Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address
Catastrophic Wildfire Threats (Chapter Report, 04/02/99, GAO/RCED-99-65).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on: (1)
the extent and seriousness of forest-health-related problems in national
forests in the interior West; (2) the status of efforts by the Forest
Service to address the most serious of these problems; and (3) barriers
to successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming
them.
GAO noted that: (1) the most extensive and serious problem related to
the health of national forests in the interior West is the
overaccumulation of vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of
large, intense, uncontrollable, and catastrophically destructive
wildfires; (2) according to the Forest Service, 39 million acres in
national forests in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic
wildfire; (3) past management practices, especially the Forest Service's
decades-old policy of putting out wildfires in the national forests,
disrupted the historical occurrence of frequent low-intensity fires,
which had periodically removed flammable undergrowth without
significantly damaging larger trees; (4) because this normal cycle of
fire was disrupted, vegetation has accumulated, creating high levels of
fuels for catastrophic wildfires and transforming much of the region
into a tinderbox; (5) the number of large wildfires, and of acres burned
by them, has increased over the last decade, as have the costs of
attempting to put them out; (6) these fires not only compromise the
forests' ability to provide timber, outdoor recreation, clean water, and
other resources, but they also pose increasingly grave risks to human
health, safety, property, and infrastructure, especially along the
boundaries of forests, where population has grown significantly in
recent years; (7) during the 1990s, the Forest Service began to address
the unintended consequences of its policy of putting out wildfires; (8)
in 1997, it announced its goal to improve forest health by resolving the
problems of uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires in national forests
by the end of fiscal year 2015; (9) to accomplish this goal, it has: (a)
initiated a program to monitor forest health; (b) refocused its wildland
fire management program to increase the number of acres on which it
reduces the accumulated vegetation that forms excessive fuels; and (c)
restructured its budget to better ensure that funds are available for
reducing these fuels; (10) Congress has supported the Forest Service's
efforts by increasing the funds for reducing fuels and authorizing a
multiyear program to better assess problems and solutions; (11) the
Forest Service has not yet developed a cohesive strategy for addressing
several factors that present significant barriers to improving the
health of the national forests by reducing fuels; and (12) many acres of
national forests in the interior West may remain at high risk of
uncontrollable wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: RCED-99-65
TITLE: Western National Forests: A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to
Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats
DATE: 04/02/99
SUBJECT: Forest management
National forests
Forest conservation
Public lands
Natural resources
Environmental monitoring
Emergency preparedness
IDENTIFIER: Dept. of the Interior Joint Fire Science Program
Forest Service Emergency Salvage Timber Sale Program
Panhandle National Forest (ID)
Boise National Forest (ID)
Shasta-Trinity National Forest (CA)
Tahoe National Forest (CA)
Deschutes National Forest (OR)
Umatilla National Forest (OR)
Lincoln National Forest (NM)
Plumas National Forest (CA)
Roosevelt National Forest (CO)
Arapaho National Forest (CO)
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, Committee on
Resources, House of Representatives
April 1999
WESTERN NATIONAL FORESTS - A
COHESIVE STRATEGY IS NEEDED TO
ADDRESS CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRE
THREATS
GAO/RCED-99-65
Catastrophic Wildfire Threats
(141261)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
USDA - U.S.Department of Agriculture
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-281890
April 2, 1999
The Honorable Helen Chenoweth
Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests
and Forest Health
Committee on Resources
House of Representative
Dear Madam Chairman:
In response to your request and as agreed with your office, this
report describes (1) the extent and seriousness of problems related
to the health of national forests in the interior West, (2) the
status of efforts by the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service
to address the most serious of these problems, and (3) barriers to
successfully addressing these problems and options for overcoming
them. The report contains a recommendation to the Secretary of
Agriculture for developing a more cohesive strategy to address
growing threats to national forest resources and nearby communities
from catastrophic wildfires.
We are sending copies of this report to the appropriate congressional
committees; the Honorable Dan Glickman, the Secretary of Agriculture;
and the Honorable Michael Dombeck, the Chief of the Forest Service.
We will also make copies available to others upon request.
Please call me at (202) 512-9775 if you or your staff have any
questions about this report. Major contributors to this report are
listed in appendix II.
Sincerely yours,
Barry T. Hill,
Associate Director, Energy Resources,
and Science Issues
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
============================================================ Chapter 0
PURPOSE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
National forests of the dry, interior portion of the western United
States that are managed by the Department of Agriculture's Forest
Service have undergone significant changes over the last century and
a half, becoming much denser, with fewer large trees and many more
small, tightly spaced trees and underbrush. These changes have
raised concerns about the current health of these forests and their
continued ability to provide for sustained levels of uses, including
timber and wildlife habitat, by future generations of Americans, as
required by law. In response to a request from the Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health, House Committee on Resources, GAO examined
issues related to the health of these forests. In this report, GAO
discusses (1) the extent and seriousness of forest-health-related
problems on national forests of the interior West, (2) the status of
efforts by the Forest Service to address the most serious of these
problems, and (3) barriers to successfully addressing these problems
and options for overcoming them.
BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
The Forest Service manages about 155 national forests covering 192
million acres of land--nearly 9 percent of the nation's total surface
area. About 70 percent of these lands are located in the dry,
interior portions of the western United States. Laws guiding the
management of the national forests require them to be managed under
the principles of multiple use and sustained yield to meet the
diverse needs of the American people. Under the multiple-use
principle, the Forest Service is required to plan for six renewable
surface uses--outdoor recreation, rangeland, timber, watersheds and
water flows, wilderness, and wildlife and fish. Under the
sustained-yield principle, the agency is required to manage its lands
to provide high levels of these uses to current users while
sustaining undiminished the lands' ability to produce these uses for
future generations.
To carry out this mission, the Forest Service has adopted a
management approach that recognizes that ensuring the long-term
productivity of the land for these uses requires sustaining forest
health. Although definitions of forest health vary, scientists
believe a useful method for assessing it is to compare the current
ecological conditions of a forest--especially the conditions of its
tree stands--with the range of past ecological conditions it has
exhibited. This historical range indicates the variation over time
in conditions that normally occur in response to common local,
natural disturbances, such as fires, floods, windstorms, or droughts,
and provides a basis for identifying the forest's capacity to provide
for different uses over time.
Historically, tree stands on the forests of the interior West have
differed in composition and structure from those found elsewhere.
These differences were largely attributable to the region's dry
climate and varied elevations. In this setting, frequent
low-intensity wildfires periodically removed undergrowth and smaller
trees from many of the region's lower-elevation forests. In recent
years, changes in the condition of these forestsincluding changes in
tree stand density, species composition, and insect and disease
infestation levelshave led some to call these forests unhealthy.
The condition of these forests is of great public interest because
their recreational and aesthetic values have led to population
increases along their boundaries in recent years.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
The most extensive and serious problem related to the health of
national forests in the interior West is the overaccumulation of
vegetation, which has caused an increasing number of large, intense,
uncontrollable, and catastrophically destructive wildfires.
According to the Forest Service, 39 million acres on national forests
in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic wildfire. Past
management practices, especially the Forest Service's decades-old
policy of putting out wildfires on the national forests, disrupted
the historical occurrence of frequent low-intensity fires, which had
periodically removed flammable undergrowth without significantly
damaging larger trees. Because this normal cycle of fire was
disrupted, vegetation has accumulated, creating high levels of fuels
for catastrophic wildfires and transforming much of the region into a
tinderbox. The number of large wildfires, and of acres burned by
them, has increased over the last decade, as have the costs of
attempting to put them out. These fires not only compromise the
forests' ability to provide timber, outdoor recreation, clean water,
and other resources but they also pose increasingly grave risks to
human health, safety, property, and infrastructure, especially along
the boundaries of forests where population has grown significantly in
recent years.
During the 1990s, the Forest Service began to address the unintended
consequences of its policy of putting out wildfires. In 1997, it
announced its goal to improve forest health by resolving the problems
of uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires on national forests by the
end of fiscal year 2015. To accomplish this goal, it has (1)
initiated a program to monitor forest health, (2) refocused its
wildland fire management program to increase the number of acres on
which it reduces the accumulated vegetation that forms excessive
fuels; and (3) restructured its budget to better ensure that funds
are available for reducing these fuels. The Congress has supported
the agency's efforts by increasing the funds for reducing fuels and
authorizing a multiyear program to better assess problems and
solutions.
