10-year average has gone up, that's $270 million out
of our non-fire budget that the Forest Service no longer has
available. So, we do have a resource constraint as well.
We're both working on early collaboration, getting, we get
communities to buy in and that we can add supported projects,
working on efficiencies in our environmental reviews and
clearances and with your help, working on a long-term fire
funding fix so we have the resources to do just what you said.
Senator Lee. Timber harvesting is part of that?
Ms. Christiansen. Absolutely.
Senator Lee. Okay.
Thank you very much. I see my time has expired.
The Chairman [presiding]. Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
This is a question I am going to ask a couple different
witnesses to comment on. As wildfires burn across the country,
the need to take swift action to improve forest health and
prevent another year of catastrophic wildfires, to me, is
undeniable. As these fires become more frequent, more severe,
more costly, wildland habitat is destroyed, air and watershed
quality is compromised, and human life is threatened. Hundreds
of millions of acres require immediate treatment, and I believe
this number is going to continue to rise if we do not improve
active forest management. Ms. Christiansen, you are shaking
your head yes.
Mr. Rice, I have a question for you. What additional tools
do you need to be more proactive in forest management and
enhance some of this cross-boundary coordination that I believe
is critical?
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Senator.
So looking across the Department of the Interior, we have
four bureaus, three of which have active timber programs of
various sizes and scales.
To give you more detailed information, I would have to
gather it from them and provide it to you for the record, but
in general the things that really improve and increase our
actions on the ground is this notion of collaboration. So, it's
empowering our managers, our local leaders, to engage, outside
the boundaries, to work cross-boundary and increase the
activities.
Senator Barrasso. Ms. Christiansen?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator.
I will say that the tools afforded in 2014 Farm bill, Good
Neighbor Authority, insect and disease designations, those have
really been helpful because we look at the landscape scale.
We're able to work with our partners who have the resources at
the right time, whether it's our state partner or another
federal partner, a tribal community. We're able to engage and
activate across boundaries.
So continuing, we have, I think you know we have a few
fixes we need in the Good Neighbor Authority, continuing those
cross-boundary authorities. And just in state and private, for
example, we're able to easily have authorities to work with our
state partners so sometimes they can institute some leverage
funds that we're able to give them. That's the thanks, and
let's keep on working on those tools.
Senator Barrasso. Mr. Maisch, anything you would like to
offer as well?
Mr. Maisch. Yes. I would say categorical exclusions are a
tool that can be used and the increase in the size of those
types of inclusions would certainly be helpful.
As Vicki has already discussed, Good Neighbor Authority, I
believe, is a very strong tool that should be expanded
dramatically. It's really a co-management concept where the
states and federal agencies can work together, side boards on
appeals and litigation would certainly help with moving
projects along quicker.
And the forest plans, themselves, as they're amended or
updated, need to really reflect timber management as a key way
to achieve many of the objectives that we're talking about here
today. And right now, in my opinion, a lot of plans do not.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Ms. Christiansen, today you repeated the agency's
statistics. I think nearly 480 million acres across the country
are in need of some sort of treatment because 480 million acres
are at an elevated risk of catastrophic wildfire.
Now it says the Forest Service meets their goal for this
year, the agency is going to treat only 2.2 million of the 480
million acres. And I appreciate the barriers the Forest Service
and other land management agencies are facing.
The fact remains that failing to address overgrown forests
and wide swaths of dead trees due to beetle kill have made many
of the forests a ticking time bomb when it comes to fire.
Just yesterday the National Interagency Fire Center updated
the significant wildland fire potential outlook map for August.
I know it has already been shown here today. A significant
portion of Wyoming is at above normal risk for a catastrophic
wildfire event.
How do reports from groups like the National Interagency
Fire Center and data from state agencies factor into the Forest
Service's planning for future fuel treatments?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator.
I definitely agree with your sentiments, but just a slight
correction. Our estimate is 480 million acres of all forests in
the nation are at risk of catastrophic wildfire. Of that, 94
million are National Forest System lands. So we're all in this
together. We still have a big challenge as a nation, certainly.
