Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to	 
Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats	 
(01-MAY-06, GAO-06-671R).					 
                                                                 
The wildland fire problems facing our nation continue to grow.	 
The number of acres burned by wildland fires annually from 2000  
to 2005 was 70 percent greater than the average burned annually  
during the 1990s, while appropriations for the federal		 
government's wildland fire management activities tripled from	 
about $1 billion in fiscal year 1999 to nearly $3 billion in	 
fiscal year 2005. Experts believe that catastrophic damage from  
wildland fire probably will continue to increase until an	 
adequate long-term federal response, coordinated with others, is 
implemented and has had time to take effect. In the past 7 years,
the federal government has made important progress in putting	 
into place basic components of a framework for managing and	 
responding to the nation's wildland fire problems. Many 	 
challenges lie ahead, however, if the federal agencies having	 
primary responsibility for managing wildland fire issues--the	 
Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture and the	 
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park Service (NPS) 
within the Department of the Interior--are to address the	 
problems in a timely and effective manner. Most notably, as we	 
reported in January 2005, the agencies need to develop a cohesive
strategy that identifies the available long-term options and	 
related funding requirements for reducing excess vegetation that 
could fuel wildland fires and for responding to wildland fires	 
when they occur. The agencies and the Congress need such a	 
strategy in order to make informed decisions about an effective  
and affordable long-term approach for addressing problems that	 
have been decades in the making and will take decades more to	 
resolve. In our January 2005 report, recognizing that the	 
development of a cohesive strategy that includes long-term	 
options and funding was itself a long-term effort, we recommended
that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior provide the 
Congress with a joint tactical plan outlining the critical steps 
the agencies planned to take, together with related time frames, 
to complete such a cohesive strategy. In responding to that	 
report, officials from Agriculture and Interior said they would  
produce an initial tactical plan by August 2005. Our prior work  
also identified several tasks, each with its own challenges, that
the agencies must complete prior to implementing such a strategy,
including finishing data systems needed to identify the extent,  
severity, and location of wildland fire threats to the nation's  
communities and ecosystems; updating local fire management plans 
to better specify the actions needed to effectively address these
threats; and assessing the cost-effectiveness and affordability  
of options for reducing fuels. In this context, Congress asked us
to provide information on (1) the progress that the Departments  
of Agriculture and the Interior have made over the past year in  
developing a tactical plan outlining the steps and time frames	 
needed to complete a cohesive strategy for addressing wildland	 
fire threats, as we recommended; and (2) the agencies' efforts to
address the challenges GAO believes they are likely to face as	 
they develop this cohesive strategy.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-06-671R					        
    ACCNO:   A52819						        
  TITLE:     Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency       
Efforts to Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire  
Threats 							 
     DATE:   05/01/2006 
  SUBJECT:   Disaster planning					 
	     Disaster recovery					 
	     Emergency preparedness				 
	     Funds management					 
	     Geographic information systems			 
	     Interagency relations				 
	     Natural disasters					 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Wildfires						 
	     Wildland fires					 
	     Forest Service/Dept. of the Interior		 
	     LANDFIRE System					 
                                                                 

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GAO-06-671R

     

     * Number of plans needed
     * Number of plans completed
     * Percentage of needed plans completed
     * Percentage of plans using template
     * Enclosure I
     * Comments from the Forest Service
     * GAO Comments
     * We have modified our draft to include the agency's statement
     * We have modified our matters for congressional consideration
     * Enclosure II
     * Comments from the Department of the Interior
     * GAO Comments
     * In identifying the weaknesses that we found in our previous
     * We have modified our draft to include the department's state
     * We have modified our matters for congressional consideration
     * PDF6-Ordering Information.pdf
          * Order by Mail or Phone

May 1, 2006

The Honorable Charles H. Taylor

Chairman

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives

Subject: Wildland Fire Management: Update on Federal Agency Efforts to
Develop a Cohesive Strategy to Address Wildland Fire Threats

The wildland fire problems facing our nation continue to grow. The number
of acres burned by wildland fires annually from 2000 to 2005 was 70
percent greater than the average burned annually during the 1990s, while
appropriations for the federal government's wildland fire management
activities tripled from about $1 billion in fiscal year 1999 to nearly $3
billion in fiscal year 2005. Experts believe that catastrophic damage from
wildland fire probably will continue to increase until an adequate
long-term federal response, coordinated with others, is implemented and
has had time to take effect.