However, because it lacks adequate data, the Forest Service has not
yet developed a cohesive strategy for addressing several factors that
present significant barriers to improving the health of the national
forests by reducing fuels. As a result, many acres of national
forests in the interior West may remain at high risk of
uncontrollable wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015. Efforts to
reduce accumulated fuels can adversely affect the Forest Service's
achievement of other stewardship objectives. For example, controlled
fires can be used to reduce fuels, but (1) such fires may get out of
control, and (2) the smoke they produce can cause significant air
pollution. As a result, mechanical methods, including commercial
timber harvesting, will often be necessary to remove accumulated
fuels. However, mechanical removals are problematic because the
Forest Service's (1) incentives tend to focus efforts on areas that
may not present the highest fire hazards and (2) timber sales and
other contracting procedures are not designed for removing vast
amounts of materials with little or no commercial value. As a
result, removing accumulated fuels may cost the Forest Service
hundreds of millions of dollars annually. But the problem is so
extensive that even this level of effort may not be adequate to
prevent many catastrophic fires over the next few decades. This
report recommends the development of a cohesive strategy to reduce
accumulated fuels on national forests of the interior West in an
effort to limit the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES
THREATEN FOREST RESOURCES
AND COMMUNITIES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1
Tree stands on national forests of the interior West have grown much
denser in recent decades, have undergone shifts in species
composition, and have experienced increases in some insect and
disease infestations. These conditions, often considered indicators
of poor forest health, jeopardize the ability of these forests to
sustain wildlife habitat as well as timber production. In addition,
they pose a more immediate problemthe threat of catastrophic
wildfires. After declining fairly steadily for 75 years, the average
number of acres burned by wildfires annually on national forests
began to rise over the last decade, nearly quadrupling to about
three-quarters of a million acres per year. Virtually all of this
rise is attributable to the increasing number of very large fires.
Scientists and agency officials believe that this increase in large,
intense, uncontrollable, and catastrophically destructive wildfires
is in large part the result of the Forest Service's decades-old
policy of putting out wildfires on national forests. This policy
disrupted the historical occurrence of frequent, low-intensity fires
in many areas of the interior West. Such fires periodically removed
smaller live and downed vegetation, preventing accumulations that
could result in larger fires. But as vegetation has accumulated,
fires have become larger and more difficult and expensive to put out.
The average annual costs of attempting to put out these fires grew by
150 percent, from $134 million in fiscal year 1986 to $335 million in
fiscal year 1994 (in constant 1994 dollars). The costs of
preparedness, including the costs of maintaining a readiness force to
fight the fires, also rose, from $189 million in fiscal year 1992 to
$326 million in fiscal year 1997--an increase of about 70 percent.
Outside experts and Forest Service officials generally agree that
increased fire suppression efforts will not be successful because
such inevitable, large, intense wildfires are generally impossible
for firefighters to stop and are only extinguished by rainfall or
when there is no more material to burn. They are concerned that, in
the future, such fires will prevent the Forest Service from meeting
its mission requirement to sustain the national forests' multiple
uses because the fires will likely damage soils, habitat, and
watershed functioning for many generations or even permanently.
In recent years, the number of people living along the boundaries of
the national forests has grown significantly. As a result, the
increasing numbers of larger, more intense fires pose grave hazards
to human health, safety, property, and infrastructure in these areas,
which are referred to as wildland/urban interface areas. Not only
do the fires take lives, but also, because the smoke from them
contains substantial amounts of fine particulate matter and other
hazardous pollutants, they can pose substantial health risks to
people living in the wildland/urban interface. In addition, the
fires threaten to damage infrastructure, such as the reservoirs that
provide water to these nearby populations. According to the Forest
Service, maintaining current funding levels for preparedness, as is
now planned, will result in increased risks of injuries and loss of
life to firefighters and the public. Experts believe that the
"window of opportunity" for taking management action is only about 10
to 25 years before catastrophic wildfires become widespread.
RECENT ACTIONS TO ADDRESS
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES ARE
IMPORTANT BUT MAY BE TOO
LITTLE, TOO LATE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2
Besides increasing preparedness and suppression efforts over the last
few years, the Forest Service has taken a number of important steps
to address the growing threat of wildfires. In particular, in 1995,
it refocused its fire management program to reduce accumulated fuels.
In 1997, the Chief of the Forest Service adopted an internal agency
recommendation to increase the number of acres on which fuels are
reduced from about 570,000 acres to 3 million acres annually by
fiscal year 2005 and to continue this level until the year 2015.
However, GAO's analysis of the agency's initial plans and data
indicate that even this level of effort may leave about 10 million
acres of the current 39 million acres at high risk of catastrophic
wildfire.
The Forest Service may not be able to address all of the acres
needing attention for several reasons. First, although the agency
has announced its intent to give priority to threats in the
wildland/urban interface, its funds for reducing fuels are currently
allocated substantially to maintaining low fuel levels on forests in
other regions with less serious conditions so that conditions there
do not become as hazardous as in the interior West. For this same
reason, a significant portion of the future funds for reducing fuels
will have to be allocated to those other regions. In addition, the
agency is hampered in systematically implementing its priority for
reducing fuels in the wildland/urban interface because it has only
recently begun to define and map these areas. Finally, the agency's
fiscal year 2000 budget proposal provides the same level of funding
for reducing fuels as the previous fiscal year's budget, meaning
that, with rising costs, the agency will reduce fuels on fewer,
rather than more, acres as initially planned.
In 1998 and 1999, the Congress authorized two efforts supporting the
Forest Service's efforts--the Joint Fire Science Program and a set of
stewardship contracting demonstration projects. The Joint Fire
Science Program is responsible for developing consistent information
on accumulated fuels and ways to reduce them. The data being
developed under the program are being used initially to map the
locations of existing risks from accumulated fuels. This and other
research activities of the Joint Fire Science Program may take 10
years to complete. Several more years may be required to incorporate
all the lessons learned into revised forest plans. The stewardship
contracting demonstration projects are using alternative contracting
procedures for working with nonfederal partners to demonstrate
mechanical methods of removing materials (including timber
harvesting) to reduce accumulated fuels. However, this program has
also just begun. Lessons learned from the program can be
incorporated into an agencywide strategic approach if a consistent
method for evaluating the results of the demonstration projects is
devised, but such an evaluation methodology has not yet been
developed.
A COHESIVE STRATEGY IS
NEEDED FOR ADDRESSING
NUMEROUS BARRIERS TO
EFFECTIVE ACTION
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3
Efforts to address catastrophic wildfires face several barriers,
including the fact that most methods of reducing fuels can be
difficult to reconcile with agencies' other responsibilities. For
instance, many agency officials told GAO they do not believe it is
possible to set controlled fires to reduce fuels on a scale
replicating that of natural fires and still meet air quality
standards under the Clean Air Act. The Forest Service and the
Environmental Protection Agency are involved in a 3-year experiment
to better determine whether and how it will be possible to reconcile
controlled burning and these air quality standards. Moreover,
because of climatic conditions and the density of tree stands, the
danger of fire's escaping from such controlled burning is often too
high in many areas for this method to be used. Mechanically removing
fuels (through commercial timber harvesting and other means) can also
have adverse effects on wildlife habitat and water quality in many
areas. Officials told GAO that, because of these effects, a
large-scale expansion of commercial timber harvesting alone for
removing materials would not be feasible.
However, because the Forest Service relies on the timber program for
funding many of its other activities, including reducing fuels, it
has often used this program to address the wildfire problem. The
difficulty with such an approach, however, is that the lands with
commercially valuable timber are often not those with the greatest
wildfire hazards. Additionally, there are problems with the
incentives in the fuel reduction program. Currently, managers are
rewarded for the number of acres on which they reduce fuels, not for
reducing fuels on the lands with the highest fire hazards. Because
reducing fuels in areas with greater hazards is often more
expensivemeaning that fewer acres can be completed with the same
funding levelmanagers have an incentive not to undertake efforts on
such lands.
Moreover, the agency's current statutorily defined contracting
procedures for commercial timber salesas well as for service
contracts that do not involve selling timber but are let simply for
the service of removing excess fuelswere not designed to (1)
facilitate the systematic removal of large volumes of low-value
material over a number of years, (2) readily combine funds for
conducting timber sales with funds for reducing accumulated fuels, or
(3) allow contractors to retain this low-value material to partially
offset the costs of its removal. Because of the combined (1) need to
perform costly mechanical removals, (2) lack of value for the
materials, and (3) lack of contracting procedures designed to
facilitate their removal, GAO estimates that the cost to the Forest
Service to reduce fuels on the 39 million acres at high risk could be
as much as $12 billion between now and the end of fiscal year 2015,
or an average of about $725 million annually. This is more than 10
times the current level of funding for reducing fuels, and the
agency, contrary to its earlier plans, has requested no increase in
this funding for fiscal year 2000.
The Forest Service has not yet devised a cohesive strategy to address
these barriers to reducing excessive national forest fuel levels and
associated catastrophic wildfires. It has not done so, in large
part, because it lacks basic data on, for example, the (1) locations
and levels of existing excessive fuel accumulations, (2) effects on
other resources of different methods of reducing fuels, and (3)
relative cost-effectiveness of these different methods, all of which
are needed to identify quantitative measures and goals for fuels
reducing fuels. Nor has the Forest Service identified a firm
schedule for completing activities that will provide it with such
data. The lack of such performance measures and goals, and of a
cohesive strategy and schedule for developing and accomplishing them,
makes it difficult for the agency to be held accountable for
achieving its statutorily mandated mission of sustaining multiple
uses.