The analytics that we've been talking about, about risk and
the projections that we have from our researchers on the fire
risk, we can start to marry those together better. Now weather
is the factor that goes into these three-month projections, and
unfortunately they're not so good to be able to project weather
out over a two-year period. But we do have projections where we
have come from and where we think we will remain in drought and
otherwise.
With the thanks to the additional hazardous fuels funds
from Congress, we are really working with these predictions of
where our highest hazard areas are and where there are state
and federal and tribal governments that are ready to synergize
with us. So we go risk and then we go priority and we look at
these projections. We're not just sending these dollars out in
a formula fashion. We're really investing them, highest
priority, where we can get the highest leverage with others.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Let me just conclude by saying, Madam Chairman, that our
forests are diverse ecosystems that need immediate attention.
Thinning of overgrown stands and removing dead and downed
timber are going to reduce fire risk.
We must also make sure that we are spending the federal
dollars responsibly, as you have just said. I recognize
coordination among local, state and federal agencies as a key
to success. I am concerned that some offices, like the one that
Mr. Rice represents today, duplicate functions of more
successful agencies.
I am going to submit questions on this issue for the
record, and I look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Rice, with
some of those responses.
So, thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, our hearts go out to the two firefighters
that were lost in Montana and our hearts are with their
families and also with those who are still fighting those fires
out there.
Chief Tidwell, of the Forest Service, and I have discussed
the impact of climate change on wildfires several times in this
Committee. As Chief Tidwell shared, Forest Service scientists
believe that climate change is one of the major factors in
driving the longer fire seasons that we are seeing with
wildfires that are larger and more intense. In fact, fire
seasons are now, on average, nearly 80 days longer than they
were in 1970 and wildfires burn twice as many acres today as
they did in 1980, the first was 1970.
Do any of the panelists disagree with the Forest Service
scientists that climate change is driving longer and more
intense, fire seasons?
Anybody disagree?
[Panelists all shake their heads, no.]
Okay.
And do any of the panelists disagree that we are seeing
significant costs associated with fighting these fires?
By your testimony, of course not.
[Panelists all shake their heads, no.]
So despite this Administration's attempt to deny climate
science and to muzzle experts, we are already seeing the
impacts of climate change. We are seeing longer and more
intense fire seasons that have real consequences, as we have
seen, to our ecosystems and to our rural communities is driving
up costs to the Federal Government and will just continue to
get worse if we do not take decisive action.
Now these increases in firefighting costs are leaving less
funding for other important programs, fire borrowing. In fact,
the Forest Service has 39 percent fewer staff in non-fire
positions today than it did less than 20 years ago. This is
seriously impacting forest management in Minnesota and
elsewhere.
It is even impacting work to reduce wildfire risk through
hazardous fuels treatment. Ms. Christiansen, in your testimony
you state that fuel treatments can save two to three times in
avoided costs of fighting fires down the road. Could you talk
about how fuel treatment can ultimately save money?
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you, Senator.
Yes, that study is a study done in the Sierras in Nevada,
the Joaquin Watershed, where the avoided $1 spent on hazardous
fuels treatments could save $2 to $3 in avoided costs of fire
suppression, the loss of watershed viability and other losses
due to a wildfire. And there's some other studies locally,
Flagstaff, the area of Flagstaff has done similar.
The metrics might be slightly different in different fuel
types, but there is a breaking point where roughly we're able
to treat 20 to 40 percent of a landscape that we believe our
suppression costs will be reduced significantly and exposure to
firefighters and all of the other costs.
Senator Franken. So the evidence is that this can pay for
itself or come close to paying for itself?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Senator Franken. Or maybe more than pay for itself?
Now, when Chief Tidwell came before the Committee in June
to defend the President's budget, we discussed the possibility
of hazardous fuel management supplying biomass for district
energy projects or combined heat and power plants, especially
in the wildland-urban interface.
In Minnesota, however, these types of plants are having
trouble competing in the electricity markets.
