Wildland Fires: Forest Service's Removal of Timber Burned by
Wildland Fires (10-JUL-03, GAO-03-808R).
Wildland fires burned over 8 million acres during the 2000
wildfire season, making it one of the worst in the past 50 years.
As a result, a National Fire Plan was implemented beginning in
2001 to better prevent, prepare for, respond to, and repair
damage caused by wildland fires. In fiscal years 2001 through
2003, Congress provided $4.9 billion to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's (USDA) Forest Service to implement the National
Fire Plan on land that it manages. Of this amount, Congress
earmarked $212 million to fund the rehabilitation of land burned
by wildland fires. In general, rehabilitation covers long-term
efforts to improve lands unlikely to recover naturally from
wildland fire damage. In some cases, rehabilitation may include
removing timber from burnt land to, among other things, reduce
hazardous fuels. Questions have been raised, however, about
whether it is appropriate to use rehabilitation funds for
removing such timber, which can be sold. Trees that are removed
from National Forest System land can be either green and healthy
or dead or dying as a result of disease or wildland fire.
Depending on their value, the trees may be disposed of or sold.
In general, if the trees have little or no commercial value, the
Forest Service will use service contracts to have the trees
removed and disposed of. If the trees have commercial value, they
are considered timber, and the Forest Service will use timber
sale contracts to have the timber removed and sold. Timber sale
contracts generally proceed through two phases--a planning phase
and an implementation and award phase. The Forest Service can use
different funding sources to have timber removed depending on the
reason for removal. Congress asked us to determine (1) if the
Forest Service uses wildland fire rehabilitation funding to
remove timber from burnt land, and, if not, the source of funding
the Forest Service uses as well as the types of contracts used,
and (2) why this timber is removed.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-03-808R
ACCNO: A07518
TITLE: Wildland Fires: Forest Service's Removal of Timber Burned
by Wildland Fires
DATE: 07/10/2003
SUBJECT: Forest management
Forest products
Funds management
National forests
Timber sales
National Fire Plan
******************************************************************
** This file contains an ASCII representation of the text of a **
** GAO Product. **
** **
** No attempt has been made to display graphic images, although **
** figure captions are reproduced. Tables are included, but **
** may not resemble those in the printed version. **
** **
** Please see the PDF (Portable Document Format) file, when **
** available, for a complete electronic file of the printed **
** document's contents. **
** **
******************************************************************
GAO-03-808R
A
Letter
July 10, 2003 The Honorable Jeff Bingaman Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources United States Senate Subject:
Wildland Fires: Forest Service*s Removal of Timber Burned by Wildland
Fires
Dear Senator Bingaman: Wildland fires burned over 8 million acres during
the 2000 wildfire season, making it one of the worst in the past 50 years.
As a result, a National Fire Plan was implemented beginning in 2001 to
better prevent, prepare for, respond to, and repair damage caused by
wildland fires. In fiscal years 2001 through 2003, Congress provided $4.9
billion to the U. S. Department of
Agriculture*s (USDA) Forest Service to implement the National Fire Plan on
land that it manages. Of this amount, Congress earmarked $212 million to
fund the rehabilitation of land burned by wildland fires. In general,
rehabilitation covers long- term efforts to improve lands unlikely to
recover naturally from wildland fire damage. In some cases, rehabilitation
may include removing timber from burnt land to, among other things, reduce
hazardous fuels. Questions have been raised, however, about whether it is
appropriate to use rehabilitation funds for removing such timber, which
can be sold.