RECOMMENDATION TO THE SECRETARY
OF AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5
We recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of
the Forest Service to develop, and formally communicate to the
Congress, a cohesive strategy for reducing and maintaining
accumulated fuels on national forests of the interior West at
acceptable levels. We further recommend that this strategy include
(1) specific steps for acquiring the data needed to establish
meaningful performance measures and goals for fuel reduction, (b)
identifying ways of better reconciling different fuel reduction
approaches with other stewardship objectives, and (c) identifying
changes in incentives and statutorily defined contracting procedures
that would better facilitate the accomplishment of fuel reduction
goals; (2) a schedule indicating dates for completing each of these
steps; and (3) estimates of the potential and likely overall and
annual costs of accomplishing this strategy based on different
options identified in the strategy as being available for doing so.
AGENCY COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6
The Forest Service reviewed a draft of this report and generally
agreed with GAO's findings, conclusions, and recommendation. In its
comments, the agency stated that the report is very comprehensive,
does a good job of covering the problem, and effectively portrays the
conditions found on many national forest throughout the interior
West. The agency agrees that it has not advanced a cohesive strategy
to treat all 39 million acres of national forestlands at risk of
catastrophic fire but says that it is committed to developing one in
a timely manner and (1) has a general strategy for reducing wildfire
threats, (2) is currently developing a more specific planning process
and tools for completing this strategy, (3) will make significant
progress in eliminating these threats, and (4) has realistic time
frames for accomplishing these tasks. The agency also listed in its
comments several initiatives that it has under way or planned to
complete its more cohesive strategy. According to the agency, these
initiatives will be important in reducing threats from catastrophic
wildfires.
This report recognizes that the Forest Service has a general strategy
and has undertaken and is planning several initiatives to develop a
more cohesive strategy. However, GAO believes that the general
strategy lacks cohesiveness because it does not address several
barriers that the Forest Service faces in undertaking its planned
fuel reduction activities. Nor is it clear from the Forest Service's
comments how its current and planned initiatives, individually and
collectively, will provide this cohesiveness. GAO also believes that
the agency needs to be accountable for accomplishing the strategy.
For these reasons, GAO believes that the agency's more cohesive
strategy should include, as specific steps, those actions in its
current and planned initiatives that it believes will enable it to
address these barriers, as well as a schedule for completing them.
GAO believes that this delineation of specific actions and a schedule
will provide a practical framework and process for accomplishing the
agency's intentions. The agency also provided a number of technical
and clarifying comments. GAO revised the draft report where
appropriate in response to the agency's comments. The agency's
comments and GAO's responses to them are found in appendix I of this
report.
INTRODUCTION
============================================================ Chapter 1
THE FOREST SERVICE'S MISSION IS
MULTIPLE USE AND SUSTAINED
YIELD
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:1
The Forest Service, an agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), manages 155 national forests covering about 192 million acres
of land, or about 9 percent of the nation's land surface, under the
leadership of the Chief of the Forest Service, who reports to the
Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment.
National forests are managed under the principles of multiple use and
sustained yield to meet the diverse needs of the American people.
Under the multiple-use principle, the Forest Service is required to
plan for six renewable surface uses--outdoor recreation, rangeland,
timber, watersheds and water flows, wilderness, and wildlife and
fish. Under the sustained-yield principle, the agency is required to
manage its lands to provide high levels of these uses to current
users while sustaining undiminished the lands' ability to produce
these uses for future generations. It implements these principles
using a planning mechanism mandated by the National Forest Management
Act, which requires each forest or group of small forests to develop
a plan for all uses. This plan must be revised at least every 15
years. This plan, together with the individual projects undertaken
to implement it, must comply with various environmental laws
establishing standards or procedures designed to protect individual
resources, such as threatened and endangered species and water and
air quality.\1
--------------------
\1 For a fuller description of the agency's decision-making process,
see Forest Service Decision-Making: A Framework for Improving
Performance (GAO/RCED-97-71, Apr. 29, 1997).
SUSTAINING ECOSYSTEMS IS THE
AGENCY'S MANAGEMENT APPROACH
FOR SUSTAINING MULTIPLE USES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:2
In 1992, the Forest Service adopted a management approach for
sustaining multiple forest uses called ecosystem management. This
management approach recognizes that protecting individual resources
under the various environmental laws, as well as ensuring the
long-term ability of the land to produce goods and services, requires
sustaining the functioning of ecosystems.\2
Ecosystems comprise interdependent biological components (plants and
animals, including humans), that interact with their physical
environment (soil, water, and air) to form distinct ecological units
that span both federal and nonfederal lands. Through these
interactions, the components of ecosystems tend to become arranged in
distinctive kinds of biological structures, such as different types
of forest tree stands. These different ecosystem structures, in
turn, are capable of providing different kinds and levels of
resources for human use, including timber or water.
Natural disturbances, such as fires, floods, windstorms, or droughts,
can temporarily affect ecosystem structures. However, these
structures are generally resilient over time, recovering and
persisting because they have evolved to survive the particular
patterns of disturbance common to a given geographical area. Human
technology, however, can create rapid, intense, or large-scale
disruptions in ecosystem structures. A disruption, such as the
elimination of an important biological component, can sometimes alter
an ecosystem structure beyond its ability to recover quickly or at
all, making the ecosystem unstable or unsustainable and ultimately
transforming it into a different kind of ecosystem with different
kinds of biological structures. Such a changed ecosystem will
provide different kinds or levels of uses from those that humans
previously enjoyed and expected. In 1997, the Forest Service
identified, as a mission-related, strategic goal, achieving healthy
and sustainable ecosystems through conserving and restoring ecosystem
structures. A specific objective under this broad goal was restoring
or protecting the ecological conditions of forested ecosystems to
maintain their components and their capacity for self-renewal.
--------------------
\2 For a fuller description of ecosystem management, see Ecosystem
Management: Additional Actions Needed to Adequately Test a Promising
Approach (GAO/RCED-94-111, Aug. 16, 1994).
CONTROVERSIES EXIST OVER THE
HEALTH OF WESTERN NATIONAL
FORESTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:3
In recent years, several analyses of conditions on national forests
of the interior West by agency and outside experts have cited
evidence of increased levels of insect and disease infestations;
changes in the composition of tree and other forest plant species,
including invasion by nonnative plants; increases in the density of
tree stands and undergrowth; and increases in the number of small
trees.\3 These tree stand conditions have sometimes been referred to
collectively as "forest health" problems. At the same time, the term
"forest health" has been applied to concerns over declining species,
habitat, and watershed conditions on national forests, and some
environmental groups have argued that forest health should
incorporate these concerns. Numerous administrative appeals and
judicial actions have been filed by these groups out of concern that
efforts to improve the health of tree stands--which would be
implemented, in part, through timber harvesting--may exacerbate
problems affecting species, habitat, or watersheds. The Forest
Service has also noted a lack of scientific consensus on, or
community awareness and acceptance of, the actions needed to address
forest health problems, the size of the areas needing to be
addressed, and the time frames for taking action. Thus, despite the
widespread use of the term in recent years, there is little agreement
on a definition of forest health, a standard for measuring it, the
appropriate areas and time frames for addressing it, and the actions
needed to achieve it. Many Forest Service staff and others feel
that, because of its vagueness and subjectivity, the concept is often
difficult to use effectively.
--------------------
\3 e.g., Task Force Report on Sustaining Long-Term Forest Health and
Productivity, Society of American Foresters (Bethesda, Md.: 1993);
and Forest Health and Fire Danger in Inland Western Forests:
Proceedings of the Conference, Spokane, WA, September 8-9, 1994
(Spokane: Harman Press, 1995).
FOREST HEALTH CAN BE ASSESSED
BY COMPARING PRESENT TO PAST
FOREST CONDITIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:4
Forest Service and outside scientists believe that a useful method of
assessing a forest's health and functioning is to compare the current
conditions of its components and structures to the range of
conditions they have exhibited in the past. This rangewithin which
conditions have varied over time in response to disturbance patterns
common to a given area--is referred to by scientists as their
historical range of variability.
Examining the historical range of variability of a forest's tree
stands is believed to be an especially useful starting point for
analyzing the forest's overall health and functioning because (1)
tree stands are the defining biological structures of forested versus
other kinds of ecosystems and (2) the conditions of these structures
greatly determine the capacity of a forest not only to produce
timber, but also to maintain soils, watershed conditions, and
wildlife and fish habitats. The historical range of variability of a
forest's tree stands is identified by examining historical and
biological evidence--such as early pioneers' reports, old
photographs, tree rings, and soil layers--to discover what biological
components and structures have characterized the forested ecosystem
at different times in its natural history.
FORESTS OF THE INTERIOR WEST
HAVE DISTINCTIVE ECOLOGICAL
CHARACTERISTICS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:5
About 60 percent of all national forests and about 70 percent of
their total acreage are located in the dry, inland portion of the
western United States (hereafter referred to as the "interior West").
This region of the country, depicted in figure 1.1, generally extends
north and south from the Canadian to the Mexican border and east and
west from the Black Hills in South Dakota to the Cascade mountain
range in Washington and Oregon and to the southwestern deserts and
the Coastal range in California.
Figure 1.1: The Interior West
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: Forest Service.