In the past 7 years, the federal government has made important progress in
putting into place basic components of a framework for managing and
responding to the nation's wildland fire problems. Many challenges lie
ahead, however, if the federal agencies having primary responsibility for
managing wildland fire issues-the Forest Service within the Department of
Agriculture and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and National Park
Service (NPS) within the Department of the Interior-are to address the
problems in a timely and effective manner. Most notably, as we reported in
January 2005,1 the agencies need to develop a cohesive strategy that
identifies the available long-term options and related funding
requirements for reducing excess vegetation that could fuel wildland fires
and for responding to wildland fires when they occur. The agencies and the
Congress need such a strategy in order to make informed decisions about an
effective and affordable long-term approach for addressing problems that
have been decades in the making and will take decades more to resolve.

1GAO, Wildland Fire Management: Important Progress Has Been Made, but
Challenges Remain to Completing a Cohesive Strategy, GAO-05-147
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 14, 2005).

In our January 2005 report, recognizing that the development of a cohesive
strategy that includes long-term options and funding was itself a
long-term effort, we recommended that the Secretaries of Agriculture and
the Interior provide the Congress with a joint tactical plan outlining the
critical steps the agencies planned to take, together with related time
frames, to complete such a cohesive strategy. In responding to that
report, officials from Agriculture and Interior said they would produce an
initial tactical plan by August 2005.

Our prior work also identified several tasks, each with its own
challenges, that the agencies must complete prior to implementing such a
strategy, including

           o  finishing data systems needed to identify the extent, severity,
           and location of wildland fire threats to the nation's communities
           and ecosystems;

           o  updating local fire management plans to better specify the
           actions needed to effectively address these threats; and

           o  assessing the cost-effectiveness and affordability of options
           for reducing fuels. 

In this context, you asked us to provide information on (1) the progress
that the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior have made over the
past year in developing a tactical plan outlining the steps and time
frames needed to complete a cohesive strategy for addressing wildland fire
threats, as we recommended; and (2) the agencies' efforts to address the
challenges GAO believes they are likely to face as they develop this
cohesive strategy. To obtain this information, we reviewed agency
documents regarding wildland fire management activities and interviewed
federal and nonfederal officials knowledgeable about the agencies'
wildland fire management efforts. We conducted our work in March and April
2006 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief

The agencies have not prepared a tactical plan outlining the critical
steps and associated time frames for completing a cohesive wildland fire
management strategy, as we recommended. And while the agencies completed a
February 2006 interagency document entitled "Protecting People and Natural
Resources: A Cohesive Fuels Treatment Strategy," this document does not
identify long-term options and related funding needed for reducing fuels
and responding to wildland fires when they occur, as we called for. Agency
officials initially told us that they would not be able to produce such a
strategy because the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) does not allow
them to publish long-term cost estimates-thus rendering a tactical plan
unnecessary. In responding to a draft of this report, the agencies
commented that OMB does not believe that the agencies will be able to
produce credible long-term funding estimates until two key data systems to
help identify wildland fire threats and allocate fire management resources
are more fully operational. OMB officials stated

that they will allow the agencies to publish such estimates, but only when
the agencies have sufficiently reliable data on which to base them.

