[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






                     THE STATE OF FEDERAL WILDLAND 
                 FIRE SCIENCE: EXAMINING OPPORTUNITIES 
                  FOR FURTHER RESEARCH & COORDINATION 

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

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 29, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-23

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology



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       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov  
       
       
       
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              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico     MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California             JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California           MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York                 STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia                  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         VACANCY
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                VACANCY
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas     




















                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                             June 29, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Chairwoman, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives..     8
    Written Statement............................................     9

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    10
    Written Statement............................................    11

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    12

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Craig B. Clements, Professor of Meteorology and Director of 
  the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose 
  State University
    Oral Statement...............................................    13
    Written Statement............................................    16

Dr. Jessica McCarty, Assistant Professor of Geography and 
  Director of the Geospatial Analysis Center at Miami University
    Oral Statement...............................................    28
    Written Statement............................................    30

Mr. George Geissler, State Forester and Deputy for Wildland Fire 
  and Forest Health and Resiliency at the Washington Department 
  of Natural Resources
    Oral Statement...............................................    34
    Written Statement............................................    36

Fire Chief Erik Litzenberg (Ret.), Chair of the Wildland Fire 
  Policy Committee at the International Association of Fire 
  Chiefs
    Oral Statement...............................................    45
    Written Statement............................................    47

Discussion.......................................................    53

              Appendix: Additional Material for the Record

Report submitted by Representative Bill Posey, Committee on 
  Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
    ``Human Presence Diminishes the Importance of Climate in 
      Driving Fire Activity Across the United States,'' Alexandra 
      D. Syphard, et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of 
      Sciences...................................................    88

 
                     THE STATE OF FEDERAL WILDLAND 
                 FIRE SCIENCE: EXAMINING OPPORTUNITIES 
                  FOR FURTHER RESEARCH & COORDINATION 

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 29, 2021

                          House of Representatives,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., in 
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom, 
Hon. Zoe Lofgren [Chairwoman of the Committee] presiding.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

     Chairwoman Lofgren. This hearing will come to order, and, 
without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess 
at any time. Before I deliver my opening remarks, I wanted to 
note that today the Committee is meeting both in person and 
virtually, and I want to announce a couple of reminders to the 
Members about the conduct of this hearing. First, Members and 
staff who are attending in person, and who are unvaccinated 
against COVID-19, need to stay masked throughout the hearing. 
Unvaccinated Members may remove their masks only during their 
questioning under the five minute rule. Or, of course, 
unvaccinated persons can also attend remotely. Members who are 
attending virtually should keep their video feed on as long as 
they are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for 
their own microphones, and please also keep your microphones 
muted, unless you're speaking. And, finally, if Members have 
documents they wish to submit for the record, please e-mail 
them to the Committee Clerk, whose e-mail address was 
circulated prior to the hearing.
     I want to say good morning, and thank Chairwoman Johnson 
for agreeing to hold this hearing. She is in her district with 
the First Lady of the United States today, and I am honored to 
be able to the Chair this hearing on wildlife fire science, and 
I think it's very clear that in the 2021 fire season--we've 
already had that begin--it's on pace to be much worse than last 
year. Already over 100,000 more acres of the American wildland 
have burned than by this point in time in 2020. Firefighters in 
my home State of California are currently battling at least six 
large wildfires throughout the State. As a Californian, this is 
cause for alarm. In 2020 alone the U.S. saw record wildfires 
burn 10 million acres of land, over four million of which were 
in California. In 2018 Californian fires only burned two 
million acres. The warmer and drier conditions created by 
climate change have increased extreme wildfire conditions, with 
nine more days of higher--high fire potential added every year 
since 2000.
     As the risk for catastrophic wildfire grows, so should our 
ability to forecast wildfires and to mitigate fire risk. 
Today's hearing presents an opportunity to discuss the current 
state of wildland fire research, and how we can use it to 
improve our understanding of conditions in the field. We'll 
also discuss gaps in the science, and identify opportunities 
for further Federal investment and coordination. Federal 
programs like the U.S. Drought Monitor are instrumental in 
helping our wildland managers prepare for worsening fire 
seasons. This is just one example of how enhanced coordination 
amongst science agencies with operational managers can lead to 
actionable science. With dedicated authorities and investments 
in wildfire science, we can develop additional capabilities for 
real time detection of fire ignition, and even deepen our 
understanding of wildfire fuels.
     I was proud to co-sponsor an amendment with my colleague, 
Mr. Perlmutter, on wildfire resilience research funding at--in 
the NSF for the Future Act. It was great--it was a great start 
to what we can do to strengthen wildlife research, but we must 
do more. It's not right for Congress not to act to bolster our 
wildlife research, it's also dangerous. That's why I'm drafting 
legislation in this Committee to improve the understanding, 
prediction, and management of wildland fires through robust 
research initiatives. This bill will also enhance Federal 
interagency collaboration and coordination to include science 
agencies in Federal wildland fire response. I hope this bill 
will also lead to our Federal science agencies working closely 
with fire managers to ensure that wildfire science can be 
operationalized to mitigate wildfire risk.
     We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose testimony 
will inform this legislation. Joining us are academic 
researchers who use information provided by agencies like NOAA 
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and NASA 
(National Aeronautics and Space Administration), and the EPA 
(Environmental Protection Agency) to build out America's 
wildfire research capacity, and we look forward to hearing from 
them about opportunities for areas of further investment in 
wildfire science. I'd also like to extend a warm welcome to Dr. 
Craig Clements, who is a professor at, yes, San Jose State 
University, located in my congressional district. Dr. Clements 
is the Director of San Jose State University's Wildfire 
Interdisciplinary Research Center, which is a leader in 
wildfire research. I look forward to hearing his testimony 
about the importance of supporting interdisciplinary wildfire 
research.
     We're also fortunate to have with us today some of the 
bravest people facing the wildfire crisis, our first 
responders, forest managers, and firefighters, intimately 
understand which innovations best support on the ground needs. 
This hearing is a critical first step in creating a truly whole 
of government response to wildfire risks that connects research 
to operations. We're encouraged by the administration's 
emphasis on climate resilience and robust funding in the 
President's budget request for our science agencies to tackle 
extreme weather events. This leaves us ample room to work with 
appropriators to ensure funding levels in keeping with the 
magnitude of the wildfire challenges we face.
     [The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]

    Good morning and thank you Chairwoman Johnson for holding 
this timely hearing on wildland fire science, and for allowing 
me to take the gavel.
    It is clear: the 2021 fire season has already begun, and 
it's on pace to be much worse than the historic season observed 
across the West last year. Already, almost 200,000 more acres 
of American wildland have burned than by this point in time in 
2020--a 10-year high. Firefighters in my home state of 
California are currently battling at least six large wildfires 
throughout the state. As a Californian, this is cause for 
alarm. In 2020 alone, the U.S. saw record wildfires burn 10 
million acres of land--over four million of which were in 
California. In 2018, Californian fires only burned two million 
acres. The cycle of extreme heat and drought in the West have 
increased extreme wildfire conditions, adding nine more days of 
high fire potential every year since 2000.
    As the risk for catastrophic wildfire grows, so should our 
ability to forecast wildfires and mitigate fire risk. Today's 
hearing presents an opportunity to discuss the current state of 
wildland fire research and how we use it to improve our 
understanding of conditions in the field. We will also discuss 
gaps in the science and identify opportunities for further 
federal investment and coordination. Federal programs like the 
U.S. Drought Monitor are instrumental in helping our wildland 
managers prepare for worsening fire seasons. This is just one 
example of how enhanced coordination among science agencies, 
and with operational managers, can lead to actionable science. 
With dedicated authorities and investments in wildfire science, 
we can develop additional capability for real-time detection of 
fire ignition, and even deepen our understanding of wildfire 
fuels. I was proud to cosponsor an amendment, with my colleague 
Mr. Perlmutter, on wildfire resilience research funding in the 
NSF for the Future Act. It was a great start to what we can do 
to strengthen wildfire research, but we must do more.
    It is not just unwise for Congress not to act to bolster 
our wildfire research, it is dangerous. Throwing ourselves at 
each megafire is neither a near-term nor long-term solution. 
That is why I am drafting legislation in this Committee to 
improve the understanding, prediction, and management of 
wildland fires through robust research initiatives. This bill 
will also enhance federal interagency collaboration and 
coordination to include science agencies in federal wildland 
fire response. I hope this bill will also lead to our federal 
science agencies working closely with fire managers to ensure 
that wildfire science can be operationalized to mitigate 
wildfire risk.
    We are fortunate to have witnesses today whose testimony 
will inform this legislation. Joining us are academic 
researchers who use information provided by agencies like NOAA, 
NASA, and the EPA to build out America's wildfire research 
capacity. We look forward to hearing from them about 
opportunities for areas of further investment in wildfire 
science. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to Dr. 
Craig Clements who is a professor at San Jose State University 
located in my district. Dr. Clements is the Director of SJSU's 
Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center, which is a leader 
in wildfire research. I look forward to hearing his testimony 
about the importance of supporting interdisciplinary wildfire 
research. We are also fortunate to have with us today some of 
the bravest people facing the wildfire crisis: our first 
responders. Forest managers and firefighters intimately 
understand which innovations best support on-the-ground needs.
    This hearing is a critical first step in creating a truly 
whole-of-government response to wildfire risk that connects 
research to operations. We are encouraged by the Biden 
Administration's emphasis on climate resilience and robust 
funding in the President's Budget Request for our science 
agencies to tackle extreme weather events. This leaves us ample 
room to work with appropriators to ensure funding levels in 
keeping with the magnitude of the wildfire challenge we face. 
With that, I want to thank our witnesses for their time this 
morning. At this point, I would like to yield to the Ranking 
Member for any comments he may wish to make.

     Chairwoman Lofgren. With that, I want to thank our 
witnesses for their time this morning, and at this point I 
would like to yield to the Ranking Member for any comments he 
may wish to make.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, and I'd like to thank Chairwoman 
Johnson for holding this hearing, and Chairwoman Lofgren for 
presiding today. Today's hearing is timely as we enter the 
summer months, which have traditionally marked the beginning of 
wildfire season. However, I am sure many of my Western 
colleagues would agree that there is really not much of a true 
wildfire season anymore, with fires occurring year-round. Last 
year brought haunting images of devastating wildfires across 
the West. This year, unfortunately, could be even worse. The 
National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports that the number 
of fires and acres burned to date are ahead of last year's 
figures. Given the ongoing drought covering much of the West, 
it's reasonable to conclude this year's wildfire statistics 
could be historic.
     Wildfire is an important part of the ecosystem, and often 
occurs naturally. Many plant species rely on wildfire for their 
growth and regeneration processes, and many animal species look 
to recently burned lands for their habitat. However, lengthier 
drought, hotter temperatures, and poorly maintained Federal 
lands are all contributing to a greater frequency and intensity 
of wildfires across the country, and around the world, which is 
problematic. Additionally, the increased number of people who 
live in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where 
residential neighborhoods meet wooded areas, has created the 
need for a different allocation of resources. While wildfires 
represent a threat to life and property, they also have 
devastating environmental impacts, ranging from polluted 
watersheds to increased carbon dioxide released into the 
atmosphere.
     We tend to think of the West as being the most vulnerable 
to wildfire, but this is an issue for all of us. Resources 
spent combatting wildfire by our Federal land management 
agencies are resources that could be spent on revenue-
generating recreational activities, and are a diversion of 
attention away from other local emergency response needs. 
Several agencies within our Committee's jurisdiction have a 
role in combatting wildfire, whether it's NASA providing Earth 
imaging data or NOAA's incident meteorologists helping 
firefighters plot the best path to fight an ongoing fire. Other 
agencies, such as NSF (National Science Foundation) and NIST 
(National Institute of Standards and Technology), engage in 
research on different aspects of wildlife behavior, and how we 
can better fireproof structures. But we must be certain that 
all the work of these agencies is carried out in a coordinated 
manner, and is being effectively put into operations by 
agencies such as the Forestry Service and the Department of 
Interior (DOI).
     I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us 
today. I'm especially pleased to welcome George Geissler, who's 
currently the Washington State Forester. He previously was the 
State Forester of Oklahoma, and can speak to the impacts of 
wildfire in different parts of the country. I look forward to 
hearing his thoughts on where there are gaps in Federal 
research, how we can improve coordination among Federal 
agencies, and what actions we can take which would be the most 
beneficial to him, and all the on-ground wildfire responders. I 
know this is a busy period for him, especially given the 
record-breaking temperatures most of the West faced this past 
week, and I thank him for taking time to share his extensive 
experience with the Committee. With that, Madam Chair, I want 
to thank you, and I yield back.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this hearing. 
Today's hearing is timely as we enter the summer months which 
have traditionally marked the beginning of wildfire season. 
However, I am sure many of my western colleagues would agree 
that there is really not much of a true wildfire season 
anymore, with fires occurring year-round.
    Last year brought haunting images of devastating wildfires 
across the West. This year unfortunately could be even worse. 
The National Interagency Fire Center reports that the number of 
fires and acres burned to date are ahead of last year's 
figures. Given the ongoing drought covering much of the west, 
it is reasonable to conclude that this year's wildfire 
statistics could be historic.
    Wildfire is an important part of the ecosystem and often 
occurs naturally. Many plant species rely on wildfire for their 
growth and regeneration processes and many animal species look 
to recently burned lands for their habitat. However, lengthier 
droughts, hotter temperatures, and poorly maintained federal 
lands are all contributing to a greater frequency and intensity 
of wildfires across the country and around the world, which is 
problematic. Additionally, the increased number of people who 
live in the wildland-urban interface--the area where 
residential neighborhoods meet wooded areas--has created the 
need for a different allocation of resources.
    While wildfires represent a threat to life and property, 
they also have devastating environmental impacts, ranging from 
polluted watersheds to increased carbon dioxide released into 
the atmosphere.
    We tend to think of the West as being the most vulnerable 
to wildfire, but this is an issue for us all. Resources spent 
combatting wildfire by our federal land management agencies are 
resources which could be spent on revenue generating 
recreational activities and are a diversion of attention away 
from other local emergency response needs.
    Several agencies within our committee's jurisdiction have a 
role in combatting wildfire, whether it is NASA providing earth 
imaging data or NOAA incident meteorologists helping 
firefighters plot the best path to fight an ongoing fire. Other 
agencies such as NSF and NIST engage in research on different 
aspects of wildfire behavior and how we can better fireproof 
structures. But we must be certain that all the work of these 
agencies is carried out in a coordinated manner and is being 
effectively put into operation by agencies such as the Forest 
Service and the Department of the Interior.
    I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us 
today. I'm especially pleased to welcome George Geissler, who 
is currently the Washington state forester. He was previously 
state forester of Oklahoma and can speak to the impacts of 
wildfire in different parts of our country. I look forward to 
hearing his thoughts on where there are gaps in federal 
research, how we can improve coordination among federal 
agencies, and what actions we can take which would be most 
beneficial to him and all on-the-ground wildfire responders. I 
know this is a busy period for him, especially given the 
record-breaking temperatures most of the West faced this past 
weekend, and I thank him for taking the time to share his 
extensive experience with the committee.
    Thank you and I yield back.

