[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COURAGE UNDER FIRE:
EXAMINING GOVERNMENT PREPAREDNESS
AND RESPONSE TO WILDFIRES IN
CALIFORNIA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
AUGUST 20, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-56
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov
http://www.oversight.house.gov or
http://www.docs.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-951 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Member
Columbia Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland James Comer, Kentucky
Harley Rouda, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Katie Hill, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Ralph Norman, South Carolina
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Peter Welch, Vermont Chip Roy, Texas
Jackie Speier, California Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Mark DeSaulnier, California Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Ro Khanna, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Britteny Jenkins, Subcommittee Staff Director
Elisa LaNier, Chief Clerk/Director of Operations
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
------
Subcommittee on Environment
Harley Rouda, California, Chairman
Katie Hill, California James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Minority Member
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Paul Gosar, Arizona
Jackie Speier, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Jimmy Gomez, California Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on August 20, 2019.................................. 1
Witnesses
Mr. Robert Fenton, Region IX Administrator, Federal Emergency
Management Agency
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Mr. Randy Moore, Regional Forester, Pacific Southwest Region,
U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service
Oral Statement............................................... 8
Mr. Mark Ghilarducci, Director, California Governor's Office of
Emergency Services
Oral Statement............................................... 9
Mr. Dan Johnson, Southern Region Chief, California Department of
Forestry & Fire Protection
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Mr. Max Moritz, Cooperative Extension Wildfire Specialist, Bren
School of Environmental Science & Mangement
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Dr. Afif El-Hasan, Pediatrician, California
Oral Statement............................................... 31
Mr. Brent Berkompas, Director of Governmental Affairs, Orange
County Professional Firefighters Association
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Mr. Drew Smith, Battalion Chief, Los Angeles County Fire
Department
Oral Statement............................................... 34
* The prepared statements for the above witnesses are available
at: https://docs.house.gov.
INDEX OF DOCUMENTS
----------
The documents entered into the record for this hearing are listed
below, and are available at: https://docs.house.gov.
* Letters from California State Senator Stern and Assembly
Member Smith.
COURAGE UNDER FIRE:
EXAMINING GOVERNMENT PREPAREDNESS
AND RESPONSE TO WILDFIRES IN CALIFORNIA
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment,
Committee on Oversight and Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
Council Chambers, Simi Valley City Hall, Simi Valley, CA, Hon.
Harley Rouda (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Rouda, Hill, Brownley, and Torres.
Ms. Hill. Okay. Well as I said, thank you so much for being
here. I am Congresswoman Katie Hill. We are in my district
right now. I want to give a couple of thank yous really quick.
I want to thank the Chairman Harley Rouda who is my colleague
for agreeing to hold this hearing on such an important issue to
our community. I want to thank the witnesses for agreeing to
appear. I want to thank my colleague Norma Torres,
Congresswoman Torres.
We are also going to be joined later by Congresswoman Julia
Brownley who is our neighbor, and I want to thank the committee
staff, my own staff, and Simi Valley, the city of Simi Valley
for allowing us to use this space, and Simi Valley Police
Department for always providing us such wonderful security.
Really quickly, I would also like to have a moment of
silence for our fallen Officer, Officer Moye, in Riverside
whose funeral is today. So, if you will join me in a brief
moment of silence. Thank you. Our thoughts are with Officer
Moye's family during this difficult time. Thank you again for
being here. And with that, I will turn it over to the chairman.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. The subcommittee will come to order,
and first I would like to thank my fellow members here,
Congresswoman Brownley for joining us, Congresswoman Hill for
hosting us in your district, and Congresswoman Torres for
joining us as well, and our witnesses, and all of you here
today on such an important topic, not just for California, but
for our entire country. Without objection, the chair is
authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time.
This subcommittee has come here today to examine the Government
preparedness and response to the wildfires in California.
I now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening
statement. This is the second hearing this Congress that the
Environmental subcommittee has held in my home state of
California. Again, I would like to send my special thanks to my
colleague, Representative Katie Hill for working with my staff
to organize this hearing here, in her home district, on what is
arguably one of the most important issues facing California
today, managing and responding to destructive wildfires that
over the past two seasons have caused the death of more than
100 people, destroyed thousands of homes, exposed millions of
urban and rural California's to unhealthy air.
These wildfires are an emergency and I want to assure
everyone that we in Congress are addressing them as such. At
times like these D.C. can seem like a far place from
California, both physically and metaphorically. We in Congress
know that Californians might look at us and say, you elected
officials do not really get what we have lived through, what we
have to suffer, but we do, and we are holding this hearing
today in Simi Valley because we know that we need to be home to
hear about the scope of this problem directly from the source.
My colleague who represents this district, Representative
Hill, was forced to flee her hometown during the Stone Fire of
2018. She and her family experienced losses that we would not
wish on anyone. So, I want all of you to know, we in Congress
see you, we hear you, and we are here for you. These are our
homes, our communities, our friends, our neighbors, and our
beautiful State that is being destroyed. And so, we are here
today, holding this hearing, with three goals in mind.
First, we will examine the status of the recovery from the
two deadliest wildfires in the state's history in 2017 and
2018, as well as challenges we are facing going into the peak
of the 2019 wildfire season. We will ask how the Federal, state
and local Governments could be working more effectively, both
together and on their own, to ensure that basic needs of
wildlife recovery are met, that debris are removed quickly and
efficiently, that there is sufficient affordable housing for
people who have been displaced, and that all people who are in
need of public assistance can access it.
It is our new reality that wildfires are occurring in more
urban areas and wildfires are becoming more intense and more
frequent due to climate change. So, in the future, FEMA is
going to be playing a much bigger role with wildlife response
and recovery than they have in the past, and fire management
will have to expand outside the usual purview of the state
Government, the Forest Service, and the Department of the
Interior.
We in Congress want to help FEMA in taking on this new and
challenging role, and we want this hearing to serve as an
essential step to do just that. We also want to hear about
wildfire mitigation strategies that are being implemented on
the state, as well as the Federal Government levels, and areas
where we can improve at all levels of Government to better
prepare for these devastating wildfires.
The second goal of this hearing is to underscore the
enormous public health consequences of wildfires, especially
when fires ravage densely populated areas. Burning vegetation
releases particulate matter into the air that causes
inflammation and irritation of the lungs, decreasing lung and
heart functionality over time, in addition to exasperating
symptoms of asthma and emphysema. And if that is not bad
enough, the 2018 Paradise Wildfire revealed another major
public health threat, the release and spread of toxic
chemicals.
When wildfires ravage urban communities which in the past
were very rare, chemicals such as lead and asbestos that are
contained in pipes, building materials, refrigerators, and
other household necessities get released into our air, our
soil, and our water. Finally, this hearing will demonstrate
that if we in the Federal Government do not take action on
climate change, we are digging our own graves fire by fire,
hurricane by hurricane, heatwave by heatwave. The statistics
from last year's wildfires alone should make our heads spin.
Total economic losses to the state of California were
estimated to run at least $400 billion, making the 2018
wildfire season the most expensive natural disaster in the
history of the United States. State and Federal authorities say
that it will cost at least $3 billion to clear debris from
19,000 homes and businesses. Over 1.8 million acres of land
burned last year, approximately two and a half times the amount
of land that burned the previous year in 2017. But to be honest
though, as horrifying as these numbers are, they do not come
close to getting at the true devastation wrought by forest
fires.
Fires do not just damage homes that can later be repaired,
they destroy homes and lives. They reduce families' entire
histories to piles of toxic rubble. My home, like every
American, is fundamentally a part of who I am. Everything we
keep in our home tells our stories, the old photo album, the
high school yearbook, our children's old artwork. These are
stories that we cannot bear to part with, family heirlooms that
have been passed down through generations, it is all there in
our homes. And if we were to lose it, we lose a core part of
ourselves.
I cannot imagine the pain of watching the life you have
built go up in flames right before your eyes. And yet, we in
Congress have not done enough to mitigate these fires for the
future because we are wasting our time arguing over whether
climate change is even real. There is no other word for it but
shameful. Let me end by quoting from the state of California's
Fourth National Climate Change Assessment, by 2100, if
greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, one study found that
the frequency of extreme wildfires burning over approximately
25,000 acres would increase by nearly 50 percent, and that the
average area burned statewide would increase by 77 percent by
the end of this century.
People in California have seen the extraordinary damage
wildfires have done just in the past two years. Do we want our
children and grandchildren to continue to suffer and have worse
conditions than us? Every single person in this room wants the
same thing, for our children to have better lives than we do,
but little by little with, every day that we do not act, we are
chipping away at their future, their homes, their air, their
water, their hearts, their lungs, their livelihoods. We must
fight together to make sure this does not happen on our watch.
Thank you, and I now invite my colleague on the
subcommittee and Vice-Chair for the full committee on
oversight, Ms. Hill, to give a five-minute opening statement.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank
you all for being here. This is a great honor to have a hearing
like this in our district. So many of you in the audience have
felt the impacts of these all-too-common wildfires.
Less than a year ago, the Woolsey Fire became the most
destructive in L.A. County history, which started right here in
our own backyard, and the seventh most destructive in state
history. You have been evacuated from your homes, you have
watched houses and other structures burn, you have felt the
anxiety of not knowing what you will come home to. Well, many
people across the country on TV and social media have watched
as these fires continue to burn, affecting the same
neighborhoods and communities year after year. We have
experienced them firsthand.
As the chairman mentioned, my family and I have been
personally impacted by these fires as so many others in this
community have. I had to evacuate my home last summer. We had
to trailer my horse, relocate my other animals to my sister's
house, only for my sister to also be evacuated later. And I
cannot emphasize enough that this was not the first time. Every
single member of my family at some point or another living in
Santa Clarita has been evacuated over the years. And it has
become a common occurrence for people in areas like ours. And I
know so many constituents here in Simi Valley and throughout
the district and state who have endured evacuations just like I
have.
Some have unfortunately returned to their homes that have
been completely damaged or destroyed. Our communities face
constant uncertainty and we fear for our homes, families, and
sometimes for our lives. Wildfires have always been a part of
life in California. However, because fire-prone areas are
vastly more populated than they were decades ago and fire
season is longer and more severe, the risks that we face are
more potent today than ever before. I cannot express how
grateful I am for the tireless work of our dedicated and
courageous firefighters and first responders. With the hot and
dry conditions and heavy winds that they encounter, containing
and extinguishing these fires is often a Herculean task.
We must all do our part to prevent these out-of-control
wildfires from burning throughout our neighborhoods and work
together to mitigate the damage when they do. This includes our
local county, state, and Federal agencies. We need to talk
about the root causes of these wildfires and their impacts on
our communities and acknowledge that climate change has been a
major driver of the destruction that has wrought throughout our
state. Over the last century, Southern California has grown
about three degrees warmer.
It is not a coincidence that we have also been experiencing
larger and more frequent wildfires over the past few decades,
higher temperatures and droughts, dry-out vegetation, making
our landscape a virtual tinderbox. We are also seeing more
winter rain in fire-prone areas. This leads to more growth,
which can be dried out during our hot summers and in some areas
can become ultimately fuel for more fires. Wildland fires,
including large fires, are a natural part of ecosystems in
California, and many native plants and animals depend on
habitat created by fires.
That being said, we must also address the fact that many
wildfires do occur naturally--do not occur naturally but are
instead the result of human inaction or action itself. Some are
caused by a person's negligence or thoughtlessness, such as the
campfire left to burn, or a lit cigarette discarded in the
middle of dry brush. Equipment belonging to California utility
companies has been responsible for igniting some of the most
catastrophic wildfires with the most severe impacts to
communities in state history.
Consumers should not bear the heavy burden of paying for
damage that these companies are responsible for. We need to
find an equitable and effective solution for the role that the
utility companies play in causing wildfires and for the hefty
price of cleanup and repair after these fires have burned
throughout our communities. Last month, I am proud to have
introduced an amendment on the House floor to address our new
wildfire reality. The amendment increases funding for wildfire
preparedness, suppression, and emergency rehabilitation,
bringing funding for these critical issues to a total of $5.2
billion.
This is one step in the right direction, but we must
continue to work at finding evidence-based effective solutions
that will help keep communities in California and across the
country safe, and that includes a partnership with our state
colleagues. I am very proud to be working with Assembly Member
Smith and Senator Stern. We have a letter that has been entered
into the record from our colleague and Representative of this
area, Senator Stern, talking about the investments that the
state has been putting into addressing wildfires, including
$226 million toward forest health and wildfire prevention
efforts, and another $257 million to bolster firefighting
resources and technology.
So, I am proud to be working with our state and local
representatives as we try to figure out long-term solutions and
the Federal Government's role in addressing this crisis. We
cannot be complacent as wildfires continue to devastate our
communities. It would be irresponsible to pretend that fire
seasons today are no different from fire seasons of the past.
Yes, this our new normal, but we can and must do better to
protect communities from wildland fires, and that is where the
focus of our resources and attention should be. For my
community, for California, and for states across the country
experiencing the devastating effects of wildfires, we need to
work together.
Thank you and I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Congresswoman Hill. Now I want to
welcome our first panel of witnesses. Robert Fenton, Region IX
Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency. Randy
Moore, Regional Forester, Pacific Southwest Region, USDA Forest
Service. Mark Ghilarducci with the California Governor's Office
of Emergency Services. And Mark, I want to thank you as well.
You came to Washington and also participated in our hearing on
this topic there as well, with some very poignant comments and
observations on how important and challenging communications
are during--when--we are trying to fight fires in the wild. And
[I] hope to hear more about that as well today.