Distinct ecological processes--driven largely by climate and
topography--shaped the forests of the interior West, producing tree
stands that differed in composition and structure from those in other
regions of the country. Historically, frequent, low-intensity
wildfires played a major role in determining the dispersion and
succession of tree stands in the interior West. A lack of rainfall
across the interior West generally also slows the decomposition of
dead and downed trees and woody material there.
The most common type of forested lands on national forests of the
interior West are at warm, dry, lower elevations and are generally
dominated by ponderosa pine. These are known as "frequent fire
interval" forests because, before pioneers settled in these areas,
fire historically occurred in them about every 5 to 30 years.
Because frequent fires kept these forests clear of undergrowth, fuels
seldom accumulated, and the fires were generally of low intensity,
largely consuming grasses and undergrowth and not igniting the highly
combustible crowns, or tops, of large trees. Figure 1.2 shows the
widespread distribution of these "frequent fire interval" forests.
Figure 1.2: Location of
Frequent Fire Forests in the
Interior West
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: Forest Service.
In contrast, fire historically occurred only about every 40 to 200
years in the cooler, moister, forests at higher elevations, such as
those around Yellowstone National Park, which are generally dominated
by lodgepole pine. These forests historically developed more dense
stands, and fires there generally killed nearly all of the trees.
RECENT POPULATION GROWTH NEAR
INTERIOR WESTERN NATIONAL
FORESTS HAS CREATED A
"WILDLAND/URBAN INTERFACE"
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:6
Finally, because the national forests of the interior West are
attractive for recreation and aesthetic enjoyment, population has
grown rapidly along their boundaries in recent years, creating an
area termed the "wildland/urban interface." Figure 1.3 shows the
location of areas in the interior West with recent high population
growth in relation to the region's national forests.
Figure 1.3: Population Growth
in Relation to National
Forests, 1980-96
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: Forest Service and U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of
the Census.
As figure 1.3 shows, areas with higher population growth rates in the
interior West over the period are generally concentrated close to
national forests.
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND
METHODOLOGY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 1:7
In response to a request from the Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests
and Forest Health, we examined (1) the extent and seriousness of
problems related to the health of national forests in the interior
West, (2) the status of efforts by the Department of Agriculture's
Forest Service to address the most serious of these problems, and (3)
barriers to successfully addressing these problems and options for
overcoming them.
As agreed with the requester, to examine the extent and seriousness
of problems related to the health of national forests in the interior
West, we interviewed and obtained documents from agency officials at
Forest Service headquarters, six regional offices with administrative
responsibility for national forests located in the interior West,
nine selected forests within these regions, and selected agency field
research and analysis units. Our selection of agency field units was
based on a judgmental sample, and the results may not always be
representative of other agency units. The forests we visited
included the Idaho Panhandle National Forest in Idaho, the Arapaho
and Roosevelt National Forests in Colorado, the Lincoln National
Forest in New Mexico, the Boise National Forest in Idaho, the Plumas
National Forest in California, the Shasta-Trinity National Forest in
California, the Tahoe National Forest in California, the Deschutes
National Forest in Oregon, and the Umatilla National Forest in Oregon
and Washington. At these forests, we visited numerous field
locations in several ranger districts. We also visited the Tahoe
Basin Management Unit, a unit that surrounds Lake Tahoe, straddling
the California/Nevada border, and is managed separately.
At many locations, we also interviewed and obtained documents from
representatives of national and local industry and environmental
organizations; other federal agencies; state, local and tribal
governments; and academic and professional forestry policy analysis
and technical experts. We also interviewed and obtained documents
from representatives of American Forests; the Pinchot Institute for
Conservation; the Society of American Foresters; the American Forest
and Paper Association; the Western Governor's Association; the
Wilderness Society; the Sierra Club; Oregon State University;
Colorado State University; the Universities of Arizona, Colorado,
Idaho, Montana, and Northern Arizona; and the Ecological Society of
America. We also examined numerous statutes, hearing records,
regulations, and agency directives related to forest health issues,
as well as legislative proposals, prior GAO reports, and studies by
the Congressional Research Service. In our field visits, we
sometimes also made visual inspections of, and queried agency
officials about, forest conditions, their causes, and their
significance, as well as obtained views on these issues from local
outside parties active in forest issues.
To examine the status of the Forest Service's efforts to address the
most serious problems related to forest health, we interviewed agency
officials and outside parties, reviewed related agency program and
budget data, and consulted numerous agency and outside studies of
agency activities. To obtain a better understanding of what was
involved in some of these activities, we also visited several field
sites where such activities were either under way or had recently
been completed. We also reviewed agency technical models and
planning documents to assess the adequacy of prospective agency
efforts and strategies and consulted with other parties to obtain
their views on these subjects. As also agreed with the requester's
office, our review generally covered agency activities since 1993 and
was focused on the role of tree stand conditions in forest health.
To examine barriers to successfully addressing problems related to
forest health and options for overcoming them, we reviewed numerous
recent and ongoing draft studies by executive branch, agency
headquarters and field unit, legislative, and outside task forces and
commissions, as well as academic and professional journals, and we
interviewed and obtained documents from agency officials and outside
parties. With respect to estimates of costs for addressing these
conditions, we reviewed agency data, estimates from the Congressional
Research Service, and documents related to the agency's fiscal year
1998, 1999, and 2000 budgets, as well as annual performance plan data
prepared by the agency in conformance with the Government Performance
and Results Act of 1993. During the course of our review, we
periodically met with agency headquarters staff and discussed
information we had obtained through our work.
Although we did not independently verify the accuracy of the data the
agency provided to us on acreage, conditions, activities, and costs,
we did compare these data with numerous outside analyses and
estimates, as well as discussed factors affecting the data's accuracy
with agency field and headquarters personnel. We found that those
other sources generally corroborated the data the agency provided to
us, and in no instances did any inconsistencies significantly affect
or materially qualify any findings or conclusions that were based on
the agency's data. Our review was conducted from October 1997
through March 1999 in accordance with generally accepted government
accounting standards.
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES THREATEN
RESOURCES AND COMMUNITIES
============================================================ Chapter 2
According to the Forest Service, about 39 million acres of tree
stands on national forests of the interior West are at high risk of
catastrophic fire, largely because the agency's decades-old policy of
suppressing historically occurring, periodic, small wildfires has led
to unprecedented accumulations of flammable materials. As a result,
wildfires have increased in number and size over the last decade and
are increasingly difficult and costly to fight. While these
conditions threaten the sustainability of forest resources, they also
increasingly threaten human health, lives, property, and
infrastructure in nearby communities. The window of opportunity for
taking corrective action is estimated to be only about 10 to 25 years
before widespread, unstoppable wildfires with severe immediate and
long-term consequences occur on an unprecedented scale.
NATIONAL FORESTS IN THE
INTERIOR WEST HAVE SEVERAL
HEALTH PROBLEMS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1
According to the Forest Service, large areas of national forests in
the interior West are not healthy. A key symptom of their poor
health is denser tree stands--i.e., stands with many more small
trees, undergrowth, and accumulated dead materials on the ground than
were found in the past. Additionally, the proportion of less
fire-tolerant species in these tree stands has increased, as has the
incidence of some disease and insect infestations. Increased stand
densities are often related to these changes in tree species, as is
the increased incidence of insects and diseases.
INCREASED TREE STAND
DENSITY, CHANGING SPECIES
COMPOSITION, AND INSECT AND
DISEASE INFESTATIONS
INDICATE POOR FOREST HEALTH
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1.1
According to the Forest Service, a significant symptom of poor health
on national forests in the interior West is the much greater density
of stands now than in the past. For example, officials in the
Lincoln National Forest told us that high stand density conditions
exist on an estimated 79,712 acres--or 35 percent--of its mixed
conifer forest; 19,099 acres--or 22 percent--of its ponderosa pine
forest; and 576,622 acres--or 55 percent--of its pinyon-juniper
forest. The proportion of stands with densely growing, small and
medium-sized trees on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest is reported
by the agency to be about 50 percent above average historical levels.
An estimated 35 to 50 percent of the 700,000 acres of mixed conifer
and ponderosa pine on the Deschutes National Forest have more trees
per acre than normal and are at risk according to agency officials.
A 1994 study of scientifically selected sites in Arizona indicated
that the estimated density of trees on 70 sites in the Coconino
National Forest had greatly increased (from 23 per acre in 1867 to
276 in 1990), as it had on 46 sites in the Kaibab National Forest
(from 56 trees per acre in 1881 to 851 in 1990).\4 By another
measure, the estimated total cross-sectional area of trees, measured
at 4.5 feet above the ground surface, had grown from about 25 square
feet per acre to about 150 square feet on the first forest and from
about 50 square feet per acre to over 150 square feet on the other
forest over the same time periods.
Figures 2.1 and 2.2, are photographs taken from the same spot on the
Bitterroot National Forest in 1909 and 1989. They illustrate the
dramatic change over the intervening 80 years from the historically
more common, open, large tree structure of such forest stands to the
more recent, typically denser structural conditions dominated by
smaller trees.