Are there ways to incentivize the use of hazardous fuels to
generate electricity? In other words, can we recognize the co-
benefit of wildfire risk reduction in these cases, especially
on the wildland-urban interface, so that we are not looking at
losing homes, you see? And does anyone have any thoughts on
this because this is something, I think, we can, and I know the
Chairwoman and I have sponsored combined heat and power and
other ways to do energy projects using hazardous fuel. Anyone
have any thoughts? Yes?
Mr. Maisch. Ah yes, Senator.
Certainly Alaska has a bit of an advantage because of our
cold climate and projects like that actually pay their way.
They don't need further incentive.
Examples would be Tok, Alaska, Galena, Alaska, and other
places where it's primarily for space heating and we do fuel
mitigation work around the communities. The communities
actually do the work with, sometimes a non-profit or a private
business provide that fuel directly to the school or the other
entity that has heating needs and these boiler systems provide
the heat for the community.
The Galena project is a classic example. It's a new one. I
think there are 26 different buildings on a heat loop that are
heated entirely from biomass from around the town. So it's a
great example.
There's only one example in Alaska where electricity is
produced at a very low level, in Tok, but it provides the needs
for the school when the boiler is operating at its highest.
Senator Franken. You can also use it to cool. I mean, this
is creating electricity.
Mr. Maisch. Sure.
Senator Franken. In light of and I know I'm out of time,
but I just want to end with a comment.
In light of what Ms. Christiansen is saying, where this
clearing hazardous fuels can pay for itself or more than pay
for itself and then on top of that, if we give some incentives
to do district energy, to do energy projects in the wildland-
urban interface to save homes, I mean, so that we do not have
to lose homes.
It seems to me that it is just win/win/win, and I would
like to work with the Committee on moving forward with that,
those kinds of incentives to have those kinds of projects.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Franken.
I think the example that Mr. Maisch has given is a very
small one, very discreet in a very remote area, but it
certainly demonstrates the viability.
We look forward to working with you.
Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you.
I never thought I would have a chance to share this bit of
knowledge, but one of our former state foresters informed me,
and Ms. Christiansen you got it right, that Smokey Bear doesn't
have a middle name. His middle name is not ``the,'' it is
Smokey Bear. Is that correct?
Ms. Christiansen. That is absolutely correct, Senator.
Senator King. I think we want to clarify that for the
record.
Ms. Christiansen. Thank you.
Senator King. That is a common misperception.
Like I said, I never thought I would have a chance to get
that straight in a Senate hearing.
I would like to ask for some research, and I don't know
exactly where it should be, perhaps you, Doctor, perhaps at the
Department, to compare fire frequency and extent across the
nation controlling for climate and species.
What I am getting at is this. Maine is the most forested
state in the country and certainly we have issues with forest
fires, but nothing like the magnitude that we are seeing out
West. When I talk to my forestry people in Maine, they say the
solution is very clear. Our forest land is privately owned and
it is intensively managed. In the West, it is mostly federally
owned and it is not very intensively managed and there's not
enough forestry being practiced.
I would like to see some data that will either verify that
or refute it. I think it would be very interesting, insofar as
the science can do, can control for, as I say, things like
climate and species and other differences to try to isolate the
issue of intensity of forest management as playing a role
because everything I have read is that the real problem in the
West is too much fuel. There is too much fuel.
If there is more intensive forestry practiced, the Federal
Government will get more revenues from the stumpage, the
economies will benefit, and I believe we will see less forest
fires. The cheapest forest fire of all is the one that doesn't
occur. Ms. Christiansen, can you help us on the research here?
Ms. Christiansen. Senator King, I appreciate your
observations. I don't have any research in my back pocket to
share with you, but I do understand. I mean, we can certainly
look at that. I'm sure we may have something.
Now, I was a former state forester for 30 years for the
State of Washington and the State of Arizona, and I partnered
with the Forest Service for my entire time.
Senator King. You probably know my former colleague, Susan
Bell, who was the first female state forester in America.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes, I do.