The agencies have made progress on the three primary tasks we identified
as important to developing a wildland fire management strategy, although
challenges remain.

           o  LANDFIRE, a geospatial data and modeling system, will assist
           the agencies in identifying the extent, severity, and location of
           wildland fire threats to the nation's communities and ecosystems.
           LANDFIRE data are nearly complete for most of the western United
           States, with data for the remainder of the country scheduled to be
           completed in 2009. The agencies will need to ensure that LANDFIRE
           data are kept current in order to reflect landscape-altering
           events such as large fires and hurricanes.

           o  About 95 percent of the agencies' individual land management
           units have completed fire management plans in accordance with
           agency requirements promulgated in 2001. However, the agencies do
           not require regular plan updates to ensure that new data (from
           LANDFIRE, for example) are incorporated into the plans.

           o  The Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system is a computer-based
           model designed to assist the agencies in cost-effectively
           allocating the resources necessary to address wildland fires. The
           first of FPA's two phases is nearly complete, with the second
           phase expected to be completed in 2008. However, gaps in the data
           collected for FPA may reduce its usefulness in allocating
           resources.

Given the importance of a cohesive strategy for wildland fire management
that includes long-term options and associated funding requirements, and
the need to understand how and when the agencies will produce such a
strategy, the Congress may want to consider requiring the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior to develop a tactical plan outlining the key
steps and time frames required to complete this cohesive strategy.
Further, if the Congress believes it will need information on options and
related funding before 2009-the scheduled completion date for LANDFIRE,
which the agencies say they will need in order to produce credible funding
estimates-it may wish to look to an independent source to provide interim
information, perhaps by requiring the secretaries to contract with a third
party to do so.

In responding to a draft of this report, the Forest Service and the
Department of the Interior generally agreed with our findings, and with
the need for a cohesive strategy and an associated tactical plan. However,
given the agencies' additional comments about OMB's specific objections to
their publishing long-term funding estimates critical to a cohesive
strategy, and OMB's confirmation that it will allow the agencies to
produce such estimates provided they have sufficiently reliable data on
which to base the estimates, we revised the matters for congressional
consideration contained

in our draft report. See the Agency Comments and Our Evaluation section,
as well as enclosures I and II, for the agencies' comments and our
responses.

Background

Wildland fire triggered by lightning is a normal, inevitable, and
necessary ecological process that periodically removes excess undergrowth,
small trees, and vegetation to renew ecosystem productivity. However,
various human land use and management practices, including several decades
of fire suppression activities, have reduced the normal frequency of
wildland fires in many forest and rangeland ecosystems and have resulted
in abnormally dense and continuous accumulations of vegetation that can
fuel uncharacteristically large and intense wildland fires. Such large
intense fires increasingly threaten catastrophic ecosystem damage and also
increasingly threaten human lives, health, property, and infrastructure in
the wildland-urban interface. Federal researchers estimate that vegetative
conditions that can fuel such fires exist on 90 million to 200 million
acres of federal lands in the contiguous United States, and that these
conditions also exist on many nonfederal lands.

Our reviews over the last 7 years identified several weaknesses in the
federal government's management response to wildland fire issues,
including

           o  the lack of a national strategy that addressed the likely high
           costs of needed fuel reduction efforts and the need to prioritize
           these efforts;

           o  shortcomings in federal planning and implementation at the
           local level;

           o  the lack of basic data, such as the amount and location of
           lands needing fuel reduction;

           o  ineffective coordination among federal agencies and
           collaboration between these agencies and nonfederal entities; and

           o  insufficient accountability for federal expenditures and
           performance in wildland fire management.

Because of these weaknesses, and because of the likelihood that wildland
fire problems will take decades to resolve, we concluded that the agencies
needed a cohesive, long-term federal wildland fire management strategy
focusing on identifying options for reducing fuels over the long term in
order to decrease future wildland fire risks. We also said that the
strategy should identify the needed funding associated with those
different fuel reduction options over time, so that the agencies and the
Congress could make cost-effective, strategic funding decisions.