     Chairwoman Lofgren. The gentleman yields back, and, 
without objection, other Members who wish may submit opening 
statements to the record.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    In districts across the country, especially in the West, we 
are seeing more frequent and catastrophic wildfires destroying 
lives and property. These tragedies are only getting worse. 
Last year, over 10 million acres burned in this country at a 
cost of over $16 billion. This year, wildfire season has 
already begun. With record temperatures and drought across much 
of the country, I fear how the season will progress.
    We know that climate change is contributing to this growing 
threat. We also know that poor land management practices over 
the past several decades have allowed vegetation to 
accumulate--ripe for enormous infernos. Furthermore, as 
development creeps more into natural wildlands, more homes and 
businesses are put at increased risk.
    Our federal science agencies provide critical support to 
fire managers. This includes the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the National Science 
Foundation, and others. These agencies advise fire managers on 
fire weather conditions, monitor fire behavior and smoke 
plumes, and perform related fire research and monitoring. But 
there is need for further investment and coordination of these 
research efforts.
    Congress must ensure that communities and firefighters have 
as many tools as possible to address this growing threat. This 
Committee is focused on moving critical science forward in a 
collaborative way. This is critical for us to be prepared to 
manage wildfires in the safest and most effective ways 
possible. This is top of mind for many of the Members of this 
Committee.
    In particular, my colleague from California, Ms. Lofgren, 
has devoted much of her time and attention to this matter. I am 
glad that Representative Lofgren is working to address the gaps 
in wildfire science through legislation. It is vital that the 
best available science is used to inform operational decisions 
on the frontlines of wildfires. It is also crucial that robust 
mechanisms for collaboration and coordination are put in place. 
This will ensure a unified approach to wildfire management 
across the federal government and with non-federal 
stakeholders.
    Our expert witness panel includes those on the ground and 
those doing the critical research on wildfires. They will 
discuss the current state of wildfire science, but also what 
they need to do their work more effectively. I look forward to 
hearing their recommendations on how this Committee can help 
our country better respond to our growing wildfire risk.
    Thank you.

     Chairwoman Lofgren. I'd now like to introduce our 
witnesses, all of whom are participating remotely. Our first 
witness today is Dr. Craig Clements. Dr. Clements is a 
Professor of Meteorology at San Jose State University, and the 
Director of the Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center. He 
leads research on fire weather, extreme fire behavior, fire/
atmosphere interactions, and conducting wildland fire field 
experiments. Dr. Clements has over 20 years of experience in 
the meteorological field observations, and teaches courses in 
fire weather, wildfire science, mountain meteorology, climate 
change, and meteorological instrumentation.
     Our next witness is Dr. Jessica McCarty. Dr. McCarty is 
the Director of the Geospatial Analysis Center, and as of July 
1 of this year, an Associate Professor of Geography at Miami 
University of Ohio. Dr. McCarty has more than 15 years' 
experience in applications of geospatial and data science to 
accurately quantify wildland and human-caused fire emissions, 
agriculture and food security, and land cover/land use change. 
She is the co-author--author of more than 30 peer reviewed 
journal articles, 12 peer reviewed conference proceedings, 
three book chapters, four technical reports, four data 
citations, and one NASA technology transfer.
     Our third witness, as has been mentioned by the Ranking 
Member, is Mr. George Geissler, who is Washington State 
Forester, and he's the Deputy Supervisor for Wildfire and 
Foreign--Forest Health, having previously served in Oklahoma. 
He has almost 30 years of experience in natural resource and 
wildland fires, fire management, and 6 years of experience in 
structural firefighting as a volunteer in Idaho and New Mexico. 
He's a member of the Society of American Foresters since 1987, 
and a certified forester. He joined the Oklahoma Forestry 
Services in 2006. Before being named as State Forester, he 
served in a staff function to coordinate all forest management 
activities provided by the agency.
     And our fourth and final witness today is Chief Erik 
Litzenberg, recently retired from his position as Fire Chief 
for Santa Fe County, New Mexico. Chief Litzenberg served the 
majority of his career in the city of Santa Fe Fire Department, 
completing his time in the city as Fire Chief and City Manager 
before returning to the county where his career began. Through 
25 years of service he has also worked for New Mexico State 
Forestry, and is part of multiple incident management teams, 
and for many years owned Santa Fe Wildfire, which provided 
resources for large scale incident management and response.
     As our witnesses should know, you will each have five 
minutes for your spoken testimony. Your entire written 
testimony will be included in the record of this hearing. When 
you have completed your spoken testimony, we will begin with 
questions. There will be, I believe, a little clock on your 
virtual screen that will count down your five minutes, and when 
your five minutes are up, we do ask that you sum up so that we 
can hear all the witnesses before votes are called. So first we 
will start with you, Dr. Clements.

              TESTIMONY OF DR. CRAIG B. CLEMENTS,

                    PROFESSOR OF METEOROLOGY

                  AND DIRECTOR OF THE WILDFIRE

               INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH CENTER

                  AT SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY

     Dr. Clements. Good morning, Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking 
Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee, including San Jose 
State's representative, Congresswoman Lofgren, who is chairing 
this hearing today. Thank you for inviting me to provide 
testimony on this very important issue. My name is Craig 
Clements, and I serve as Director of the Wildfire 
Interdisciplinary Research Center at San Jose State University. 
I am honored to appear before the House Science, Space, and 
Technology Committee for this hearing on ``The State of Federal 
Wildland Fire Science: Examining Opportunities for Further 
Research Coordination''. My testimony will focus on fire 
weather and fire behavior research, and the need for additional 
Federal investment in wildland fire science. At the outset I'd 
like to thank Congresswoman Lofgren for advocating for 
increased wildfire investments across the Federal Government in 
her letter to the Biden Administration.
     There is no doubt that wildfires are becoming larger and 
more severe in Western U.S. This is--this trend is projected to 
continue due to a number of factors, including 100 years of 
fire exclusion that resulted in increased tree density and dead 
fuel accumulation, and longer fire seasons, and changes in fire 
weather conditions caused by climate change. Now more than ever 
our Nation needs to increase investment in fire science to 
empower decisionmakers in addressing the complex challenges we 
face. While I won't address all research gaps in wildland fire 
science today, I will focus on a few key aspects that I believe 
are important.
     Fundamental mechanisms of wildfire spread are still poorly 
understood, especially in the context of extreme events. 
Additionally, we don't have a good understanding what role fire 
atmosphere interactions play on fire spread, nor do we have the 
appropriate observations to tackle these questions. There is a 
wide gap between the need for high resolution data to 
understand fire behavior and the current capabilities of fire 
observation systems. In terms of observational needs, we need 
to start treating fire weather the same as we do other severe 
weather phenomena. We don't have the same levels of funding or 
dedicated resources for fire weather as we do for severe storms 
or hurricane research. We need the equivalent of hurricane 
hunters for wildfire so that we can better see and sample the 
fire.
     Additionally, we are missing the appropriate centers for 
critical observations. Specifically, we need publicly 
available, high spatial, and temporal resolution observations 
from both space and aircraft. These observations can't just be 
a snapshot once or twice a day. They need to be continuous over 
the entire event. Comprehensive observational data sets that 
include fire weather, plume dynamic, smoke and fire behavior, 
are rare. The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment, 
called FASMEE, which is a multi-agency program. Addresses these 
data gaps by capitalizing on high intensity prescribed fires, 
and this should be a national priority.
     In terms of the prediction of fire behavior, investment is 
needed in operational, community-based, coupled fire atmosphere 
models, which are models that link the fire spread with the 
weather prediction forecast. These are the only models that can 
best predict how a fire can create its own weather. A 
community-based model is even more important because it allows 
researchers from any institution to not only use the model, but 
to also improve the model, and share it with other users. This 
is in contrast to models that are kept in-house and within one 
agency, institution, or National Lab that are not available for 
other agencies or institutions to use or contribute to. For 
example, the Open Wildfire Modeling Group facilitated 
development of the first community fire atmosphere model called 
WRF-SFIRE (Weather Research and Forecasting Model-Spread Fire 
Model). This model has become a core forecasting system used by 
many institutions and agencies around the world. Further 
investment in this framework will improve our ability to better 
predict extreme future fire.
     In terms of driving the science forward and promoting 
innovation, directed funding to agencies that support research 
and development in wildfire science needs to be a priority. A 
few Federal agencies are already leading wildfire research 
efforts, but these are not well coordinated. One exception is 
the Joint Fire Sciences Program (JFSP), that's had its budget 
reduced in half. Restoring its budget, and even increasing it, 
will benefit wildland fire science. Federal investment should 
also target competitive grant programs where--that academic 
institutions can apply for. For example, that National Science 
Foundation could develop specific wildfire funding programs 
across its directorates that would fund not only basic 
research, but also provide more mechanism for research within 
the social sciences. And finally, and most importantly, in my 
opinion, is the need to establish a national and sustainable 
fire weather research program. To date there's never been a 
dedicated program that funds both basic and applied research in 
fire weather, and this is critically needed. Thank you.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Clements follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much, Dr. Clements. We 
will now turn to our next witness, Dr. McCarty. We're pleased 
to hear from you.

               TESTIMONY OF DR. JESSICA McCARTY,

                ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY

            AND DIRECTOR OF THE GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS

                   CENTER AT MIAMI UNIVERSITY

     Dr. McCarty. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, Chairwoman 
Lofgren, and Ranking Member Lucas, and distinguished Members of 
the Committee. I appreciate this opportunity to appear today to 
discuss research and coordination for Federal wildfire science. 
I am Dr. Jessica McCarty, and as of July 1 I am an Associate 
Professor of Geography at Miami University of Ohio. I have more 
than 15 years' experience in applications of satellites to 
quantify wildland and human-caused fires, and related 
emissions, including as a member of the 2019 NOAA/NASA FIREX-AQ 
(Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment--
Air Quality) Field Campaign. During my testimony, I will 
highlight the relationship between climate change and 
wildfires, options to reduce fire risk, solutions for 
satellite-based detection and monitoring, as well as Federal 
wildfire science collaboration. The opinions expressed in my 
testimony are my own, and do not represent views of Miami 
University.
     As Dr. Clements has pointed out previously, climate change 
means warmer temperatures for the entire U.S., witnessed in the 
increased fire intensity and drier field conditions of the 
Western States. Climate change increases drought, leading to 
large stands of dry, and sometimes dead, trees. This 
accelerates the likelihood of extreme fires, even in our 
Eastern forests, like the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains Fire near 
Gatlinburg, Tennessee that burned over 17,000 acres and killed 
14 people during an exceptional drought. Within the boreal and 
Arctic regions of Alaska, climate change will increase 
lightning activity, will trigger a transition from boreal 
forests to more fire-prone grasslands, and will dry out 
peatlands, causing long lasting underground fires that will 
span multiple fire seasons.
     Wildfires contribute to climate change by being a source 
of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More frequent and 
intense wildfires now, and in the future, can potentially lower 
our forests' ability to capture carbon by reducing forest 
density and tree size. Research into mitigating future wildfire 
risks should note that mitigating any wildfire risk means 
reducing carbon emissions and preventing further warming. Since 
we cannot prevent lightning strikes, and as we work to limit 
warming, our remaining options are to reduce human-caused 
ignitions and to modify fuels.
     Human-caused ignitions in the Western U.S. account for 84 
percent of all wildfires. In a warmer and more flammable 
future, we must act to reduce arson, accidental fires, and the 
spread of open burning from agricultural fields to wildlands, 
and research in those areas will assist in those actions. 
Wildfire risks can be lowered through fuels reduction. This is 
most effectively done via prescribed burning, as well as 
working with indigenous fire practitioners to return cultural 
burning to the land. A community's tolerance for smoke will 
often dictate when or if a prescribed fire occurs, and social 
science research into those community reactions is needed. The 
choice is ours, do we tolerate a few hours of smoke, or do we 
wait until we are forced to evacuate?
     Space-borne fire detections often rely on 375 meter to one 
kilometer resolution polar orbiting satellites, which are 
overhead two to four times per day, as Dr. Clements mentioned. 
A higher resolution sensor, like the 30 meter Landsat, is only 
overhead every 16 days, but the pixel sizes are about the size 
of a baseball diamond. Geostationary systems, like NOAA's GOES-
R series, have 0.5 to two kilometer pixels, so think three by 
three city blocks to 11 by 11 city blocks, but they capture 
images every five to 15 minutes. Improved wildland fire 
detection, monitoring, and research needs combined higher 
spatial and temporal resolution sensors. NOAA'S GeoXO gets us 
closer to such a system, but the first launch is currently 
planned for the early 2030's. We need this now. Being able to 
see new fire ignitions and fire spread every 15 minutes within 
baseball-sized--baseball diamond-sized grids would be a game 
changer for science, for fire management and incident command, 
and for public education and engagement, including improved 
warning systems.
     Finally, I would be remiss not to mention as well the 
Joint Fire Science Program. The JFSP is a solutions-oriented 
Federal research collaboration that provides scientific funding 
for practical results. But the JFSP also funds and manages the 
Fire Science Exchange Networks. These 15 regional fire science 
exchanges provide the most relevant and current wildland fire 
science to Federal, tribal, State, local, and private 
stakeholders across all 50 States. Currently the funding for, 
and future of, the JFSP and the regional exchanges is in 
question. We should not reinvent the wheel when a functioning 
and successful Federal mechanism that collaborates with non-
Federal partners at all levels already exists.
     Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before 
you today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. McCarty follows:]

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     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. We'll turn to our 
next witness, Mr. Geissler. We're looking forward to hearing 
from you.

               TESTIMONY OF MR. GEORGE GEISSLER,

          STATE FORESTER AND DEPUTY FOR WILDLAND FIRE

                AND FOREST HEALTH AND RESILIENCY

                  AT THE WASHINGTON DEPARTMENT

                      OF NATURAL RESOURCES

     Mr. Geissler. Good morning, Chairwoman Lofgren, and 
Ranking Member Lucas, and distinguished Members of the 
Committee. My name is George Geissler, State Forester and 
Deputy Wildland Fire and Forest Health for the Washington 
Department of Natural Resources (DNR). I am past president of 
the National Association of State Foresters (NASF), Chair of 
the NASF's Wildland Fire Committee, and a member of the 
Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC). I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak with you today as the Committee examines 
opportunities for further research and coordination related to 
wildland fire science.
     State forestry agencies, such as DNR (Department of 
Natural Resources), contribute a significant portion of the 
overall wildland fire suppression effort nationally in terms of 
resources, personnel, capacity, and funds. Each year State and 
local agencies respond to the majority, roughly 80 percent, of 
all wildfires across all jurisdictions, and State Foresters 
work closely with conservation districts, mayors, local and 
county governments, tribal and Federal partners across the U.S. 
to deliver forestry programs and wildfire protection on a 
national scale. We appreciate the work of this Committee to 
address this important issue, and in the interest of time, I 
will highlight the following recommendations for improving 
research and development efforts focused on supporting wildland 
fire management.
     First, please support research and development on wildland 
fire behavior [inaudible] would benefit wildland fire response 
efforts that would be made accessible to the general public. We 
have [inaudible] services now, but there is a clear need for 
real time wildfire monitoring at the operational level to 
inform response. As an example, the National Hurricane Center 
uses many models as guidance in the preparation of official 
tracking intensity forecasts for hurricanes. Forecast models 
vary tremendously in structure and complexity. Similar tools 
would combine a collection or ensemble of wildfire models in 
real time to provide an advantage for wildland fire operations 
and better inform the public.
     Second, please support the development of fire simulation 
models that incorporate the built environment as a fuel. 
Currently wildfire models encompass the wildlands and stop at 
the built environment to better determine future threats to 
communities in the WUI. Trees and grasses burn very differently 
from homes and our businesses. Please support research and 
development that enables remote tracking of all active wildfire 
suppression resources in real time. Wildfire management and 
suppression operations utilize a patchwork of communication 
networks to track resources. We need to develop a standardized 
system for accountability and tracking of resources, and 
develop an implementation schedule for integration of the 
system into the interagency environment.
     We need to improve the capacity for early detection and 
assessment of wildfires, particularly in rural areas. 
Oftentimes in many areas, including my own State of Washington, 
wildfires can go undetected for days, and we now rely more and 
more on citizens to report wildfires through typical 911 calls. 
More access to satellite technology and high performance 
infrared cameras would greatly improve early detection and 
assessment, and attacking wildfires early and when they're 
small is the key to reducing fatalities, injuries, loss of 
natural resource, property damage, and lowering our 
firefighting costs.
     Also, we ask you prioritize the development of real time 
smoke modeling and decision support tools for wildland fire 
managers and local and regional public health officials. There 
are opportunities to leverage the resources of the EPA and 
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to better understand the 
public health impacts of smoke on people, including our 
wildland firefighters. With many wildfires occurring in the 
WUI, there are more materials and chemicals in homes and in 
streets that burn and produce a very toxic environment.
     We ask you provide research opportunities that will help 
inform the development and implementation of the next 
generation of national, State, and local codes and standards 
for addressing WUI issues and catastrophic wildfire risk. This 
research should utilize the best available science, and include 
the review of past wildfire losses. And, finally, we ask you 
develop a standard warning scale for wildfires that actually 
conveys the magnitude, or potential magnitude, of current, 
developing, and projected wildfire events. This scale, much 
like the Enhanced Fujita Scale for tornadoes, or the Richter 
Scale for earthquakes, would help convey the magnitude of the 
threat to the public, and could be used to improve evacuations 
and emergency preparations.
     Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 
Committee today on behalf of Washington's Department of 
National Resources and the National Association of State 
Foresters. Improvements in applied research and development 
technologies that support wildfire management will greatly 
enhance our collective ability to safety respond to wildfire, 
and better protect our communities and treasured natural 
resources. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank 
you.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Geissler follows:]

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     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. And now for our 
final witness, Chief Litzenberg, we'd be pleased to hear from 
you.