Figure 2.1: 1909 Photograph of
Typical Open Ponderosa Pine
Stand in the Bitterroot
National Forest In Idaho
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: Forest Service.
Figure 2.2: 1989 Photograph
Taken From the Same Spot in the
Bitterroot National Forest in
the Same Direction
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: Forest Service.
A second major symptom of health problems on national forests in the
interior West that we visited was a change in the historical
composition of tree species, often to a greater proportion of trees
of less fire-tolerant species. For example, the historically
prominent western larch species has been lost and replaced by other
species of trees on 211,000 acres--or 69 percent of its historical
acreage--on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. Likewise, the
ponderosa pine has been replaced by other species on 76,000 acres--or
67 percent of its historical acreage--on this forest. In many parts
of Oregon's Deschutes National Forest, ponderosa pine has also been
replaced by Douglas fir and mixed conifers over the last few decades.
A third major symptom of health problems on national forests in the
interior West is the increase in some insect and disease
infestations. For example, on the Lincoln National Forest in New
Mexico, round-headed pine beetles have infested 49,495 acres--or 57
percent--of the forest's ponderosa pine, while the western spruce
budworm has infested 120,000 acres of its Englemann and blue spruce
and Douglas and white fir. In addition, dwarf mistletoe disease has
infested 55,563 acres--or 64 percent--of its ponderosa pine, and
113,875 acres--or about 50 percent--of its Douglas fir. The Douglas
fir tussock moth damaged 250,000 acres on the Boise National Forest
in Idaho, killing millions of trees. The Douglas-fir beetle and the
fir engraver beetle killed many more trees in this same forest, and
dwarf mistletoe is estimated to infest 119,012 acres--or 33
percent--of the Douglas fir; 78,636 acres--or 10 percent--of the
ponderosa pine; and 43,376 acres--or 50 percent--of the lodgepole
pine. Various defoliating insects infest about 20 percent of the
Deschutes National Forest's mixed conifer and ponderosa pine forest,
and dwarf mistletoe disease infects about 40 percent of its mixed
conifer and ponderosa pine. Root disease also affects about 20
percent of this forest and, according to Forest Service officials, it
is a major problem on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest, as it is
elsewhere in the interior West.
In addition to these three symptoms of poor forest health, national
forests in the interior West are facing invasions of nonnative plants
and diseases that outcompete and displace native vegetation in many
areas. For example, in the Lincoln National Forest, 12 aggressive
nonnative plant species have been identified as occupying
approximately 5,200 acres across two ranger districts. Forest
officials saw such plants spread by 30 percent in the early 1990s and
expect this trend to increase. Various noxious plants, such as
knapweeds and thistles, were estimated in 1996 to cover at least
5,000 acres of the forests and grasslands of the Arapaho/Roosevelt
National Forest, and are expected to nearly triple their coverage by
the year 2000. On the Deschutes National Forest, native shrubs and
plants associated with dominant tree species are being displaced by
invasive nonnative noxious plants at a rate that forest officials
estimate is tripling every year. Similarly, nonnative diseases, to
which many native tree species have thus far evolved little
resistance, have spread. For example, white pine blister rust, a
disease accidentally introduced from Europe in 1910, primarily caused
the loss of 656,000 acres--or 90 percent--of the western white pine
forests on the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and 7,900 acres--or 64
percent--of the whitebark pine forests. The disease has also been
found at every surveyed plot on the Boise National Forest, where the
incidence of infection in tree stands varied and was as high as
nearly 70 percent. This same disease was detected on the Lincoln
National Forest in New Mexico in 1990.
--------------------
\4 W.W. Covington and M.M. Moore, "Postsettlement Changes in
Natural Fire Regimes and Forest Structure: Ecological Restoration
of Old-Growth Ponderosa Pine Forests," copublished simultaneously in
the Journal of Sustainable Forestry , Vol. 2, No. 1/2 (1994); and
Assessing Forest Ecosystem Health in the Inland West, R. Neil
Sampson and David L. Adams, eds. (Binghamton, N.Y.: The Haworth
Press, 1994).
SUPPRESSION OF HISTORICALLY
FREQUENT WILDFIRES IS THE
PRIMARY CAUSE OF MANY
CURRENT TREE STAND
CONDITIONS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1.2
As early as the mid-19th century, European American settlers'
activities began to affect the interior West's ecology, introducing
changes that gradually weakened the health of the region's national
forests. These changes occurred in response to several factors that
have generally excluded fire from these forests, preventing it from
playing its historical role of limiting the forests' density,
clearing undergrowth and downed material, and influencing species
composition. These factors include (1) extensive livestock grazing
and changes in land use first introduced by European American
settlers in the late 1800s, which not only eliminated much of the
grass that historically carried fire through the forests' undergrowth
but also ended Native Americans practice of setting such fires for
hunting game and other purposes; (2) past timber-harvesting methods
that selectively removed the larger, more valuable, and more
accessible trees or removed all of the trees from a timber-harvesting
site at one time (clear-cutting), allowing other species to increase;
and (3) invasions by nonnative plants, insects, and diseases.
However, while these factors generally laid the groundwork for and
set in motion significant changes in these forests' ecologies,
according to several studies, the primary factor currently
contributing to unhealthy forests in the region has been the Forest
Service's decades-old policy of suppressing fire on the national
forests.\5
Fire suppression was first practiced to protect early settlements
from the risk of uncontrollable wildfires. Later, it was used as an
agricultural technique to increase the number of trees available for
timber harvesting. But without frequent fires, vegetation
accumulated so that many stands have become denser, and less
fire-tolerant tree species have become more prevalent. As the
forests' density and composition have changed, stands have become
more susceptible to drought and to the incidence of insects and
disease, including native ones that have historically played an
important role in the evolution--particularly in the decomposition
and succession cycles--of forest tree stands. Native insects and
diseases sustain the health of forest stands so long as their levels
remain within their historical ranges of variability. But contiguous
areas of dense stands provide opportunities for insects and diseases
to exceed their historical ranges and spread across large areas. In
addition, invasions by nonnative plants and diseases have sometimes
exacerbated problems arising from the other causes.
--------------------
\5 For a fuller description of the role of Native American and
European settlement in the evolution of interior western national
forests and other forestlands in the United States, see Douglas W.
MacCleery, American Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery,
Forest Service and the Forest History Society, FS-540 (Durham, N.C.:
1993) and Stephen J. Pyne, Fire in America: A Cultural History of
Wildland and Rural Fire, 1997 ed. (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1982).
TREE STAND CONDITIONS
THREATEN FOREST RESOURCES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1.3
Current tree stand conditions and the continuing absence of
historically occurring frequent wildfires threaten various national
forest resources in the interior West. For example, according to a
1998 analysis by the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife
Service, of the 146 threatened, endangered, or rare plant species
found in the coterminous states for which there is conclusive
information on fire effects, 135 species benefit from wildfire or are
found in fire-adapted ecosystems.\6
Furthermore, according to a 1994 Northern Arizona University study,
increases in density and changes in species composition alter soil
moisture, as well as the availability of nutrients and water for
plants and animals, watershed functioning and stream flow, and water
quality, affecting both terrestrial and aquatic species. Experts
have also expressed concern about the possibility that such changes
will accelerate mortality among the remaining older ponderosa pines
and other trees.
--------------------
\6 Bill Leenhouts, Assessment of Biomass Burning in the Coterminous
United States, Fish and Wildlife Service, Conservation Ecology, Vol.
2, No. 1 (1998), citing analysis of data presented in Effects of
Fire on Threatened and Endangered Plants: An Annotated Bibliography,
U.S. Department of the Interior, National Biological Service,
Information and Technology Report 2 (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES ARE A
SERIOUS CONSEQUENCE OF CURRENT
TREE STAND CONDITIONS IN THE
INTERIOR WESTERN NATIONAL
FORESTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2
The Forest Service estimates that 39 million acres of national
forestlands in the interior West are at high risk of catastrophic
wildfire because of denser stands and related conditions. As a
result, the number and size of large, intense fires have grown over
the last decade, resulting in higher fire suppression and
preparedness costs and greater damage. Such fires, which are
increasingly unstoppable, threaten not only the sustainability of
national forest resources, but also human health, lives, property,
and infrastructure in nearby communities. Experts have estimated
that a window of only 10 to 25 years is available for taking
effective action before widespread, long-term damage from such fires
occurs.
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES ARE
INCREASING BECAUSE OF
CHANGING TREE STAND
CONDITIONS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.1
In the currently denser stands of the national forests in the
interior West, where many smaller dead and dying trees now often form
fuel "ladders" to the crowns of larger trees--and where such stands
are often continuous rather than separated by stands that have
recently been thinned by fire--wildfires have increasingly become
large, intense, and catastrophic. Our analysis of the Forest
Service's data shows that the agency was highly effective in
suppressing fires on the national forests for about 75 years after
1910, reducing substantially the number of national forest acres
burned annually, over 90 percent of which have been in the interior
West. However, figure 2.3 shows that recently the agency's efforts
have been less effective.