Senator King. She was the one that told me about Smokey
Bear.
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
My point is, and maybe you were out when I referenced the
data, our research does suggest that there's 480 million acres
across the nation's forests, there's about 773 million acres of
forest in this nation that have some kind of risk of
uncharacteristic wildfire--94 million acres are National Forest
System lands. So there are other lands that are at risk, but
the practices of fuels management and how that relates to
wildland fire risk, in particular, ecosystems and terrain and
fire weather patterns. I think we do have studies about that,
not necessarily comparing Maine to the Western U.S.
Senator King. Well, I was thinking of Newton, Maine, or New
England, generally--in New Hampshire/Vermont, there's a great
deal----
Ms. Christiansen. We'll certainly have a look and we'll get
back to you.
Senator King. I just think if you could isolate----
Ms. Christiansen. Yup.
Senator King. Down to what the factors are, it would be
important, again, to either verify what my foresters in Maine
from the private sector have been telling me for years or not.
But it may be that part of what we need to be talking about
here is breaking down some of the barriers to more intensive,
sustainable forestry on the Western lands.
That is all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator King.
Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Madam Chair.
To follow up on that, I am the Senator from Nevada, and
Senator King and I just had this conversation.
This is to Mr. Rice and Ms. Christiansen. Can you talk a
little bit about cheat grass because in Nevada, as we know,
sage brush is one of the most imperiled in the United States
because of this invasive species, cheat grass? It is a fuel for
the fires that we are seeing, particularly now in the State of
Nevada when we had an incredible snow pack. We had beautiful
green hills and mountains. Now it is dry and now it is turning
into fuel, and what we are seeing in the wildfires is what you
saw in that map in Northern Nevada. So I want to open it up and
just, kind of, talk a little bit about this cycle of fire and
cheat grass, if you would, please?
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Senator.
So the Sage Steppe ecosystems are these incredibly fragile,
incredibly diverse ecosystems that we have throughout the Great
Basin and the surrounding states. And what happens and from
where I'm at in my position, looking at how wildfire interacts
in that environment, historically, without cheat grass, the
Sage Steppe clumps, the sage clumps, right, would be the
natural breaks because it's not a continuous field that grows.
What's happened is cheat grass has actually grown up and filled
the gaps, so it ends up being this carrying fuel to, basically,
perpetuate wildfire in large proportions across the Great
Basin. In the Department of the Interior, we've spent the last
several years and several years even prior to me being in this
role, focusing on priorities in the Great Basin and addressing
cheat grass.
So in terms of doing rehabilitation work for large fires,
one of the most recent fires I can talk about is the Soda Fire,
estimated at nearly $60 million to rehabilitate that landscape,
several hundred thousand acres. And there's a whole myriad of
applications that are being tested so we can learn what can we
actually do to address the cheat grass problem because it's not
necessarily the fire problem in those areas, it's more a cheat
grass issue.
Senator Cortez Masto. And do you have the resources you
need? This is my concern with what I have seen coming out of
the recommended budget out of the Administration. It is cutting
back on the resources that are necessary to engage in this type
of management to prevent these fires that we are seeing.
Mr. Rice. So to look at the budget do we--the way that we
allocate across the different bureaus within the Department of
the Interior is balancing the priorities, and there's four
bureaus, four priorities. And then, once we start looking
externally with our partners, counties, states, even in areas
where we're jointly addressing issues with the Forest Service,
it ends up we have to make tradeoffs. We have to look at making
those decisions as we make the priorities.
Senator Cortez Masto. That is my concern.
As you well know, over 70 percent of Nevada is managed by a
federal agency. And so, back to the Chairwoman's concerns. The
interaction between those federal agencies and state and local
agencies is so important as to how we manage this.
My concern will always be tearing down any barriers and
utilizing best practices to make sure we are doing the most
that we can to protect that land and prevent wildfires and
giving you the resources that you need. That is something that
I will be very cognizant about.
I am running out of time, but let me just touch on one
other thing.