Trees that are removed from National Forest System land can be either
green and healthy or dead or dying as a result of disease or wildland
fire. Depending on their value, the trees may be disposed of or sold. In
general, if the trees have little or no commercial value, the Forest
Service will use service contracts to have the trees removed and disposed
of. If the trees have commercial value, they are considered timber, and
the Forest Service will use timber sale contracts to have the timber
removed and sold. Timber
sale contracts generally proceed through two phases* a planning phase and
an implementation and award phase. The Forest Service can use different
funding sources to have timber removed depending on the reason
for removal. You asked us to determine (1) if the Forest Service uses
wildland fire rehabilitation funding to remove timber from burnt land,
and, if not, the source of funding the Forest Service uses as well as the
types of contracts
used, and (2) why this timber is removed. For this review, we requested
data from the Forest Service for calendar years 2000 through 2002, as of
April 2003, on the sources of funding used to award contracts to have
timber removed from burnt land, the numbers and types of contracts awarded
to remove this timber, and the primary objective for removing the timber.
We requested data on timber removed from burnt land in Forest Service
regions 1, 3, and 4* the Northern, Southwestern, and Intermountain
regions, respectively* because these three Forest Service regions received
about 76 percent of the agency*s rehabilitation funds in
fiscal years 2001 and 2002. We used April 2003 as our cut- off date
because this date includes the most recent data available to respond to
your request.
In summary, we found the following: The Forest Service relied
exclusively on timber sale funding, and did not
use wildland fire rehabilitation funding, for implementing and awarding
timber sale contracts to have timber removed from burnt land. As of April
2003, 88 timber sale contracts had been implemented and awarded to remove
timber from burnt land in Forest Service regions 1, 3, and 4. According
to the Forest Service, it has timber removed from burnt land
for several reasons* to reduce hazardous fuels, recover the economic value
of the timber, protect public health and safety, and restore vegetation.
While the Forest Service cited one primary reason for having timber
removed for 69 of the contracts, it cited multiple reasons for 19
contracts. In responding to a draft of this letter, the Forest Service
agreed with the
factual contents of the letter and provided us several technical changes
that we incorporated, as appropriate. Background The Forest Service relies
primarily on two types of contracts to remove
trees* service contracts and timber sale contracts. Service contracts are
used to remove and dispose of trees that have little or no commercial
value. In contrast, timber sale contracts are used to remove and sell
trees that are
considered to have commercial value. Both service contracts and timber
sale contracts are generally competitively bid. Winning contractors on
service contracts are paid by the Forest Service to remove and dispose of
trees, while winning contractors on timber sale contracts pay the Forest
Service an agreed- upon price to remove and sell timber from land in the
National Forest System. A timber sale contract involves two phases* a
planning phase and an implementation and award phase. The planning phase
includes two steps: (1) initial planning and (2) project analysis and
design, including appropriate environmental analysis and documentation.
The implementation and award phase includes four steps: (1) preparing for
the timber sale, (2) advertising the sale, (3) opening the bid( s), and
(4) awarding the contract.
The Forest Service has several funding sources available for selling
timber. Its Salvage Sale Fund provides funding for selling dead, damaged,
or down timber. Salvage sale funds are intended to cover the costs of
preparing for and supervising the removal of timber damaged through
natural events such as insect infestation, strong winds, and wildland
fires. The Forest Service uses salvage sale funds for timber sales whose
sole or primary purpose is to salvage dead or dying trees, as well as
those portions of sales that include salvage timber. In addition to the
salvage sale fund, the Forest Service can use National Forest System and,
in particular, forest product monies, 1 for timber sales that have no
salvage component. A timber sale that includes both healthy and dead or
dying trees may be funded entirely
with forest product monies, or the funding may be split between forest
product monies and salvage sale funds, in proportion to the healthy and
salvage components of the sale.
In response to the 2000 wildland fire season, the administration asked
USDA and the Department of the Interior to recommend how best to respond
to the fires and how to reduce the effects of such fires in the future. 2
The resulting report* the National Fire Plan* recommended increased
funding for several key activities, including rehabilitating burnt
land. USDA*s Office of Inspector General*s report on the Forest Service*s
implementation of the National Fire Plan included a review of, among other
things, rehabilitation projects at the Bitterroot National Forest in
Montana. 3 1 The Forest Service is in the process of revising its handbook
on the terminology used for
categorizing funding sources. One of the revisions is the use of the term
*forest product* in lieu of *timber sales management* as a funding source.