And then Dan Johnson, Southern Region Chief, California
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. If the witnesses
would please stand. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony
you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth so help you God?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Rouda. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative. Please be seated. The microphones are
sensitive so please speak directly into them. Without
objection, your written statement will be made a part of the
record. With that, Mr. Fenton, you are now recognized to give
your oral presentation of your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT FENTON, REGION IX ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Fenton. Good morning, Chairman Rouda, Representatives
Hill, Brownley, and Torres. My name is Robert Fenton. I am the
Regional Administrator of the FEMA Region IX office located in
Oakland. It is my pleasure to be here today to discuss FEMA's
preparedness and response to the wildfires in California.
As you know, California has a long history of wildfires.
The years between 2012 and '15 were the driest period on record
in California. By contrast, the following winter of 2016 was
one of the wettest periods in California's history, but it did
not change the overall dry conditions in the forests and
watersheds. In 2017, more than 9,000 fires burned approximately
1.2 million acres of land, well ahead of the five-year average.
That means more than one percent of California's land burned in
2017.
Last year, California saw its most destructive fire season.
More than 1.6 million acres of land were destroyed by
wildfires. The Camp Fire in Butte County alone destroyed more
than 18,000 structures and burned more than 153,000 acres. The
fire destroyed more structures than the previous seven worst
fires in California combined. Tragically, it was also the
deadliest fire season.
While 2018 has ended, the impacts of that unprecedented
fire season will continue for years to come. So how can we
prevent this type of disaster from happening in the future? The
wildfire season has reinforced what we know. Building more
resilient communities reduces risks to people, property, public
budgets, and the economy. I cannot overstate the importance of
focusing on investing in mitigation before disaster strikes.
Developing capacity before an incident occurs reduces the loss
of life and economic disruption. When communities are impacted,
FEMA wants to see rebuilding that is smarter, safer, and
stronger. However, there are significant challenges that
property owners and communities face in pursuing resilience.
For that reason, FEMA's Acting Administrator Pete Gaynor is
calling for a change in the life cycle of opportunity to move
mitigation investment to the front of the disaster cycle, not
at the end where it typically lies. FEMA is working with
Federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector
partners to help align pre- and post-mitigation investments to
more effectively reduce losses and increase resilience.
FEMA manages the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, the Flood
Mitigation Assistance Grant Program, and the Disaster
Mitigation Grant program that funds projects such as seismic
retrofits, defensible space, safe rooms, risk reduction for
utilities, and other infrastructure. These funds play a key
role in building resilient communities by reducing the risk of
future disaster losses. These programs also fund other
effective wildfire mitigation projects such as ignition
resistant construction and hazardous fuel levels reduction
efforts. Mitigation is vital to California.
The National Institute of Building Science's Multi-Hazard
Mitigation Council has shown that mitigation programs have
saved the American public an estimated $15.5 billion by
building new construction beyond code requirements, $158
billion in savings from Federally funded mitigation grant
programs from 1993 through 2016. From the preparedness
perspective, FEMA continues to maintain and strengthen the
national preparedness system by helping our non-Federal
partners build their capabilities, which will reduce their
resilience on the Federal Government in the future.
Together, we are working to achieve the national
preparedness goal of a secure and resilient Nation with the
capabilities required across the whole community to prevent
against, mitigate, respond to, recover from the threats of a
hazard that pose the greatest risk. For example, FEMA is
focused on promoting integrated mutual aid across the whole
community. We are fortunate to live in a state that has a
strong mutual aid program. In fact, many other states can learn
from California's advanced and time-tested system of statewide
mutual aid.
Additionally, FEMA and the U.S. Fire Administration, in
partnership with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's
Science and Technology Directorate has convened several
learning and sharing sessions, two of which occurred in
California, to ensure fire operational leaders are familiar
with the latest technologies and methodologies for fighting
wildfires, and to identify gaps where existing technologies
would aid in reducing the devastating effects of wildfires to
people, homes, businesses, and infrastructure located in fire-
prone areas.
By far, the 2018 wildfire season was one of the busiest in
California and FEMA. I would like to acknowledge that FEMA did
not do this alone. Wildfires pose many challenges at all levels
of Government. The state of California has done an
extraordinary job of building their emergency management
capabilities and coordinating local and state level response
and recovery efforts. Their leadership and heroism continue to
be instrumental in helping FEMA help survivors.
Developing resilient communities ahead of an incident can
reduce the loss of life and economic disruption. When
communities are impacted, they should ensure that they rebuild
infrastructure better, together, and stronger. While will never
be able to eliminate risk, we must mitigate risk to every
extent possible. Going forward, there are a few more
opportunities to work together with our partners to identify
solutions.
This concludes my opening statement. I look forward to
answering your question, sir.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Fenton. Mr. Moore?
STATEMENT OF RANDY MOORE, REGIONAL FORESTER, PACIFIC SOUTHWEST
REGION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOREST SERVICE
Mr. Moore. Good morning. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman
Brownley, Congresswoman Hill, and Congresswoman Torres. Thank
you for inviting me here today to give testimony to this field
hearing. My name is Randy Moore. I serve as the Regional
Forester of Pacific Southwest Region of the USDA Forest
Service, and I am happy to talk about the important work that
we are doing with our partners to prepare for and mitigate the
risks of wildfires here in California. In 2017 and 2018,
California experienced the deadliest, most destructive
wildfires in history.
More than 17,000 wildfires burned almost three percent of
California's landmass. These fires tragically killed 146
people, tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and
destroyed billions of dollars in property. In all national
forests impacted by these fires, we are conducting salvage
operations, we are beginning reforestation efforts, and we are
further reducing hazardous fuels in our national forests.
In 2019, fire year in California began with an extremely
wet winter and extend it into May of this year. This much-
needed precipitation replenishes reservoirs and delayed the
start of fire season at higher elevation forested lands. As a
comparison over, 4,700 fires have burned over 4,462 acres
across all jurisdictions in California to date. This time last
year, we had 8,000 fires and burned nearly 940,000 acres.
While we are seeing a slow start to the 2019 fire year, the
large potential room is still trending above normal as the
grass is dried out, the lower elevations and productivity is
expected to increase over the next few months. Currently, more
than 25 million acres of California's wildlands are classified
as a very high or extreme fire threat. There are approximately
11 million people living in this high-risk area. We all know
that actively managing these fire-dependent landscapes and
implementing fuel reduction projects can reduce the frequency
and the impact of severe wildfire events.
In light of the new normal of longer fire seasons and
larger, hotter more destructive wildfires, we recognize that we
need to look at wildfires and hazardous fuel reduction
differently. Last year USDA launched its Shared Stewardship
Approach to Management that brings states and stakeholders
together to prioritize cross-boundary investments to improve
forest conditions. The lead agencies in California, Forest
Service and California Natural Resources Agency, will be
signing the Shared Stewardship agreement.
Together we plan to achieve our mutual goals of treating 1
million acres in California's forest rangelands. Two weeks ago,
over 80 Federal, state, and local governments, private
landowners, and nonprofit organizations to begin mapping forest
conditions across the state. We will use this map to focus and
prioritize our hazardous fuel reduction project together so
that we are treating the largest scraps of land at one time,
making the treatments more effective, and of course, more
healthy and fire resilient.
I want to thank Congress for making the Shared Stewardship
approach possible with the increased capacity to provide the
regional legislation, including a 2018 omnibus bill and farm
bill. The Forest Service is also promoting fire-adapted
communities by collaborating with other Federal and non-Federal
Government entities. For example, the Forest Service assists
state foresters and local communities to build capacity for
prevention, mitigation, and suppression of wildfires on Federal
lands and non-Federal lands. Training provided through the
program provides for effective and safe initial response to
wildfires.
This year in California, we will assist over 500
communities through a statewide outreach and educational
program. The Forest Service also supports local fire
preparedness and suppression efforts and provide funding for
equipment, training, and expansion of volunteer fire
departments where little or no fire protection is available.
This year, the agency will support 141 local fire departments
in California serving 695 communities.
Last, the Forest Service partners with the California Fire
Safe Council to protect home and communities from wildfires.
Over the past several years, over 500 communities have been
assisted through Forest Service grants, and funds, and
outreach, and education projects, community risks, hazardous
fuels, and community mitigation projects. Working together
across landscapes, we can create healthy forests that will
stand the pressures of increasing temperatures, prolonged
droughts, and longer and hotter fire seasons. Using the tools
provided by Congress and innovative solutions to share
stewardship with partners, the Forest Service is making great
progress and plans to improve forest conditions continually.
This concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy
to answer any questions you have.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Mr. Ghilarducci?
STATEMENT OF MARK GHILARDUCCI, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR'S
OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES
Mr. Ghilarducci. Good morning, Chairman Rouda and
Representatives Hill, Brownley, and Torres. My name is Mark
Ghilarducci and I am the Director of the California Governor's
Office of Emergency Services. First, thank you for inviting me
to testify once again on the recovery from the devastating 2017
and 2018 wildfire season, and ongoing emergency preparedness
efforts to safeguard California in 2019 and beyond.
California continues to prepare for another wildfire season
through the enhancement of firefighting capabilities and
aggressive vegetation and fire fuel mitigation efforts in high
severity fire zones while continuing to support the recovery
efforts of multiple communities impacted by the 1917 and 1918
catastrophic wildfires. Again, climate change continues to act
as a force multiplier when it comes to wildfires and their
destruction. It is important to note that 10 of the state's 20
most destructive wildfires have occurred just since 2015.
Climate change factors have driven the extensive, erratic,
and rapid spread of wildfires, and this trend is expected to
continue with the estimated burn area for fires to increase by
77 percent by the year 2100. This year, Governor Newsom and the
California legislature acted quickly to create a legislative
package to further prepare the state with primary efforts
designed to increase situational awareness to better alert
warning capabilities, enhance implementation of next-generation
911, to modernize the state's 911 system, strengthen codes and
regulatory oversight, increase preparedness efforts across the
state, particularly in vulnerable communities, increase
firefighting capabilities with more equipment and personnel,
focus utility preparedness and risk mitigation efforts, and to
buy down the risk of wildfire by accelerating multiple projects
to create defensible space in high severity fire zones.
Assembly Bill 1054 and Senate Bill 111 address the safety,
accountability, and stability for residents, businesses, and
utilities of California through novel requirements and
policies. The legislation includes enhancements to existing
regulatory authorities and establishes a Wildfire Safety
Advisory Council to advise and make actionable safety
recommendations to the California Public Utilities Commission.
These bills also establish new and innovative policies that
will increase the responsibility of investor-owned utilities in
safeguarding against wildfires. The overall direction to the
IOUs was to better protect infrastructure and mitigate the
possibility of fire starts. As a result, the IOUs have
instituted the Public Safety Power Shutoff Program. This
program is implemented by the utilities when conditions
indicate a high probability for fire, such as during a red flag
warning situation.
Cal OES along with CAL FIRE is working with the IOUs to
refine public education, enhance overall preparedness planning
efforts, and streamline the notification process to local
governments and to the public. In addition, as part of ensuring
for the states Fire Mutual Aid response capability, Cal OES,
CAL FIRE, the US Forest Service, the USDA along with local
governments have jointly come to terms regarding the current
interpretation and implementation of the 2019 California Fire
Assistance Agreement that provides for reimbursement to state
and local fire responders. This agreement is a critical
component to reinforce relationships and ensure that the
capacity of local and state fire mutual aid assets, that
respond to wildfires at the request of the Federal Government,
remain in place, and are reimbursed in a timely and efficient
manner.
A top priority during both the 1917 and 1918 wildfire
recovery efforts remains the facilitation of rapid debris
removal operations. Without a successful and rapid debris
removal program, communities would be unable to start to
rebuild, amplifying public health and safety issues, and
stalling both individual and community economic recovery.
Private property debris removal on this scale is a new process
in California.
Following the 2017 wildfires, California sought the
assistance from the United States Army Corps of Engineers
through FEMA to clear debris in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, and
Lake Counties. Since then, Cal OES has moved rapidly to build
capabilities within the state and have adopted best practices
from the lessons learned in 2017 to better oversee and
effectively facilitate state-managed debris removal with
efficiency and accountability. Following the 2018 wildfires the
next year, Cal OES undertook multiple large-scale debris
removal operations in both Los Angeles and Ventura Counties
here in Southern California, and Siskiyou, Shasta, and Butte
Counties in Northern California.
Removal of debris from the Hill and Woolsey Fires was
completed during the final week of July 2019. A total of
422,229 tons of debris was removed from the burn areas of the
Hill and Woolsey Fire. The Camp Fire debris removal program in
Butte County, with more than 18,000 storage structures, is now
roughly 85 percent complete. Both projects have been efficient
and have exceeded metrics and timelines initially set.
In addition, throughout the 1917 and 1918 wildfire recovery
efforts, assistance to individuals has been another top
priority. Throughout this process, FEMA has been very helpful
in providing transitional sheltering assistance and temporary
housing solutions for several thousand individuals and
families. The Team at FEMA Region IX have consistently been
great partners and solution oriented. However, IA programs
continue to remain a complicated challenge. Catastrophic
events, like the recent wildfires, severely disrupt lives and
businesses, and the Federal IA programs are essential for
helping individuals and the community begin the recovery
process.
Recently, however, FEMA issued new guidelines and
declaration factors for obtaining individual assistance
designation. While we are still evaluating these new factors,
our initial analysis indicates that they may result in a
negative impact to California, making it harder to obtain
individual assistance and the ability to recover from future
disasters. The new factors take into account several new
indicators in determining if the event will qualify for IA,
including the state's fiscal capacity, the state's total
taxable resources, gross domestic product, nonprofit
capability, and per capita income of the local area.