I was just up in Northern Nevada. Nevada is one of the
sites for testing of the UAVs. I was at Stead/Reno Airport and
actually there while they were flying the drones and was able
to manage the cameras and interact and operate the drones. It
is incredible.
They are working with our fire departments and fire
services to really bring a whole new technology to the
assistance in fire management, fire suppression, firefighting.
I am curious. What are the barriers? What barriers are you
seeing, if any, here at the federal level that prevent us from
or our firefighters from using that new technology?
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Senator.
So looking at UASs, unmanned aircraft systems, and how
we're integrating them into our operations. The first step, and
we've cleared this hurdle, is working with the FAA and to have
clearances and have the required COAs and different things
needed to actually fly in those types of situations. The other
areas that we're addressing is having trained pilots, having
the actual technology. Is it a quadcopter? Is it a fix wing
platform that we're working off of? And then what type of data
are we capturing and how are we managing that on the back end
because--and then the other piece of that I would add to it, as
we're looking at integrating this new technology into our
current operations, it's plug and play. But it's not plug, play
and replace right away because in many instances where we have
manned or piloted aircraft or we're moving people or we're
moving equipment with piloted aircraft, we don't stop one or we
can't stop one and begin the other.
There needs to be this layer of overlap where we make sure
we have the testing right. The research and development is in
place. We have all the safety parameters because ultimately our
number one priority is to ensure that the safety of our
firefighters is taken care of in those operations.
So, there's that overlap time. And whether that's one fire
season or two fire seasons to get it right and actually deploy
all of those assets, that's still going to take a little bit of
time.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Christiansen, I am particularly interested in the role
that education plays in wildfire prevention, and your testimony
referenced a study in Florida that the benefit-to-cost ratio
was as much as 35 to 1.
I would like to note that wildfire risk is very high in
Hawaii. Some people may not think so, but a greater percentage
of Hawaii's land area is subject to a higher risk of wildfire
than the 16 Westernmost of the states. So it is a huge issue
for us.
And nationally, 80 percent, 84 percent, I am told, of
wildfires are caused by human action, but in Hawaii it's 98
percent. So obviously educating people to not do certain things
is a really important way to prevent.
Senator King. You need Smokey Bear.
Senator Hirono. Yes or whatever. It could be ManuHuni Bear,
I don't care.
[Laughter.]
Okay, he is getting me started. For example, there are
programs that we can have for children, especially to get them
educated at a young age on things to do and not do. The
National Park Service Centennial had a program called, ``Every
Kid in the Park,'' which really enabled a whole new generation
of young people to understand the importance of our public
lands.
I am wondering whether you have in the Forest Service youth
programs that would educate children on wildfire prevention?
Maybe you can think of something like Every Kid Preventing
Wildfire programs in 2019? What are some of your thoughts on
educating young people?
Ms. Christiansen. Well, Senator, you can really get me
started here, so let me try to be brief.
We have a robust conservation education program in the
Forest Service and it is, it aligns with the Smokey Bear Fire
Prevention Program.
As I said in my opening remarks, Smokey will be 73 next
year and he's one of the world's most recognized characters
along with the slogan of, ``Only you can prevent unwanted
wildfire.''
So we absolutely have tiering of what age groups we tier
to. SmokeyBear.com has all kinds of tools and tool kits for
parents and teachers and activities for kids. It will take you
to discover the forest. It's another website that we manage.
And it's not just to get folks to the national forests, of
course, or the national parks, but discover a forest where
you're at, whether you're in an urban area or a rural area. It
might be a local park, a state park, an open area. There are
many opportunities for us to engage.
Senator Hirono. I am glad that you are doing that. I am
just wondering that as you collaborate with state and other
stakeholders, do you know if these tools are being utilized, if
the education tools are being utilized extensively in every
state, i.e. Hawaii?
Ms. Christiansen. Yes.