This funding source is to be used for expenses necessary to prepare
National Forest System timber for sale and for expenses necessary to
administer timber sales from the date of award to closing.
2 We did not include the Department of the Interior in our review because
it was not a basis for your request. 3 USDA, Office of Inspector General,
Forest Service National Fire Plan Implementation,
Western Region Audit Report No. 08601- 26- SF (Washington, D. C.: November
2001).
In reviewing an environmental analysis that the forest selected to fund,
which was an analysis of alternative rehabilitation treatments, the Office
of Inspector General noted that the environmental analysis contained, as
an alternative treatment, salvaging timber burned by wildland fires during
the 2000 season. While the Office of Inspector General did not question
the use of rehabilitation funds for conducting the environmental analysis
of alternative treatments, it had concerns as to whether rehabilitation
funds should be used on projects whose primary purpose was selling timber.
According to the Forest Service, because the environmental analysis had
not been completed for activities on the Bitterroot National Forest, and
because projects such as timber sales had not been selected for
implementation, the Forest Service had not used rehabilitation funds to
plan or administer a commercial timber sale on the forest.
The Forest Service From January 2000 through April 2003, the three Forest
Service regions we
Relied on Timber Sale reviewed used timber sale funding to implement and
award 88 timber sale
contracts for removing timber from burnt land. The 88 contracts were Funds
to Have Timber
valued at about $8 million to remove and sell about 279,000 hundred cubic
Removed from Burnt
feet of timber. 4 Of these contracts, 78 were financed with salvage sale
Land
funds, while 10 were financed with forest product monies. Forests in
region 1* the Northern Region* awarded most of these contracts, as shown
in table 1. No rehabilitation funds were used to carry out these
activities. (The enclosure to this letter provides more detailed
information on the timber sale contracts awarded by the three regions and
the sources of funding that they used.)
4 The Forest Service estimates that in 1998, an average sized single-
family home consisting of 2,190 square feet of living area required about
1,730 cubic feet of wood products to construct. USDA, Forest Service,
Domestic Market Activity in Solid Wood Products in the United States,
1950- 1998, PNW- GTR- 524 (Portland, Oreg.: 2002).
Tabl e 1: Number of Contracts Funded, Source of Timber Sale Funding, Value
of Contracts, and Timber Included in Contracts Used in Regions 1, 3, and 4
to Have Timber Removed from Land Burned during 2000, 2001, and 2002, as of
April 2003
Number of contracts funded with timber sale funding Salvage sale Forest
Timber included in the contracts Region
funds product monies Value of contracts (hundred cubic feet)
1 60 10 $7,289,751 231, 005 3 11 0 322,797 35, 719 4 7 0 447,159 12, 348
Tot al 78 10 $8,059,707 279, 072
Source: USDA*s Forest Service.
According to Forest Service officials, either salvage sale funds or forest
product monies are to be used for implementing and awarding timber sale
contracts. This approach is consistent with the Forest Service*s *primary
purpose policy,* which the Forest Service adopted in fiscal year 2000. The
policy requires that the Forest Service fund an activity, including any
associated coordination or support activities, from the designated source
of funding* the budget line item* as provided by Congress. If no specific
budget line item exists to fund the activity, then the activity is to be
funded according to the primary purpose or objective of the activity.
Because timber sales have designated sources of funding, these sources are
to be used.
The use of forest product monies was limited to those timber sales where
salvage sale funds were not available or where the timber being sold did
not qualify for such funding. For example, according to region 1*s
Gallatin National Forest in Montana, it used forest product monies to
administer
two contracts for removing timber from land burned by the 2001 Purdy and
Fridley fires because the forest had no funds available in its salvage
sale fund. A forester at region 1*s Helena National Forest in Montana said
that this forest used forest product monies to administer two contracts
used to remove and sell timber on land burned by the 2000 Maudlow Toston
and Cave Gulch fires because the timber did not meet the requirements for
using salvage sale funds. The timber being sold was healthy prior to the
sale, as opposed to being dead or dying. The healthy timber was quickly
felled and sold in advance of the fires to create fire lines intended to
slow or stop the fires.