States such as California, with large and extremely diverse
populations and large taxable baselines, appear to be penalized
as there will be an assumption that the state has the fiscal
capacity to handle the impacts of the event with its own
resources. We believe these changes would now require the state
to demonstrate at least twice as much eligible damage before IA
support would be granted. Time will tell how these new factors
will be interpreted and applied.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you on these very important
topics, and for your continued support. California is committed
to developing and promoting innovative prevention and
mitigation initiatives, and wildfire management throughout the
state. However, these initiatives, programs, and policies
cannot succeed in the vacuum. They will require the whole of
community participation and support from every level of
Government to reduce the threat of devastating wildfires,
protect lives and property, and build a more resilient
California.
Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Director Ghilarducci. Mr. Johnson,
five minutes for your opening testimony.
STATEMENT OF DAN JOHNSON, SOUTHERN REGION CHIEF, CALIFORNIA
DEPARTMENT OF FORESTRY AND FIRE PROTECTION
Mr. Johnson. Good morning Honorable Chairman Rouda and
Representatives Torres, Hill, and Brownley. Thank you for being
here this morning. My name is Dan Johnson. I am the Southern
Region Chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection known as CAL FIRE. I began my career at CAL FIRE in
1982 as a volunteer firefighter in our CAL FIRE Riverside unit
and have served in a variety of roles in units across Southern
California until I was recently appointed to my current
position late last year.
As the Southern Region Chief, I am responsible for the
Operations Administration of CAL FIRE's nine administrative
units and divisions located South of Sacramento, in the Bay
Area, stretching to Mexico. I also receive delivery services of
five Southern California contract counties to provide direct
fire protection to the state's responsibility areas within
their jurisdiction on CAL FIRE's behalf.
In opening, I would like to talk a little bit about a
recent experience with disasters in California, and what we are
doing as CAL FIRE to lean forward and make our natural
environment more fire resilient, to make our homes and
infrastructure more fire-resistant, and to mitigate the threat
of wildland fires.
Our state certainly faces its share of natural disasters,
from devastating earthquakes, wildfires, to flooding, drought,
and the threat of tsunamis. California is a state where no
matter where you live, natural disasters are unavoidable. Until
the recent earthquake in Kern County, wildfires have been at
the top of everybody's minds. And while wildfires are a natural
part of California's landscape and ecology, during the past two
years, we have experienced the most destructive fires in our
recorded history.
As my partners all state and identified previously, in 2017
over 10,000 structures were destroyed, in 2018 over 22,000
structures were destroyed, and over the last two years, close
to 2 million acres were burned across our state, and over 100
people, residents, and first responders, tragically lost their
lives in wildfires.
The effects of climate change, fire suppression activities,
overgrown forests, and prolonged drought have resulted in
unprecedented tree mortality in the state's forests, as well as
an increased number of size and severity of our wildfires. Loss
of life and structures is a direct or proximate result of
wildfires is at an all-time high. But California is resilient.
Beginning last year, California committed to spending $1
billion dollars over the next five years to improve forest
health and reduce fuel loads in our wildlands. In this Fiscal
Year alone, Governor Newsom and the Legislature allocated
nearly a billion dollars for emergency management and response
programs, including money to build an earthquake early warning
system and update our nearly 40-year-old 911 system to next-gen
911. At CAL FIRE, we are making strategic investments to
respond and to mitigate the impacts of wildland fires in our
state. We are working closely with the United States Coast
Guard and the United States Air Force to retrofit seven Federal
C-130 Hercules Aircraft and the air tankers.
We are replacing our 60's version Vietnam-era UH1H Huey
Helicopters with the modern Black Hawk capable of nighttime
aerial firefighting in a much larger capacity of water. We are
adding 13 additional engines, year-round engines, and 131
positions to our existing fleet of 343 engines to meet the
increased demand for wildland fire response and the need for
firefighting resources earlier and much later in the calendar
year. And we are additionally hiring an additional 394--or
excuse me, 393 seasonal firefighters just as of these last two
weeks to increase staffing for wildfire suppression, fire
lookouts, and enable the additional shift rotations for a
cruise during this year's fire season.
With these new resources, CAL FIRE is building its capacity
to confront the new reality of larger and more frequent
wildfires occurring across the state. In the area of fire
prevention, we are working to complete 35 priority field
projects, refuel reduction projects that will help reduce
wildfire risks to over 200 of California's most vulnerable
communities. This work is being done by CAL FIRE's six
dedicated fuel reduction crews and five National Guard crews
funded by CAL FIRE's partnership with local communities, and we
are in the process of standing up for additional crews to bring
our overall capacity to 10 year-round fuel reduction. We are
getting ready to implement a new round of forest health and
fire prevention grants in direct funding projects, totaling
approximately $100 million.
These projects will focus on wildland-urban interface
projects and landscaping level forest health and fuel
reductions. We also continue to work in partnership with our
state--I am sorry, our Federal and local partners on a variety
of forest health projects to address such things as forest
insect and disease mitigation, research, reforestation, tree
thinning, and other actions to restore watershed health and
function, and support biodiversity and wildlife adaption to
climate change.
And finally, but critically important, our public education
program helps inform Californians about the fire risk and fire
prevention measures and provides advice on steps families can
take to harden their homes, to make them more resilient to
wildfire. I would like to close by emphasizing the value CAL
FIRE places on our close relationship with our Federal
partners.
Every day in our Southern Region Operational Center,
Federal and state representatives from the Forest Service,
Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National
Parks work side-by-side with CAL FIRE and our OES partners in
joint missions to protect the people, property, and natural
resources in California. Thank you, honorable chair and
committee members, for the opportunity to testify today. I will
be happy to answer questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Johnson, as well as all of the
witnesses. The chair now recognizes Congresswoman Hill for five
minutes of questioning.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to
all of our witnesses. Really quickly, I would like to formally
request that letters from Assembly Member Smith and Senator
Stern be entered into the record without objection.
Mr. Rouda. So moved.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much. Today's hearing fits within
the subcommittee's ongoing attention to the existential climate
crisis. As we have heard from our witnesses, what we are
discussing today underscores the dire conditions that we are
currently experiencing throughout the country, including right
here in Southern California.
The bottom line is that climate change is getting worse
every day and is expected to continue to increase the frequency
and intensity of wildfires and areas across the country. Unlike
previous versions and FEMA's strategic plan for 2018 to 2022,
the words climate change and global warming are no longer
included. This is notable because FEMA's previous strategic
plans emphasize the threats posed by climate change. However,
now these documents do not mention climate, global warming,
extreme weather, or any other terminology associated with
scientific predictions of rising surface temperatures and their
effects.
So, my question is to Mr. Fenton. Do you believe that
climate change is real and is man-made?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, so I think as far as climate change, you
know, my role is to respond to disasters. I am not a scientist
and probably cannot argue. The specifics are the same science
behind climate change, but I would say that in my last 23 years
of doing this, your comments are correct that we have seen
disasters become more severe, whether it be typhoons out in the
Pacific or fires here and have been more frequent.
And so, we are seeing this evolution continue and really
need to focus on, you know, resilience and how to work toward
it. So, I very much agree with all specifics, I am just not
going to argue climate change as I am not a scientist and
probably----
Ms. Hill, I appreciate the diplomatic way you answered
that. I admire your skills actually.
Mr. Fenton. Thank you for that question though.
Ms. Hill. So based on scientific data, you do see a
correlation between increasing surface temperatures and the
frequent destructive wildfires?
Mr. Fenton. And I am also seeing that in the Far West and
Pacific. We are seeing more increase of waves, higher tide,
rogue waves, now that we have not seen before covering the
Micronesian Islands and those kinds of things. So, we are
seeing this across my OR, which is about eight time zones and a
very big area. So, from the fires to the Far West Pacific.
Ms. Hill. So as a career staffer and as somebody who is,
you know, responsible for actually addressing these threats,
without acknowledgement of climate change in the strategic
planning, which I know happens from an administrative level and
is something that you just--it is given to you, how does FEMA
Region IX expect to react to this reality of more intense and
frequent wildfires due to climate change?
Mr. Fenton. So, I think is a combined effort, just not the
Federal Government. The Federal government, state government,
local government, private nonprofit, private sector, has to do
with this. It starts with building codes. It starts with land
use planning. It starts with how we manage the forest, you
know. All those things are critical parts of this, and we have
to understand that climate is changing right now so we need to
take into account, you know, how we work within these wildland-
urban areas, especially, you know, as we have seen a recent
years, it is not just in the urban areas, is going into now
metropolitan areas and those kinds of things as you see the
fires move.
So, we need to collectively work together. I think some of
the authorities we were recently given under the DRRA to go
ahead and move mitigation before disasters, start working on
some of those issues. So why we--I think California has done a
great job in new codes and building structures that are fire-
resistant. Upon this are the whole houses that are out there
and what they were built out of. So, using mitigation money to
replace roofs, make them fire resistance, or other finds to
make them more hardened is where we need to go.
But I think it is a collective effort at all levels, and
those authorities to make that happen are at all levels of
Government. So, we need to work together. I think our goals
work toward that and the authority you have given us help us
with that.
Ms. Hill. And so, you have been with FEMA for three
Administrations, four?
Mr. Fenton. Going back to the Clinton Administration.
Ms. Hill. Okay so four Administrations and I know that
probably the strategic plans change every Administration----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Fenton. Sometimes between Administrations.
Ms. Hill. Okay. So, you know, as you are thinking about
this and, you know, FEMA is responsible for really being the
last line of defense for so many Americans. How, without the
acknowledgment of this ongoing and future crisis of climate
change, are you concerned about FEMA's assistance capabilities
to remove climate change preparedness from the planning
processor or do you feel like it is career stuff, you are just
continuing on with the work that needs to be done?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, the work, the level of disasters, the
amount of work has not changed. You know, I really support our
state and local governments. That is all my authorities are to
do that. So, the fact that that is their focus, it is my focus,
and I continue to work on that.
I just came back from a Pacific partnership meeting and we
talked about tidal change out there and everything we could do
in doing that in partnering with the universities and academic
institutions to further look at that including NOAA and other
organizations out there, just like we are partnering with the
Cal OES and the different fire agencies here to figure out what
we can collectively do better. And it is really a mosaic of
programs and authorities between all of us that help or enable
us to move the needle and make us more resilient and ready for
fires.
Ms. Hill. We appreciate your work and I recognize the
impact that the shutdowns have had on Federal agencies, and
that the Administrative decisions have, and that you and your
staff have been continuing to assist us on an ongoing basis is
definitely recognized. And we will fight to continue to make
sure that the resources are available to you.
I want to turn now to the Forest Service. The USDA Forest
Service website explicitly states that climate change does
exist and is a result of man-made greenhouse gases. I am glad
to see that this still is the case. Mr. Moore, how is the
Forest Service adapting to climate change?
Mr. Moore. So, excellent question and I have to tag onto
Mr. Fenton's response here. Here in California, and I will just
talk a little bit about the islands too because I have
responsibilities not only in California but in Hawaii and the
affiliated Pacific islands, like Guam, Samoa, and the federated
states of Micronesian. Here in California, we noticed higher
temperatures and higher elevations, and when you look at the
wildfires that are occurring throughout the state, they are
occurring on higher elevations that we have not experienced in
the past.
And I think with five years of drought, 100 years of fire
suppression, we have conditions out of landscape now that is
helping to contribute to these catastrophic wildfires we are
experiencing here today. So, what we have done, which is
different than in the past, because in the past, the Forest
Service used to sit down together and they would decide what to
do, and then our public comment was, what do you think about
what we think?
I think that what we are doing here in California is that
we are facilitating convenient expertise throughout the greater
community to say, why do not we sit down and look at what needs
to happen out on these landscapes. And I mentioned earlier that
we have about 80 individuals, state, local, and Federal
Governments looking to map out our landscapes throughout
California, and what we plan to do there is to treat--what we
are finding is that when we treat jurisdictional boundaries
that are not as effective in making those fires behave as they
move across the landscape, and so we have to look at landscape
treatments where you actually make a difference on those
landscapes, where you have communities.
And so that is our approach now and how we are addressing
some of these conditions out on the ground. The disease and
insects in the Southern sea airs. You know, we have well over
140 million trees that are dead throughout the state. And so
that is--five years of drought has also contributed to that.
So, we have these wildfires in these areas is unprecedented in
terms of how it behaves as it moves across the landscape.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. And do you believe that the refusal
to--the change in kind of administrative policy around climate
change has affected your ability to combat wildfires resulting
from climate change and the planning for the coming years?
Mr. Moore. Congresswoman, keep in mind that to an employee
it does not matter what Administration comes in. We try and
respond to whatever policies are in place. And that is where we
are now, that whatever policy is in place, we are going to do
what we can to make sure that policy is implemented. I find it
though that with shared stewardship as an example recently, it
has allowed us to move across the landscape and look at larger
areas to treat.
Bottom line is that we are trying to stop the fire and its
behavior in California, because we live in a fire adept
ecosystem, so fires are going to happen. What we want it to do
is, like I said earlier, behave as it would naturally.
Ms. Hill. Thank you, the last question really quick for you
and then I will yield back to my colleagues and hopefully come
back for my questions to Mr. Ghilarducci and then Mr. Johnson.
But can you--sorry, I am losing my voice today--but can you
just speak briefly, either Mr. Moore or
Mr. Fenton, to the impacts that the shutdown had this
Fiscal Year on any of your abilities to address the wildfires?
