[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 194 (Tuesday, December 18, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               WILDLAND FIRE SAFETY AND TRANSPARENCY ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 18, 2007

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam Speaker, today I am introducing a bill 
to promote wildland firefighter safety and facilitate agency and 
congressional oversight of the Federal agencies' wildland firefighter 
safety practices and policies.
  The legislation is identical to a bill introduced by Senator Cantwell 
and cosponsored by my Colorado colleague, Senator Ken Salazar. That 
measure (S. 1152) has been favorably reported from the Senate's 
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and I am introducing a House 
companion to assist in securing enactment of the legislation.
  The bill would require Interior Department agencies and the Forest 
Service to provide Congress with an annual joint report on their 
wildland firefighter safety practices, including training programs and 
activities for wildland fire suppression, prescribed burning, and 
wildland fire use.
  This will encourage greater focus in the agencies and can assist in 
our oversight of these important agency activities.
  Ensuring timely and sufficient information on the agencies' safety 
practices and policies is critical to such oversight. For example, the 
Federal agencies currently do not specifically track the portion of 
their wildfire-related funding that is expended for wildland 
firefighter safety and training, making oversight of safety program 
funding difficult.
  Madam Speaker, wildland firefighting has long been a dangerous 
activity, as shown by a report from the National Wildfire Coordinating 
Group listing 945 fatalities resulting from wildland fire accidents 
since 1910. And while evidently from 1910 until the late 1970s and 
early 1980s, the number of Federal wildland fire fatalities was 
trending downward, but that trend has reversed, with the number of 
Federal fatalities slowly increasing since then.
  This disturbing trend reflects the fact that in recent years wildfire 
behavior has become more extreme, the wildland-urban interface has 
grown rapidly, and the number and size of wildfires has increased 
significantly. Despite improvements in wildfire fighting technologies, 
these and other factors combine to make wildland firefighting more 
complex today than ever before.
  The 1994 deaths of fourteen Forest Service firefighters on Storm King 
Mountain in Garfield County, Colorado, followed by four more deaths in 
the Thirtymile Fire in 2001, two in the Cramer Fire in 2003, five in 
the Esperanza Fire in 2006, and many others, particularly highlight the 
need for continual improvement in and oversight of safety policies and 
practices.
  A number of recent reports have identified serious concerns with the 
agencies' safety practices. The Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration found ``serious and willful'' violations of safety 
standards by the Forest Service in its investigation of Thirtymile Fire 
fatalities, noting that a number of them were similar to failures which 
occurred at the Storm King Mountain fire. It also found willful, 
serious and repeated violations of safety regulations during its 
investigation of the Cramer Fire.
  The agencies' growing reliance on contract wildfire fighting crews 
also has presented safety challenges. A report by the Department of 
Agriculture's Office of Inspector General (Report No. 08601-42-SF, 
March 2006) identified significant problems with oversight and 
administration of the Forest Service contracts and agreements for these 
private crews. The report's ``findings confirm the need to address 
serious control weaknesses with respect to the firefighting contract 
crews,'' which led the Inspector General to recommend, among other 
things, improving oversight of contract crews' qualifications and 
training.
  These and other reports highlight the need for Congress and the 
Federal agencies to improve oversight in the area of wildfire safety. 
The agencies indicated at a recent Committee oversight hearing on 
wildfire that they are working on making some major changes to their 
training and other safety programs, which further highlights the need 
for Congress to keep abreast of the agencies' wildfire safety program.
  This legislation is intended to assist in that effort, and I think it 
deserves the support of all our colleagues.

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