Even though none of these sales were funded during the implementation and
award phase with funds other than those from timber sales, under certain
circumstances the Forest Service could have used other funding sources,
such as wildland fire rehabilitation funds, in the planning phase
associated with the sales. During the planning phase, the Forest Service
may have to conduct an environmental analysis, such as an environmental
impact statement, before deciding on the need for and extent of a sale.
The environmental analysis, however, may include numerous proposed
activities, only one of which may be a timber sale. Depending on the
purpose of and need for the environmental analysis, under the Forest
Service*s primary purpose policy adopted in fiscal year 2000, funding
sources other than salvage sale or forest product may have funded the
analysis. For example, if the purpose of and need for the environmental
analysis was wildland fire rehabilitation, those monies could be used. 5
Of the 88 contracts, 38 required the preparation of an environmental
impact statement. 6 It is not known if funds other than salvage sale funds
or forest product monies were used to fund planning activities because the
Forest
Service*s accounting system does not track actual sale- by- sale planning
or implementation and award costs. 7 The Forest Service
The Forest Service cited a variety of objectives for having timber removed
Cited a Variety of from burnt land. While it cited one primary objective
for having timber removed for 69 of the contracts, it cited more than one
objective for the Objectives for Having
remaining 19 contracts. The most frequently cited objective was to reduce
Timber Removed from hazardous fuels. Table 2 provides information on the
primary objective
Burnt Land cited for having timber removed. (The enclosure to this letter
also includes
more detailed information on the specific objective[ s] cited.) 5
According to a Forest Service budget official, the Forest Service is
considering developing guidance for allocating the cost associated with
completing an environmental analysis to different programs and budget line
items if the environmental analysis includes multiple proposed actions
that have more than one purpose and need. 6 One environmental impact
statement at a national forest could result in multiple timber sale
contracts.
7 We reported on the Forest Service*s tracking of salvage sale costs in
Forest Service: Actions Needed to Ensure That Salvage Sale Fund Is
Adequately Managed, GAO/ RCED- 97- 228 (Washington, D. C.: Sept. 26,
1997).
Table 2: Primary Objective Cited by Regions 1, 3, and 4 for Having Timber
Removed from Land Burned in 2000, 2001, and 2002
Primary objective Region 1 Region 3 Region 4 Total
Reduce hazardous fuels 29 0 0 29
Recover economic value of the 12 10 1 23
timber Protect public health and safety 7 1 6 14
Restore vegetation 3 0 0 3
Multiple objectives 19 0 0 19 Total 70 11 7 88
Source: USDA*s Forest Service.
Scope and To conduct this review, we requested information from the Forest
Service
Methodology on contracts awarded to have timber removed from land that
burned in
Forest Service regions 1, 3, and 4* the Northern, Southwestern, and
Intermountain regions, respectively* as of April 2003. We limited our
request to these three regions because they accounted for about 76 percent
of the funding provided to the Forest Service for rehabilitation in fiscal
years 2001 and 2002. We also limited our request to contracts awarded to
remove timber from land burned by wildland fires that occurred in
calendar years 2000, 2001, and 2002 because the National Fire Plan,
adopted in fiscal year 2001, began to provide additional funds for
wildland fire activity, including reducing hazardous fuels and
rehabilitating burnt
land. We asked for the number of contracts awarded by national forest and
wildland fire name, the funding source used for the contract, the type of
contract, the acreage included in the wildland fire and the contract, the
value of the contract, and the amount of material that could be removed
under the terms of the contract. We did not request information on the
source of funding that the Forest Service may have used in advance of
awarding the timber sale contracts, such as funding used to conduct any
required environmental analyses because, as previously noted, USDA*s
accounting system does not track actual sale- by- sale planning or
implementation and award costs. We also requested data on the primary
objective for removing the timber. In addition, we met with officials from
the Forest Service, including representatives from Forest and Rangeland
Management, Policy and Budget Analysis, and the wildland fire
rehabilitation program. We did not
independently verify the accuracy of the reported data or otherwise
independently review contract administration or financial management data.