Figure 2.3: Number of National
Forest Acres Burned by Fire,
1910-97
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: The number of acres represents the 10-year rolling average at
each point. Since 1990, 90 percent of national forest acres burned
by fire were in the interior West.
Source: GAO's presentation of data from the Forest Service.
As figure 2.3 shows, over the last decade, the number of acres of
national forestlands burned by wildfires has begun to increase,
reversing the trend of the previous three-quarters of a century.
This is because excessive accumulated fuels have made fires larger
and more intense, as shown in figure 2.4.
Figure 2.4: Number and Total
Acres Burned by Large Wildfires
on All National Forests,
1984-95
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note:10 year rolling average. Since 1990, 91 percent of the large
fires (those burning 1,000 acres or more) and 96 percent of the acres
burned were in the interior West.
Source: GAO's presentation of data from the Forest Service.
As shown in figure 2.4, since 1984, the average annual number of
fires on national forests that burn 1,000 acres or more has increased
from 25 to 80, and the number of total acres burned (including acres
on nearby lands) by these fires has more than quadrupled, from
164,000 to 765,000. Since 1990, 91 percent of these large fires and
96 percent of the acres they burned were in the interior West.
In 1995, the Forest Service estimated that 39 million acres, or about
one-third of all lands it manages in the interior West--more than
ever known before and more than in all other regions of the country
combined--are now at high risk of large, uncontrollable, catastrophic
wildfire. According to agency officials, virtually all of these
lands are located in the lower-elevation, frequent-fire forests of
the interior West that have historically been dominated by ponderosa
pine. These forests are particularly susceptible to such fires
because, as stated in a 1995 internal agency report,\7 far more
cycles of fire (up to 10) were suppressed in these forests than in
the higher-elevation, lodgepole-pine-dominated forests--where
generally only one or no fire cycle was suppressed. Figure 2.5 shows
locations in the interior West identified by experts outside the
Forest Service where the risks of fire have been rated medium or
high. Areas currently at medium risk are included because fuels can
further accumulate on them so that, over time, they may become
high-risk areas.
Figure 2.5: Western
Forestlands at Medium and High
Risk of Catastrophic Fire
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Source: American Forests.
--------------------
\7 Fire Economics Assessment Report, USDA, Forest Service
(Washington, D.C.: 1995).
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES
THREATEN THE SUSTAINABILITY
OF FOREST RESOURCES AND
PEOPLE
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.2
Compared with other forest fires, catastrophic wildfires burn many
more acres, destroy much more timber and wildlife habitat, and
subject exposed soils to substantial erosion during subsequent rains,
damaging water quality. As a result, catastrophic wildfires
compromise the forests' ability to sustain timber, outdoor
recreation, clean water, and other uses.
These increasing numbers of larger, more intense fires also pose
hazards to human health, safety, and property. For example, 14
firefighters lost their lives in the 1994 South Canyon Fire in
Colorado, which--because of its size and intensity--was able to
rapidly surround them. Although investigation reports of this fire
did not identify fuel levels as a causal factor in the fatalities,
they cited highly flammable and hazardous fuels as a contributing
factor. This fire did not originate in a frequent-fire ponderosa
stand, but in a stand of a different species, indicating that
catastrophic wildfire hazards are not limited to stands dominated by
ponderosa.
The hazards to human health, life, and property are especially acute
along the national forests' boundaries, where population has grown
rapidly in recent years--an area termed the "wildland/urban
interface." Because smoke from such fires contains substantial
amounts of fine particulate matter and other hazardous pollutants,
the fires can pose significant health risks to people living in this
interface. Such fires also threaten infrastructure vital to nearby
human communities. For example, the 1996 Buffalo Creek fire, which
burned several thousand acres and threatened private property in the
wildland/urban interface southwest of Denver, left forest soils
subject to extreme erosion. Subsequent repeated rainstorms washed
what ordinarily would have been several years' worth of sediment into
a reservoir that supplies Denver with water. As a result, the Denver
Water Board has estimated that it will incur several million dollars
in ongoing expenses for dredging the reservoir and treating the
water--an amount several times greater than the cost of fighting the
fire.
CATASTROPHIC FIRES ARE
INCREASINGLY COSTLY
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.3
The growing number of large wildfires and acres burned--coupled with
the increasing complexity of suppression in the wildland/urban
interface--has greatly increased the Forest Service's costs of
fighting fires, as shown in figure 2.6.
Figure 2.6: Forest Service's
Expenditures for Wildfire
Suppression, Fiscal Years
1986-94
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: The expenditures for each year represent the 10-year rolling
average in constant 1994 dollars. Since 1990, 95 percent of these
expenditures have been in the interior West.
Source: GAO's presentation of the Forest Service's latest available
data.
As figure 2.6 indicates, from fiscal year 1986 through fiscal year
1994, the 10-year rolling average of annual costs for fighting fires
grew from $134 million to $335 million in constant 1994 dollars, a
150-percent increase. Since 1990, 95 percent of these costs were
incurred in the interior West.
Moreover, as shown in figure 2.7, the costs associated with
preparedness, including the costs of keeping equipment and personnel
ready to fight fires, have also been increasing.
Figure 2.7: Forest Service's
Expenditures for Wildfire
Preparedness, Fiscal Years
1992-97
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: For 1994, the last year for which figures by region were
available, over 90 percent of these expenditures were in the interior
West.
Source: Forest Service.
As figure 2.7 indicates, for the 6 fiscal years from 1992 through
1997, fire preparedness costs increased by 72 percent, from $189
million to $326 million.\8 However, even though expenditures for both
suppression and preparedness have increased in recent years, the
agency's fiscal year 2000 budget proposal calls for maintaining the
current funding levels for both. Given the growing threats of
catastrophic wildfire, the agency's budget proposal notes that
maintaining the current funding level for preparedness will result in
increased risks of injury and loss of life to both the public and
firefighters.\9
--------------------
\8 Federal Lands: Information About Land Management Agencies'
Wildfire Preparedness Activities (GAO/RCED-98-48R, Dec. 18, 1997)
and Federal Lands: Wildfire Preparedness and Suppression
Expenditures for Fiscal Years 1993 Through 1997 (GAO/T-RCED-98-247,
Aug. 4, 1998).
\9 FY 2000 Budget Justification for the Committee on Appropriations,
USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 1999).
TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR
ADDRESSING THE CATASTROPHIC
WILDFIRE PROBLEM
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2.4
Many experts believe that efforts to resolve the growing threats of
catastrophic wildfires are in a race against time. According to a
1993 assessment of forest health in the interior West published in
1994, only a "brief window of opportunity" of perhaps 15 to 30 years
exists for effective management intervention before damage from
uncontrollable wildfires becomes widespread.\10 More than 5 of those
years have already passed, leaving only about 10 to 25 years
remaining. While some future catastrophic wildfires may be
inevitable and the amount of time remaining to address this problem
is uncertain, experts agree that the solution, like the causes, will
be largely the result of human choice and public policy. As the
Forest Service noted, citing the 1994 National Commission on Wildfire
Disasters,
"Uncontrollable wildfire should be seen as a failure of land
management and public policy, not as an unpredictable act of
nature. The size, intensity, destructiveness and cost of . .
. wildfires . . . is no accident. It is an outcome of our
attitudes and priorities. . . . The fire situation will
become worse rather than better unless there are changes in land
management priority at all levels."
--------------------
\10 Assessing Forest Ecosystem Health in the Inland West, Forest
Policy Center (Washington, D.C.: 1994).
RECENT AGENCY ACTIONS TO ADDRESS
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES ARE
IMPORTANT BUT MAY BE TOO LITTLE,
TOO LATE
============================================================ Chapter 3
In the last decade, the Forest Service has undertaken several actions
to better understand and reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires
on national forests in the interior West. The Congress has been
increasingly supportive of these efforts. Nonetheless, the agency
may not be able to achieve its announced goal of adequately resolving
the problem by the end of fiscal year 2015. Our analysis of the
agency's plans and data indicates that as many as 10 million acres
may remain at high risk at that time because the agency will need to
divide its planned efforts and resources between reducing accumulated
fuels on high-risk areas in the interior West and maintaining current
low-risk conditions on other national forestlands.
THE AGENCY HAS RECENTLY TAKEN
IMPORTANT STEPS TO ADDRESS
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:1
In recent years, the Forest Service has taken steps to address the
increasing threat of catastrophic wildfires on national forests. For
instance, in 1990, the agency, along with other federal and state
agencies, initiated a forest health monitoring program to better
identify tree stand conditions, including outbreaks of insects and
diseases and dead trees. In 1995, it announced its intention to
refocus its fire management program on reducing accumulated fuels.
Specifically, in a 1995 report, the agency recommended increasing the
number of acres on which accumulated fuels are reduced annually from
about 570,000 to about 3 million by fiscal year 2005.\11 In 1997, the
Chief of the Forest Service said it was the agency's intention to
implement this recommendation, and the agency plans to continue
reducing fuels on 3 million acres per year through fiscal year 2015.