Mr. Moore. So normally in January, what we would do is--we
do a lot about the hiring of our seasonal work force in
January. So, we were not able to do a lot of hiring and that is
also when we have the best window to do prescribed burning.
And so, to give you an example, we burned 63,000 acres here
in California last year, which is the most we have ever burned
since 1991, since the original fire plan. This year we are
about halfway there. Most of our windows are disappearing.
Although we have had a wet window, a wet spring, and wet
winter, it has allowed us to do more than we normally would
this time of the year.
So, it may be balanced out in the end but so far, we have
not reached that level that we reached last year. And so, it
has some impacts on what we have been able to use.
Ms. Hill. And Mr. Fenton, anything on your end?
Mr. Fenton. This is probably been the busiest year I have
had in Region IX. So, we were all disasters from one end of our
area to another end with maybe a small group of people that
work more on resilience that were not in the office, so if
anything, diminishes more than resilience, preparedness type of
work with communities that did not happen during that period.
Ms. Hill. Thank you very much. I yield back to the
chairman.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Congresswoman Hill, and with a little
luck, we will be able to get back to some followup questions.
And before I move to the next member, just very quickly. Mr.
Fenton, how long have you been at this job, this career?
Mr. Fenton. Started in 1996. So, 23 years now.
Mr. Rouda. Twenty-three years? Mr. Moore?
Mr. Moore. Forty years.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. Mr. Ghilarducci?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Just about 38.
Mr. Rouda. Mr. Johnson?
Mr. Johnson. 31, sir.
Mr. Rouda. Well, thanks to all of you for your incredible
service and experience because we will certainly need it. The
chair now recognizes Congresswoman Torres for five minutes-ish
of questioning.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Torres. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, between the
four of you, you have about a 140 and some years of experience
on this issue. It is such an opportunity and thank you for
hosting this briefing here as we get ready for our fire season
that is going to hit us pretty soon within the next month or
two. I am speaking from two different perspectives. One, not
only as a legislator in my official capacity but No. 2, in 2005
I lost my home and everything that I owned to a fire.
So, speaking from that perspective of being, you know,
homeless because you lived in a hotel and temporary shelter for
about 14 months until my home was rebuilt, and what that does
to a family and a community. On the issue of mutual agreements,
that is really, really critically important to me as I look to
how we are going to combat these wildfires that now come with
their own climate, as has been stated in last year.
We know that prison inmate volunteer crews are dwindling.
That resource is getting more and more scarce. So, what are we
doing to not only prepare communities, and I am not just
talking about fire clearance. So, you know, I am talking about,
how are we engaging the broader community at every level to
ensure that we are able to either train volunteers who may be
interested in doing this type of volunteer work as needed or
just members of the general community to help them survive a
wildfire. Any of you, please.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, maybe I will start and just say
that, you know, California in the context of mutual agreements
and mutual aid----
Ms. Torres. Can you pull your mic toward you? Thank you.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Yes. In the context of mutual aid and
mutual agreement, California really has the most robust, most
innovative mutual aid system in the world. It is a system that
gets utilized every day and it incorporates, you know, all of
our fire services but also incorporates private sector and
incorporates EMS and law enforcement to be able to apply and
respond. But in advance to the fires, they are working on
training and they are working on other kinds of community
preparedness efforts. You know, we also have a very robust
community emergency response team program in California.
In fact, the Governor just this budget season put an
additional $50 million into preparedness related efforts to
continue to buildup not just the CERT programs but also work on
programs like LISTOS to be able to broaden preparedness
activities and awareness, prepare an aware sort of programs for
all of our communities knowing full well that as much as we can
empower our citizens, they become part of that overall result.
Ms. Torres. What does that mean though, sir? I live on a
hill. Outside of the fire department coming out to my home once
a year to inspect and to give notice that we need to do fire
clearance, I mean, what does that mean? I do not see real
PSA's, you know, in the news. How are we informing the
community that they need themselves to be prepared?
Mr. Ghilarducci. So, I think one thing I am going to turn
over to Chief Johnson because they have a very aggressive
public service program on just what you are talking about, but
it is important and we work through our local fire departments,
our emergency management offices to build knowledge to give
people information about how they can best empower themselves,
protect themselves during emergency. That is listening, having
emergency kits, having a family plan, knowing evacuation
routes, more than one that you actually test with your family
at night, because things look different at night than they do
during the day, and having family outside the area or friends
that you can contact to show that you are safe or to get
information.
And things like just the defensible space, which I will let
Chief Johnson talk about, how important it is to harden your
home. This is part of taking individual responsibility, and
people--we want to give them as many tools as possible to help
be part of that solution.
Ms. Torres. And our local fire departments are doing a
great job trying to do that. Chief, if you would enlighten me
and as you expand on that answer, can you give us a briefing on
how do we also provide information to the millions of visitors
that make California their home during their vacation season?
Mr. Johnson. California does spend a lot of money on public
information via radios, TV programs. One of our more, I would
say, program that has been most beneficial it the Ready, Set,
Go! program, which identifies actions that should be taken
during wildfires. Be ready to create and maintain defensible
spacing and harden your home from flying embers. So, there is
an educational piece of that.
It can be accessed online, and, or through some of these
media events that explain what that may be. Get set, prepare
your family and home ahead of time for the possibilities of
having to evacuate. Be ready to go, take the evacuation steps
necessary to give your family and home best chance to survive a
wildfire. This has been adopted by most local entities
throughout the entire state. So that messaging is very much the
same, but it may have some little twist and added more of a
local piece included in that conversation.
We also have the Ready for Wildfire app, which can provide
a lot of educational components of what to do during a wildfire
but also alert you to when there are wildfires in your area.
You can actually set your location so it can alert you. And
remember, these are CAL FIRE statewide programs that a lot of
our local entities and partners have adapted. So, I think that
in the past years of fires getting to where they are at
nowadays, a much bigger effort in educating the public.
Ms. Torres. So, are those grants that are available through
the state at local fire departments that they can apply to
provide some of that public information in our communities?
Mr. Johnson. Yes, mostly every fire station that I have
visited has had those documents right there to share at each of
those fire stations.
Ms. Torres. Okay. The last question. Our military has a lot
of information and a lot of capabilities that are typically not
available to the general public. NASA, for example, has the
ability to provide very early warning or early information as a
wildfire begins before it turns into the monster that will take
then weeks for us to be able to take under control. Have you
had any of those conversations? I am looking into legislation
on this issue, it is why I am asking. Have you had those
conversations at that level?
Mr. Johnson. I can brief you on that and then turn it over
to Director Ghilarducci. Yes, we are working with the
Department Defense on early notification programs. We are
actually testing it this year and have been using it.
Ms. Torres. Through the satellites, right?
Mr. Johnson. Through satellites, yes. And so, not to get
too far into details, but obviously, a military component has
to be thinned out quite a bit for our use, and we are working
through some of those growing pains of learning that program.
But yes, we have been getting those, and we hope to expand on
that going into the future and have even better use of those
notification processes and satellites.
Ms. Torres. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. The chair now recognizes
Congresswoman Brownley for five minutes of question.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it and
thank you, Representative Hill, for hosting us today. And I
thank the panelists for being here. Having represented most of
Ventura County, Katie and I both have some responsibilities
there. I feel like I have gotten to know each and every one of
you very, very well over that course, and previously before
being in Congress, I served in the state legislature and
represented Malibu at the time. And went through two Malibu
fires with you as well.
So, I really truly, and my constituents really truly,
appreciate your service very, very much, each and every one of
you. So, I want to thank you for that. I wanted to ask about
the pre-disaster mitigation that was included in the Disaster
Relief Reform Act in Congress.
Mr. Fenton, you know part of those resources, it is my
understanding, you know, to focus on pre-disaster mitigation is
to invest in things--all kinds of things to help end, sadly,
the next fires. One of those is installing utility poles that
do not burn, and one of the complaints I think that I received
from leadership in various cities, particularly in the
Administration, is that they felt like the utility poles being
rebuilt then, and I understand that we had not passed this
bill, or the Administration had taken place, but they were
rebuilding telephone poles like the traditional telephone pole
or utility pole.
And I know in my experience in the Malibu fires when I come
home from Washington, DC. I land at LAX, I go down the Pacific
Coast Highway, cross over Malibu Canyon to the 101, and home in
Westlake Village. In Malibu Canyon after the Malibu fires,
there are all steel metal utility poles going all the way up to
Malibu Canyon, but yet from the Administration, we are still
replacing the old traditional utility poles. Can you talk about
that at all? Was that just a cost element in the moment, or?
Mr. Fenton. Yes, I am not directly familiar with
specifically the poles down there. Maybe Mark may have more
knowledge. But I do know that we have replaced poles with
mitigation money, both post-disaster mitigation money primarily
within my region, and a number of different areas both from
typhoons and fires. Obviously, you know, there has to be a
cost-beneficial rate for us to be able to do that, but we have
been able to do that. I just do not know specifically about the
ones down there, whether we had involvement or if that was a
thing done by the local utility because it made better sense.
Ms. Brownley. I see. So, the resources for that may come
out of your budget, it may come out of your OES budget, or a
local budget?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, if they are publicly owned poles,
they usually come out of the local utility provider. If they
are the IOU owned infrastructure, then it is up to the IOUs to
do that, and then they would go back and pull funds from their,
you know, maintenance funds to do that. But it has been
inconsistent throughout the state depending on various things
from environmental to cost, to what local communities want to
have in their community. Some communities, like the case of
Paradise, now are going to be undergrounding many other their
power lines, but not all communities want to do that, do that,
and the costs always seems to rise as an issue. It is a very--
it is a topic that continues to get discussed with utilities.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you. Mr. Fenton. Also, I know in your
written testimony you talked about through the mitigation
framework leadership group FEMA's working with the Federal,
state, local levels of Government to help align pre and post-
disaster mitigation. The speaker appointed me to the select
committee on the climate crisis, so we are trying to really
wrestle with the issues of, you know, our global carbon
footprint, but also really looking at issues as it relates to
resiliency and adaptation.
I wanted to know, you know, sort of what does that
alignment look like and where are we--can you identify areas in
which we are improving upon that alignment with, you know,
Federal, state, local leadership? Can you talk about that a
little bit?
Mr. Fenton. So, I think it starts with the state, local
mitigation plans and what they understand, what are the gaps
every year? We ask that states do a DRRA that looks at risks
and gaps within their areas. That works into the state
preparedness report and then into their five-year mitigation
plan.
California has, just because of the number of fires in the
last couple of years, not only do they have pre-disaster
mitigation they can apply for every year, but they have almost
$1 billion in post-disaster mitigation that they are using for
everything from retrofit projects to reduction of fires, things
like ignition resistant roofs to erosion control and hybrids
burn areas, to revegetation, to warning systems to upsizing
poles because of post-fire potential flooding and mudflows, and
those kinds of things.
Ms. Brownley. So, in California then, just in California
because I know California has a lot of good laws around this,
would you say that we are in better shape than some of the
other areas that you cover? And would you say that across
California it is relatively consistent from region to region in
terms of that alignment, or do you think that it is all, you
know, it is all over the place just based on what local cities,
and?
Mr. Fenton. Yes. So, I think it is complex because it is
very dynamic. You know, we can focus on a burned area
collectively, everyone here at this table, and we look at the
post-burn area and what to do to mitigate that area for future
events, but then there is new housing being built which
California is pretty good from a codes standpoint of
establishing that, and there is old housing that we need to
look at.
As we are constantly looking at all that and where people
are building and whether it makes sense from a planning
perspective to build in high-risk areas, burn areas, whether it
is a WUI area or whether it is on top of a fall. And so, it is
very dynamic and complex. I think California has done a good
job of creating programs that allow the public to access those
for whether it is Bolt and Brace, or other programs in the
Wildland Urban Interface area. But California is so big, it is
difficult to do that all very quickly.
So as much new construction is happening. We are trying to
work on old houses, trying to improve the planning, keep the
codes there. And so, it is very dynamic and very complex as we
do this. I think California is doing, you know, a fairly decent
job better than the most in doing that but it is such a big
area, it is such a complex area, you know, where social,
economic issues that you are dealing with makes it complex.
Mr. Brownley. Well, I certainly saw the difference just in
terms of the Thomas and the Woolsey Fire. Woolsey Fire, if you
drove up through the Oak Park area, you could see where the new
housing and the new regulations really benefited those
communities compared to the city of Ventura, older homes, just
neighborhoods were truly just kind of wiped out. So, I
certainly saw firsthand the impacts of some of California's
laws in terms of housing construction, and that is a very
positive thing. Am I under the five-ish rule or the----
Mr. Rouda. We will get back to you for some additional
questions.
Ms. Brownley. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. I now recognize myself for a line of
questions. Mr. Moore, you talked about, we had a very wet
season and I think a lot of people are under the, perhaps,
misconception because we had so much rain and snowpack that we
should not expect as severe of a wildfire season, yet as much
as we enjoyed the bloom, as well as the mustard bush that is
not indigenous to California, it is all now dead and excellent
tinder for fires. So, are we under a misconception that with
heavy rainfall and snowpack that we have less chance of
wildfires?
Mr. Moore. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do think that is
a common misconception that people have. What has happened with
this wet season is that you have a lot of grass, tall grass,
and now that it is cured through the hot weather, it is more or
less kindling for these larger fires. And so, while we have had
really decent temperatures in general, all that it has done is
delayed the potential for that nasty fire season. Instead of
say June, July, it is now a September-ish. And so, over the
next couple of months, we are expecting the tension to be quite
high for potential fires.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
Mr. Moore. In fact, it is a misconception to say that we
have not had fires because we have had a couple of fires. We
have been very successful in putting those fires out on the
initial contact. In fact, we have 98 percent successful to date
in extinguishing those fires.