However, we contacted officials within selected national forests to
clarify data provided to us on the types of contracts and funding sources
used. We conducted our work between April and June 2003 in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Agency Comments We provided a draft of this letter to the Secretary of
Agriculture for review and comment and obtained oral comments from the
Forest Service. In commenting on the draft, the Forest Service*s National
Forest System Budget Coordinator and the Director of Forest and Rangeland
stated that they agreed with the factual contents of the letter. The
Forest Service also provided us several technical changes that we
incorporated into the letter, as appropriate. As arranged with your
office, unless you publicly announce the contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this letter until 14 days
after the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies of this
letter to interested congressional committees and others upon request. In
addition, the letter will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at
http:// www. gao. gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this letter, please call me
at (202) 512- 3841 or Chester Janik, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-
6508. Major contributors to this letter include Marcia Brouns McWreath.
Sincerely yours, Barry T. Hill Director, Natural Resources and Environment
Enclosure
Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4 Timber Removal Contracts for Land
Burned in
Encl osure
Calendar Years 2000- 2002 Information on Contracts Awarded by Forest
Service Regions 1, 3, and 4 to Have Timber Removed from National Forest
System Land Burned by Calendar Year 2000, 2001, or 2002 Wildland Fires, as
of April 2003 Total Timber acres
Acreage Contract included in the burned included type (and
contract( s) National
by the in the number of Contract
(hundred Funding Primary objective for
forest Fire name fire
contract( s) contracts) value
cubic feet) source removing timber REGION 1 Beaverhead Mussigbrod 46, 681
473 Timbersale $216, 792 7,561 Salvage Public health and Deerlodge (1)
sale fund safety
Mussigbrod 31 Timbersale 8,032 504 Salvage Public health and (1) sale fund
safety
Mussigbrod 1 Timbersale 5,992 93 Salvage Reduce fuels (1) sale fund
Mussigbrod 14 Timbersale 448 167 Salvage Restore vegetation
(2) sale fund Mussigbrod 5 Timbersale 100 26 Salvage Reduce fuels (10)
sale fund Middle Fork 5,000 14 Timbersale 4,396 303 Salvage Public health
and (1) sale fund safety Middle Fork 1 Timbersale 20, 418 221 Salvage
Reduce fuels
(1) sale fund Bitterroot Blodgett 11, 276 415 Timber 12, 294 3,034 Salvage
Reduce fuels sale a (1) sale fund Skalkaho
55, 252 910 Timber 8,184 6,600 Salvage Reduce fuels Complex sale a (1)
sale fund Skalkaho
920 Timbersale 42, 777 10,780 Forest Reduce fuels Complex (1) product
monies Skalkaho
1,650 Timbersale 278, 519 17,693 Salvage Reduce fuels Complex (2) sale
fund Valley
172, 030 2,375 Timber 84, 246 14,073 Salvage Reduce fuels Complex sale a
(2) sale fund Valley
794 Timbersale 19, 976 1,734 Salvage Reduce fuels Complex (3) sale fund
Valley
2,516 Timbersale 304, 410 17,884 Forest Reduce fuels Complex (5) product
monies Clearwater Crooked 2,673 2 Timbersale 2,747 34 Salvage Public
health and
(1) sale fund safety Flathead Moose 35, 380 310 Timbersale 117, 557 1,418
Salvage Public health and
(1) sale fund safety
(Continued From Previous Page)
Total Timber acres
Acreage Contract included in the burned included type (and
contract( s) National
by the in the number of Contract
(hundred Funding Primary objective for
forest Fire name fire
contract( s) contracts) value
cubic feet) source removing timber Moose 1,896 Timbersale 700, 913 26,999
Salvage Reduce fuels, recover (3) sale fund economic value, restore
vegetation Gallatin Purdy 3,621 19 Timbersale 1,661 195 Forest