The agencies have several wildland fire management activities under way
that will be important to the development of a long-term cohesive
strategy. In 2003, Agriculture and Interior approved funding for
development of a geospatial data and modeling

system, called LANDFIRE, designed to generate comprehensive maps of
vegetation, fire, and fuel characteristics nationally and to enable
comparisons of conditions between different field locations nationwide.
When operational, LANDFIRE data and enhanced models of likely fire
behavior thus will help identify the nature and magnitude of the wildland
fire risks confronting numerous community and ecosystem resources, such as
residential and commercial structures, species habitat, air and water
quality, and soils. The agencies plan to use this information to better
support their strategic decisions on preparedness, suppression, the
location and design of fuel reduction projects, and other land management
activities.

Another element of the agencies' wildland fire management strategy is the
preparation of fire management plans, which are local plans prepared by
individual agency management units (such as wildlife refuges or national
forests) to define each unit's program to prepare for and manage fires.
Fire management plans are important for identifying the fuel reduction,
preparedness, suppression, and rehabilitation actions needed at the local
level to effectively address wildland fire threats.

Finally, the agencies are implementing FPA, an interagency system intended
to provide a single mechanism for planning and budgeting agency activities
to prepare for, and respond to, wildland fire.2 FPA, which will use
LANDFIRE data when available, is designed to identify the most
cost-effective allocations of annual preparedness funding for implementing
agency field units' local fire management plans, taking into account fire
risk, resources to be protected, available firefighting assets, and other
information.

Neither a Tactical Plan Nor a Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy That
Includes Long-Term Options and Needed Funding Have Been Completed

Officials at Agriculture and Interior told us the agencies have not
developed the tactical plan we called for, outlining the critical steps
the agencies will take, together with related time frames, to complete a
cohesive strategy for wildland fire management-despite their commitment to
do so in their response to our January 2005 report. And while the agencies
completed a February 2006 interagency document entitled "Protecting People
and Natural Resources: A Cohesive Fuels Treatment Strategy," this document
does not identify long-term options and related funding needed for
reducing fuels and responding to wildland fires when they occur.

Agency officials initially told us that they would be unable to ever
produce such a strategy because OMB will not allow them to publish
long-term cost estimates-making a tactical plan unnecessary. In responding
to a draft of this report, the agencies commented that OMB does not
believe the agencies can produce credible

2FPA is being implemented in response to a congressional committee
direction to improve budget allocation tools. See GAO, Wildland Fire
Management: Improved Planning Will Help Agencies Better Identify
Fire-Fighting Preparedness Needs, GAO-02-158 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 29,
2002).

long-term funding estimates until LANDFIRE and FPA are more fully
operational. OMB officials stated that they will allow the agencies to
publish long-term cost estimates, but only when they have sufficiently
reliable data to develop credible estimates, and that LANDFIRE and FPA
will be critical to doing so. Given OMB's concerns, it appears unlikely
that a cohesive strategy that includes long-term options and needed
funding will be developed before 2009, the scheduled completion date for
LANDFIRE.

Agency officials told us that, although their recently published cohesive
strategy does not contain long-term options and needed funding, the
agencies are taking steps to increase the effectiveness of their wildland
fire management. The Wildland Fire Leadership Council is developing a
comprehensive framework to monitor hazardous fuels reduction projects,3
and is conducting a review of the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy
Implementation Plan.4 The comprehensive monitoring framework will, among
other activities, evaluate the effect of fuels treatments intended to
reduce the risk of wildland fire and the extent of collaboration among
federal, state, and local entities. Similarly, the review of the
implementation plan, which an Interior official told us will be completed
by midsummer 2006, will incorporate performance measures to evaluate
whether fuels treatment activities are meeting their intended objectives.
However, both of these efforts focus on the effects of fuels treatment
activities, rather than providing options and needed funding for potential
future wildland fire management activities.

Progress Has Been Made on LANDFIRE, Fire Management Plans, and FPA, but
Challenges Remain

The agencies have made progress in implementing three ongoing efforts that
are critical to developing and implementing a cohesive wildland fire
management strategy: LANDFIRE, fire management plans, and FPA. However,
given the evolving nature of these efforts-particularly LANDFIRE and
FPA-it will be important for the agencies to remain vigilant in ensuring
that these efforts incorporate up-to-date and comprehensive data, in order
to deliver on their promise.