By that time, the agency believes that it will have adequately
reduced the current high risks to national forestlands of
uncontrollable, highly destructive wildfires.
To implement its increased emphasis on reducing accumulated fuels,
the Forest Service restructured and redefined its fiscal year 1998
budget for wildland fire management to better ensure that funds are
available for these activities.\12 In fiscal year 1998, it announced
that the funds appropriated for reducing fuels would be allocated to
(1) protect high-risk wildland/urban interfaces, with special
emphasis on areas subject to frequent fires; (2) reduce accumulated
fuels within and adjacent to wilderness areas; and (3) lower the
expected long-term costs of suppressing wildfires by restoring and
maintaining fire-adapted ecosystems.\13 In addition, the Forest
Service has identified reducing accumulated fuels on the national
forests as a key measure of its performance in accomplishing its
high-priority, long-term strategic goal of restoring and protecting
forested ecosystems.\14
In the past 5 years, the Forest Service--either alone or with the
Department of the Interior and other federal agencies--has issued
several reports (1) addressing the health of forests in the interior
West as well as in other regions of the country, including the health
effects of fire suppression and (2) proposing management approaches
to more efficiently and effectively reduce accumulated fuels.\15 The
agency has also (1) revised its wildland fire management policy to
more clearly spell out its responsibilities and reimbursable costs so
that nonfederal parties can understand the consequences of not
working with the agency to reduce the risk of wildfire on their
adjacent lands and (2) proposed a number of demonstration projects in
collaboration with willing nonfederal partners to demonstrate the
role of mechanical methods (including timber harvesting) of removing
materials to reduce accumulated fuels.
--------------------
\11 Course to the Future: Positioning Fire and Aviation Management,
USDA, Forest Service (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
\12 FY 1998 Budget Explanatory Notes for the Committee on
Appropriations, USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 1997).
\13 FY 1999 Budget Explanatory Notes for the Committee on
Appropriations, USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 1998).
\14 USDA Strategic Plan 1997-2002: A Healthy and Productive Nation
in Harmony With the Land, Forest Service Strategic Plan, USDA, Office
of the Secretary (Sept. 30, 1997) and FY 1999 USDA Forest Service
Annual GPRA Performance Plan, USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 4, 1998).
\15 Healthy Forests for America's Future: A Strategic Plan, USDA,
Forest Service (Washington, D.C.: 1993); Fire Related Considerations
and Strategies in Support of Ecosystem Management, USDA, Forest
Service (Washington, D.C.: 1993); Western Forest Health Initiative,
USDA, Forest Service (Washington, D.C.: 1994); Fire Economics
Assessment Report, USDA, Forest Service (Washington, D.C.: 1995);
and Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review,
Department of the Interior and USDA, Forest Service (Washington,
D.C.: 1995 and 1996).
THE CONGRESS HAS INCREASINGLY
SUPPORTED THE AGENCY'S EFFORTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:2
The Congress has supported the Forest Service's efforts to reduce
accumulated fuels by, among other things, increasing the funding for
this activity. In addition, in acting on the agency's fiscal year
1998 budget, the House and Senate appropriations committees approved
the Forest Service's budget restructuring to better ensure that funds
are available for reducing accumulated fuels. The committees also
earmarked $8 million in fiscal year 1998 for the agency and the
Department of the Interior to begin a multiyear program, called the
Joint Fire Science Program, to gather consistent information on
accumulated fuels and ways to reduce them. In January 1998, the
agencies issued a plan for conducting this program.\16 This plan
called for the Forest Service and Interior to conduct and sponsor
research and analysis projects aimed at better understanding (1) the
location and extent of problems with accumulated fuels, (2) the
effects on other resources of different approaches to reducing these
fuels, (3) the relative cost-effectiveness of these different
approaches, and (4) the importance of compatible interagency
approaches to monitoring and reporting efforts to reduce fuels.
Recently, the initial projects under this multiyear program were
authorized and begun. Additionally, the Congress, in its fiscal year
1999 appropriation to the Forest Service, approved the agency's
request to conduct "stewardship contracting demonstration projects"
in collaboration with willing nonfederal partners. These projects
are intended to demonstrate the role of mechanical methods (including
timber harvesting) of removing materials to reduce accumulated fuels.
The Congress also authorized the Forest Service, in implementing
these demonstration projects, to experiment with alternative
contracting procedures.
--------------------
\16 Joint Fire Science Plan, Department of the Interior and USDA,
Forest Service (Washington, D.C.: 1998).
ACTIONS PLANNED TO DATE MAY NOT
BE SUFFICIENT OR TIMELY ENOUGH
TO ACHIEVE AGENCY GOALS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 3:3
Although the Forest Service, with the active support of the Congress,
is taking steps to address the growing risks of catastrophic
wildfires on the national forests, it may not be able to adequately
resolve the problem by the end of fiscal year 2015. In particular,
the agency's current plans may significantly underestimate the number
of acres on which fuels must be reduced annually to adequately reduce
fire hazards. Our analysis of the agency's initial plans and data
indicates that as many as about 10 million acres in the interior West
may still have excessive fuel levels and still be at high risk of
uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfire at the end of fiscal year 2015.
This shortfall may occur largely because the Forest Service has not
linked its criteria for allocating the funds appropriated to reduce
accumulated fuels to its actual allocation of these funds. The
current and planned allocations largely emphasize maintaining
satisfactory conditions on lands outside the frequent-fire forests of
the interior West that currently have low levels of accumulated fuels
so that conditions on them do not also become hazardous. To maintain
satisfactory conditions on these other forests, the Forest Service
will need to continue reducing fuels on them, at a rate of about 1
million acres per year. Thus, the agency's plans to reduce fuels
nationally on 3 million acres per year will provide for only about 2
million acres on national forests in the interior West. This level
of accomplishment will likely fall short of the levels needed to meet
the agency's goals for the interior West's frequent-fire forests.
Moreover, despite budget allocation criteria emphasizing the
restoration of high-risk interface areas within the interior West's
frequent fire forest ecosystems, such restoration activities will be
limited by incomplete information. As the agency noted in February
1999, it has not yet mapped these interface areas with the precision
needed to identify and design individual high-priority fuel reduction
projects.
Additionally, despite earlier plans to steadily increase its fuel
reduction efforts, the agency is now intending to scale back the
work, according to its fiscal year 2000 budget proposal. Initially,
it planned to increase its efforts nationwide from about 1.5 million
acres in fiscal year 1999 to 1.8 million acres in fiscal year 2000,
building toward 3 million acres per year by fiscal year 2005.
However, in its recently proposed fiscal year 2000 budget, it called
for reducing fuels on only 1.3 million acres, or on fewer acres than
planned for the current fiscal year.\17
However, it should be noted that the Forest Service could very likely
substantially reduce fire hazards without reducing fuels on all 39
million acres currently at high risk of catastrophic fire. For
example, it might be able to construct fuelbreaks--i.e., areas where
excessive fuels have been removed in strategic locations to isolate
areas that still have excessive fuels--and thus limit the spread of
large fires. But the Forest Service has not yet developed a general
strategy for selectively reducing fuels, nor for implementing any
alternative strategic approach that would allow it to systematically
assign priorities to areas and thus safely decide not to reduce fuels
on some lower-priority areas. Until it develops such a strategy, it
has no basis for eliminating any current high-risk areas from its
fuel reduction efforts, nor can it adequately evaluate the relative
effectiveness or efficiency of its current efforts.
The Forest Service stated in 1996 that its forest planning efforts
did not adequately consider historical fire disturbance cycles. The
purpose of the Joint Fire Science Program is to obtain information
critical to planning and undertaking effective agency actions.
However, an agency official involved in implementing the program said
10 years will be needed to complete it and that, as it is completed,
national forests will use its findings to amend or revise current
individual forest plans. Efforts to revise forest plans can take
several years.
Progress to date in gathering data under the program has proved
difficult. In September 1998, the agency said that under the Joint
Fire Science Plan, it would complete an initial mapping of the
locations and levels of existing hazardous conditions on national
forests before the end of the year. However, in February 1999, the
agency said that the results of initial efforts to map these
conditions still needed additional review and that, even when the
initial mapping was completed, the data would not yet be precise
enough to provide a basis for ranking and designing site-specific
fuel reduction projects. Although the Forest Service is
experimenting with using this type of mapping information in
conjunction with other, more local analyses to rank and design
individual fuel reduction projects in the Idaho Panhandle area, it
has not yet developed a consistent, agencywide mapping approach.
The recently approved stewardship contracting demonstration
projects--for testing new partnership and contracting procedures for
reducing fuels--are in the initial selection and analysis stage.
Critical to the usefulness of these demonstration projects will be
the Forest Service's development, at their outset, of a common
framework for systematically evaluating their effectiveness. Such a
framework is necessary for the agency to gather and summarize
consistent information on the projects' implementation, results, and
lessons learned so that the lessons can be applied more generally to
the agency's future fuel reduction efforts. However, no common
evaluation framework has been developed yet, even though many of the
demonstration projects are soon to be implemented.
--------------------
\17 FY 2000 Budget Justification for the Committee on Appropriations,
USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 1999).