Public health and (1) product
safety monies
Fridley 15, 577 77 Timbersale 64, 213 1,200 b Forest Restore vegetation
(1) product
monies Helena Maudlow
10, 678 1,700 Timbersale 542, 358 17,876 Salvage Recover economic Toston
(1) sale fund value
Maudlow 40 Timbersale 57, 335 287 Forest
Reduce fuels Toston (1) product
monies Cave Gulch 27, 659 490 Timbersale 173, 137 4,909 Salvage Recover
economic
(1) sale fund value Cave Gulch 10 Timbersale 5,500 74 Forest
Reduce fuels (1) product
monies Kootenai Stone Hill 10, 960 1,407 Timbersale 811, 554 16,615
Salvage Reduce fuels, recover
(4) sale fund economic value, restore vegetation, improve watershed health
Stone Hill 52 Timbersale 103, 964 1,030 Salvage Recover economic (3) sale
fund value
Lydia 5,434 1,603 Timbersale 1,611, 813 23,268 Salvage Reduce fuels,
recover Mountain (3) sale fund economic value, restore vegetation,
improve watershed health
Lydia 22 Timbersale 69, 388 618 Salvage Recover economic Mountain (2) sale
fund value
Young J 825 406 Timbersale 57, 832 5,698 Salvage Reduce fuels, recover (1)
sale fund economic value, improve watershed
health Young J 2 Timbersale 15, 249 211 Salvage Recover economic
(1) sale fund value Cliff Point 6,627 17 Timbersale 81, 505 652 Salvage
Recover economic
(2) sale fund value
(Continued From Previous Page)
Total Timber acres
Acreage Contract included in the burned included type (and
contract( s) National
by the in the number of Contract
(hundred Funding Primary objective for
forest Fire name fire
contract( s) contracts) value
cubic feet) source removing timber Cliff Point 30 Timbersale 8,742 109
Salvage Public health and (1) sale fund safety Upper
9,017 675 Timbersale 433, 501 8,187 Salvage Reduce hazardous Beaver (2)
sale fund fuels, recover
economic value, restore vegetation, improve watershed health, promote old
forest, provide access, maintain wildlife security, public health and
safety
Kelsey 2,769 473 Timbersale 644, 190 10,174 Salvage Reduce hazardous Creek
(4) c sale fund fuels, recover
economic value, restore vegetation, improve watershed health, promote old
forest, provide access, maintain wildlife security, public health and
safety
Lewis and Lost Fork 2,323 739 Timbersale 143, 160 5,349 Salvage Recover
economic Clark (1) sale fund value
Lolo Landowner 5,700 568 Timbersale 122, 907 8,599 Salvage Reduce fuels,
restore (1) sale fund vegetation
Idaho 9,500 49 Timbersale 24, 461 434 Salvage Reduce fuels, recover Gulch
(1) sale fund economic value, restore vegetation,
improve watershed health
Nez Perce Burnt Flats 22, 500 800 Timbersale 489, 480 16,396 Salvage
Recover economic (1) sale fund value
REGION 3 Kaibab Pumpkin 16, 000 35 Timbersale 3,112 130 Salvage Public
health and (1) sale fund safety Stooge 570 228 Timbersale 204, 300 2,043
Salvage Recover economic Complex (1) sale fund value
Hidden 464 232 Timbersale 80, 000 1,011 Salvage Recover economic (1) sale
fund value
Lincoln Cree 8,000 500 Timbersale 1,900 d 1,900 Salvage Recover economic
(1) sale fund value
(Continued From Previous Page)
Total Timber acres
Acreage Contract included in the burned included type (and
contract( s) National
by the in the number of Contract
(hundred Funding Primary objective for
forest Fire name fire
contract( s) contracts) value
cubic feet) source removing timber Penasco 1,600 300 Timbersale 4,750
1,900 Salvage Recover economic (1) sale fund value Scott Able 16, 000 740
Timbersale 8,537 d 8,537 Salvage Recover economic
(4) sale fund value Santa Fe Viveash 30, 000 1,800 Timbersale 20, 198 d, e
20,198 Salvage Recover economic
(2) sale fund value
REGION 4 Boise Trail Creek 32, 000 95 Timbersale 3,700 90 Salvage Public
health and (3) sale fund safety SalmonChallis Clear
208, 000 260 Timbersale 404, 935 8,800 Salvage Public health and Creek (3)
sale fund safety
Clear 534 Timbersale 38, 524 3,458 Salvage Recover economic Creek (1) sale
fund value Source: USDA*s Forest Service.