        TESTIMONY OF FIRE CHIEF ERIK LITZENBERG (RET.),

          CHAIR OF THE WILDLAND FIRE POLICY COMMITTEE

        AT THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS

     Chief Litzenberg. Good morning, Chairwoman Johnson, 
Chairwoman Lofgren, and Ranking Member Lucas, as well as 
Members of the Committee. I am Erik Litzenberg, recently 
retired Fire Chief from Santa Fe County Fire Department. I 
currently serve as Chair of the Wildland Fire Policy Committee 
of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). I 
appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the state of 
Federal wildland fire science and the future. Wildland fires 
are now an all year threat to every State, and, as my previous 
panelists, as well as Members of the Committee, have stated, 
the statistics continue to rise. This year probably looks to be 
the worst on record. Local fire departments are on the front 
lines. We prepare our communities for fires, and are often the 
first to respond. We help evacuate communities. When the fire 
is over, we help communities recover, and address threats that 
often follow, such as flooding, debris flows, and landslides.
     While Federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and 
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) play the most 
visible role in responding to wildland fires, Federal research 
agencies, like NASA, NOAA, NIST, and NSF provide tools to help 
prevent and fight future wildland fires. They currently provide 
research and tools such as fire weather prediction, satellite 
imagery, predictive fire analysis, research on building codes, 
community fire prevention, post-fire analysis, and studies of 
major catastrophic fires--greater Federal research into 
satellites, climate, and technology can revolutionize 
preparedness and response. As we adapt to new technology, like 
unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), we can provide the incident 
commanders on scene with a host of new tools. Most importantly, 
we can develop an integrated picture. This will allow us to 
effectively save lives and property in the face of a growing 
wildland fire problem.
     As Federal researchers focus on the national wildland fire 
problem, I'd like to highlight some emerging fields of research 
and technology for them to consider. Ground-based airborne and 
satellite remote sensing systems can provide an integrated 
early warning system and better picture of the incident. 
Satellites can identify fires in low density areas and near 
critical infrastructure. Also, remote sensing can be used to 
provide information about fuels and droughts. Fire mapping can 
be used to prevent and mitigate wildland fires. These maps can 
guide hazardous fuels and other mitigation projects. They also 
can provide real time and interactive maps to assist incident 
commanders during a fire. Remote sensing data and risk maps can 
be used to provide predictive analytics. This information can 
be used to identify at-risk areas and focus community 
preparedness and mitigation efforts. The UAS provides several 
capabilities. They can hover over a fire to track its progress, 
infrared cameras can be used to identify hot spots, and they 
can provide a wealth of real time data to the firefighters in 
the field.
     The development of a firefighter location tracking system 
would be a game changer. The creation of a practical 
firefighter tracking tool could improve firefighter safety and 
reduce the number of deaths and injuries that occur each year. 
The IAFC recommends that the U.S. Forest Service, FEMA, NOAA, 
and NIST work with the Wildland Fire Leadership Council to 
develop a standard warning system for wildland fires. Much like 
the Richter Scale for earthquakes, a standardized warning 
system would help emergency managers and the public act as a 
fire develops. Federal agencies should develop a standardized 
data collection system. This includes uniform formatting and 
methodology to capture and report wildland fire data, including 
information about mitigation, prevention, and post-recovery 
efforts.
     Effective communication systems are the glue that link all 
of these opportunities together. Unfortunately, we're still 
facing problems with coverage and interoperability. It will be 
crucial to address this problem to take advantage of the new 
tools under development. I would like to highlight FirstNet's 
role in focusing on building out a nationwide public safety 
broadband network. These capabilities offer potential, but they 
must be integrated effectively before incidents occur and on 
scenes, so the Federal agencies should work with the Forest 
Service and Department of Interior, but they should also work 
with State, tribal, territorial, and local partners. There are 
opportunities like WFLC and NIFC (National Interagency Fire 
Center) to have these discussion. In addition, they should work 
with non-governmental organizations, such as the IAFC. 
Prioritization of at-risk communities can guide community 
preparedness like the IAFC's Ready, Set, Go Program. In 
addition, the National Fire Academy, IAFC, and other 
educational and media organizations can partner with Federal 
researchers to get information and technology to the 
practitioners.
     The wildland fire problem is a national challenge. The 
IAFC looks forward to working with the Committee to mobilize 
our resources for this fight. Thank you for the opportunity to 
testify today.
     [The prepared statement of Chief Litzenberg follows:]