Smokey Bear, we're co-parents, Mr. Maisch and myself, are
co-parents of Smokey Bear for the last 73 years. It's the state
foresters and the U.S. Forest Service, in addition to the Ad
Council. So they have access to all the programs. We have a
joint council that governs Smokey and Discover the Forest
campaigns. All of the access is with and through others, and
the Every Kid in the Park, it was to celebrate, certainly, the
National Park Centennial, but all of the federal agencies have
offered the same passes. So we really work to not have the
public or children no boundaries. It's about connecting to
their resources.
Senator Hirono. I will certainly check with our Hawaii
people as to how extensively they are using these tools.
Ms. Christiansen. Great.
Senator Hirono. I do have a question about hazardous fuels
to Mr. Rice.
You note the importance of hazardous fuels management,
specifically identifying how to control invasive weeds which is
a huge problem in Hawaii. My question is you did note the use
of technology during wildfire events. Can you briefly describe
the Department's use of technology for prevention, say, to
identify fire prone invasive species for removal before a
wildfire starts?
We have a lot of invasive species in Hawaii, including a
lot that can be--that are just, they are hazardous fuels for
wildfires.
Mr. Rice. Thank you, Senator.
So the way I would begin by looking at this--so, over the
last year the Department of the Interior, the bureaus within
the Department of the Interior, there's been hundreds of
flights of UASs that have been utilized for various activities.
Some have been testing on load carrying capabilities, others
have been testing on data, elevation, mapping, infrared, just
the different types of sensors that can go with it. So it has
been used. It hasn't been deployed full heartedly across all
the different disciplines but it's being looked at in all the
different areas.
Within the Department of the Interior, there's an aviation
office, the Office of Aviation Services. My counterpart
director there is leading the development of all of those
activities. And then they're executed by each of the bureaus
so, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and
Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, across the board.
Senator Hirono. I should check to see whether these
unmanned systems or these drones are being used in Hawaii to
identify areas where invasive species would be able to be their
own fire hazard.
Mr. Rice. I'd be happy to find out the specifics and
provide it to you.
Senator Hirono. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
I appreciated the question from Senator Cortez Masto about
the limitations on the UAVs and recognize that you still have
some technological issues you are dealing with.
The battery, as I understand reading through your
testimony, Mr. Maisch, you have two hours, batteries take two
hours to recharge. The 3DR solo has a range of a half mile
maximum, endurance of 20 minutes. You are still limited to
range of sight which means that you can only do this during the
day and for us in Alaska in the summertime, we have the benefit
of 24 hours up there, but in other places you have more limited
application. But also, when you are in the thick of a fire, it
is pretty dark in there with the smoke.
Where I am going with this is the innovation within this, I
think, is a very exciting area and application for UAVs, we
still recognize that we need to push some of this out and it
will allow us to do more.
I will direct this question to you, Dr. Miller, because you
have been engaged in some of the research. In addition to
developing better UAV systems that will allow us greater
opportunities, what else is out on the horizon there? You
mentioned the mapping, but what is new and innovative that we
might be looking to that can be utilized as yet another tool in
the toolbox?
Dr. Miller. Well, one of my colleagues, Dr. Nancy French,
recently won a NIST award where they're going to try to make
sure there's internet connectivity for the firefighters and
BAER teams so they'll have mobile, you know, to create faster
ways to get all the new information that's coming in.
I'm looking forward to using my database with UAVs because
there's no reason--right at the moment, it usually uses earth
observation data from satellites, but there's no reason it
couldn't come from mapping from the UAVs as well.
The Chairman. I don't recall who made mention that we have
these infrared cameras that are placed on certain mountaintops,
maybe that was you, Mr. Rice? I just think of the Alaska
example and we are just so huge, we are so big. We're talking
in terms of millions of acres rather than thousands.
And you mentioned the internet and the connectivity. That
is a dream for us in most of these remote areas where we are
dealing with the fires. Again, what more can you do? You just
cannot hope that you put these sensors or these cameras in the
right place and get lucky.
You mentioned, Ms. Christiansen, that, I think, it was nine
out of the ten forest fires are started by man. Okay, we can
pinpoint better some of those literal hot spots, but in Alaska
most of our fires are lightning strikes.