Mr. Rouda. Good. Mr. Johnson, you talked earlier about
additional hiring you have done this year, additional assets
you are deploying. Can you briefly talk about where the funding
for those additional hires and assets came from?
Mr. Johnson. The funding came from Governor Newson to
support our more year-round fire season that is occurring, so
we bolstered the hiring to earlier in the year and later in the
year and asked for additional firefighters to bolster that and
to actually get people off duty.
Mr. Rouda. Excellent. And then this question is really for
all four of you so I would like all four of you to weigh in on
this. I think it is of utmost importance that we focus on
mitigation. And, you know, just like healthcare, trying to
address health care needs upfront is typically a lot cheaper
than dealing with the issue in the emergency room down the
road.
And so, when we talk about mitigation efforts, you know, it
is unfortunate that the President would suggest that buying and
training people on how to use rakes is a good solution for
mitigating firefighting, and I recognize that you certainly
have ideas on how best to mitigate. And you have talked about a
lot of that here before, but I want to hear from each of you,
your perspective on what the Federal Government can be doing to
help in the mitigation efforts, whether it is block grants to
the states or additional assets being deployed.
So maybe we will just go right on down the line, Mr.
Fenton, and start with you.
Mr. Fenton. So, as I talked about, we work with each one of
our states to build strategic five-year mitigation plans to
identify where those risks are. And then we have a number of
different pots of mitigation money that states, and local
governments, could compete for both pre-disaster mitigation and
post-disaster mitigation. As I spoke to, California has I think
it is a little bit over $600, $700 million from a recent couple
of years of disasters, and that will only get bigger as those
estimates get bigger from those disasters.
It is critical that, I think, we have an overarching plan
of where to make those investments at as California is at
threat from multiple risks, just not fires but earthquakes,
floods, and other risks, and so we need to make sure that those
plans, not only at the state level by can carries down the
local level, and then integrate the public, that they are aware
of the risks, and that we all collectively work together to
mitigate and minimize those.
Mr. Rouda. Let me ask you because you said you were working
with local communities to have them apply for grants for
mitigation, both pre and post. Do you see times where you have
limited assets, limited capital that you are making tough
choices, and that some local municipalities are not getting
needed dollars to address appropriate mitigation?
Mr. Fenton. So, I think the biggest limitation is the cost-
share on their behalf. Right now just because the sheer amount
of disasters we had and the new authority you have given us to
take six percent of the disaster fund and put it for pre-
disaster, started thinking 2020, I do not think there is an
issue yet if we do not have enough to make up the 75 percent
that we contribute.
I think the issue is local governments coming up with the
25 percent or some type of in-kind resource match, but there is
a lot of great mitigation projects going on that we see local
governments take on. An example would be, you know, me and Mark
were talking about the Truckee Fire Department went ahead and
did a program where they replaced non-fire-resistant roofs on
residential structure with fire-resistant roofs, with 300 or
400 different roofs that we were able to put on.
Projects like that where you reduce the threat by changing
the type of construction for old homes, changes to the risks
significantly there. So, there are a lot of good projects out
there. What I see is that some entities do not have the 25
percent. I think what California has done is they have been
able to take that and look for ways to match that, whether it
is our Brace and Bolt program or other programs that Mark and I
talked about how we----
Mr. Rouda. To get them to thresholds. Good. Mr. Moore?
Mr. Moore. Thank you. So just in the last two years, the
Forest Service alone has spent about $1 billion on suppression
activities here in California. And so, when you look at the
fire budget, you have the preparedness budget and then you have
a suppression side of the budget.
And what has happened in the past is that when we have
exceeded to suppression budget that is where we have fire
borrowing or fire transfer. We have a fire funded fix. And so
now what we have is that fire budget, preparedness, and
suppression. And I think what we have to do is move away from
suppression to the degree that we can, and move more into
preparedness, looking at making those landscapes more resilient
because we will never get rid of fires in California because
our ecosystems are dependent over centuries.
And so, what we have to do is start making our landscapes
more resilient. And it is going to take more than just one or
two entities to do that. I think we have to work collectively
across all agencies, state and local, to start looking at
making landscapes resilient. But even doing that, you know,
after, let us just say the landscape is resilient, we still
have to go in and do maintenance on that landscape to keep it
resilient.
And so, to give you an example without going too far, we
said that we need to treat about 500,000 acres just of mass
forestland to make a difference in how fires are taking place
here. So, if we treat those 500,000 acres there needs to be a
part of that to do maintenance on those acres as you treat it
so that it doesn't get back to that condition. And we have
estimated that we have a fire--what we call fire interval
return.
A fire comes back to a landscape every 15 years. And so, we
know that once you get past 15 years, you are running a risk of
fires taking place on that landscape again. We have started
doing that here in California where we have had the eighty
different entities meeting up at McCullen a couple of weeks ago
to look at a map and those severe fire areas and then
prioritizing all funding to work in those landscapes and try to
produce the opportunities there.
Mr. Rouda. So, let me see if I can summarize it. Are you
basically saying that a greater investment in preparedness
arguably could reduce the amount of money that needs to be
focused on suppression and post-event mitigation?
Mr. Moore. I firmly believe that, sir.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. Thank you. Director Ghilarducci?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well first let me just say we are blessed
in California to be able to have great partners like Randy and
Bob in working with us to try to find the solutions and being
as flexible as possible, and it does play out. The more you
invest in the front end is the least amount you are going to
have to invest in the recovery afterward.
And so, pre-disaster mitigation is absolutely critical. It
is the place to focus as we move forward, but that said, let me
just kind of point out five key areas that I think that would
help to meet your question. One is to increase the speed of
approvals for the mitigation projects. We work with local
governments to identify projects but by the time it gets
through, it can take a very long time to get through an
extensive approval process, and so in some areas, again, Bob is
fantastic in trying to streamline that, but there are limiting
factors with regards to bureaucracy.
The second would be to broaden the eligibility for the use
of mitigation funds to broaden the way you use those funds for
more projects to be able to address what Randy talked about.
The third is increased funding in the pre-event space. This is
all the front-end----
Mr. Rouda. Preparedness?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Preparedness. This is really critical. The
fourth is limit or eliminate that cost-share. It is probably
the biggest mitigation killer.
Mr. Rouda. Local municipalities inability to meet the
threshold----
Mr. Ghilarducci. In particularly those smaller
disadvantaged communities that get hit the worst or impacted
the most following a disaster cannot meet that match, and so
they never get to where they need to get to. And then last is,
from your standpoint, leverage the insurance industry to
participate greater in the mitigation project effort.
The insurance industry can bring more than they do to the
table and we want them to be part of that dialog instead of
being on the sidelines and watching what is going on and only
getting engaged after the disaster. They need to be part of
that.
For example, a mitigation project in retrofitting homes in
the Wildland Urban Interface that would, in essence, result in
a percentage reduction in premiums, if the homeowner were to
retrofit.
Mr. Rouda. And coupled with that, perhaps, Federal and
state tax incentives for homeowners, communities in that
direction as well.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Exactly.
Mr. Rouda. Good. Thank you. Mr. Johnson, briefly, please. I
will be quick, but these guys took the wind out of my sail
here. I do want to make sure that we address the partnership as
absolute. In California, we are challenged in many different
ways than the rest of the Nation, and without these
partnerships, we could not provide the service that we do. Just
real quick.
There are three projects and an immediate that are working
very well between the Forest Service and CAL FIRE, our Forest
Management Task Force, which look at some of these very issues
you are discussing and how we can get there faster to get
projects done. California is very challenged with CEQA and NEPA
and other Governmental concerns so us working together on that
helps expedite that. Shared stewardship across our lands as
Chief Moore identified earlier, and our good neighbor
authority. These actually have allowed us to cooperate together
and get more projects done.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. Thank you. We have just a few more minutes
for some followup questions. I will start with Congresswoman
Hill. The chair recognizes you.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. I will try to keep this as quick as
possible. And you all have addressed this to a certain extent
but released in August 2018, the state's fourth climate change
assessment to inform state policies to promote effective and
integrated action to safeguard California from climate change.
In California, it is clear that serious scientific
consideration of the impacts of climate change is essential to
meeting the needs of state and local decisionmakers. So, this
is to both Mr. Ghilarducci and Mr. Johnson. You have said that
climate change has a significant effect on the prevalent size
and destructive capability of wildfires in California.
Can you just in a sentence or two say how California has
incorporated the risks associated with climate change in its
approach to addressing wildfires really in the coming years. I
mean, I know we are talking about limited resources from the
Federal Government. But as far as long-term planning, what is
does that look like specifically?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, I have to say first the support of
additional resources and staffing. Our partnerships for the
force going forward for fuels treatments to mitigate some of
those interface areas, and certainly the funding to state
provided us to partner with local entities as well as private
sectors to get these fuels reductions accomplished.
Ms. Hill. And is that focus on the prevention side of
things?
Mr. Johnson. Yes, and as I would say, investing into
preparedness education to the public, making sure they
understand that any effort moving forward helps to bite down
that threat and helps to protect their lives and property. And
so that has been a big focus in all of our efforts all the way
down to the local planning commissioners that as they approve
new subdivisions, they are putting mitigation on the front end
of that checklist versus on the back end of the checklist. That
is really important.
Ms. Hill. Okay. So you have emphasized the importance of
the partnership over and over again, and I am really glad to
hear that between state and Federal authorities, and I am so
proud of the work that our Federal officials here are doing,
but I am concerned about a few of the things that have happened
from the Federal side earlier this year, particularly from the
Administration. There was a showdown between California and
Trump earlier this year about withholding aid until California
does better, but fires actually start very frequently on
Federal land that we are supposed to be responsible for
maintaining. In fact, the Federal Government owns or is in
charge of 57 percent of forest land, if that is correct. Can
you confirm that number in California?
Mr. Moore. Forestland in general, 20 percent of the total
land base, but when you look at the Federal Government's Forest
Service, BLM, then it is 57 percent of the forestlands in
California.
Ms. Hill. Great. So, what are your thoughts on this, and
what do we need to do to ensure that the Federal accountability
is in place, that it is not just passed off? And, you know, I
guess you are kind of beholden to what happens at the Federal
level. But to you, what do you think we need to do?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, let me start off by saying that much
has been reported in the news media about the Federal
Administration and the California Administration, and
particularly in the space of preparedness. To be clear, we have
not seen that challenge come to fruition. Our Federal partners
come to the table.
We have not been limited in our disaster recovery funds.
The president has declared each of the disasters we have
requested. Our fire management assistance grants are approved
now in record time, and they have been very, very beneficial.
And even the challenge we had, you know, it was really more of
an interpretation with the fire management assistance
agreement.
We worked through to a positive resolution and we will
continue to work on that. We work together to look at maybe
some legislative fixes with regards to wording to ensure that
it is streamlined into the future. But some of that is a little
blown out with regards to----
Ms. Hill. So, it is a lot of talk?
Mr. Ghilarducci. So far. But you know, I mean the truth of
the matter is that we do know that the Federal Government is
looking at reducing the cost of disasters and there is a lot of
different ways that they could be doing that. And so, you know,
right now so far it has been okay for us.
Ms. Hill. Great. And some say, including our President,
that raking the leaves more often would completely prevent
wildfires. Can you tell me why that has not been employed?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, we do have a strike team of rakers,
but go ahead.
Mr. Johnson. Well, I think he has probably visited other
countries that have had some forestation, really hard work and
seen clean forest floors, but in some respects, that is true,
we need to clean up our forest. That is part of our fuel
projects that we are working on. But again, I support Director
Ghilarducci's comments that we have seen the help coming and we
have not seen anything turned down right now. So, I think going
forward really there is a lot of emphasis on the last five
years of our fire activity so the educational piece is huge,
and we can get that message across national.
Ms. Hill. So, I have a quick question from a constituent,
and I want to thank Senator Patel for bringing this to my
attention, but there is a species called Arundo that you might
be aware of. It is an invasive species along the Santa Clara
River, and it is destructive in a number of different ways,
including contributing to masses of dry vegetation along the
river.
So, the question is whether some of the money dedicated by
CAL FIRE could be used to remove this species, or at least to
the extent of creating fire breaks if that is on your radar at
all?
Mr. Johnson. It is, but it is more of a local entity. Most
of the state lands outside of those local washes and rivers
that have--I believe you are talking about the cane. It looks
like bamboo, very similar. Some of those grants are opening up
now and we may be able to reach some of those issues but are
currently our interface is more of a concern than the river
bottoms.
Ms. Hill. Thank you all so much.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. The chair now recognizes
Congresswoman Brownley.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Mr. Ghilarducci, I
wanted to ask you, you gave your five recommendations, which I
thought were very good. Is there any legislation regarding any
of these in Congress at the moment?
Mr. Ghilarducci. I think there is one that is sort of
tangential to this that has to do with when we provide grants,
for example, for retrofits down to the local individual, if
that individual were to be getting that grant to retrofit their
home, they are taxed on that grant and we are asking, in the
state of California, we waive that tax.
It is an incentive or disincentive for the homeowner to get
engaged if they can give taxed on a grant that is a few
thousand dollars. And so, I think there is a resolution is
moving forward to streamline that. Outside of that, I do not
know of top my head if there is any specific----
Ms. Brownley. At the state level?