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     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much for your 
testimony, and to all the witnesses for your testimony. At this 
point we will give Members of the Committee an opportunity to 
ask questions of our witnesses for about five minutes, and I 
will begin with myself.
     You know, my constituents, and the constituents of many of 
us on this Committee, have been dealing with severe wildland or 
mega fires in recent years. In fact, the wildland fires has 
grown from a season to really all year round. We had fires in 
California in the winter. And, you know, in a way I think 
about--yes, they're wildland fires, but they also impact urban 
areas. I'll never forget visiting Santa Rosa in 2017, a little 
town, not in the middle of a forest, and the fire came in and 
destroyed 5 percent of the housing in that suburban community. 
Going to a suburb and all the houses are gone, the shopping 
center is burned down. Going, you know, with Representative 
Thompson, who represents that area, to other areas of his 
district that just was burned. And the fire in Paradise 2018. 
Doug LaMalfa represents that area. The fire swept through, and 
the entire time--town was also destroyed. So obviously we have 
important steps to take.
     I'm interested in how we can enhance collaboration and 
coordination across the Federal Government, along with, you 
know, the operational stakeholders on the front line. So, Dr. 
Clements and Dr. McCarty, as academic researchers who rely on 
Federal data and resources, where should the Federal investment 
in wildfire science be most urgently directed? First you, Dr. 
Clements.
     Dr. Clements. All right, thank you. So I think that 
funding these programs across all the agencies, particularly--
--
     I think what we really need to focus on is research focus 
so we can get better information, in terms of better tools. And 
so having new tools will allow us to build what we need, in 
terms of sensor systems, because we're lacking of sensor 
systems, and also the fact that we need more platforms. Like 
was stated earlier was the fact that we need better satellite 
technology, so I think investment in a lot of satellite 
development would be really beneficial to the entire wildfire 
science community.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Dr. McCarty, do you have anything to 
add on?
     Dr. McCarty. I would just add that we also need to think 
about, as we develop these tools, that we communicate them with 
the public in an effective way, and we also integrate their 
input. I think a lot of time when we think about wildfire risk, 
and reducing wildfire risk, we forget that people are the main 
cause of fires still, and the more that we are transparent and 
open with the public the better they will understand the risk 
and potentially act as good citizens to reduce that risk in the 
future. And that includes social science research, public 
health research, as was mentioned by some of the other 
witnesses. Thank you.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Are there opportunities for Federal 
investment or direction that could have positive impacts in the 
short term, and how long do we think it will take for the 
longer term investments to have realized impacts? Dr. McCarty, 
and then Dr. Clements.
     Dr. McCarty. So for satellite development, these things 
take a while. NASA's decadal surveys are a decade long for a 
reason. But oftentimes it's the funding and the priority that 
limits the advancement of these systems and implementation. And 
I agree also with Federal investment in the Wildland Fire 
Leadership Council would also be needed so that it can interact 
with the incident command and the commanders on the field, and 
NIFC, as well as other agencies. And that's a short term, you 
know, high risk, high reward investment that could be done 
quickly within an offseason to see if that implements better in 
the next fire season.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Dr. Clements, anything to add on that?
     Dr. Clements. I think one thing that could happen quickly 
is that restoring the Joint Fire Science Program budget would 
allow researchers to just engage quickly, because that program 
actually funds things faster than a lot of Federal agencies. 
The timing between proposal submission and project start is 
really quick, and so that could be one way to just jump start a 
lot of research quickly.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Dr.--Mr. Geissler and Chief 
Litzenberg, I don't have much time left in my five minutes, but 
do you have anything to add to what's been said already?
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you. There is one statement I'd like 
to make, and I totally agree with the comments of my colleagues 
here on the panel, and I would like to emphasize the 
application of that science also. There's a lot of really good 
work that's ongoing that will require just a little bit of 
funding, and maybe increased collaboration between State, 
local, and Federal agencies, and we could get this technology 
to the ground, to the firefighters, where it's going to make a 
difference. And so that interaction and collaboration I find is 
just something that we should foster and support as much as 
possible.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thanks.
     Chief Litzenberg. And I will add that echo for all three 
panelists, and I'll emphasize what George Geissler just said 
about integration. There are places where this integration is 
already happening effectively. And as science and data is 
created, it'll be important to get this to the boots on the 
ground, to the practitioners. And Wildland Fire Leadership 
Council and the National Interagency Fire Center, that 
integration is happening already, so small investments can be 
leveraged significantly.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. My time has 
expired. I'd like to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Lucas.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, George, I think 
we've worked together long enough I can call you George--you 
mentioned in your testimony about, of course, listing several 
areas, about how the Committee could fill gaps and address 
shortfalls, and the Chairwoman very appropriately went down 
that. Could you expand for a moment, thinking about from the 
Committee's perspective, prioritizing those? Where 
particularly, George, if you had the ability to give us 
guidance, how would you prioritize one, two, three, four, if 
you don't mind?
     Mr. Geissler. No, I'd be glad to. Thank you, 
Representative Lucas, and yes, you can call me George anytime.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you.
     Mr. Geissler. The priorities--what we're looking at--and, 
I mean, I am very aware of a lot of the satellite technology 
and some of the early work that's been going on. In fact, in my 
time with Oklahoma Forest Service we were working closely with 
a severe storms lab, doing early detection and notification 
modeling. And I know that while there's long term implications, 
and development of the resource, currently there's a lot of 
opportunity just to get that on the ground right now, working 
with local agencies.
     The other piece that I would really like to emphasize is 
the firefighter and resource tracking. This is a safety issue, 
and there are a number of different systems that are out there 
right now, and to be able to monitor and track our resources in 
real time, ensuring that we are putting them in the best places 
possible, ensuring that we're utilizing them effectively, and 
especially monitoring them to ensure that they are safe, and 
that we are tracking, and know that they're all going home, I 
think that that's just absolutely critical for us, and we could 
make the changes that are necessary there. It's a 
standardization process and an implementation process that 
really needs to occur.
     And the last one, though, for me, is very much a--I know 
that there's a lot of work here, but it is something that I 
would sink my money into if I had to, and that's the discussion 
around real time smoke modeling, and continuing the decision 
space around that. Smoke is probably the greatest public health 
issue related to wildland fire, and knowing what that--
implications are, being able work with the public to improve 
public health and firefighter health, in fact, I think is just 
part of that mission. And the CDC and EPA, along with several 
other regional smoke agencies, are doing some amazing work, and 
to kind of foster that even further would be a tremendous asset 
to us all.
     Mr. Lucas. You know my district, George, literally from 
the northeast corner of the State to the southwest corner, the 
northwest half of Oklahoma, and weather forecasting's very 
critical to my farmers, because it's decisions about when to 
plant, apply fertilizer, harvest, utilize prescribed burns to 
help maintain----
     Mr. Geissler. Right.
     Mr. Lucas [continuing]. The health of our rangelands. And 
one of the ways that my neighbors and my spouse engage in 
decisionmaking is using Oklahoma's Mesonet system, which 
provides up to the minute weather data. How did you utilize the 
Mesonet data when you were State Forester of Oklahoma? And 
along with that, while you're thinking about it, do you believe 
that such a system should be emulated in other States to help 
benefit, prevent, and fight large scale wildfires?
     Mr. Geissler. Yeah, the Mesonet system that Oklahoma has 
is such a unique resource for firefighters. We can watch in 
almost real time weather pattern changes, wind changes. I 
remember distinctly my fire chief counting down a wind shift to 
people in the field, telling them when it was going to occur, 
and he hit it within minutes, because we were watching it all 
with--on a screen. When I worked in other parts of the country, 
especially if you go to places like here in Washington State, 
we struggle because there's so many microclimates and not 
enough monitors. And--but to be able to do that, to be able to 
talk to folks in real time, and do the prediction that folks 
that have all of that data, like the Mesonet, that--what the 
Mesonet system provides was just unbelievably valuable to us in 
that environment, especially an environment that, the type of 
fuels Oklahoma has, it's a rapidly changing fire scenario. 
They're very quick, fine fuels, and you have to know the wind 
very, very effectively to do it.
     In other parts of the country, when I got--get out I do 
sometimes wax nostalgia about Mesonet, and having something to 
that effect across the United States would be amazing. And I 
think fire--any fire manager that works in Oklahoma is always 
thrilled by the app that we can easily download on our phones 
and do all of that. So it's an excellent tool, I agree.
     Mr. Lucas. Absolutely, the ability to protect both 
citizens' lives and their property. And I know there have been 
many occasions, as you've kind of alluded to, when volunteer 
fire lines--members had been moved in a hurry because they 
couldn't survive where they were. An amazing system. With that, 
I thank you, George, and I yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. The gentlelady 
from Oregon is now recognized, Ms. Bonamici.
     Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much, Chair Lofgren, and thank 
you to Chair Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas for holding this 
hearing today, but especially thank you to our witnesses for 
bringing your expertise. I represent Northwest Oregon, and this 
past weekend the Pacific Northwest faced a record-breaking heat 
wave, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees for multiple 
days. In fact, it was 115 degrees at home yesterday. These 
dangerous temperatures, combined with a thin snowpack and below 
average precipitation, are really raising alarms about our 
upcoming wildfire season. In fact, we have already seen a 6,200 
acre fire on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs 
Reservation in Central Oregon. Fortunately it's been mostly 
contained, but Oregonians have become all too familiar with 
wildfires in recent years.
     Over Labor Day weekend just last year rare powerful winds 
and very dry conditions resulted in unprecedented wildfires 
across the State. Approximately a million acres burned. Lives 
were lost, homes and communities were destroyed. Hazy skies and 
smoky conditions made the air quality in Portland comparable to 
some of the most polluted places on the planet. Thank you, Mr. 
Geissler, for highlighting the health hazards of smoke.
     Now, our communities are really on the front lines of the 
climate crisis, and wildfires are yet another example of the 
need for comprehensive and bold climate action, so I want to 
ask you, Dr. Clements, you said we need to treat wildfires like 
other natural disasters and severe weather threats, and in your 
testimony you noted the deficiencies in our understanding of 
how wildfires create their own weather, and how fire 
atmospheric interactions can affect spread. So how would 
improving our understanding of fire weather help to mitigate or 
respond to wildfires, and how can Congress better direct 
Federal agencies to conduct this important research?
     Dr. Clements. Thank you. So, yeah, the fire weather gap--
knowledge gap is really in--is a problem because we just don't 
put those resources to fire weather, like I mentioned thinking 
about the hurricane hunters. We don't have those resources for 
fire. Now, we have suppression resources, very--you know, tons 
of suppression resources. One thing we can do is we can 
instrument suppression aircraft with these tools, with the 
science tools. I've been advocating this in--for a while now, 
and it wouldn't be that hard, because everything would be 
automated, and we could actually just get all the information 
in real time.
     So harnessing the current platforms that are surrounding 
fires is really important, and I think what we're missing is 
that we can't--you know, when we go to--so, for example, my 
team, we go to active wildfires in California with Doppler 
radar and Doppler lidar, and we're the only team in the U.S. 
that can do that. There are no observations on active 
wildfires. It's not like there's storm chasers chasing fires. 
We're the--this small team, and we get just a little bit of 
information here and there. We need to change that concept and 
make it more of a priority, where we're actually supporting the 
incident meteorologists of the National Weather Service on 
these big fires.
     In addition, I think we could support--funding could be 
directed to NOAA for this type of infrastructure to support the 
incident meteorologists. You know, they're tasked with 
forecasting very high resolution, using models, but they don't 
have the observations on the fire, and some of these fires are 
so remote that we don't have the observations. In California--
--
     Ms. Bonamici [continuing]. I don't want to cut you off, 
but I want to try to get in another question. Thank you so 
much.
     Dr. Clements. Yeah, sorry.
     Ms. Bonamici. I just want to ask----
     Dr. Clements. Yeah.
     Ms. Bonamici. --Chief Litzenberg, last year I joined my 
colleagues on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis in 
releasing our bold science-based plan to reach net zero 
emissions no later than mid-century, and net negative 
thereafter. The plan represents the first significant 
legislative proposal to address the need for climate resilience 
investments, including investing in wildfire risk mapping 
systems that integrate relevant data from Federal agencies, 
States, and partners. So in your testimony you noted the 
importance of risk mapping and real time interactive maps, so 
what are the implications of the expansion of the wildland 
urban interface without high resolution mapping, and how could 
better maps, including parcel level data, better inform 
planning and response decisions?
     Chief Litzenberg. Thank you for that question, 
Congresswoman. So that is the key to what we do, getting good 
data, and putting it in a way that's usable not only to our 
responders, but to those in the community who are working on 
the team that's doing prevention, doing mitigation, trying to 
make our communities safer. And as we have seen hotter, drier 
conditions, the risk areas have expanded. I will say that--and 
I said it in my testimony as well--one of the keys to me, and 
my profession, and my representation as a responder, is that 
that data becomes available as real time as possible to those 
that are on the ground doing the work. So there's application 
in both prevention and mitigation, and predictive analysis, and 
incident command, and real time situational awareness.
     Ms. Bonamici. Thank you so much. My time has expired. I 
yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. Mr. Posey is now 
recognized.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate you 
hearing all this. Mr. Geissler, the Proceedings of the National 
Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled ``Human Presence 
Diminishes the Importance of Climate in Driving Fire Activity 
Across the United States''. This report is significant because 
it found that climate was significantly less important where 
humans were more prevalent, suggesting that human influences 
override, or even exceed, the effect of climate change on fire 
activity. And, Madam Chair, I'd ask unanimous consent to submit 
this report for the record?
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Without objection.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you so much. Based on your experience, to 
prevent fires, should our limited resources be focused more, or 
specifically on what and how, we are building in fire zones 
rather than the broader topic of climate change? Mr. Geissler, 
I appreciate your response.
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you, Congressman, I appreciate that. 
Actually, the--when we talk about fire and fire prevention, I--
one of the earlier panelists mentioned the greatest numbers of 
fires are caused by humans. Whether it be a spark or a 
campfire, we use the old Smokey Bear message of Only You. 
Bottom line, though, is with development in wild and urban 
areas, we're getting more people, and so you have more 
opportunities for fires to occur. It's not that they're not 
trying to prevent it, but it's just greater opportunities.
     In fact, in my own State of Washington, the west side, 
while it does have forests that typically have a longer 
duration between fires because of the fuels types, that's where 
our biggest population is, and we are seeing significant fires 
there. But at the same time, if you look at our forests, and 
our forest resiliency, climate has had an impact on that also. 
And so, combining with the--both challenges, that why a lot of 
what you see happening right now is an emphasis on working 
toward healthier forests, greater resiliency in those forests, 
and making them more for--fire adaptive.
     So for me it's really a two prong approach. There is the 
long term of we have to get our fuel situation under control, 
we have to be able to keep our landscapes resilient, whether 
it's a forest or a rangeland, but at the same time there's an 
education process and a prevention process which we have to get 
people to be aware of what they're doing, be able to prevent 
those fires, and then, in our planning efforts, ask people--
move into these beautiful areas, we have to get those areas 
better prepared for the interactions and the fires that will 
inevitably come.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. And I lost, so--I--can you hear us?
     Mr. Geissler. I cannot hear you anymore. Or I cannot hear 
the Congressman.
     Mr. Posey. How about that? Is this better?
     Mr. Geissler. That's better, sir. Thank you.
     Mr. Posey. I'm asking if you'd be kind enough to explain 
why we need to include our ``built communities'', those where 
we have built homes, roads, businesses, and schools, in fire 
simulation models?
     Mr. Geissler. Easily, because, as we see the roads and the 
homes being put into these areas, our models currently just 
look at it as a continuous layer of fuels. Basically, we look 
at it as trees and grasses. Homes and businesses, structures, 
all of these things change the fire behavior, change the way 
that fire acts on the landscape. Having that information, 
knowing how the reaction of the fire is going to be, or the 
actual behavior of the fire's going to be when it hits these 
communities, is something that will better inform our 
firefighters, and make them work safer, and be able to suppress 
the fires a lot easier.
     Mr. Posey. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Geissler. Madam 
Chair, I see my time is about to expire. I yield back. Thank 
you.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. Mr. Bera of 
California is now recognized.
     Mr. Bera. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and the Ranking 
Member. Obviously this is a hugely important issue for us in 
California. If I think about why I love the State of 
California, you know, from hiking in the back country as a Boy 
Scout when I was growing up to, you know, hiking in the Sierra 
Nevadas and, you know, the Feather River, et cetera, camping 
out there, a lot of those places I've experienced are now 
scarred by forest fires. And, you know, I'm going to ask a 
series of questions, and I'd ask the witnesses to keep their 
answers short and tight so I can get through a number of these.
     I want to make sure I understand, you know, on the sensing 
side, this--you know, I've heard a number of the witnesses talk 
about how we just haven't allocated the satellite resources 
necessary. Because I don't think it's a technology issue. I 
think, you know, we have infrared sensing devices, we have the 
ability to put satellites in space so they're constantly 
monitoring areas 24/7. We have drone capabilities that could, 
you know, surveille, you know, these areas. So I want to make 