LANDFIRE

According to agency officials, LANDFIRE data have been collected for most
of the western United States and are currently being validated, a process
that should be completed by the end of fiscal year 2006. Data validation
includes an internal data

3The Wildland Fire Leadership Council was established in April 2002 to
support the implementation and coordination of federal wildland fire
management activities. The council includes membership from Agriculture
and Interior as well as the agencies with wildland fire management
responsibilities.

4The 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy, published in 2001 by the Departments
of Agriculture and the Interior and the Western Governors Association, and
the associated implementation plan detail goals, timelines, and
responsibilities for various actions related to wildland fire management.

quality assurance and quality control process, according to these
officials, as well as extensive work with local agency fire managers to
ensure that the information produced by LANDFIRE accurately represents
on-the-ground conditions. Data for the remaining contiguous states are
scheduled to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2008, and for Alaska
and Hawaii by the end of fiscal year 2009. In May 2006, LANDFIRE's
Executive Oversight Committee, an interagency group of managers
responsible for overseeing the project, will be conducting a review to
evaluate the project's objectives, schedule, budget, data development, and
data use.

As of March 2006, according to agency officials, almost $18 million of
LANDFIRE's total expected cost of about $39 million has been spent.
However, these officials also told us that, as of the same date, LANDFIRE
was about 6 months behind the original production schedule, and agencies
still face challenges regarding completion and implementation. The primary
challenge facing LANDFIRE, according to agency officials, is keeping the
data current in the face of landscape-altering events such as hurricanes
and fires. Without up-to-date data, agency managers will have difficulty
using LANDFIRE to identify existing vegetation and other landscape
characteristics-information that is essential to developing an appropriate
wildland fire management strategy. And while it is possible to acquire new
data for particular areas that have undergone change, according to agency
officials, integrating new data into the existing LANDFIRE data set can be
problematic.

Fire Management Plans

Nearly all of the agencies' land management units have completed fire
management plans as called for in 2001 federal wildland fire management
policy, according to agency officials and documents. Many, though not all,
of these plans have been prepared within a common interagency template,
which the agencies adopted to ensure greater consistency in their
contents. Table 1 below shows the status of each agency's fire management
plans.

Table 1: Completion Status of Agency Fire Management Plans Compliant with
2001 Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy

                  Number of Number of                           Percentage of 
                      plans     plans      Percentage of needed   plans using 
Agency            needed completed           plans completed      template 
Forest Service       115       115                       100           100 
Bureau of            353       350                        99             a 
Indian Affairs                                               
Bureau of Land                                                             
Management            72        72                       100           100
Fish and                                                                   
Wildlife             641       617                        96             a
Service                                                      
National Park        279       238                        85           100 
Service                                                      
Total              1,460     1,392                        95             a 

Source: GAO analysis of agency data.

aBIA and FWS officials told us that a portion of their agencies' plans use
the template, although they did not estimate the percentage of completed
plans doing so.

If these plans are to be the principal managing instruments for
identifying, budgeting for, and implementing the various actions needed at
the local level to effectively address wildland fire threats, the agencies
will need to ensure that the plans are kept current. This will involve
updating the plans to incorporate available LANDFIRE data as well as
available research on addressing wildland fire threats (such as research
on the extent to which conducting fuel reduction treatments in certain
geometric patterns improves the treatments' effectiveness in reducing the
spread rate and intensity of wildland fires). However, agency guidance
does not require regular plan updates, instead leaving it up to land
management units to determine the frequency of needed updates. January
2006 guidance covering the Forest Service, BLM, FWS, and NPS calls for
these agencies to review plans annually and update them as needed;
similarly, a BIA official told us that BIA guidance calls for plans to be
updated when "significant changes" occur, such as large fires or changes
in a particular unit's land use plan. Further, the agencies may not always
find it easy to update these plans; a Forest Service official told us
that, if the introduction of new data into a fire management plan results
in the development of new fire management objectives, the agency might
need to conduct a new National Environmental Policy Act analysis for that
plan,5 requiring additional time and resources. If fire management plans
are not updated to reflect the most current information on the extent and
distribution of fire risks and the most promising methods for dealing with
them, the plans will be of limited use in the agencies' attempts to manage
wildland fire problems.