Mr. Ghilarducci. At the state level, there are a number of
mitigation bills that are currently working their way through
the legislature, have to do with retrofit of homes, and
utilizing a hazard mitigation funds for not just retrofits, but
for also other kinds of fire mitigation efforts, as well as
some bills that are focusing on local planning commissions and
local planning communities and being able to build more
resilient communities to ensure that those general plans
reflect the mitigation efforts that are required.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you. And the other thing I just wanted
to hit on briefly is debris removal. And I know for the Thomas
Fire we were very lucky because CalRecycle did our debris
removal and it happened very quickly. I think probably at
record speed. Where the Napa fires up North that had, you know,
they were still in recovery because the Army Corps of Engineers
was doing their debris removal. So, has FEMA or is the Federal
Government looking at all toward the Army Corps?
I do not know whether it was just there are so many fires
there and there is just a limited amount of resources is the
cause, or whether the Army Corps needs to improve upon their
approach to debris removal.
Mr. Fenton. Yes. So, in the 2017 fires that you mentioned,
the state and CalRecycle had taken on a number of fires already
and were stretched thin. So, the state requested us to use the
Army Corps of Engineers to remove the debris.
And in retrospect, I think what we learned from that event
is a lot of the contract tools the Army Corps uses and their
bid out regionally for the United States are geared toward what
we would see after hurricane type of debris. And so, we have
been working with the Corps to rebid the West Coast to make the
contract more toward what we see after fires and earthquakes,
which would be different than what we see as far as the
vegetative debris, you know, after hurricanes. And in the
meantime, I think as we went into 2018, the state took on the
debris mission with CalRecycle. They had the capacity to do
that.
I think we all learned from 2017 and they were able to use
those lessons learned and are doing a great job both North and
South and will finish ahead of schedule up North with regard to
the debris removal. We partner together, you know, as far as
the monitoring, the management, all those kinds of things to
make sure we can maximize the reimbursement of anything the
state does.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you and I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. And before we go to our next panel,
two items. One, just want to let the four of you know that we
may, as the members here, at the dais have followup questions.
We will submit those to you in writing and we hope that you
would answer them in a timely manner. And second, I would ask
that the staff of the Oversight committee and the four members
here who are sitting behind me, in front of me, and some in the
audience, please stand up for a minute. Please stand up. Come
on. Do not be shy.
Mr. Rouda. Well, I just wanted the staff to stand up. I see
staff over here, please stand up. And the reason I am asking
him to stand up is that as you can see the staff that we have
here in our districts and on the hill tend to be very young and
these are incredibly impressive young people. They are
brilliant. They work as hard as anybody you will ever see. They
work for peanuts and they are true patriots and I will tell you
our country is in good hands going forward. With that, thank
you for the first panel.
I really appreciate your time and we will seat the second
panel and get started again.
Great, we will get started and now welcome our final
witnesses and thank you for your patience. We have Max Moritz,
Cooperative Extension Wildfire Specialist, Bren School of
Environmental Science and Management. Doctor Afif El-Hasan,
Pediatrician, Kaiser Permanente, California. Brent Berkompas,
Director of Government Affairs, Orange County Professional
Firefighters Association. And Mr. Smith. I do not have your
official title so could you quickly provide it for me?
Mr. Smith. Yes. Battalion Chief, Los Angeles County, Fire
Department, and Department Fire Behavior Analyst.
Mr. Rouda. Great. Thank you. Well, thank you all four of
you for being here. If you could please stand all four of you.
Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give
is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Rouda. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative. Thank you. Please be seated. The
microphones are sensitive so please try and speak directly into
them. Without objection, your written statement will be made a
part of the record. With that, Mr. Moritz, you now are
recognized to give an oral presentation of your testimony for
five minutes.
STATEMENT OF MAX MORITZ, COOPERATIVE EXTENSION WILDFIRE
SPECIALIST, BREN SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
Mr. Moritz. I have a presentation here. This will be a
little different, but it is part of my job. I am deeply
appreciative of the opportunity to be here, and I have studied
wildfires for 25 years. So, as a scientist and science
communicator, this is all I do, my whole life. And the last few
years have been as tragic as they have been. They have been
even more heartbreaking for a lot of us studying wildfire
actually because we have a lot of knowledge that is not making
its way into policy discussions.
So, for that reason, I really do honor and appreciate the
invitation and the ability to be here. That is where I am. I am
at UC Santa Barbara. If anyone wants to talk about policy
improvements and changes, I am more than eager to contribute.
At the outset, maybe I would start off with just a key take-
home message and that is that we have more than one wildfire
problem. And actually, the fact that is that it is a complex
problem and it is often talked about as this kind of monolithic
thing, the wildfire problem.
We actually do not make progress toward solutions because
we think of it as this monolithic thing, and until we are more
careful about which wildfire problem we are talking about,
trying to fix, actually you are not going to make a lot of
progress. We are going to continue to have debates and not make
a lot of the changes that we need to make. So, as an example
that I was going to tell a little story, a little narrative
that I run into my whole career. You will hear it in the media.
You will hear it with the general public, politicians, and
it sort of exemplifies this issue or this problem. One is that
we have got trends of increasing fire activity in the past
several decades. We have got projections for future fire
activity. They are going to be increasing. These came out of my
lab several years ago. But there is general agreement that
there have been more, larger fires due to climate change, as
you guys mentioned.
Some other factors too. That was linked to often more
severe forest fires, right. Larger, higher fire intensities,
and those, in turn, are often linked to increasing home losses,
and in our worst-case scenarios, those home losses are turning
into kind of quasi-urban conflagrations, right. The Wildland
Urban Interface, the WUI. We have heard that term. It has
actually entered into common parlance now. But this linkage of
more fire activity, more forest fires, more home losses, more
disasters, I think if you really look at this as a causal chain
of impacts, cause and effect chain of events, you learn
something from this. It actually helps us tease apart this
problem and start to make a little more progress.
So, for example, on the home loss side, we see this over
and over in the research environment, we will go out and look
at post-burn environments, we will look at events. You notice
that the vegetation often around the homes is not burning, and
you go in after the fires, even Paradise, a lot of those
neighborhoods that burned the vegetation is often still intact.
The homes themselves are gone, right, and that is really an
interesting indicator of what is causing the homeless part of
this problem. And it turns out that most homes actually burn
due to embers, bits of flying burning vegetation. They may come
from far away. They may come from the adjacent home that is
burning, but they are driven by high winds against and into
homes, and a lot of homes burned from the inside out.
Second, most of these home losses, really high numbers,
they are not in forests, right. The Wildland Urban Interface is
not your traditional forested environment. And for a lot of the
calls and debates that we hear over the news, forest thinning,
and we are not doing enough for this to that, is actually not
that connected to the homeless problem. The homeless problem is
one of where and how we have built. And that actually, those do
get conflated and that keeps us from actually making some
meaningful progress on some of these issues. So which problem
are we trying to solve? There is a forest loss problem, right,
and it has got climate change and fire suppression all feeding
into this.
That is one set of problem. That is largely a land
management problem out there in the wildlands. The homeless
problem really is not land management and a forest fire
problem, but it is one of where and how we built. So, this gets
us, if we focus the lens, this turns this more into a public
health and safety issue and an urban planning issue. And I
think if you disentangle those, we can start to look at
solutions that actually help. I do not even remember what these
lights mean, but so I am probably going to have to circle back
because I think you are going to cut me off----
[Laughter.]
Mr. Moritz. But here are some ideas. Locally, our Forest
Service lands are really underfunded in the places where we
have lots of people. Why don't we allocate some funds to our
Forest Service lands that are proportional to the exposure of
the WUI? There are millions of homes across the Western U.S. on
fire-prone landscapes, right. We need regional mitigation
programs to retrofit the people, the homes, and the landscapes,
right.
The traditional approach of community wildfire protection
plans, CWPPs, we can go into this later if you want. They are
very important, but they are not enough. Urban planning, we
have to focus on where and how we build. And the flows of
taxpayer funds. This is something I think is very under-
appreciated. Transportation funds, housing, and urban
development, these all inadvertently lead to an incentive
development on hazard-prone landscapes.
So, I think that if we recognize it more as a public health
and safety problem, we would have some different solutions.
Mr. Rouda. Great. Thank you very much. Doctor El-Hasan?
STATEMENT OF AFIF EL-HASAN, M.D., PEDIATRICIAN, CALIFORNIA
Dr. El-Hasan. Good morning. My name is Afif El-Hasan, and
Mr. Chairman, Representatives Torres, Hill, and Brownley, thank
you for having me here. I am a pediatrician and have been
practicing in Orange County, California for the last 23 years.
I have an active interest in asthma, and I take care of many
pediatric asthma patients. I am also a volunteer and governing
board member for the American Lung Association in California.
The impacts of climate change on creating or worsening
natural disasters are unfortunately clearer than ever, as we
already discussed. And I would like to focus my time on the
human toll and the health tolls from the wildfires in
California over the last few years. Wildfires cause significant
air pollution, and the type of particles that come from
wildfires can vary.
Other factors that influence the content of the air
pollution from wildfires include the type of vegetation that is
burning, the temperature of the fire, and the other man-made
objects that also burn during wildfires, which Mr. Chairman you
had mentioned earlier. The smoke can contain carbon monoxide,
carcinogens, and most importantly, particulate matter.
The particulate matter comes in many sizes, but what is
interesting is that the particulate matter from wood smoke is
an especially fine type of particle. It is 0.4 to 0.7 microns
in size. Just as a reference, a micron is a millionth of a
meter, and the average human hair is about 50 to 100 microns
wide. So, we are talking about some pretty small particles
here. The small size of these particles allows them to bypass
many of the defenses of the lungs to infiltrate into the
alveoli. And then from there, these particles can then pass
into the bloodstream, which allows them to affect the other
parts of the body. The particles are linked to asthma, lung
disease, heart attacks, strokes and arrhythmias, and they can
cause neurological problems and cancers as well.
This is an important point when dealing with any source of
fine particles, whether it is the exhaust from a diesel engine
or from a wildfire. So just to emphasize, these particles are a
danger to the entire body, not just the lungs. The lungs,
unfortunately, are just a gateway to the rest of the body. And
please also note that an area that has experienced a wildfire
will also continue to shed fine particles after the fire has
resolved due to the presence of ash. Anyone who has walked
through an area that has been subject to a fire will know that
they can still smell ash for days if not weeks after the fire
has been snuffed out.
Going back to clean up efforts, there is a public health
need for it as well. There is some disturbing data from the
California wildfires in 2017 regarding the PM 2.5 particles,
which are the particles that measure an average of 2.5 microns
and are the most dangerous to the body. The 24-hour air quality
standard set by the EPA for PM 2.5 is 35 micrograms per cubic
meter of air. The Sonoma-Napa wildfire in 2017 had a
measurement of 200 micrograms per cubic meter, and a
measurement of 70 micrograms per cubic meter was noted in
Oakland during that time.
The bottom line is that the wildfires not only increase the
amount of toxic particles in the surrounding area by multiples
of the safe levels, but it also causes dangerous levels much
farther away. Carbon monoxide, which can kill quickly, is
another pollutant from the wildfires and is an especially
serious threat to firefighters since it is impractical for them
to wear self-contained breathing apparatus while fighting the
wildfires.
Local residents are also in danger of carbon monoxide
poisoning from intense wildfire activity. Some of the
unfortunate victims of these fires were people who died in
their swimming pools with masks on hoping that they could
protect themselves, but the carbon monoxide was what got to
them. As a pediatrician in Southern California, I have
witnessed the effects of the wildfires in my area. During these
periods of time, I have seen dramatic increases in asthma
attacks.
I have also seen respiratory problems like pneumonia and
sinus infections in children with no prior health issues. It
has become necessary for me to start prescribing or increase
the dosage of preventative asthma medications for my asthma
patients during wildfires, due to the dangers of these fires to
the asthmatic patients and to all my patients in general.
The wildfire season is also a time when children are
playing outside, doing sports and other activities. The
increased pollution in the air has forced these children and
their parents to choose between playing in polluted air and
remaining sedentary within the house. And we are also at a time
when there is a public health issue with too much screen time
and too much inactivity for children.
So, we already have poor air quality throughout California.
This is already taking a toll on the health of our children and
the adults as well. The wildfires have only contributed to the
problem. Some ways to mitigate some of the harm from the
increased air pollution from wildfires are to close the windows
of houses, use asthma medications as needed, and drive a car
with the windows closed. But these actions cannot completely
protect my patients from pollution. And in addition, all of
these actions cost money. It is expensive to close your window
and run an air conditioner, and not everyone can afford a car
because some people have to take the bus and wait at the bus
stop.
Treatment of asthma and other respiratory conditions
involves buying sometimes expensive medication and possibly
taking time off from work or school. Protecting your health
after a wildfire can be a costly endeavor even if there is no
property damage from the fire. And as I mentioned,
unfortunately, the underserved can often have a greater and
costlier impact to their lives and health as a result of the
wildfires, and pollution in general, due to the lack of
resources to shield themselves from the health impacts of the
worsened air quality.
So, thank you very much for your time and your partnership
in helping the people in this state to protect their health and
well-being during these unfortunate disasters. Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. Mr. Brent Berkompas, please? Five
minutes.
STATEMENT OF BRENT BERKOMPAS, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS,
ORANGE COUNTY PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. Berkompas. Chairman Rouda, Representatives Torres,
Hill, and Brownley, I thank you for this opportunity. This is
truly a pleasure and I am very grateful for the opportunity to
present here today. This is an important issue and it is an
issue that impacts me both professionally and personally, and I
will discuss a little bit more as to why. But I want to
distinguish really quickly that I wear multiple hats on this
issue, and I come at this issue from multiple perspectives.