a The timber sale contract includes a service component. Under the terms
of the contract, the contractor removes and sells timber, a portion of
which is in exchange for agreed- upon services provided to the Forest
Service, such as reducing hazardous fuels. Congress authorized these
contracts, which are termed *stewardship* contracts. b This volume is over
and above that volume agreed to in a previously- approved sale of healthy,
green
trees that were being sold to finance a land exchange with a private
company. A portion of the healthy, green trees that were to have been sold
to finance the land exchange were burned in the Friday Fire. c Included in
these contracts is timber that was burned in the Roderick South fire. d
This reflects a value of $1 per hundred cubic feet. e In addition, the
contractor is paying an equal amount for, among other things, road
maintenance.
(360329)
GAO*s Mission The General Accounting Office, the audit, evaluation and
investigative arm of Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its
constitutional responsibilities and to help improve the performance and
accountability of the
federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use of public
funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides analyses,
recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make informed
oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO*s commitment to good
government is reflected in its core values of accountability, integrity,
and reliability.
Obtaining Copies of The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO
documents at no cost is
through the Internet. GAO*s Web site (www. gao. gov) contains abstracts
and fulltext GAO Reports and
files of current reports and testimony and an expanding archive of older
Testimony
products. The Web site features a search engine to help you locate
documents using key words and phrases. You can print these documents in
their entirety, including charts and other graphics.
Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and
correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as *Today*s Reports,* on its
Web site daily. The list contains links to the full- text document files.
To have GAO e- mail
this list to you every afternoon, go to www. gao. gov and select
*Subscribe to e- mail alerts* under the *Order GAO Products* heading.
Order by Mail or Phone The first copy of each printed report is free.
Additional copies are $2 each. A
check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent of
Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or more
copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. Orders should
be sent to:
U. S. General Accounting Office 441 G Street NW, Room LM Washington, D. C.
20548 To order by Phone: Voice: (202) 512- 6000 TDD: (202) 512- 2537 Fax:
(202) 512- 6061
To Report Fraud, Contact:
Waste, and Abuse in Web site: www. gao. gov/ fraudnet/ fraudnet. htm E-
mail: fraudnet@ gao. gov Federal Programs
Automated answering system: (800) 424- 5454 or (202) 512- 7470 Public
Affairs Jeff Nelligan, Managing Director, NelliganJ@ gao. gov (202) 512-
4800 U. S. General Accounting Office, 441 G Street NW, Room 7149
Washington, D. C. 20548
Page 1 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts United
States General Accounting Office Washington, D. C. 20548
Page 1 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
A
Page 2 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 3 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 4 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 5 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 6 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 7 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 8 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Page 9 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Enclosure
Enclosure Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4 Timber Removal Contracts for
Land Burned in Calendar Years 2000- 2002
Page 10 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Enclosure Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4 Timber Removal Contracts for
Land Burned in Calendar Years 2000- 2002
Page 11 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
Enclosure Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4 Timber Removal Contracts for
Land Burned in Calendar Years 2000- 2002
Page 12 GAO- 03- 808R Forest Service Burnt Timber Removal Efforts
This is a work of the U. S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without further permission from GAO. However, because this
work may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material
separately.
*** End of document. ***