sure I understand, it's not a technology issue, it's a resource 
allocation issue, if I get that correct. And maybe, Mr. 
Clements, is that, you know, an accurate sense?
     Dr. Clements. Yeah. So let's--we can use Cal Fire 
(California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) as an 
example. Cal Fire has adopted the latest science and software 
package available, and it allows to track resources, 
firefighters, it puts the fire prediction model in there, and 
so it's the state of the science, and it's actually been very 
successful. So that information gets some DOD (Department of 
Defense) satellites, fireguard data--so they could map it, but 
those data aren't really applied to the research community. But 
yes, the resources--it's a resource issue. Cal Fire's already 
adopted it, and it's very successful. They have a new system, 
and it's for the whole State, and it's a really good model that 
should be used nationally.
     Mr. Bera. Great, fantastic. So I think that that's 
something we as a Committee could work on in a bipartisan way. 
Question for Mr. Geissler. You know, one area that I've worked 
on over the years is--we have allocated resources to better 
forestry management, et cetera, but for years we would do this 
thing called fire borrowing, where we would take those 
resources, and then we would actually spend them to fight the 
fires. I know we've tried to address the issue of fire 
borrowing. I suspect we could do more on the forestry 
management side to mitigate some of these forest fires, is that 
correct?
     Mr. Geissler. Yes, sir. The fire borrowing issue was 
actually helped tremendously by some legislation that occurred 
a couple of years ago. Really the emphasis right now needs to 
be to take that--those dollars and really force them onto the 
ground, and making sure that they are being put into the 
highest priority areas that we have. A lot of times, when we're 
doing forest management, I call them random acts of 
conservation, where a lot of is kind of spread across the 
landscape, and prioritizing the funds, making sure that they 
get to the ground, is something that we should all emphasize 
and work harder on.
     Mr. Bera. OK, great. And, again, we were able to pass that 
legislation in a bipartisan way, so I think this is another 
area where we could work together as Democrats and Republicans, 
you know, to really make sure we're actively managing our 
forests, and mitigating some of these fires. Mr. Litzenberg, 
let me ask you a question. You know, 4 or 5 years ago I had two 
of my local fire chiefs, you know, who happened to be up in 
Washington, DC. visiting, and, you know, just serendipitously 
they started talking about the stresses that we're putting on 
our firefighters, and, you know, since then I've talked to a 
number of--I represent a suburban/urban community, but a lot of 
our firefighters rotate up into the hills to supplement Cal 
Fire, and help with these--so they're almost constantly working 
during fire seasons.
     And, you know, we put together a piece of legislation 
called the Heroes Act a few years ago, which had passed out of 
the House and this Congress, really identifying--trying to 
address the pressures and stress that are leading to 
firefighter suicide, firefighter PTSD (post-traumatic stress 
disorder), et cetera. You know, if you could, you know, just 
quickly comment on the stresses that the men and women are 
under, both urban and suburban, but also the folks that are in 
the Forestry Service?
     Chief Litzenberg. Congressman, I really appreciate that 
question, because, yeah, the stresses on our work forces at any 
level, all levels of government, and private sector, is 
significant, and they are full range, from behavioral stressors 
all the way through physical stressors. The more that you ask 
from a workforce that's already strapped, the longer you ask 
them to serve in terms of hours in a day, or in terms of weeks 
and months in a year, and the more exposures you give them to 
smoke and human suffering, the greater stressors they have. So 
we've always appreciated investments and solutions, but we are 
only just beginning to discover the effects that these stresses 
have on our response force. They are significant.
     Mr. Bera. Well, great. And we passed that legislation out 
of the House in a bipartisan. Let's hope the Senate takes it up 
and sends it to the President's desk. Thank you, and with that, 
I'll yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. Ms. Kim of California is 
now recognized.
     Mrs. Kim. Thank you, Chair Lofgren, and Ranking Member 
Lucas, for holding this hearing. I want to thank the witnesses 
for being with us today too. Unfortunately wildfires in my 
district, and the rest of California, where Congressman Ami 
Bera and I are from, we seem to be more prevalent every year. 
And with 85 percent of California in extreme drought, the 
problem of longer wild fire seasons has been exacerbated by the 
dryness of our landscape and the record-breaking temperatures. 
And adding insult to injury, the wildfire smoke and ash 
negatively impact our air quality and drinking water. And I 
hope we can work in a bipartisan manner to better coordinate 
our Federal efforts in predicting wildfires and adopt cutting 
edge solutions to detect fires as soon as they start.
     Mr. Geissler, I represent California's 39th District, 
where we have, unfortunately, seen the devastating effects of 
wildfires not only in my communities, but across the State of 
California. So how can we ensure coordination between Federal, 
State, and local communities to share available information and 
tools to better predict and respond to wildfires?
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you for that question, Congresswoman, 
I appreciate it. The one thing that I will emphasize is that 
you really should be proud of the national system and--that we 
do have currently. They--the interaction that we have between 
Federal, State, and local agencies is something that actually 
other countries come to try to duplicate. But there's always 
room for improvement. Getting to common operating systems, 
being able to share data, being able to share and communicate 
effectively, is really some of the items that, if we can 
address those, it is--it's critical.
     A lot of times it's just the difference between two 
computer systems, or literally the links that we might be able 
to get through broadband that prevent some of the sharing. And 
so it sounds kind of basic, the need, but the willingness and 
the ability to do it is there. A lot of times it is just making 
sure that the connections are made, whether it be introducing 
two people literally just doing that, all the way to making 
sure that our systems link together and operate effectively.
     The system that was just described, that Cal Fire had, is 
absolutely amazing. And it's in test, and it has been doing 
some great work. Part of the basis of that is its ability to 
start communicating across jurisdictional authorities, and 
that's what we're all looking for, is that ability to 
effectively share all of these resources that we currently 
have.
     Mrs. Kim. So NOAA has matched the processes of designing 
in the next generation of satellites in a split. So have any of 
your colleagues engaged with NOAA in designing these satellites 
to improve wildfire detection abilities? If not, what advice 
would you give to NOAA to help make the future satellites 
released more effective in wildfire detection and prevention?
     Mr. Geissler. So I will say that I am unaware if any of my 
colleagues have worked directly with NOAA over satellites. I 
will tell you that in my past life I was able to work with the 
National Severe Storm Labs in Norman, Oklahoma, and I know that 
the interaction between the National Weather Service and State 
agencies is very strong, and we utilize a lot of that satellite 
technology, and that there have been conversations about how 
effectively those could be used at the NOAA level also. But I'm 
unaware of anyone that is speaking directly to them. But I do 
agree it's a huge opportunity for us all.
     Mrs. Kim. So you're familiar with the experimental high 
resolution rapid refresh smoke model? Have you had input on the 
development of any of these models, and, in your opinion, what 
further research and development is needed to make existing 
models more effective?
     Mr. Geissler. You know, a lot of input has been really 
coordinated through the Wildland Fire Leadership Council, where 
we do have all of the partners at the table. So you not only 
have State Foresters, but you also have mayors, and other 
members of the various levels of government really having those 
discussions. So it's a really powerful forum to kind of discuss 
the needs and where we go forward.
     So going into the future we're really looking, again, to 
try to enforce that, and try to get more of the outreach. 
There's a very recent memo even, in fact, between CDC and EPA 
discussing wildfire smoke, and actually being able to address 
all of the research and coordination that was there, and all of 
that was actually made possible through the interactions that 
we've had at that Wildland Fire Leadership Council. So, again, 
I--it sounds like I'm a broken record related to potentially 
solving a lot of these problems, but there's basic funding we 
need for research, but then there's also just the social 
science of communication, and then effectively making sure that 
we share resources across the table.
     Mrs. Kim. Thank you very much. I see my time is up, so I 
yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. Ms. Stevens is now 
recognized.
     Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Chair Lofgren, for presiding over 
today's hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for your 
incredible written and spoken testimony. Your written 
testimonies in particular were quite inspiring, and I really 
enjoyed reading them.
     In Michigan, during this month alone, the National Weather 
service has issued multiple red flag fire warnings throughout 
the State, and in particular last year we saw fire outbreaks in 
Northern Michigan. And, Dr. Clements, in your testimony you 
focused on programs that are aimed at fire weather research and 
wildfire prediction. Could you tell me more about the types of 
climate smart investments in research that are needed for 
better--for us to better understand the influences of wildfire 
on weather, and vice versa?
     Dr. Clements. Yeah. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the 
question. I think one focus--what I mentioned earlier would be 
this coupled fire atmosphere modeling tool, because it's the 
only tool that actually allows the atmosphere to drive the 
fire, and then the fire itself to drive the atmosphere, and 
that's where we get our most dangerous fires, is when we have 
big plumes, and you can't predict where that fire's going to 
go. So investment into high resolution coupled fire atmosphere 
models is critical.
     And, like I mentioned earlier, it's used in--so Greece, 
it's their national model. They have already adopted it. 
National Center for Atmospheric research is also building on 
that model. So these are the kind of tools I think that we 
really need to invest in. In addition, it also predicts smoke 
at very high resolution, and so you can tell a community what 
the smoke concentration's going to be in an hour, tomorrow, or 
the next day. So that's where I would really focus a lot of 
investment, in terms of on----
     Ms. Stevens. Well--and do you have recommendations, or any 
examples that you know of, of how the Federal Government is 
working across agencies to forecast and predict these fires and 
better inform and protect the public?
     Dr. Clements. Well, yeah. So, in terms of national, we 
have the National Fire Danger Rating System, which allows us to 
understand what the fire risk is, and so that goes across the 
Nation. That's a U.S. Forest Service product. But it needs to 
be a little bit more higher resolution, in terms of forecasting 
certain areas. For fire behavior research, it's agency 
specific. We don't really have a fire behavior prediction 
system at a national level.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. You're muted.
     Ms. Stevens. I muted myself? OK. And then another major 
priority for many of us, including myself, on this Committee 
has been the effort to strengthen our STEM pipeline to ensure 
that we have trained scientists and engineers who are ready to 
help address the 21st century challenges that are before us. 
And, Dr. McCarthy and Dr. Clements, are there skills from the 
fire management side of this work that you believe would 
benefit the STEM workforce, or relate to activities with STEM 
workforce training, and how would you recommend those skills to 
be transferred?
     Dr. McCarty. Sure. I'll begin with that. So I'm not from 
Ohio, I'm actually from Eastern Kentucky, and, funnily enough, 
I'm married to a man from Michigan. My daughter was born in the 
UP (Upper Peninsula), so I know a lot Appalachian Eastern 
forest fire and--but I started, actually, as an undergrad 
working for the Daniel Boone National Forest and learned a lot 
of technical skills. And, as a first generation student, that 
was really important for me as a pipeline into graduate school 
at the University of Maryland to have that applied workforce--
working on fire risk modeling within an eastern forest because 
of Southern Pine Beetle infestation.
     And that was one of the reasons that I was able to get a 
graduate assistantship from a small school in Appalachia, was 
because I had worked on these types of on the ground management 
STEM skills in computing and data science. And so I didn't come 
from, you know, a very prestigious undergraduate institution, 
though it is great, and so that helped me in that pipeline. So 
I do think that throughout, holistically, the wildfire science 
community, this is a good way to get anyone from anywhere, you 
know, whether they're, you know, a woman or a man, non-binary, 
to get involved, because we are welcome. This is a problem, you 
know, across all 50 States. So I would just say that, and turn 
it over to Dr. Clements.
     Dr. Clements. Real quick. So, yeah, at San Jose State we 
created a new Wildfire Sciences minor, and so that'll allow us 
to bring students from a diverse background into our field to 
give them some toolsets that they can take to--like, if they're 
a business major, or if they're a psychology major, they'll be 
aware of the wildfire problem, in addition to fire weather 
training that is very critical for meteorologists to have, 
which is something that we're also doing, and is a need around 
the Nation. Thank you.
     Ms. Stevens. Great. Thank you so much.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired, and 
we'll turn now to Mr. Feenstra.
     Mr. Feenstra. Thank you, Chairman Lofgren and Ranking 
Member Lucas, and thank you to all our witnesses for your 
testimony, and sharing your extensive research and your 
experience with us. This question is for Mr. Geissler.
     In 2020 Iowa experienced 126 wildfire incidents that 
burned almost 2,200 acres. These fires can jump from burning 
grasslands to agricultural fields, wreaking financial 
devastation for our farmers. What is the current state of 
understanding as to how a forest or a grass-based wildfire 
interacts with spreads across agricultural land? What research 
questions remain to be answered in this domain?
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. 
There is a lot of work that is actually ongoing relative to the 
interaction between agricultural croplands and wildland fire. 
For most wildland fire managers, we actually utilize a lot of 
agricultural croplands because, at certain times, they are the 
most irrigated spots on the planet, and we are able to use them 
and--as fire control. But as you know, and others on the 
Committee know, at various sages of the crop cycle, you're 
going to have conditions where crops can be damaged, or that 
the fuels that are remaining on the ground can carry a 
wildfire.
     So basically a lot of the types of fuels that we're seeing 
on the ground do fit within some of our existing models. They 
need to be fine tuned somewhat to--as far as the local 
conditions, and a lot of the local agencies do some of that 
work in-house just to correlate the types of agricultural crops 
that they're currently seeing on the ground relative to the 
standard fuels models that we have. But there is probably some 
ongoing work that could happen there, and especially where it 
comes into crop protection going forward.
     Mr. Feenstra. All right. Thank you. And I've seen that a 
lot with our corn crop in the fall, and soybeans, when we're 
ready to harvest, and a spark is set off by a combine or 
whatever, and we have a lot of devastation. I have one other 
question for you. Iowa is also home to numerous lakes and 
rivers, which are important for recreation, economic activities 
for my constituents. When discussing wildfires we commonly 
focus on the damage and destruction due to the flames and 
vegetation, and to the manmade infrastructures. However, I'd 
like to ask, what consequences can high intensity and high heat 
wildfires have on watersheds, and what additional research do 
we need to better understand these impacts?
     Mr. Geissler. I'm actually very glad you brought that one 
up. Post-fire recovery is something that a lot of us within the 
Wildlife Fire Leadership Council and within the community are 
really looking to--how do we better--do a better job of this. 
Right now, if you look at resources that are available, the 
Forest Service does have what they call Burn Area Response 
Units, BAR teams, that can evaluate and look to those areas to 
determine what are going to be the impacts, how do we recover? 
More specifically a lot of that revolves around impacts to 
water quality, as well as vegetation recovery.
     The resources available at the State and local level are 
very limited. And, in fact, in most cases, a lot of that does 
not get done. But when you have the effects of a catastrophic 
wildfire, or one that removes a significant wildfire, or one 
that removes a significant portion of the vegetation, obviously 
that's going to have an impact on water quality downstream. And 
so the idea of what we need to do, how we address it, is all 
being discussed right now. I know that the National Sciences 
groups are actually coordinating through USGS (United States 
Geological Survey) and others. We're trying to come to a better 
way to effectively address these issues following some of these 
fires.
     And it does not matter if you're working in a mountainous 
terrain, where a lot of people think it is more significant, or 
more visible, I should say, but on all aspects of watersheds, 
if you have these kind of damaging fires, you can impact the 
water quality.
     Mr. Feenstra. Yeah. I really appreciate that information. 
We see that in Iowa quite a bit, where all the sudden you have 
the buffer strip gets burned away, and you have significant 
erosion, and there's really not a lot to stop that until the 
next spring, and sort of the grass grows back, or vegetation 
grows back, so it's always a concern for me. So I thank you for 
your responses, and thank you to all of the testimony of each 
one of you, and I yield my time back. Thank you.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. Ms. Stansbury is now 
recognized.
     Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you 
so much for holding this important hearing this morning. I also 
want to thank especially Chief Litzenberg for being here this 
morning from Santa Fe County, which is from my home State in 
New Mexico. Thank you for your service, and to all of our 
local, State, county, Federal, and tribal firefighters. Thank 
you for your work on the front lines protecting our 
communities. And I also want to thank you for sharing your 
expertise this morning.
     So I think it goes without saying that addressing wildfire 
is not only a matter of protecting our public safety, and the 
ecological well-being of our forests and our communities, but 
in New Mexico it's also a matter of national security because a 
significant number of our forestlands also abut on our National 
Laboratories, and our Federal military installations as well. 
But it's also the single largest threat to water and drought 
resilience in New Mexico, and much of the West as well, as well 
as our future climate adaptation and economic security. And, as 
was noted by Chief Litzenberg's testimony, we're already 
spending billions of dollars a year at the Federal, and local, 
and tribal levels to both suppress fire and fight fires across 
the West.
     So one of the things that I wanted to talk a little bit 
about today is our forest science. So we focused a lot here 
today on remote sensing, fire weather, warning systems and 
hazards, but one of the most significant and important ways 
that we can address and mitigate the catastrophic fires that 
are affecting the West is through forest management, and this 
is especially true in New Mexico, where a lot of really 
exciting climate and forest management science is happening. So 
we're seeing a lot of really incredible partnerships between 
our tribes and pueblos, our local county officials, nonprofit 
organizations like the Nature Conservancy, our National 
Laboratories, who are doing really exciting, complex modeling 
around forest dynamics, carbon sequestration, soil, and ways in 
which we can actually target our forest treatments.
     And, in fact, one of the things that's most exciting to me 
about have Chief Litzenberg here this morning is that he was 
intimately involved in these activities in what is called the 
Santa Fe Fire Shed Program, which is a collaborative of all of 
these different programs, and so my question is actually for 
our Chief. Mr. Litzenberg, I wonder if you could talk a little 
bit about the Santa Fe Fire Shed efforts, and share with us how 
the science was leveraged, and partnerships were leveraged, and 
how we might scale this exciting collaborative model across the 