FPA

FPA is being implemented in two phases, the first of which is nearly
complete. Phase I is intended to provide information for use in two
primary areas: (1) allocating resources for the initial responses to fires
and (2) developing estimates for the agencies' fiscal year 2008 budgets.
Agency officials told us that, of the 138 interagency "fire planning
units" established to submit data for FPA, 134 have submitted Phase I
data. The agencies will validate the data during the spring and summer of
2006, and expect to use the data in formulating their fiscal year 2008
budgets. Phase II focuses on additional activities, including fuel
reduction, postfire rehabilitation, and others; data for this phase are
expected to be submitted by June 2008, followed by agency analysis and
validation of the data.

Agency officials told us that, as part of FPA's implementation, about 600
staff within the agencies, including staff in each of the 138 fire
planning units, have received training on FPA. Agency officials also are
conducting a "midcourse review" of FPA to assess progress to date and
determine what changes may be necessary as the agencies continue to
implement FPA. Officials told us that they expect a final report on the
results of the review in the spring or summer of 2006. According to agency

5For major federal actions that significantly affect the quality of the
human environment, the National Environmental Policy Act requires all
federal agencies to analyze the environmental impact of the proposed
action. 42 U.S.C. S: 4332(2)(C).

officials, as of March 2006, about $21 million of the expected overall
cost of $48 million had been spent on FPA. This is about $6 million more
than the 2004 estimate of $42 million; a Forest Service official told us
that the increase is primarily due to an

additional year of Phase II development, as well as additional operations
and maintenance costs expected in 2009 and 2010.

While progress continues to be made, gaps exist in the data collected for
FPA. In order to cost-effectively allocate federal resources, FPA was
designed to incorporate data on both federal and nonfederal firefighting
assets (such as personnel and equipment) because both federal and
nonfederal assets might be used to fight an individual fire, regardless of
whether the fire occurs on federal or nonfederal land. Nevertheless,
nonfederal assets have not been consistently included in FPA because,
according to officials and FPA documents, many states and other nonfederal
entities have been reluctant or unwilling to provide data for FPA. Some
states are concerned about the time and resources required to compile and
submit data for FPA, particularly given that many states do not envision
using FPA to develop their wildland fire budgets and thus cannot justify
the additional workload required to participate. In other cases,
nonfederal officials may be worried that federal assets will be reduced in
areas where nonfederal assets already exist because the nonfederal assets
may be deemed sufficient to provide the initial response to a fire-which
could potentially increase the nonfederal entities' workload in the event
of a fire.

Without comprehensive data on all federal and nonfederal assets available
to fight wildland fires, it is unclear how effectively federal resources
will be allocated using FPA because federal resources may be directed to
areas where sufficient nonfederal assets already exist-or, conversely,
federal resources may be directed away from areas despite those areas'
lack of available nonfederal assets. However, federal agency officials
stated that the absence of nonfederal data is unlikely to significantly
hamper the agencies' ability to use FPA to make resource allocation and
budget decisions, although they have not yet fully assessed the effect of
not having complete nonfederal data. These officials also reported that
they are developing a strategy for obtaining nonfederal data.