First and most importantly as the Director of Government
Affairs for a local 3631. That is the Orange County
Professional Firefighters where I represent over a thousand
members, men, and women, whose job and professional mission it
is to protect communities and protect the lives of the people
that we serve and the communities that we serve. So, addressing
this issue and the impacts that the sustained wildfire seasons
have on these people is of the utmost importance to me and my
membership. We are seeing the impacts on our members physical
and mental health of the sustained wildfire season.
The times taken away from their home, the weeks that they
are spending on assignment on these fires is increasing in size
and scope. To put that into perspective, I think it is
important to understand what our mission is and to be
empathetic to what that mission is, it is to protect homes, it
is to protect property, it is to protect lives. As we are
seeing these catastrophes worsen, it is having a profound
impact on my members because our mission is being met with an
increasing problem, and to see one person lose their life, the
impact that has on families, to see one person lose their home,
is profound. But to see whole communities devastated is--the
impact on the people that serve is profound and it is bearing
out in the way of our physical and our mental health being
impacted. So, I am here to address that.
Also, it should be noted that as a responder to the 2003
wildfire seasons, I saw a real problem with the way our built
environment was constructed. We had these homes in these
communities that were built in a way that were--at the time the
building science was pretty clear on how to address a wildfire.
It was, you know, the building envelope was addressed, the
roof, the siding, and all of those types of things. There is a
number of different vulnerabilities our structures are still
having, and we still lose structures.
Mr. Moritz addressed it pretty well. We are still seeing
homes and communities being lost, even though to the best of
our efforts, we are addressing it in the building standards and
on the prevention side of things. Develop a product that
addresses the wildfire problem. So, I have sat in on the
building standards commissions and seen how building standards
are rolled out here in the state. I have worked with builders,
architects, contractors, and I have also seen a number of these
grant programs and efforts to harden our communities. I have
seen programs that work, and I have seen programs that are
well-intentioned but have less of an impact on our built
environment.
So, we can talk to that issue or we can talk to the issue
of the people that I represent also. So just to be clear.
Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. Mr. Smith, you are now recognized for
five minutes.
STATEMENT OF DREW SMITH, BATTALION CHIEF, LOS ANGELES COUNTY
FIRE DEPARTMENT
Mr. Smith. Yes. Thank you for having me here, Chairman
Rouda, Ms. Brownley, Ms. Torres, and Ms. Hill, and especially
Ms. Hill and Torres. Actually, understanding the gravity of
wildfire and having it impact you set a different tone for your
vision of what kind of needs to happen here locally and across
the Nation. So, a little bit about me. I a Battalion Chief of
the Los Angeles County Fire Department. I am responsible for
the field leadership and command a Battalion 5, which is the
boundaries are the 101 freeway between Hidden Hills, Calabasas,
Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, unincorporated areas of
Topanga, also the city of Malibu in the Santa Monica mountains
range.
My collateral duties also include serving as a Fire
Behavior Analyst and Operation Section Chief for the
organization, and in that Fire Behavior Analyst position, I
look at the daily relative risk of wildland fires, the
projection of wildland fire size and complexity, tactical
challenges and opportunities for those combating those fire. I
also look at the interpretation of whether fire behavior
forecast, implementing fire behavior forecaster, and
operational period, and their relationship and impacts with
fire dynamics and person on the field.
I also work as a Fire Behavior Analyst and Operations
Section Chief on a National Interagency Incident Management
Team. So, my background within the 31 years of working for the
Department is around wildland fire management practices,
watershed conservation, wildlife sustainability, and
operational efficiency, but first and foremost, it is the
public safety element of why we do what we do.
I have many credentials and qualifications to be a subject
matter expert in this wildland discussion forum, and I thank
you for that. An overview of the couple of topics that I have
are some of the fire history, fire regimes, fire dynamics,
daily relative risks, cooperating agencies, and identifying
management and operational objectives. So, Los Angeles County
specifically, but it really incorporates most of California and
every place in California has its unique quality based upon its
ecosystem, its watershed, and civilian life that works around
their households and how it impacts them through the
infrastructure.
Thousands of acres are burned annually in Los Angeles
County and the targeted month show barren seeds and fire
frequency and size due to environmental factors. Historically,
Los Angeles County has potential large fires during the fall
and fall months, which is September through December. The fire
regimes within Los Angeles County range from seasonal inland
desert areas beginning in May, with Foot Hill and Valley
coastal zones into summer and fall months. Fire frequency is
predominately by human-caused rather than mother nature.
Human-caused fires frequency is predominantly due to
careless acts or being naive, mechanical failure, or arson.
Mother nature fires lightning-caused has low fire frequency but
is usually routinely in July and August or in our monsoon times
as we get those easily throughout Los Angeles County mountain
areas, and sometimes through the coastal areas. A fire can
happen year-round yet certain environmental conditions need to
be present to support aggressive and large fire growth.
Nature's fire regimes with the mosaic burn patterns have not
been in existence for over a hundred years in Southern,
California.
Fire dynamics range low extreme and early summer months
fires are routinely topography driven under average, outside
air temperatures, and relative humidities, and can be combated
with much success. But however, on high-risk days, fires become
more extreme and there is a higher resistance to control with
those fires. The most aggressive and intense wildland fires
exist where heavy fuel loading is present and widespread over
this topography. Those environmental conditions and fire
factors created a really large fire environment that also
impacts homes when they are in the way of the path of the fire.
One significant factor that supports large fire growth is
an ember cast ahead of an advancing fire front that starts new
fires, and those ember casts can be on oncoming fuels and, or
in communities that have their nice ornamental vegetation
around them, or unmaintained, or unwitnessed problem areas
within the homes that are subject to promote fire growth within
the home. Information just, excuse me. For Los Angeles County
we do a daily fire danger analysis using RAWS, Remote Automatic
Weather Stations, that look at the climatology and also the
fuel factors, and this identifies the factors that determine
our vulnerability based on initial attack component or large
fire growth. Fire law enforcement agencies have the ultimate
responsibility for public safety.
The public safety element exists year-round for any type of
incident. A fire can or may occur and can jeopardize public
safety, and we use an incident command system, it is very
organized, that distributes resources, your organizational
control, and a delegation of authority through leadership
positions and supervisory positions to combat this. So once
again, the primary principle of life safety and the public is
the first responders with public safety in mind.
A lot of fire burning on our high-risk days challenges
resources for combating the fires and providing that reflex
time for evacuation, shelter, and place potential, and within
the incident command system and the unified command system
structure, it has been utilized and exercised effectively in
California for over 30 years. And the cooperation between
local, state, and Federal public agencies is well refined.
Thank you for your time.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Smith, and thank you
to all of the witnesses for your opening comments. The chair
now recognizes Congresswoman Torres for five minutes of
questions.
Ms. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to all
of you for the work that you do. I know it is not easy being in
that line of work. You know, when talking about grants that are
available to the community for outreach, I happen to live in a
community where you cannot, obviously, none of us can't control
which way the wind is blowing, right. My community happens to
receive the wind from everywhere and it gets stuck there.
So, when a Congresswoman, my colleague from Ventura, has a
fire we are the ones that are inhaling the ash and the smoke
and everything else in between. So what types of grants are
available for communities that are not necessarily on a fire
zone, are not necessarily, you know, the victims of critical
mass fires, but are the afterthought of many of the issues and
are the ones that are going to happen to suffer very, very long
term impasse of a wildfire, Dr. El-Hasan?
Dr. El-Hasan. I do not know of any significant programs
that are available, but I do know that most electric companies
do have reduced rates of electricity for people who need
medical devices, and in those situations I think it would be
very important for--if a family does not have air conditioner
for the whole family, get one for one room. A HEPA filter
inside the house is an excellent way to keep the inside air
healthy, and there is medical justification for that.
Most doctors, I think would sign off on that, especially if
there is anyone in the house with lung issues. So, there are--
but I do not, there is no large universal grant. I just would
like people to utilize the health insurance they have, whether
it is just, you know, whatever it might be and also maybe your
review of medical insurance as well to make sure that they are
providing adequate coverage for preventive actions that can be
taken. We have talked about preventative for the fires. There
are a lot of preventatives, things people can do in their house
with their own personal health.
Ms. Torres. So, I have Sotelo tile and we recently cleaned
our tile, and just to give you a picture of what was coming up
[it] was ash, black ash coming out of the Sotelo tile that is
in front, right.That is not the fire in our immediate
community, but that is miles and miles away. If the tile looks
that bad, then someone like me that has asthma, then we become
prisoners of our own home, which is, you know, one of the
reasons why we have to be aware that there are grants.
We passed an amendment last year that would allow for a
family to apply for a $10,000 grant to help them improve and
get ready for an emergency. So, you know, what does that mean?
An air conditioner that they might need, maybe, changing the
roof tiles. It is not a lot of money, but it is enough to help
with the things that we normally do not think about because
they do not come with a $50,000 price tag, for example.
Last year San Bernardino Riverside County had a--during
fire season they engage the entire community in a community
campaign to report any spark at any time 24/7, dial 911 when
you see smoke, and I think that they were very, very successful
in engaging the entire community in this awareness campaign to
ensure that they were notified immediately as fires began, and
again before they got out of control. So, I wonder if L.A.
County or any other statewide--if there is a statewide
initiative to help engage the communities as a whole?
Mr. Smith. We have a significant public outreach for early
activation and early warning that we engage with the
communities and we talk to our local cities depending on what
portion of Los Angeles County you are in and our field
Battalion Chief through the station interactions with public
safety awareness days, with come and meet the fire station,
with our robust public education campaign, we do have that.
We have that in place, and we engage with the public to
educate on an early warning. The earliest warning that you
could have on a wildfire that stars, the earlier warning we
have to get resources there to combat it.
Ms. Torres. We have the shake alert for earthquakes. Do we
have anything like that for fires?
Mr. Smith. I do not know that if we have a certain system--
--
Ms. Torres. App?
Mr. Smith. Or app, right. I know that it is communicated
very well throughout the cities within the Los Angeles County,
and actually throughout Southern California because of this
wildfire threat. We have--education is in place with the
organizations.
Ms. Torres. Thank you so much and I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. The chair now recognizes
Congresswoman Brownley.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again
to the panelists for being here. I certainly want to thank Mr.
Berkompas and Mr. Smith and all the men and women that work for
you. We are indebted to you and firefighters who really put
themselves on the line every single day to protect our
communities. I represent most of Ventura County and experience
the Administration and the Woolsey Fire, and was, by the way,
evacuated.
I live in Westlake Village, on the Ventura County side, but
was evacuated during the Woolsey Fire. But in both fires, you
know, it was just so impactful to see the amount of
firefighters from all over the country that came and were
called, and to see them at the command center and, you know,
thousands of trucks everywhere from different parts of the
country. I just cannot tell you how my communities are still--
we still talk about how grateful we are to the men and women
that came to help us in a great time of need. So, we thank you
for that very, very much, and as we have been talking today
about the increase in fires, we do not have a fire season
anymore.
It just seems to be literally almost all year round. I
guess my question to you is, are you getting the resources that
you need? We are talking a lot about health implications, so
are you getting the resources that you need to protect the men
and women that you represent? And my second question is the
impacts of being involved in a fire and the toll it takes not
only on the human body physically, but the mental implications
as well. Do you have the resources to address those issues?
Mr. Berkompas. Thank you for the question. It is very
thoughtful. I will address the impact side as it has a direct
correlation on the men and women that I represent. We are just
beginning to understand more profoundly the mental health and
the mental anguish side of things, and as an industry, the fire
service is starting to address that in a meaningful way. You
have to understand that you are dealing with a culture, you are
dealing with men and women who are very proud, and to raise
their hand and say that they have an issue or there is a need
there is not something we are accustomed to doing.
So, changing the culture is the first part but identifying
and getting those resources to that member in a timely manner
is equally important. So, it becomes a matter of training our
own people because we are typically either the families or the
co-worker or the first folks that start to recognize those
impacts and those changes from the midline. So, do we have
enough resources? The answer is profoundly we do not have
enough resources to address the mental health issues.
We really need to address those, the impacts that these
types of events are having on our people, and to really drill
down into what it takes to keep our people both physically and
mentally healthy. So, we are starting to, but we are just
scratching the surface and as our level of understanding
improves.
Mr. Smith. I will talk to the resources on a fire. So, when
a fire starts, we look at how large the fire is going to get,
how many resources whether it be by ground or by air to combat
that fire. And with that, we are all prepared to be up for 72
hours straight. As we come self-sustained, that we have meals
ready to eat on our rig, we have Gatorades, we have water. That
is the intent for what we do when we are in an aggressive
firefight because we need to be self-sustained for 72 hours.
If we go within that 72 hours, we start to get a work-rest
ratio that goes on. I am sure you went to different incident
command posts and saw quite the setup that goes on and then you
get into the operational periods, whether we are going to work
24 hours straight with all of the resources, then 24 hours off,
or we go 12 on and 12 off. Our resources and our folks work a
lot of hours to get the job done.
That level of engagement that you have to have to keep that
operational tempo takes a toll on our folks. As far as getting
resources--is that one of your questions? How do we get the
resources?
Ms. Brownley. Well, I am just wanting to make sure that you
have the resources, but that you have the dollars and whatever
the Federal Government's role is in terms of having the
resources you need to do all of the things that you are talking
about.
Mr. Smith. So that can be quite complex. Some of that
depends on how the unified command structure is set up and
whose land it is, whether it is on state lands, Federal lands,
local government lands. So, the allocation of resources go in
through a request, and this is many resources that we need, and
whether it can be filled, comes into play.