West.
     Chief Litzenberg. I sure can, Congresswoman, and, again, 
very much appreciate that question, because it is near and very 
dear to me. The Santa Fe--the Greater Santa Fe Fire Shed 
Coalition is a very successful collaboration, and it was built 
from the ground up around the premise that if you bring the 
right people to the table, much like you have, I think, on this 
panel, who can put their two cents into the mix, you often get 
a product that's much better than a single person or a single 
organization could've come up with.
     And in that coalition we have all levels of government, we 
have nonprofit, we have scientists, we have people from the 
labs, and we even have people who don't necessarily agree with 
what we're doing. And we have regular meetings to talk about 
how do we make our watershed and our forests healthier and 
safer, and ultimately protect our communities, both for 
recreation, for life safety, and prevent the large fires, and 
those things that--we've talked about the smoke, we've talked 
about the post-fire debris. They've got huge destructive 
potential to not only primary effects, but secondary and 
tertiary effects.
     And anything you can do to research and create data on 
those things that are modifiable, and toss them into a room 
where smart minds can think together and come up with 
solutions, much like the Santa Fe Fire Shed Coalition, I think 
replication of that across the West and the Nation is much in 
order. Thanks for asking that question.
     Ms. Stansbury. Thank you, Chief Litzenberg, and I would 
really encourage my colleagues--I know many in the fire 
community are very familiar with these efforts in New Mexico, 
but it's a really exciting model, and the Rio Grande Watershed 
efforts that are being put into restoring our forests are 
really a model for the Nation. And, finally, I just want to say 
that there's a coupled opportunity, while we're talking about 
fire mitigation, to talk about carbon sequestration. A recent 
study by the Climate Alliance in New Mexico showed that 
reforestation of burned catastrophic fire areas has a huge 
potential to help capture carbon, so I really think that that's 
an important part of the science that we need to be introducing 
into the conversation. And with that, Madam Chairwoman, I yield 
back. Thank you so much.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. Now the gentleman 
from California, Mr. Obernolte, is recognized.
     Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and 
thank you to all of our panelists. I represent a very fire 
prone and very rural section of the Western United States, and 
so the prevention of these wildfires is of critical importance 
to the people that I represent, and I know a lot of the people 
in this room share that concern.
     One of the things that I was struck by in the testimony 
from all four of our witnesses is the inadequacy of the current 
satellite data that we're getting, both in terms of geospatial 
resolution and in terms of temporal resolution, and, frankly, I 
had no idea that it was still this bad, to be talking about 
geospatial resolution of a kilometer, and temporal resolution 
of only one or two frames per day is clearly not going to be 
adequate to generate the kind of wildfire models that we need 
to predict wildfire behavior, and certainly is not going to be 
as useful as it could be to be able to give early warning when 
a new wildfire starts. So that's what I'd like to ask some 
questions about.
     And I probably could pick any of the panelists, but, Dr. 
McCarty, I was struck by your testimony about this. Can you 
talk a little bit about what the prospects are for improved 
satellite imaging, if we have anything in the pipeline, and in 
particular maybe talk about the fact that--I know that we're 
talking about geostationary satellites mostly here, but the 
state-of-the-art in satellites now is low Earth orbit 
satellites, which might solve your spatial resolution problems 
also. Is there some prospect that we could use some of the 
assets that we have to solve this problem?
     Dr. McCarty. Yes, and thank you, Congressman, for that 
question. I do think that we have a lot of work going on at 
NASA, at NOAA, I know NIST even had a small workshop around 
this a few years ago, of data fusion, of thinking about how to, 
you know, intercorporate various polar orbiting satellites, 
including low Earth orbit, and some of our commercial 
platforms, as well as our open source geostationary, to provide 
better temporal resolution. It's more complicated with spatial 
resolution because you just kind of have to accept the data as 
it is, how it was engineered. If it was engineered at 10 
kilometers, it's 10 kilometers, and you just have to take that 
location, and then compare it to something that's 10 meters in 
resolution.
     We've also had, in the last 10 years, and, you know, much 
credit to NASA, USGS, and NOAA for their collaboration with the 
European Space Agency (ESA), with the Indian Space Agency, with 
the Japanese Space Agency, in trying to improve some of our 
other collaborations so that we have open source access to 
their platforms, and are developing, you know, kind of a cross-
pollination coordination.
     And, to be fair, sometimes our satellite systems are 
developed because they are meeting the needs of the community, 
and not just the fire community. Often they're--they need to 
meet agriculture and food security, they need to meet 
biodiversity and forest management. They need to think about 
water quality, as well as the atmospheres and the lithospheres 
as well, and so sometimes what we need for fire will get maybe 
pushed to the end, or at least the resolution will be 
downgraded a bit because there are these other components that 
also need to be captured in the same platform. And so I do 
think that NOAA's GeoXO, which is in collaboration with NASA, 
is one way to move forward. They did hold a workshop last 
summer with local, State, and Federal level fire researchers 
and practitioners and management to get their input on that. 
But even that system, which was--an RFP (request for proposals) 
was issued, and two contractors were selected earlier this 
spring, its highest resolution will be half a kilometer.
     And so, really, we need to think about, you know, setting 
an agenda where the--we want spatial resolution that is helpful 
both tactically and strategically for fire management. And if 
I--I will return to you for--if you have further questions.
     Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you. I completely agree. I'm 
horrified that we don't have access to higher resolution data 
than that. And as a scientist myself I can tell you there's no 
way you can create meaningful prediction models based on that. 
And, as you say, we've got all of these high speed aerial 
assets now for fighting the fires, it would be very helpful to 
have real time information about when the fire started and 
where. So I'm hopeful that we in Congress can help you to solve 
this problem and get access to this higher resolution data, 
because then we can, as you say, take the next step, work with 
the National Science Foundation, and catalyze some more 
research into this topic. But I see my time has expired. Thank 
you to all of our panelists, and I yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. Dr. Foster is recognized.
     Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam Chair. Dr. Clements, in your 
testimony you stated your team has deployed to nearly 40 
wildfires in California with specialized equipment, including 
mobile Doppler, lidar, and radar assets, and that these tools 
have provided a lot of insights into the dynamic of plume-
dominated wildfires, and how the fires and the atmosphere 
interact with each other on the large scale. You know, back in 
my district in Illinois, last week we had some tornadoes, and 
it was amazing, when you looked at the data that was available 
in real time for--from lidar system and Doppler radar. The--my 
wife and I basically, you know, came to a--got into a safe 
area, turned on the TV, and we could watch the tornado vortex 
as it moved across neighborhoods just south of my house.
     And so I was wondering--you know, I'm very interested in 
the technological developments and sensors, particularly cost 
reduction, that would help us have a much higher density of 
sensors on there. And so, in regards to that, you know, 
roughly--the equipment that you deploy, how much does it cost, 
if you just had to buy another one of those?
     Dr. Clements. Thank you for your question, Congressman. So 
the radar is a special radar. It's a K-band, it's custom made. 
It's not that expensive. It's about 600, $700,000----
     Chairwoman Lofgren. OK.
     Mr. Clements [continuing]. Not including the truck and all 
that stuff, and that's probably a relatively low cost, high 
resolution Doppler radar. The lidars are even less expensive. 
They're about $350,000. And so, you know, these aren't super 
expensive instruments, but to set up a network of those, it 
would be somewhat costly. Now, the advantage of also the lidar 
is it allows us to look at vertical wind profiles, which is 
really critical in downslope windstorms, and understanding the 
onset of critical wind for fire weather, particularly in 
California, with the public safety power shutoffs, and so 
there's a need for those.
     Just to get back to the surface weather station 
discussion, California has more surface weather stations than 
any other place on the planet because of the utilities. They've 
invested a lot into meteorological data for their modeling. And 
so I think we can down--get the costs down if we build more 
instruments, or we can use new engineering technologies to 
build these instruments better and cheaper. So there is a way 
to use it. In addition, we also have the National Radar Network 
for the--NOAA Radar Network that we use for wildfire 
observations as well. So there's a lot of things that we can 
do.
     Mr. Foster. Yeah. I think one of the things we have to get 
better at as a nation is making high tech stuff cheaper in 
large quantity, and I think you might be able to bootstrap this 
if there was just an agreement that we're going to employ--
deploy, you know, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of 
equipment like you deploy all over the country, and you might 
find the cost curve goes down pretty sharply.
     Is there a consensus on the types of data points and the 
collection assets that you'd like? I know you mentioned ground-
based stations. You know, you can imagine drone swarms that 
come in over fires, maybe just more investment in satellites, 
or maybe more investment in just the inventories of all the 
consumables that are on the ground? Is there an agreement on 
what you'd really like, or is that something that's under 
discussion?
     Dr. Clements. Well, I think in terms of the fire weather 
community, we're probably in agreement that we need more 
atmospheric observations, but then we also need to understand 
what the fire's doing at every instant. One technology that's 
coming out, small radars that are cheaper that you can put on 
power poles or utility assets, so that way you can scan 
everything, versus just the National Radar Network. So using 
smaller radars that are getting more cost effective could be a 
really good asset in the future.
     Mr. Foster. All right. And could someone say a little bit 
about the collaboration--the state of collaboration, 
particularly with DOD? You know, I don't think I'm giving away 
any national security secrets to say that we spend a lot of 
time looking for infrared flares for various purposes. And so I 
was wondering, do you hit a roadblock where you say, well, you 
know, we could give you information, but then we don't want the 
bad guys to know we have this capability, so we won't tell you, 
or is there really a pretty good collaboration in real time 
when there's a serious fire hazard?
     Dr. Clements. Well, I guess I could take that from my 
knowledge. What I know is that there's a fireguard product that 
maps the fire in real time for fire agencies. Those data are 
not publicly available, but the technology's--is there, so, you 
know, increasing that collaboration could be very useful--or 
using that technology in a more public framework would be 
beneficial to the research community.
     Mr. Foster. OK. That sounds like it could be a job for 
Congress. The other possible collaboration might be insurance 
companies. Do they look at detailed fire modeling to come up 
with their insurance race on--rates on a house-by-house level? 
Are they big players in this?
     Dr. Clements. Yeah. We're working with some insurance 
companies now, as well as the utilities. I mean, there's so 
much investment needed in a better understanding of the fire 
problem, and so insurance companies are definitely interested 
in the risk, for sure.
     Mr. Foster. OK. Thank you. My time is up, and yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. Mr. Webster is recognized.
     Mr. Webster. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for holding this 
meeting. Chief Litzenberg, you mentioned some items or fields 
of future focus in your report, and things like remote sensing, 
or fire mapping, things like that. Which of those would be the 
highest priority?
     Chief Litzenberg. Congressman, thanks for that question. 
It is a tough one for me to answer because, in my view, all of 
these are somewhat related. And--so if you're asking for a 
priority, it is a difficult one. I can say that the creation of 
a sensing network--I'll go back to the discussion I had a few 
minutes ago about Santa Fe Fire Shed Coalition. Part of the 
success of that is a lot of viewpoints. And, to me, you get a 
better view when you're getting a lot of viewpoints, whether 
it's social science, or whether it's technology and data. So 
the more we can create a sensor network that is both ground-
based and up to the satellites that integrates and gives us 
real time forecasting and mapping, that, to me, is a huge 
priority.
     But that actually falls into some of the other priorities, 
like putting that data in a single useable place, where all 
levels of government are sharing data significantly, using that 
data to create situational awareness in real time for boots on 
the ground, and ultimately a network of communication that 
links all of these priorities together. Again, in summary, it's 
hard for me to prioritize because they work together, but 
that's probably how I would do so, in--since you asked me to do 
so.
     Mr. Webster. Thank you for that. Last week we had the new 
NASA Administrator, Senator Nelson, and he was here, we were 
talking about collaboration, and how much is there, and how 
it's working and so forth. He was pretty confident that it was 
a lot of collaboration, at least from NASA in the areas of 
hurricane tracking, and firefighting, floods, so forth. My 
question would be, this whole idea of remote sensing, should 
there be, or are there already, ways where that information is 
being coordinated and communicated to local and State foresters 
in communities to improve prevention of--and also mitigation in 
the area of forest fires? Do you know anything about that?
     Chief Litzenberg. Congressman, I can give you my opinion 
from being somebody at the local level. I've always had the 
impression that that data exists, and that it should be 
reachable. And in places where there are good relationships it 
often is, but it is really dependent on the caliber of those 
relationships. There are places nationally--we've referenced 
Wildland Fire Leadership Council, we've referenced National 
Interagency Fire Center--where integration is happening, and I 
think it's happening well and thoroughly. But it's not always 
getting down to the community level, where decisions about 
prevention and mitigation can be made appropriately, and it's 
potentially a huge place for future improvements.
     Mr. Webster. Well, that's something we're going to have to 
work on. I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Sherman of 
California's recognized.
     Mr. Sherman. Thank you. I want to thank the Committee for 
having this hearing. I take it personally, having been 
evacuated from my home just a couple of years ago with the 
Saddle Ridge Fire, representing a city that goes right up 
against the city limits of Los Angeles. Mr. Geissler, in your 
written testimony you note that the buildup of hazardous fuels 
on many of our public manage--publicly managed lands are at 
historic levels, and you further note that past management 
activities have actually made our public lands even more 
vulnerable. How can research improve the maintenance issues so 
as to reduce the likelihood of fires like those we've seen in 
California?
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you, Congressman, for that question. 
And, you know, as you said, our forests and landscapes are 
really at a point where their resiliency is questionable in 
many places. Science and research has really been doing a lot 
of work relative to how we best turn the corner on these 
landscapes. There's always ongoing research related to fuels 
and what is on the ground. There's a lot of work within FIA, 
the Forest Inventory and Analysis, world where essentially 
we're learning more and more about what the conditions are, 
what the state of our forest is, so that we can better address 
the issue that's there. And the--I will say the Forest 
Inventory and Analysis Program through the Forest Service is 
one of those things that is kind of an unsung hero, providing 
us a lot of longstanding data information related to how our 
forests and landscapes have changed over time.
     So it's there. It's ongoing below the surface, and it does 
not get a lot of notice from those of us that are outside of 
the community. But making sure that we have effective funding 
for Forest Inventory and Analysis, and then programs like the 
Joint Fire Sciences Program that helps coordinate the research 
utilizing some of that data is really some of the critical 
needs.
     Mr. Sherman. Thank you. Firefighters, emergency officials, 
Dr. Clements, you indicated how they and community leaders can 
struggle with disaster management. Wildfire season is 
increasingly becoming year-round. Our firefighters are being 
asked to work impossible hours in hazardous conditions. Dr. 
Clements, how can we better use scientific modeling and the 
enormous amount of data that have been collected to better 
predict the number of firefighting personnel that we will need?
     Dr. Clements. Thank you for your question, Congressman. So 
that's a difficult question. So what we can do in the future 
is, using some of these state-of-the-art fire prediction models 
to look at what we should expect, how big are these going to 
be, given, you know, changes in wind, changes in temperature, 
and fuels. And so that could give us an idea of what resources 
and suppression needs are going to be required in the future. 
So that's one way to use some of these new models that are very 
high resolution to look at what those needs could be in the 
future.
     Mr. Sherman. Thank you, and I also want to take a minute 
to thank the Appropriations Subcommittee for funding a project, 
or recommending the funding of a project, in my district to 
replace invasive and highly flammable shrubs with native and 
fire-resistant shrubs right there in the area of the Sesnon and 
Saddle Ridge Fires that we've suffered through in recent years. 
I thank you for your comments, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. The gentleman yields back. Dr. Baird 
is recognized.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member 
Lucas, for holding this hearing. I always learn something in 
this Committee, and so I really appreciate the professionalism 
and the expertise of our witnesses, and I thank them for being 
here today. I'm going to continue on a little bit with the 
conversation my colleague Mr. Webster was having, and so my 
questions are going to be to the--Chief Litzenberg, as well as 
to Mr. Geissler. But, Chief, you mentioned in your testimony 
you highlighted that collaboration among local fire departments 
with Federal research, and working with NSF, NIST, or NIST, and 
NASA needs to further grow to improve the Nation's wildfire 
response. And then you followed that with eight fields of 
future focus on this matter, such as remote sensing, fire 
mapping, and others. So, in that context, then I want to extend 
my question to be how can we use these tools that you mention 
there to really increase the active forest management and the 
implementation of fuel treatments? Because I think those have a 
real impact on being able to prevent many of these wildfires. 
And so, with that, Chief, if you would care to comment, I would 
appreciate that.
     Chief Litzenberg. Thanks for the question, Congressman. 
And, yeah, I'll give you my perspective, again, as a local 
responder, and I think my perspective is probably shared by 
many responders and fire chiefs. I said it a few minutes ago, 
and I'll say it again, I do believe that there is a lot of data 
that's being created, and a lot of very smart people, many of 
whom are here today, who are doing great things around fire 
science, and often the missing link is how do I, as a community 
responder, how do I, as a Fire Chief, get that data in a place 
that's useable, and then use it to do prevention and mitigation 
primarily?
     I often look at communities, and we have the term fire 
death communities now, but I often look at communities as an 
organism, much like a human, and if you look at your body over 
the years, you've counted on somebody to get data about you, 
whether it's doing brain scans when you've got a headache, 
whether it's looking at your heart when you have chest pain, 
you know, evaluating your blood. And you get data points, and 
then you have somebody who looks at those data points, and 
gives you a recommendation, and what do you do about that? And 
what do you do, in terms of prevention, to make sure that the 