Where else do you see us going, Mr. Rice or Mr. Maisch?
Mr. Maisch. I'll start out. Thank you, Senator.
I'll give you an example in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is working
with the National Weather Service (NWS) and a Geo16 satellite
that would actually do real-time detection of fire starts. And
so, they piloted a project this year. It's, kind of, a beta
test. And what this does is it gives you potential size. It
gives you coordinates and the probability of error, whether
it's a false detection or not. But it's still a very new effort
and there happens to be a state that is pioneering that effort
with, like I said, NWS. So there could be some application for
that in other locations of the country as that technology is
further refined and the algorithms that do the detection and
model that are refined and tested.
Another example is in CAL FIRE. They have a great
application. It's an app that's available to improve public
safety. It just came out, I think, this year. You can register
as a member of the public to be notified in your county if
there is an incident that you need to be made aware of. It's
kind of like reverse 911, but it's actually an application, an
app that you register to be part of. You can also allow it to
track you. If you're traveling around the State of California
it will send you notices for any areas that you happen to be
that might have an incident that's unfolding.
So, there's new technology out there, a lot of it, and I
think a lot of it is just pushing it out to the agencies so
they can start using it. As we use it, we're going to find new
and more innovative ways to make it work better for us.
The Chairman. Working with the FAA and dealing with the
whole line of sight issue, do we have greater latitude in
Alaska through our UAV Center of Excellence? Up on the North
Slope, we have received permission to do testing that is beyond
line of sight because of where we are. Are we able to utilize
any of that with the UAVs that we are currently using to help
us address the fire issues or are we still subject to the same
limits?
Mr. Maisch. Yes, to answer your question, we are still
restricted to that line of sight or an observer that's in radio
communications with the pilot. So, you can, kind of, tier it
out further if you have someone that actually can observe the
UAV in operation and communicate back to the pilot. At least,
that's how we're doing it currently. But I think that will
evolve as people become more comfortable with the safety
aspects of using these types of tools in the same airspace that
we other helicopters and----
The Chairman. Yes, you have a lot going on.
Mr. Maisch. That's right.
The Chairman. Mr. Rice, did you want to add anything?
Mr. Rice. Senator, what I would add to Mr. Maisch's
comments.
So FAA weather cams are all through the State of Alaska.
Being a pilot, I've used them numerous times and being able to
pick up anyplace if you're down in Juneau and you want to look
at Barrow or you're out in Western Alaska and you need to see
what's going on in the ``pass'' to get back into Anchorage.
I think the ability and that type of example exists all
across the country whether it's street cams or recreational
cams that folks have up. Being able to leverage those different
data streams is an option that we need to explore. It's
something where, you know, right now we're talking about what
do we have and what can we use.
But let's talk about what's out there and what's available
and how do we actually capture that and leverage those
investments? So that's the first place.
The other place, within some of the federal agencies,
especially in DoD--so the Department of the Army has some
smartphone devices, smartphone software, that allows data
sharing rapidly. Right now it's only android base, so it's not
on your iPhone, but it's on your other types of phones. But
that's another example of ways that we can start managing
technology better and building off of each other's investments.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I am going to have to go to the Floor. We have a vote
coming up quickly, and I am going to go make a comment. I will
ask Senator Cantwell to close out the hearing and just give you
all my appreciation. Know that we want to work with you as we
address these issues of fire management and how we deal with
our wildfires around the nation.
Thank you.
Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell [presiding]. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Rice, I wanted to follow up, obviously as Director of
Office of Wildland Fire, on your comments just now about use
technology that's out there.
I'm aware of this USA Today article by Robin Will about a
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service presentation that they did, I'm
reading now from the article, `` . . . presented its second
annual National Fire Safety Award to Bart Rye,'' who was, ``He
helped direct a lost firefighter to safety during a prescribed
fire. Rye suggested to his fire crew on foot and all-terrain
vehicles to carry GPS transmitter collars like those worn by
hunting dogs so that up to ten resources could be tracked in
real-time by a Burn Boss on a single hand receiver device.''