For an example, as you know living in Southern California,
our Santa Ana winds can be widespread. And so, the resource
allotment - if you have a fire - is going to be very
challenging for a fire chief to make the decision to relieve
some of his engines from their regular duty to go help when
they have their own high-risk day. What is good about Southern
California...we are very robust with our amount of resources
that we have.
We have the largest set of resources available, but they
get tax, especially when there are multiple fires which you
have seen. So, on the funding, I cannot talk to the funding.
They are there but whether or not they are available based upon
their own relative risk or their own daily activities can be
challenging.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, Mr. Smith. I know my time is up,
but I wanted to say too is that I know that there is a bill in
Congress about the mental health side for firefighters, and I
am in support of that bill, I am the co-author of the bill and
hopefully, we will see some progress and success. The suicide
rate among firefighters is on the up and it is something that
we really need to address.
I sit on the Veteran Affairs committee, so I deal with the
suicide issue amongst our veteran community, both men and
women. I think that there can be some cooperation because I
know that the VA has done a lot of research in post-traumatic
stress and they do a lot in terms of addressing this issue.
This is a front and center issue when it comes to veterans and
the men and women who are coming back from combat.
So somehow I think in the Federal Government we need to
figure out ways in which we can share that knowledge and share
those knowledge resources with firefighters, but I understand
too that we have got to provide the resources there to have the
mental health support that the men and women need. I know all
of us here want to help and assist in that process, and I hope
that we will have better success.
Because you put your lives on the line every single day
just as our veterans put our lives on the line every single
day, and it is our responsibility to make sure that we take
care of the men and women that you serve and that serve us. So,
I again, very, very grateful for your services and I yield
back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. The chair now recognizes
Congresswoman Hill. Four or five minutes of questioning.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much. I want to echo what
Congresswoman Brownley said about the importance of what we are
doing at the Federal Government and I am really glad to hear
the emphasis on mental health services. It is a real passion of
mine and the fact that we are seeing these kinds of effects is
tragic, and I am so grateful for the work that you all do.
Is there anything, just because of the time limit that she
had, is there anything you want to add, especially what we in
the Federal Government can do to support in this effort? I know
you talked about the challenges around the command structure.
Is there anything that we can do to help to kind of alleviate
that or make it easier and provide additional resources to
support the firefighters?
Mr. Smith. The biggest thing is recognizing that we need
more help, and how we get that help at the Federal government
level, the state level, and the local level will greatly
enhance the public safety element. With all that and Southern
California - really - the all-risk is what we have. Identifying
how we could increase our staffing - as you know - with
personnel you...you can handle a task somewhat easier. Not that
it is easy work but if you have more folks on hand to handle
that task, it becomes supportive in the firefight.
Mr. Berkompas. I would add to that, there is a grant called
the SAFER Grant and it is renewed every couple of years at the
Federal level. It is a critically important grant for our
profession. It helps with the adequate and just the basic
levels of funding at the operational level. So, the SAFER Grant
to us is critically important, and what we seem right now we
are in an incredibly competitive job environment.
And so, the staffing levels at all the major agencies,
whether it be L.A. County, Orange County, L.A. City - all of
the majors and even the minors - we are competing for the same.
The workforce is competitive - and keeping those staffing
levels, and keeping that high caliber of candidate coming
through the front door - is instrumental. So, programs that
help mentor our young people and steer them toward a career in
the fire service, females, you know, and folks that normally
would not have gravitated toward the profession, we need to
encourage that. We need apartments that are reflective of their
communities.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much. Dr. El-Hasan, you mentioned
specifically that there are also deep concerns posed to
firefighters, health concerns posed to firefighters and first
responders as a result of carbon monoxide. Do you have any
specific recommendations to local, state, or Federal officials
on how we can minimize those risks or, you know, is there
certain gear that we need to be investing in?
Dr. El-Hasan. It is a good question. I think from my end
since I do pediatrics although I take care of a lot of
firefighters' kids, always have happy to do that. I would
actually though, in general, have to say that the protective
gear that they wear is extremely important and I am sure that
they would echo that, that we have to be very realistic about
our expectation of where we send our first responders because
we could put them in a situation where we do them every
irreparable damage to their bodies. It would not take very
long.
And back to what Chairman Rouda was saying about some of
the things that are burning out there are not just wildfires,
especially if it is toxic. We need to make sure that everyone
is appropriately protected because you never know what they are
walking into. And sometimes the particulate matter is the least
of their problems.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. And Mr. Moritz, in your written
testimony you state that we need to address WUI, which I think
is a funny term for it, but by focusing on how and where we
build our homes. Can you briefly discuss how local governments
can use urban planning to prepare for this? And, you know, this
is important to me because several of the cities in my district
that touch, I guess, wildland are expecting pretty rapid growth
in the coming years.
Mr. Moritz. Yes, so I think urban planning is a very
underutilized tool. I think a lot of people, a lot of
policymakers, and even a lot of fire professionals kind of
throw up their hands and say, well urban planning is all very
local, right, it is all locally driven, and to a certain extent
that is true. In California, however, we are a little bit
unique in that CAL FIRE has a land-use planning program. So,
every single general plan for every community has to go through
an update and CAL FIRE's land use planning program gets to
weigh in on that.
So, there is a way that, you know, some top-down guidance
actually gets integrated into land-use planning. A lot of it
comes from OPR, the Office of Planning and Research as
technical guidance on hazard, and that is also what a lot of
local Fire Marshal's offices use is that guidance. And that
guidance document is actually fairly thin. It really only talks
about water supplies, roads in and out, and a little bit about
defensible space. It really doesn't say much about the sighting
of communities, the layout of the community.
So, all that could be beefed up in our Office of Planning
and Research Documentation. Outside of California, you know,
California is kind of lucky because we have those regulations.
We also have fire hazard severity zone maps, which guide
building codes, a huge improvement over not having them there.
It is like using flood plain maps to guide building decisions.
Other states could benefit greatly from those kinds of
approaches.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. So just to wrap it up, Mr. Smith and
Mr. Berkompas, you also talk--you spoke with committee staffers
and in your testimony you talked about importance of land
management and so I just wanted to kind of finalize it by
asking if any of you believe that there is a role for the
Federal government in assisting local and state governments
with wildland interface, urban planning, land management, and I
do not know what that would look like, maybe it is grants to
further facilitate these kinds of efforts, but just any ideas
that we can take back and consider with our colleagues?
Mr. Berkompas. Yes, I would look at programs like Energy
Star and as a success and how that was implemented in the
incentives that were given to homeowners for replacing
appliances as a model for how you might incentivize communities
to do the type of structural hardening that building
scientists, such as Mr. Moritz and his team and others are
doing. So that would probably be a model that could be
implemented from the top down at the Federal level.
Mr. Smith. So, with land management and looking at the home
and working out, the more energy release that you have coming
out of a fuel bed, that happens when you do not have fire
frequency. So, as these fuels get more large, robust because
they have seen the wet years, they have seen the dry years, so
this fire regime that has not been here, it gives us a tactical
disadvantage for protecting homes.
Based upon an urban layout, how it is or is not is what
challenges firefighters, whether they are ground resources or
air resources. We have a lot of air resources, but they become
very ineffective when the energy released out of the fuel bed
makes it very dangerous for pilots due to wind speeds and
environmental conditions based upon the fire itself. You do not
have the same set of tactical challenges in lighter fuel beds.
You have a different set of tactical opportunities to engage in
the fire to have success when you do not have the same energy
coming out of the fuel bed.
Mr. Moritz. If I can circle back to the earlier point you
tried to make, that there are probably billions of dollars that
come to the states and that end up encouraging road
development, housing and urban development funds. I have talked
to a lot of land-use planners who have plenty of case studies
where they will say, yes, you know, when those new roads went
in there, it is sort of like if you build it, they will come.
Then the neighborhoods came and all of a sudden, we had a
community, an incredibly risky place.
If Federal funds, as they flow to the states, had some
stipulation about being--they had to be prioritized to be used
on the lowest hazardous portions of the landscape and avoid the
riskiest, kind of like we use flood plain maps, there would be
a way that those funds actually then cannot incentivize
building on the dangerous parts of the landscape. But we do not
do that now. There is a tracking to those funds and stipulation
of how they are used according to hazard maps.
Ms. Hill. Thank you all so much. This is really, really
helpful, and we are just so grateful for the work that you do,
and we are going to do everything in our power to get you the
resources you need. I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you. I now recognize myself. Dr. El-Hasan,
if I understood, a question regarding your opening testimony,
you were talking about particulate matter in the air and the
impact it has on the lungs as the gateway to the human body.
And if I heard you correctly, I believe you said hotter fires
cause greater issues with particulate matter, did I hear that
correctly?
Dr. El-Hasan. It may not even be hotter, but the
temperature of the fire does actually manipulate the kind of
particulate matter that comes out. There are too many factors
to say whether or not the actual higher temperature would
necessarily give you a more dangerous particulate matter. It is
just that it is depending on what is being burned plus the
temperature itself.
Mr. Rouda. Okay, and then somewhat related to that is the
discussion that as we have these fires and Mr. Moritz, you
talked about this in your opening testimony, about how we
address the burning of homes is very different than how we
address the forest.
Mr. Berkompas, you talked about the envelope of the house.
How we do a good job going forward with the walls and the roof
but not necessarily with the inside and the volatility or
potential exposure to fires from within. Can you elaborate on
that a little bit more as to what is taking place inside the
home that is making it more susceptible to fires, and maybe
what we can do to address it? Anybody else on the panel if they
have comments as well.
Mr. Berkompas. You know, and I will let you fact check me
on this, and I would defer to a lot of good building science
that is coming out of areas like the California Insurance
Institute for Building and Home Safety, which is a cooperative
of the insurance industry and these folks that are doing very
good work to kind of propel the research, the empirical as well
as the anecdotal information, behind why homes burn.
It is, to Mr. Moritz's point, that the burning off, and Mr.
Smith's point too, is that the homes are often times burning
from the inside out. So, there are vulnerabilities still in the
building envelope. So, we are talking about the built
environment, what we can do from a building standard
standpoint, what we can do to address the existing housing
stock, which is millions of homes.
Mr. Rouda. What does that mean, burning from the inside
out?
Mr. Berkompas. So, it is typically embers entering into
void spaces and vulnerable spaces that are not prepared to
resist----
Mr. Rouda. Down the chimney, through an open door, an open
window? Okay.
Mr. Berkompas. Windows, vents.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. I think I have a better understanding of
it now. Okay, and one thing I really want to point out is that
Mr. Berkompas and Mr. Smith is that we recognize as first
responders on the front lines how challenging the job is, how
much exposure there is from a health standpoint.
I am proud of this committees' work on other issues
addressing our firefighters, including perfluoroalkyl and
polyfluoroalkyl, PFAS chemicals, and the impact it has had, and
I want you to know the four members up here stand ready to do
whatever it is we need to do to make sure that you have the
protection and support from the Federal government that you
need.
I know sometimes as we saw with Jon Stewart bringing
excellent attention to the fact that the first responders from
911 were not getting adequate attention. While all members of
the House and the Senate often talk a big game, sometimes it
takes a little bit of a push for some to move forward.
Again, I cannot emphasize enough we are ready to stand with
you on any issues that are important. Is there anything else
the four of you want to close with as we end and toward the end
of our time, and in before I give you that opportunity, let me
just check with Congresswoman Hill to make sure she doesn't
have any followup questions?
Ms. Hill. I appreciate it. I have taken plenty of time, but
I just want to reiterate my thanks for having this, and for you
all being here, and for the work that you do. I think this
again gives us a lot to think about to work with our partners
at the local and state levels and figure out the next steps for
me.
Mr. Rouda. And I do not want to put you on the spot that
you have to say something but for some of you that have been
sitting there that you thought gosh, I wish somebody would ask
me this question so I can provide this answer, please weigh in.
Mr. Smith. I am good.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Rouda. I guess you are never going to make it as
politicians.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Moritz. I am in academics so I guess I will talk a
little more. A point that was made earlier, and I see it a lot
in our work, if funds coming from the Feds were a little more
flexible and how they could be used. Often, they come down to
the states and they go out through the Fire Safe Councils, and
they have very specific uses that they are allowed to put those
funds toward.
Similarly, funds that go to FEMA, if you do not have it
written up in your multi-jurisdictional county hazard
mitigation plan, funds generally cannot be used for that. So,
home retrofits is a big one, and so is community education.
Those are two needs that actually kind of fall by the wayside
because there is not a specific way to fund a lot of those
kinds of activities. So more flexible use of Federal funds I
think would be good.
Mr. Rouda. Excellent. Well again, I want to thank you as
well. Yes, I am sorry.
Dr. El-Hasan. I am sorry. I was going to make one comment.
I would like to--our kids are the canaries in the coal mine,
and as we see increases in asthma and other illness and other
problems because they are the most delicate, we have to take it
seriously because what happens to them ultimately will happen
to everyone and there are long-term implications from that.
So obviously my job is to protect kids, but obviously it is
also to protect everyone, but what I see in them and what I am
seeing in children in the pediatric population in terms of lung
disease and other issues as well, as a cause from pollution and
wildfires is going to spread to everyone and just cause a big
mess.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, doctor. And thanks to all of you for
being here today as well as our first panel. As I mentioned in
the first panel, members will have five legislative days to
submit written questions to you and we ask for your prompt
response, and we will add that to the record.
But again, I really appreciate you taking the time to come
here today, share your expertise, help us understand this
growing issue. And for those of you in the audience, thank you
as well for coming and obviously it is an important topic and
that is why you are here today. We will continue to fight to
make progress on that. And with that, this committee is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]