ultimate effect is not catastrophic on your body?
     Communities and ecosystems are no different, and we're 
creating data points, and, in my opinion, what we really need 
is a place where that data is collected in one single place, 
where everybody is dumping everything that they're learning 
into a single place, and then there's somebody, or a committee, 
or a group, or an organization, much like a doctor, who's 
telling me, as a local community, what do I do with that data? 
How can I make my forest healthier? How can I make community 
safer, and ultimately how can I provide public safety to those 
who want to live safely within the urban interface?
     Mr. Baird. Thank you. Mr. Geissler, would you care to add 
to that?
     Mr. Geissler. Yes, and I--and Chief Litzenberg really hit 
the nail on the head. It's the availability and the utilization 
of all of this data that is being created, and making sure that 
we have the ability to share it across the various 
jurisdiction. And it has happened in some places. I can give 
you an example of--within my own State where we utilize data 
from Federal, State, and local, who we have come together, and 
are sharing it across jurisdictional boundaries to develop a 
forest health strategy for our State, prioritizing all of the 
landscapes across all jurisdictions. And that is in 
collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service, State agencies, and 
locals, and it ties back to our forest health management, and 
then we also have used it on our wildfire strategy that we're 
building out. But it takes a lot of interagency discussions, 
and it takes an environment where there's a shared mission on 
how we need to address, or what the end goal should be. And 
that, again, much like Erik said, is--I--a lot of folks are--
organizations are essentially working on their own and 
discovering things, and that leads to sometimes reinventing 
wheels, and--to the point of getting it all to one location, 
getting the information on how this can be used, collected, 
analyzed, and then sent out and communicated is just absolutely 
critical.
     Mr. Baird. Thank you very much. And I'm out of time, so I 
yield back, Madam Chair.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you very much. Mr. Beyer is 
recognized.
     Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much. This is 
fascinating stuff, and I'd like to start with Dr. McCarty, 
because the--NASA's--the Space and Aeronautic Subcommittee of 
this Committee held a few--hearing a few weeks ago on NASA 
climate science work, and we heard an awful lot about the 
growing commercial remote sensing industry's ability to support 
NASA's earth science activities, but primarily through data 
buys. But the hearing also identified questions about 
commercial data transparency, accessibility, license 
restrictions, that could have implications for free and open 
access to federally funded earth science data. So what are your 
perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of commercial 
remote sensing data sets in wildfire research?
     Dr. McCarty. Thank you for the question, Congressman. I 
mean, commercial data is proprietary, and so when we--and I, 
you know, full disclosure, have been a NASA-funded PI who has 
access to those commercial data buys, but they must be in the 
regions in which my--the project that I tentatively, you know, 
applied for has been selected. And so if I--for instance, for 
FIREX-AQ, which was a partnership between NOAA and NASA, I was 
on the NASA side, I was able to look at commercial data sets, 
and still I'm able to look at commercial data sets, for regions 
and fires that we flew the DC-8 through the smoke plumes. But 
if I wanted to expand that to other States where we didn't fly, 
that would not necessarily be permitted. I would need to go 
back, and request, and ask why.
     I would also say that the commercial data is of high 
quality. It's definitely an add-on. It's one of those data 
fusion products we want to include. It requires a high level of 
computing, and data science, and coding skills to implement. 
Our NASA and NOAA Earth observation products are often some of 
the best in the world. They're plug and play in a lot of ways, 
and our commercial data sets are not quite there, but that's 
not necessarily their business model, so they haven't been 
given the right incentive, stick or carrot, to develop those 
products. They would be something that would fill in that gap 
if we want multiple--daily-imagery. But to really get at some 
of the fire weather, you need kind of, like, a living--a 
weather system, a geostationary system, where you're getting 
something every 15 minutes, half hour.
     Mr. Beyer. All the time, yeah. Let me ask a larger, more 
existential question. It seems that fire science has changed an 
awful lot since I was a kid. Smokey the Bear--I was impressed 
that we heard that 78 percent, or 84 percent, are still human 
caused. But back then, no fires, and we--and then later on I 
served for a number of years on the House National Resources 
Committee, where my--some of my friends were like, we need to 
do much more forestry, because we have to clear out all the 
trees, and that way they won't burn down. And then you had our 
most recent President talking about raking the forests in 
Norway. Where exactly are--and I know climate change has 
complicated all of this immensely. And you--there--I know you 
have projects with prescribed fires, but is there a larger 
scientific sense of how best to manage forests yet, with 
respect to fires?
     Dr. McCarty. We have, I would say, a coalescing 
convergence. There's always more--science is, you know, 
frustratingly like that, there's always more to know. However, 
what we have learned are--you know, North America's a fire 
adapted ecosystem. Many of our natural areas are adapted to 
burn, and so to function they must burn. The fire will come, as 
Steven Pyne, the fire historian, has shown time and time again. 
Prescribed burning is one of those forest management 
techniques--like you were saying, there were no fires, right? 
Well, that's because there was active fire suppression. We're 
now in a fire deficit, where we have many of our wildland areas 
that aren't having enough fires, and so we need more prescribed 
burning. And that's when we talk about indigenous burning, 
prescribed burning.
     And we have some systems that burn too much, in--close to 
our WUI, close to our agricultural systems, but some of 
rangeland systems need to be burned more, and so it becomes 
this very complex--what I like to call a patchwork quilt of 
what the ecosystem really looks like, and so management and 
science has to really view that complexity, and that includes 
our fuel systems. Not just thinking of it as all grasses, 
having buildings, and so on and so forth. Back to you.
     Mr. Beyer. Madam Chair, with the--Chief Litzenberg, do you 
have anything to add in the last 20 seconds?
     Chief Litzenberg. I think that was a solid answer, and I 
agree entirely. Nothing significant to add.
     Mr. Beyer. Great. I look forward to the science continuing 
to evolve. Thank you very much. I--Madam Chair, I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you, and the gentleman from 
Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized.
     Mr. Weber. Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be for Mr. 
Clements, to start with. The State with the most fires, is that 
data readily available?
     Dr. Clements. Yeah. Those data are nationally compiled, 
and so it can be easily accessed, generally.
     Mr. Weber. Did I understand, in your exchange with Bill 
Foster, I thought you said the data wasn't a given. And what 
data was that? Do you remember that exchange?
     Dr. Clements. No. I don't think that was----
     Mr. Weber. OK. Then I'll go to Mr. Geissler. Do we have--
you had a discussion with Daniel Webster. Do we have enough 
interagency interaction, and is there somebody that tracks 
that, and how successful that's been?
     Mr. Geissler. I--we have exceptional interagency 
cooperation at both the national, regional, and State levels. 
There--we have a lot of discussions among the State foresters, 
the emergency managers, on how we can improve it, along with 
our Federal partners at FEMA, and the USDA (United States 
Department of Agriculture), Forest Service, and DOI, and 
others. The collaboration revolves around the National 
Interagency Fire Center in Boise, as well as the Wildland Fire 
Leadership Council, and we really try to go through what is an 
ongoing continuous improvement kind of cycle with relation to 
that.
     The--all of the agreements that are in place, in fact, 
whether it be a master agreement between Federal agencies and 
States, or numerous State-to-State or State-to-local 
agreements, all usually have some form of an assessment piece 
that's involved in it, whereby we take a look at how it's 
working, and try to improve on that.
     Mr. Weber. Has there been a discussion about whether or 
not if you widen the rights of ways in some of these heavily 
forested areas, that that would reduce some of the wildfires?
     Mr. Geissler. Those typically are occurring at the local 
and State level as we do our wildfire prevention planning. You 
know, there's a lot of work that, even within your home State 
of Texas, with the community wildfire preparedness planning, 
whereby you take and look at a community and determine what 
would be the best way to mitigate the risk of--to that 
community, as well as mitigate the risk to the natural 
resources around it. And those are all part of kind of a 
process that's utilized that we try to get done, obviously, 
before the fire gets accomplished. Texas, in fact, has an 
excellent program that they're utilizing in order to have those 
discussions.
     And, to your point, I mean, a lot of it occurs all across 
the United States, across all levels of government, and within 
the local communities, and even private citizens. A lot of it--
but a lot of it involves just giving a framework of how to get 
it done, and that's where a lot of funding and research could 
be utilized just on the social sciences side of how we get this 
information better understood and accepted by our public, as 
well as funding on facilitation and process in order to get 
these things done. If there's a place where we say we need to 
really accelerate on a curve, that is one place that you could 
point to.
     Mr. Weber. What State would you say has the most 
wildfires?
     Mr. Geissler. I think the last time we checked it was--I 
think if you look at sheer numbers it was California. But, to 
the point of Dr. Clemens, all of that information is readily 
available through the National Interagency Fire Center, as we 
all report our fires up through the systems that are involved 
to answer that----
     Mr. Weber. Follow-up question to that is would most of 
those fires have been caused by utility companies? I think one 
of the questions I had--we talked about insurance--and some of 
the testimony earlier about insurance companies were extremely 
interested, energy companies, power companies were extremely 
interested. Would you agree that those--well, not the insurance 
companies, but maybe the utility companies, lines sparking 
together in high wind areas, for example, is that probably the 
major cause of, for example, California's fires?
     Mr. Geissler. Actually, the major cause is humans. We do 
sometimes very foolish things, whether it be dragging a chain 
when we're towing a trailer, or lighting campfires. The Smokey 
Bear message that we talked about earlier still applies in many 
cases. And the causes that you're talking about, they do occur. 
You know, I'm not going to deny that we don't have equipment 
sparking with utilities, but we are working with the utilities, 
trying to best figure out ways to minimize that risk that's out 
there. But if you ask for the--purely what is the biggest 
cause, it's you and I, essentially, when you look at the cause 
data.
     Mr. Weber. So are you saying this world would be a really 
good place if it wasn't for the humans?
     Mr. Geissler. Well, we interact with our environment and 
change it all the time, and I think us being better aware of 
what we can do to prevent that would be a much better place. 
Sometimes we don't think about what we're doing, and it takes 
just some simple awareness to really make us take that extra 
step. Most people don't realize that they can cause a spark 
mowing their lawn and set a fire that easily until it happens 
to them. And we really do want them to understand, and want 
everybody to understand, the risk that you're taking, and how 
you can help us.
     Mr. Weber. Well, I thank you for that. I appreciate your 
indulgence, Madam Chair. I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Gentleman yields back. Jerry McNerney 
is recognized.
     Mr. McNerney. Well, thank the Chair, and I want to thank 
the witnesses. You know, this is really important to me, to my 
district, to people in the western part of the country. I won't 
be able to be as entertaining as Mr. Weber in my questions, but 
I'll proceed anyway.
     Dr. Clemens, thank you again. In your testimony you 
mentioned that we need more coupling of ecological conditions, 
atmospheric conditions, and general fire behavior for models to 
more accurately identify climate change's impact on modern 
wildfire dynamics. Can you elaborate a bit more on how Federal 
science agencies can be helpful in promoting this type of 
research?
     Dr. Clements. Thank you for your question, Congressman. 
Yeah, so, a lot of this--these couple atmosphere fire models 
are--they're kind of--they're becoming operational, but they're 
not national, and they are very high computing--they take a lot 
of high computing resources. You need supercomputing centers to 
run these models. It's not that they can't be done, but you 
just need the resources, so funding centers to do that, or 
funding teams to run those models operationally for regions 
would be probably the best way to invest into getting those 
models operations.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Chief Litzenberg, the Federal 
science agencies have limited or no role in the Federal--with 
the Federal agencies that coordinate Federal fire response. How 
would you recommend Federal science agencies be better 
incorporated into Federal fire--wildfire response efforts?
     Chief Litzenberg. Congressman, thanks for that question. I 
believe that the best way to be integrated is to use existing 
mechanisms, because there are mechanisms that are used, that 
are used successfully. Perhaps they could even be improved in 
this avenue, but they're already there. The Joint Fire Science 
Program is one that's taking good science, putting it in a 
place that's usable to practitioners. The Wildland Fire 
Leadership Council, and the National Interagency Fire Center, 
are also places where integrations are occurring, and all we 
really need to do is put a focus on new and existing research, 
and how it can be used and applied toward emerging issues.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Dr. Clements again, in your 
testimony you talk about both the importance and difficulty of 
collecting routine meteorological data on wildfire incidents. 
Do you think there's a role for Federal science agencies to 
play in collecting more of this data?
     Dr. Clements. Yes, I do. I think that we could--like I 
mentioned before, instrument aircraft, we could deploy more 
resources. Right now the National Weather Service Incident 
Meteorologist Program, which is, like, over 50 meteorologists 
that go to active wildfires and other disasters around the 
country, they deploy, and they can request surface weather 
stations, but it takes a while to get those stations in place 
because they have to be driven out from a location and set up 
in the field. And so we could potentially have other types of 
technology, wind profilers, Doppler radar networks, that are 
higher resolution that could be either deployed rapidly, like 
in a storm chasing manner, or through teams that are already 
established with the incident command team, or the fire 
incident. So, yeah, I think the Federal Government could 
actually play a big role.
     It's just like hurricane hunters. We have those aircraft 
that go sample those hurricanes, to collect the meteorological 
data, but we don't have that for wildfire. And it's the same 
type of information that we need to better model and predict 
what the fire's going to do, and how the atmosphere is playing 
a role on that fire's spread.
     Mr. McNerney. And data standardization would be helpful 
too, I imagine.
     Dr. Clements. Yeah, we have to have standards in the data 
as well. Particularly in some of the, like--the remote sensing 
data, because a lot of these images that you can get from, 
like, private vendors is saturated, and so that means that 
it's, like--you're not getting the accurate temperature, you're 
not really seeing what the fire's doing. You're seeing kind of 
a blob on an image. So having better data standards would be 
improvement for what we have currently.
     Mr. McNerney. Well, as co-Chair of the House Artificial 
Intelligence Caucus with my colleague Mr. Gonzales, one of the 
areas that I'm interested in is how AI (artificial 
intelligence) can be used in wildfire response. Chief 
Litzenberg, can you respond to that?
     Chief Litzenberg. You know, I can do my best to respond to 
that, as the non-scientist for the practitioner side. Anything 
that we can use to take existing information and create it in a 
usable fashion, for those of us who are actually doing the 
boots on the ground practitioner work, to me, is a bonus. And 
if that includes the use of AI, then I say we're in. That's 
something that should be explored into the future.
     Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Madam Chair, I'm going to yield 
back, then.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. The gentleman yields back. Mr. 
Gonzalez is recognized.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our 
panel for being with us today, and sharing your perspectives. 
Mr. Geissler, I want to start with you, and I want to talk 
about tree spatial patterning. So I'd like to get your thoughts 
on this. New research indicates that trees in spatial patterns 
are more fire resistant than those uniformly or evenly spaced. 
Should we be encouraging more managers to adopt spatial 
reforestation, or is more research and testing of this method 
required?
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you for the question. I'm not as 
familiar with the latest research in this that has come out. I 
can tell you, only from a fire manager's perspective, that 
obviously, changing the spatial relationship among stems or 
trees in a forest, obviously changes fire behavior 
characteristics. But then, along the same lines, I do know that 
in our Southern States, where we do a lot of intensive 
silviculture related to, like, plantation forestry, those 
actually have created issues in the past because of the nature 
of the change in fuel spread. So I would have to do a little 
bit more research to give you a solid answer on that, and I'm 
willing to follow up with you on it.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Great. Thank you. And my next question was 
how can Federal science agencies assist in these efforts, so I 
guess I'd turn it back to you. Maybe it's just we need more 
research on it, but I'll let you answer.
     Mr. Geissler. Well, you know, and, again, as this type of 
research comes out, the modification of fuel profiles in 
general, whether it be through spatial changes between trees or 
the removal of lighter fuels, and percentages related to that, 
all of that stuff is--are items that foresters and natural 
resource managers are looking at all the time. Not just from 
the standpoint of fire management, but also from the standpoint 
of just pure forest health and resiliency, to other things like 
insects and disease.
     So, you know, obviously, increasing and improving the 
research availability is always important, as well as--I'm 
going to kind of always tie back to the making of that research 
and information available to the practitioners on the ground. 
And sometimes that--it requires more of a social scientist to 
come up with how to get that best across. But I agree that more 
work is needed.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thanks. And then a somewhat related 
question, perhaps. Obviously, the United States isn't the only 
country that's dealing with wildfires. There's been high 
profile issues with wildfires across the globe in various ways. 
What learnings, if any, can we take from how this is managed in 
other parts of the world that we should be applying to how we 
deal with wildfires in the U.S.?
     Mr. Geissler. There's actually a continuous sharing along 
those lines also. Even within my own State we partner with our 
fellow firefighters in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and 
others on the Canadian side, as we share resources across the 
border all the time. And there's obviously discussion of the 
tools that we use, be it--everything from how we manage our 
firefighter safety to the tactics that we're utilizing.
     You've obviously--or should've heard of where we bring 
firefighters in from other countries, and even the Forest 
Service has gone to other countries like Australia. And, 
through all of those, we have a sharing environment. That is 
one of the foundational elements within the wildland 
firefighting community, is to maintain that learning 
environment as we go and use different tools and techniques. 
And there's the Wildfire Lessons Learned Center and others that 
actually helps to disseminate this information.
     So the experience of, again, getting the right people in 
the room with the shared experience that I believe Erik spoke 
to earlier, you get a lot of people in the room talking about 
the same thing, and you can come up with some fairly amazing 
ideas. And we have made changes to our systems, and tweaked our 