Conclusions

The federal government is expending substantial effort and billions of
dollars in attempting to address our nation's wildland fire problems. If
the agencies and the Congress are to make informed decisions about an
effective and affordable long-term approach to the issue, they should have
a cohesive strategy that identifies long-term options and needed funding
for addressing these wildland fire problems. Because it likely will be at
least 2009 before the agencies develop such a strategy that would meet
standards required by OMB, we continue to believe it is essential that, in
the interim, the agencies create a tactical plan for developing this
strategy, so that the Congress understands the steps and time frames
involved with its completion. However, despite our previous recommendation
that the agencies develop this

tactical plan, and the agencies' commitment to do so, they have not
produced such a plan.

Matters for Congressional Consideration

Given the importance of a cohesive strategy for wildland fire management
that identifies long-term options and needed funding, as well as the need
to understand how and when the agencies will develop such a strategy, the
Congress may wish to consider requiring that the Secretaries of
Agriculture and the Interior develop a tactical plan that lays out the
specific steps and time frames needed to complete a cohesive strategy.

In the interim, while the agencies are developing a tactical plan and
cohesive strategy, the Congress will continue to lack information
regarding long-term options and needed funding for responding to wildland
fire problems. If the Congress believes such information is necessary to
make informed decisions in the near term, it may wish to consider seeking
an independent source to provide interim information until the agencies
are able to complete the cohesive strategy we previously recommended. This
could be accomplished by, among other approaches, requiring the
Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to contract with a third
party. Regardless of the approach chosen, given both the complexity and
the urgency of the wildland fire issue, the Congress may wish to specify
certain time frames and deliverables-including long-term options and
needed funding based upon the best available information-in order to
ensure that it is provided with timely and comprehensive information.

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture and
the Interior for review and comment. The agencies generally agreed with
our findings, and with the need for a cohesive strategy and an associated
tactical plan. They provided additional comments that we have incorporated
into the report, as appropriate. Their comments, along with our responses,
are reprinted in enclosures I and II, respectively.

Our draft report contained a matter for congressional consideration
suggesting that the Congress require the agencies to develop a cohesive
strategy including long-term options and needed funding, given the
agencies' initial statements that OMB would not permit them to produce
long-term cost estimates. In responding to a draft of our report, the
agencies provided additional comments about OMB's specific objections to
their publishing long-term funding estimates critical to a cohesive
strategy. OMB confirmed that it will allow the agencies to produce such
estimates provided they have sufficiently reliable data on which to base
them. Accordingly, we revised the matters for congressional consideration.

                                   - - - - -

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretaries of Agriculture and
the Interior and the Chief of the Forest Service. We will also make copies
available to others upon request. In addition, this report will be
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-3841 or at [email protected]. Contact points for our
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the
last page of this report. Major contributors to this report were David P.
Bixler, Assistant Director; Steve Gaty; Richard Johnson; Chester Joy; and
Matthew Reinhart.

Robin M. Nazzaro

Director, Natural Resources and Environment

Enclosures

Enclosure I

                        Comments from the Forest Service

See comment 2.

See comment 1.

The following are GAO's comments on the Forest Service's letter dated
April 21, 2006.

GAO Comments

           1. We have modified our draft to include the agency's statement
           that OMB does not believe that the departments can produce
           credible long-term funding estimates until LANDFIRE and FPA are
           more fully operational.

           2. We have modified our matters for congressional consideration
           based on statements from the agencies and OMB regarding the
           agencies' ability to produce a cohesive strategy.

Enclosure II

                  Comments from the Department of the Interior

See comment 2.

See comment 1.

See comment 3.

The following are GAO's comments on the Department of the Interior's
letter dated April 21, 2006.

GAO Comments

           1. In identifying the weaknesses that we found in our previous
           work, we do not intend to imply that the agencies have made no
           progress in addressing these issues. Instead, we are simply
           providing context for our ongoing efforts to assess the agencies'
           wildland fire management activities.

           2. We have modified our draft to include the department's
           statement that OMB does not believe that the agencies can produce
           credible long-term funding estimates until LANDFIRE and FPA are
           more fully operational.

           3. We have modified our matters for congressional consideration
           based on statements from the agencies and OMB regarding the
           agencies' ability to produce a cohesive strategy.

(360686)

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