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Senator Cantwell. Now, if this is available today and with
what Mr. Maisch has just said about the drones, why not combine
these two technologies today to get more firefighters more
safety and security as they deal with these unbelievable
conditions that can change so quickly?
Mr. Rice. Senator, that's--it's a good idea and when
Secretary Zinke came on board and we walked him through fire
operations and how we have communications and what it all looks
like and how we have the incident command system managing fire
operations, one of the first things that he said to me was
figure out how to keep track of our firefighters in a better
way. So it's something that we're looking at.
And this references your earlier question about, supportive
of looking at it, we just don't know what that right tool is
yet because with any number of tens of thousands of
firefighters that can be out in the field during a fire season,
we want to have the right solution that's effective, that's
plug and play for anybody that shows up on a fire, just like
there are Nomex that shows up on a fire is interoperable. We
want the technology to be interoperable as well.
Senator Cantwell. Well, I would say given this fire map and
where we are, it is just scary.
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Senator Cantwell. Now I can see that it is further into
eastern Washington than the previous map had it as that was out
a few months ago. A few years ago people said to us, you are
going to be at the epicenter, and boy, were we. I'm just saying
with this level of the West under these conditions, why not? I
mean, if it's so easy just to go get some now, why not let the
flexibility in the suggestion for this fire season be there?
All I'm saying is the reason I am coming back to you on
this is because in your first answer it was, kind of like, yes,
we are going to look at it. We are going to see what we can do.
These, as you just said, are tools that we can put in place
today. You could even say that voluntarily we give the okay for
these to be used. In this case, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service individual did it and then, as I said, received an
award for the innovation of it.
I would just say that the reason I am working with Senator
Gardner is because I came to the Senate shortly after the Storm
King Fire that killed so many people. Then we had the
Thirtymile Fire which killed several individuals in our state.
And then to have the loss of life two years ago. It is just a
reminder that these conditions can get out of control so
quickly and if we can put the firefighters, many times who are
young, very new to the job, in a situation where they are
depending on somebody who has greater visibility into a risk, I
just think it would be so helpful to us, and also helpful in
attacking the hotspots of the fire as well. Or knowing when we
can pull back or knowing when to use other resources to attack
it.
So what about right now just moving forward on a voluntary
basis to make sure that is clear to people that if they wish
to, they can?
Mr. Rice. Senator, so it is being used. I apologize for not
being clear in my earlier answer. We do have folks in Fish and
Wildlife Service, in the National Park Service, in the Bureau
of Land Management, that are using this technology, but it's in
very local areas. And so we're learning from that and looking
at different ways that we can apply it across the enterprise.
But that doesn't preclude our staff from using them locally,
under----
Senator Cantwell. So anybody could use them now? We could
use them in the Northwest if we wanted to?
Mr. Rice. The staff that are local are going to work
through their local line officers. And this leads to a much
broader question of at the department level we're empowering
our line officers to make decisions in the field. And in order
to do that----
Senator Cantwell. Just so you know, it got so bad we called
out the National Guard. I mean, we were taking volunteers--we
had not done that in our state in a long time.
I know Ms. Christiansen has been the forester there before,
but the Northwest loves technology and it loves to keep pushing
the envelope. So don't hold us back to getting solutions in the
marketplace this summer if we can.
Thank you.
Senator King.
Senator King. I am all set, Madam Chair.
I just wanted to thank the witnesses. This has been a very
informative hearing, and I thank you for your work and look
forward to continuing to work on this problem with you. I
appreciate it.
Senator Cantwell. Senator Cortez Masto, any follow-ups?
Well, I, too, would like to thank all the witnesses and the
Chair for having this hearing. So timely. As we said at the
beginning, we've already used up 50 percent of our resources.
This map says it all.
We have to keep ahead of these changing conditions which
are giving us more volatile, more territory, more really,
really economic and human loss to our nation that we need to
deal with.
Thank you all for your innovative ideas.
We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:56 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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