processes, in order to get better just because of the 
experiences that we've had with our fellow firefighters from 
other countries.
     Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you. That's very helpful. I appreciate 
your testimony and responses, and I'll yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Casten is 
recognized.
     Mr. Casten. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our 
witnesses. Dr. Clements, I'd like to start with you, and one of 
the things that's always sort of struck me as the hardest thing 
to deal with on climate change sociologically is that there's 
all these nonlinearities, and we just do a bad job of 
anticipating accelerating trends. Obviously that contributes to 
the increasing numbers and severity of wildfires that we've 
seen, but if you look just at wildfire science, as you try to 
predict what's going to happen over the next 5, 10 years, are 
there major nonlinearities that are either feedback loops 
making it worse, or that might damp it, with respect to 
wildfire science, that we should be thinking of on the 
expectation that we're probably not anticipating those things 
very well either?
     Dr. Clements. Yeah. Thank you for your question, 
Congressman. Yeah, so, in terms of climate change and feedback 
loops, as we change--as the environment gets warmer, we're 
going to change the fuel structures, we're going to change our 
landscape so that can impact, maybe for the better at times, 
different types of fuel structures so we can convert some--
after fire we can convert some forest to maybe grasslands, and 
that could lessen extreme fire, but it can make it more 
ignitable as well. So there are feedbacks. It's not really my 
expertise, so I could look into that a little bit more and get 
back to you.
     But I think one thing that we need to consider, in terms 
of climate change, is that these trends--you know, the 
predictions are--you know, we have to continue to look at 
attributions, you know, what's really causing all these things. 
We know it's climate change, we know it's forest management, we 
know it's climate induced drought, and weather, so--but we can 
still put more science into fine tuning what those attributions 
are, in terms of what's going to happen in the future. We could 
use high resolution modeling in a different state, so we can 
use 2050 climate scenarios, and model what fires are going to 
look like then. That's something that we're planning on doing, 
so that could be one way to kind of diagnose the changes.
     Mr. Casten. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I've got to get 
two more questions. Dr. McCarty, you had mentioned in your 
comments about, you know, we're seeing wildfires in places like 
the Smoky Mountains that we haven't thought about before. With 
these trends, are there areas or types of fires that you think 
are going to be more likely in the future that we need to be 
thinking about and preparing for?
     Dr. McCarty. Sure. Thank you for that question, 
Congressman. In fact, the Eastern Forest used to be called the 
Asbestos Forest by many professional foresters because they 
said that they wouldn't burn, but that is, in fact, not 
actually--that was not true, it's just they have a longer fire 
return interval. So we will expect, as the Southeast becomes 
hotter and drier, particularly in our upland areas, that fire 
risk will increase. And this is a WUI question, a wildland 
urban interface question. We've had a lot of people move in to 
places like Asheville, you know, Knoxville, Tennessee, even 
parts of West Virginia, and, you know, in Pennsylvania, so 
we're going to see more fire risk.
     The other thing is to think about, you know, NIFC reported 
that in 2019, just in terms of burned area, total acres burned, 
the State with the most wildfires is Alaska. And so Alaska is 
some--is a State we need to have on our minds, as wildland fire 
scientists, because in the future we will see more Arctic 
fires, we will see more boreal fires. Those fire regimes are 
accelerating. And, in fact, we will see more of our organic 
carbon soils burn, and then burn through the winter, and 
reignite in the spring. And that's just a continuation of fire 
seasons, and that is a, you know, a very--a different type of 
fire management. And I do think the Alaskan Forest Service and 
the Alaskan Fire Consortium is a very professional and 
outstanding group, and they are trying, through research and 
science, to figure out how to work these new challenges in the 
future.
     Mr. Casten. Wow.
     Dr. McCarty. Thank you.
     Mr. Casten. So last question, with the little time I've 
got left, is really for any of you who feel comfortable 
answering this, and it's a little beyond this Committee. Lael 
Brainard, who's the--on the Fed Board of Governors in January 
said the scientific evidence for climate change is unequivocal, 
but the magnitude of climate-related financial risks are highly 
uncertain, and among those are wildfires, and she noted that 
more than 70 percent of the losses from natural disasters are 
uninsured, and warned of the potential to create abrupt 
repricing events.
     I spent a lot of time on the Financial Services Committee 
thinking about how our financial system is at stress from this, 
and, of course, we've had some conversations about, you know, 
if you were an investor in PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric 
Company), you may feel that directly from the wildfire damage. 
As you think about where there are big exposures to private 
capital from wildfires, any major concerns? And I realize this 
is more of a financial question than a scientific question, but 
you can't separate the two. They're all linked. Anybody want to 
comment on that?
     Dr. McCarty. I will just say that maybe perhaps the thing 
we should think about is that a lot of Americans, their 
capital--much of their money is wrapped up in home ownership, 
and property ownership. And in many of our Western States, and 
of course in our Eastern States, and Midwestern States, as 
they've become more fire prone, then suddenly the likelihood 
that you lose your home, or it becomes uninsurable, increases, 
and that is just a huge loss to private capital. And you can 
only imagine what that would do to our economy, and to our GDP 
(gross domestic product), and just health of our population. 
And so that is something that's hard to predict and hard to 
imagine into the future, but is a direct financial loss.
     Mr. Casten. Thank you. I'm out of time, and I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Gentleman yields back. Mr. Kildee is 
recognized.
     Mr. Kildee. Thank you, Madam Chair. I really appreciate 
you recognizing me, and I do appreciate the Chair holding this 
important hearing. And thanks to the witnesses for your 
testimony. I come from Michigan. In fact, the northern part of 
my district is home to the Huron Forest, which is 737 plus 
acres over 70 miles. It's named after a Native American tribe 
that's local to our region, and the forest landscape is highly 
prone to seasonal fires. It's dominated by jack pines. Jack 
pine needles are highly flammable. Those seasonal fires are 
actually part of the life cycle of the forest. Pine cones from 
those jack pines containing seeds only open as a result of a 
fire. And the Kirtland Warbler, which is a great little 
songbird, only breeds in those young jack pines. So, as a 
result of logging in the forest, the warbler's habitat was, at 
one point, nearly completely destroyed. That little bird was 
almost completely extinct.
     50 years later, due to prescribed burns, and the 
protections put in place by the Endangered Species Act, the 
Kirtland Warbler was successfully removed from the endangered 
species list. And now each year literally thousands of tourists 
come to that part of rural Michigan to see the Kirtland 
Warbler. And so it's not just a little bird, it's a really 
important part of what makes that place so great, so 
interesting, and so attractive to people who come from all over 
the country just to see that rare bird.
     So in the forest we have to have these prescribed burns to 
maintain and control wildfires, but this year, as part of a 
prescribed burn, an uncontrolled forest fire broke out and 
burned about 5,000 acres of that forestland. Climate change has 
contributed to these fires. Due to climate change the forests 
are drier, the air is less humid, winds are stronger and more 
sustained, and it makes it hard to control these controlled 
burns, these prescribed burns. So, thankfully, no people or 
structures were damaged, but this is the kind of threat that we 
face.
     So I'm just curious, and I guess I would ask the panels--
the panelists, perhaps Mr. Geissler and Chief Litzenberg, for 
this Huron Forest that I represent, or other forests across the 
country that do use prescribed burns to maintain forest health, 
as climate change increases the intensity of weather, what do 
we need to be doing, what do you suggest we do, so that we can 
maintain control of these sorts of fires, and ensure that we 
ignore--avoid a controlled burn--prescribed burn like this 
getting out of control like the one we saw in the Huron Forest? 
So----
     Chief Litzenberg. So--yeah.
     Mr. Kildee. Go ahead.
     Chief Litzenberg. Go ahead.
     Mr. Kildee. Go ahead, Mr. Geissler. You want to start, and 
then maybe the Chief could comment?
     Chief Litzenberg. Sure.
     Mr. Geissler. Thank you. And, actually, what I was going 
to let you know is that, you know, the idea of--like the jack 
pines situation, a lot of that revolves around the potential 
need for stand replacement fires even to truly manage that 
landscape, which we don't do because of the risk when you have 
prescribed burns. And that's why a lot of what you're seeing, 
and the type of work that's being done, is on a more cyclical 
basis, and maintaining the trees at different stages.
     But the one piece that I wanted to make sure that everyone 
understood is that when a prescribed burn is planned, a plan is 
actually developed, and what it does is it not only is the 
objectives of how the burn will be occurring, and what the end 
result needs to be, but it's usually very specific on humidity, 
wind direction, wind speed, and others. I think that a lot of 
it, like you said, is making sure we do good planning, and that 
we follow the plan exactly, and then if there are issues, even 
if they're minor, learn from those.
     In addition to that, a lot of the research that we've 
talked about throughout this hearing helps to feed that--those 
plans, and the knowledge that we have to develop them. So, 
again, I wanted to just kind of bring up how a prescribed burn 
can be done, and just the need for additional research and 
information to feed those.
     Mr. Kildee. Thank you. Chief, you have thoughts on this?
     Chief Litzenberg. Yeah. Thank you, Congressman. I'll say 
it briefly. So what you just described is the social phenomenon 
we call fire adaptation, and it goes have an effect in our 
ecologies as well. Back in--hundreds of years ago we decided 
we've got to suppress everything, and all of a sudden we had a 
bigger issue than we had in the past. And now we're realizing 
you have to control these fuels, you have to control risks, and 
it's healthier for forests. The more we can get information 
about the fuels, and the more we can get information about 
weather to use for our planning, the better our planning will 
be.
     And I'll just say one last thing, which is, luckily, our 
organizations have evolved as well, and the science that our 
organizations, and the tactics that our organizations are using 
to manage these forests, are also getting better. So continuing 
to invest in those organizations and our workforces can't be 
overstated.
     Mr. Kildee. I thank you very much. And, Madam Chair, I 
thank you for the extra time. I yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Gentleman yields back. Ms. Wild is 
recognized.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it. And 
thank you for this very interesting and informative hearing. 
The recent extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest is obviously 
concerning for many reasons, not the least of which is the 
safety and health of the communities, but it's deeply troubling 
that we are seeing such a mix of limited water, dry lands, and 
unusually high temperatures this early in the summer. I know 
I'm not saying anything that you don't already know. The 
terrible fires we saw last summer across Western States, and 
the lingering environmental and economic devastation highlight 
the importance of our scientific enterprise in informing us of 
climate risk and climate related disasters.
     The U.S. has a number of Earth-observing satellite-based 
platforms that provide useful data for wildland fire science, 
but we also rely on assets from European and other 
international partners. Dr. McCarty, I'm interested to know, to 
what extent are relevant European and international partner 
data coordinated with United States data, and how can we 
further utilize available international data?
     Dr. McCarty. Well, thank you for that question. I will 
say, as I'm not at NASA headquarters (HQ), some of this I can't 
speak to. I will try to reply back in writing. There are high 
level interactions between NASA HQ and, of course, ESA, and 
other international space agencies. Our researchers on the 
ground, including places like the U.S. Forest Service 
Geospatial Technology and Application Center in Salt Lake City 
tried to utilize Sentinel products, the Sentinel II, which is 
kind of Landsat-like, but higher spatial resolution and higher 
temporal resolution. It's overhead every 3 to 5 days, depending 
on clouds.
     And some of our synthetic aperture radar data, which is at 
a 10 meter resolution, from ESA are now being implemented to 
try to look at both fire monitoring, fire detection, but also 
mapping--better mapping fuels, fuels conditions, including 
things like where peatlands are, soil moisture and fuel 
moisture condition. And so, in the research community, these 
products are being developed, and are being, you know, put 
forward to some of our Federal level operational centers. And, 
of course, the more that we can do that in our data fusion 
process, the better the data is for our agencies and for our 
firefighters on the ground.
     Ms. Wild. OK. Thank you. And, Chief Litzenberg, can you go 
into some more detail about the proposal to develop a standard 
warning fire scale similar to the Richter Scale for 
earthquakes? I'm particularly interested in how it would be 
beneficial for firefighters, but of course the public as well.
     Chief Litzenberg. I sure can, Congresswoman. Thanks for 
the question. So, much like the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind 
Scale, we could develop a scale for forecasting the threat of a 
wildland fire. This type of warning system would require 
coordination between NOAA, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. 
Department of Interior, and State, tribal, territorial, and 
local officials, pretty much everybody across the board. It 
would provide a standardized warning system to let communities 
and responders know what type of resources might be required, 
respond to a fire, what action should be taken, such as 
sheltering in place or evacuating. A lot of the catastrophic 
issues we've seen during fires are in the movement of people, 
and obviously that is, for all of us, the No. 1 value. And the 
more we can communicate with people what to expect, the better 
our response system will be.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, I think there's great promise 
there. And, Dr. McCarty, did you want to comment on that at 
all? If not, I'll yield my time.
     Dr. McCarty. Yes, I think this is a great idea. In fact, 
if you compare some of our fire warning systems to some of our 
international colleagues, often our fire warning system is seen 
as hard to interpret because it kind of looks like a color--a 
rainbow speedometer, essentially, and we would need that. And 
there's a lot of social science and public health research, 
including built environment research, that could be done that 
will help implement such a warning system so it does 
communicate the right thing to the people on the ground so that 
that's not causing problems for our wildland firefighters.
     Ms. Wild. Thank you very much. With that, Madam Chair, I 
yield back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back. 
Mr. Perlmutter is recognized.
     Mr. Perlmutter. As the last questioner. So I want to 
follow up on Ms. Wild's questions. To Dr. McCarty and Chief 
Litzenberg, we were talking about satellites, and coordinating 
with the Europeans and others, obviously the Canadians. What 
steps have been taken--you said that NOAA is a number of years 
away from really having satellites to monitor these fires, but 
can we monitor them with some of our military assets, our 
intelligence assets? And I'm saying we--sometimes in Colorado, 
obviously, we had big fires last year, and we had to call in 
the National Guard to assist our firefighters. Can we call in 
some of our space assets? Have you--either of you heard about 
that?
     Dr. McCarty. Yes. I mean, the project I know about is 
Fireguard. I'd actually like to defer to Dr. Clements because 
he has worked with the data. I have not needed to work with 
that in my lab, and so I just know about it. Dr. Clements, 
would you like to comment on that?
     Dr. Clements. Well, thank you. I haven't actually been 
able to work with the data, because it's not available for the 
research community. I've seen examples of it, and so that's 
really all I know. And when we do deploy to wildfires, we know 
it's there. We know that the FBANs, or fire behavior analysts, 
are getting access to that, at least on some of these big 
incidents. So it's available, but I have not been able to work 
with those data.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Chief Litzenberg, have you had any 
experience using some of our other assets besides--that we 
might have available through the military or the intelligence 
community?
     Chief Litzenberg. Congressman, I have not personally had a 
lot of experience with that, but I'll add to what Dr. Clements 
just said. A lot of what is available, when it is available, is 
when large incident management teams are in place. And, 
unfortunately, the vast majority of incidents across the 
Nation, a large incident management team is not put in place. 
It's managed by local responders, whether they're from local 
government, or from the State, or from the Forest Service. So 
the more that we can get that information that's useable to 
all, the better we will be. I have not personally had that 
experience.
     Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Let me ask this question. So, Dr. 
McCarty--or to any of the panelists--last year one of our 
fires, called the East Troublesome Fire, which is the second 
largest we've had ever, the thing that was most disturbing 
about it, it was growing at about four or 5,000 acres a day, 
and then in 1 day grew by 120,000 acres. And we lost some 
lives, and it was up in a very--it was part of Rocky Mountain 
National Park and--near Grand Lake. I mean, how can we use 
science to predict when there's going to be an explosion like 
that in terms of fighting wildfires?
     Dr. McCarty. My quick answer to that is, in addition to 
these fire weather models that Dr. Clements has mentioned, we 
actually do need better higher resolution--not just fuels 
mapping, but fuels conditions, down to the hour. This could be 
used by incident command, and then that would tell us where 
would we likely see these types of explosive forest fires. And 
again, you know, Mr. Geissler has mentioned working with 
British Columbia, they had a similar situation in 2017, and 
they are--the Canadian Forest Service is working toward a 
similar process, so I will defer to the other panelists.
     Mr. Perlmutter. Yeah. Mr. Geissler, could you follow up on 
that, and kind of explain your experience?
     Mr. Geissler. Yeah, actually. As was said, I--there are a 
number of monitoring systems that are looking at fuels and 
other predictive data in order to give us that heads up. The 
Mesonet that Representative Lucas talked about has fuels data 
in real time is--as a part of it, so we were able to actually 
look at the moisture content and fuel typing at all of these 
sites across the State at any given moment. And so what it does 
is it allows the fire manager to anticipate.
     You know, just this past year we had a wind event which 
took us from a slow fire season to our historic fire season in 
a matter of a couple of days, and a lot of that really came 
down to--we knew that the wind event was going to occur, but 
being able, while the wind event was ongoing to have that 
ongoing realization of changes, would've been another 
assistance. So there are various systems that are in place that 
allow this prediction to go, but they just don't have the 
coverage to really give a national or a regional picture. 
They're highly isolated at this point.
     Mr. Perlmutter. OK. Thank you. My time's expired. I yield 
back.
     Chairwoman Lofgren. The gentleman yields back, and I 
believe we have no additional Members available to ask 
questions. So, before we bring this hearing to a close, I want 
to thank the witnesses for the time they spent with us today, 
their expertise, their testimony. It's been enormously helpful 
to us as we think about what further steps we should take here 
in the Science Committee.
     The record will remain open for two weeks for additional 
statements from Members, or any additional questions the 
Committee may ask of the witnesses. And we do ask, witnesses, 
if we have questions, if you could please answer them, if 
possible, within that two week period, that we would be 
enormously grateful. So at this point the witnesses are excused 
with our thanks, and this hearing is now adjourned.
     [Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

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