THE AGENCY LACKS A COHESIVE
STRATEGY FOR ADDRESSING SEVERAL
BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE ACTION
============================================================ Chapter 4
Without adequate data, the Forest Service has not been able to
develop a cohesive strategy for addressing numerous policy,
programmatic, and budgetary factors that present significant barriers
to the accomplishment of its fuel reduction goals. These factors
include (1) difficulties in reconciling needed actions with other
legislatively mandated stewardship objectives to protect resources,
(2) program incentives that tend to focus on areas of that may not
present the greatest wildfire hazards, (3) statutorily defined
contracting mechanisms that do not facilitate the removal of many
hazardous fuels, and (4) costs for reducing fuels on high-risk areas
that may be as high as $12 billion between now and the end of fiscal
year 2015. The agency has not systematically identified the steps or
activities to be undertaken in order overcome these barriers, nor has
it developed a schedule for accomplishing them.
SEVERAL BARRIERS EXIST TO
EFFECTIVE AGENCY ACTION
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1
Methods to reduce fuels can be difficult to reconcile with agencies'
other responsibilities. In dense tree stands, fires are difficult to
control and may escape. In addition, controlled burning on a scale
consistent with that of historically frequent fires is difficult to
use without violating air quality standards established under the
Clean Air Act. However, mechanically removing fuels (through
commercial timber harvesting, among other means), can also adversely
affect wildlife habitat and water quality in many areas and, in any
event, areas with commercially valuable timber are often not those
where the greatest wildfire hazards exists. In addition, the
agency's fuel reduction program rewards managers for the number of
acres on which they reduce fuels, without taking into account the
relative hazards on those acres; it does not reward managers for
reducing fuels on the most hazardous acres. Finally, the agency's
statutorily defined contracting mechanisms were primarily designed
for removing high-value timber, not excess accumulated fuels that are
generally low in value and can be costly to remove. As a result, the
cost to the Forest Service for reducing fuels on the 39 million acres
at high risk may be about $12 billion between now and the end of
fiscal year 2015, or an average of about $725 million annually, and
these costly activities will have to be repeated in the future.
FUEL REDUCTION ACTIVITIES
ARE SOMETIMES DIFFICULT TO
RECONCILE WITH OTHER
STEWARDSHIP OBJECTIVES
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1.1
Activities for reducing accumulated fuels can sometimes be difficult
to reconcile with other legislatively mandated stewardship
objectives, including meeting clean water quality standards and
protecting threatened and endangered species. According to an agency
official, in the past, the Forest Service sometimes used chemicals
(herbicides) to kill undergrowth, which could then be burned.
Combining these two methods was often less costly than mechanically
removing the undergrowth. The agency has, however, largely stopped
using herbicides because of concerns about their adverse effects on
water quality and human health. Additionally, because large
ponderosa pine trees were selectively harvested and fire was
suppressed in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon, ponderosa
stands have largely been replaced by abnormally dense stands of
Douglas fir. However, many of the Douglas fir stands cannot be
removed because they now provide habitat for the threatened northern
spotted owl, whose naturally occurring habitat on the western side of
the Cascade mountain range has been significantly reduced by timber
harvesting.
Many agency and outside experts believe that, ultimately, avoiding
catastrophic wildfires and restoring forest health in the interior
West will require reintroducing fire through burning under controlled
conditions to reduce fuels. However, the use of controlled fire in
the interior West has two limitations. First, winter snows limit the
time available for burning, and dry summer weather creates a high
risk that, given massive levels of accumulated fuels, controlled
fires will escape and become uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires.
Second, several officials and experts we spoke with believe that
emissions from controlled fires on the scale that is needed to
adequately reduce fuels would violate federal air quality standards
under the Clean Air Act. Hence, in their view, the act would not
permit the desired level of burning either immediately or possibly
even in the long term. The Forest Service and the Environmental
Protection Agency, which administers the Clean Air Act, are currently
conducting a 3-year experiment to better determine the impact of
emissions from controlled fires.
For these reasons, many experts agree that fuels must be reduced in
most areas of the interior West, at least initially, by mechanical
means, including commercial timber harvesting, in conjunction with
controlled burning. The Forest Service currently uses its timber
sales management program to reduce accumulated fuels.\18 However, the
use of timber harvesting to reduce fuels has been limited by concerns
about its adverse effects on other stewardship objectives.
Specifically, in fiscal year 1997, timber harvesting was used to
reduce fuels on only about 95,000 acres, or fewer than 5 percent of
the acres on which fuels will need to be reduced annually to achieve
the agency's long-term goal. Forest Service officials told us that
it was not likely that commercial timber harvesting could be
increased enough to adequately reduce fuels on the vast acreage
needing such reductions.
--------------------
\18 FY 1999 Budget Explanatory Notes for the Committee on
Appropriations, USDA, Forest Service (Feb. 1998).
INCENTIVES IN THE TIMBER AND
FUEL REDUCTION PROGRAMS TEND
TO FOCUS EFFORTS ON AREAS OF
LESSER HAZARD
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1.2
Moreover, mechanical removals under both the timber sales management
program and the fuel reduction program funded by appropriations
currently involve incentives that tend to focus efforts on areas that
may not present the greatest fire hazards. For example, under its
fuel reduction program, the Forest Service's lone performance
indicator measures the number of acres treated. Agency field staff
told us that funding for forests often depends on their ability to
contribute to the agency's acreage targets. As a result, forest
staff often focus on areas where the costs of reducing fuels are low
so that they can reduce fuels on more acres, rather than on those
areas with the highest fire hazards, including especially the
wildland/urban interfaces. These high-hazard areas often have
significantly higher per-acre costs because of limitations on the use
of less expensive controlled fires as a tool to reduce the
accumulated fuels. Although the Forest Service is considering making
changes to its current performance indicator, it has not yet done so.
Timber harvesting may make useful contributions to reducing
accumulated fuels in many circumstances. However, reducing fuels
with the funds allocated for timber sales management may also provide
an incentive for forests to focus on less critical areas. The Forest
Service stresses that its timber sales management program is
increasingly being used for efforts to improve forest health,
including efforts to prevent catastrophic fires.\19 The agency relies
on timber production to fund many of its programs and activities, and
all three of its budget allocation criteria for timber activities
relate solely to the volume of timber produced or offered. As a
result, as forest officials told us, they tend to (1) focus on areas
with high-value commercial timber rather than on areas with high fire
hazards or (2) include more large, commercially valuable trees in a
timber sale than are necessary to reduce the accumulated fuels.
Similarly, an interagency team that reviewed the implementation of
the Emergency Salvage Timber Sale Program observed that some Forest
Service personnel focused more on harvesting timber than on
protecting forested ecosystems.\20 This tendency of some agency
personnel was further documented in a 1999 report by the Department
of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General.\21
--------------------
\19 National Summary: Forest Management Program Report for Fiscal
Year 1997, USDA, Forest Service, FS-627 (July 1998).
\20 Interagency Salvage Program Review, U.S. Department of Commerce,
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine
Fisheries Service (Silver Spring, Md., Oct. 8, 1996).
\21 Forest Service Timber Sale Environmental Analysis Requirements,
Evaluation Report No. 08801-10-At, USDA, Office of Inspector General
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 1999).
STATUTORILY DEFINED
CONTRACTING MECHANISMS DO
NOT FACILITATE THE REMOVAL
OF MANY HAZARDOUS FUELS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1.3
Most of the trees that need to be removed to reduce accumulated fuels
are small in diameter and have little or no commercial value. For
example, to return experimental forest plots near Flagstaff, Arizona,
to historical conditions, 37 tons per acre of nonmarketable trees and
vegetation had to be disposed of by being placed in a pit and burned.
However, the agency's largely statutorily defined contracting
procedures were not designed to (1) facilitate the systematic removal
of large volumes of low-value material over a number of years, (2)
readily combine funds for conducting timber sales with funds for
reducing accumulated fuels, or (3) allow contractors to retain this
low-value material to partially offset the costs of its removal.
More specifically, the agency's two principal contracting procedures
for removing materials from national forests are (1) competitively
bid timber sale contracts under which the party removing the material
purchases it at fair market value and expects to sell it for a profit
and (2) service contracts, funded by appropriations, which do not
involve selling the material, but merely paying a contractor for
removing it. The National Forest Management Act of 1976 generally
does not allow materials worth more than $10,000 to be removed from
national forests under service contracts; instead, such materials
must generally be removed under competitively bid timber sale
contracts.\22 However, low-value materials are unattractive to timber
purchasers. As a result, the value of this contracting procedure for
reducing low-value fuels is quite limited.
While the materials to be removed may not be valuable enough for
contractors to make a profit by purchasing them, the materials often
have some lesser value. If purchasers could keep this material, they
could apply its lesser value to offset at least part of their costs
for removing it. They could then charge the Forest Service less for
removal, saving the government money while reducing fuels on more
acres for any given level of appropriated funding. However, the
agency generally does not have the authority to trade goods (in the
form of low-value forest materials) for a service (such as removing
them).\23 Because of these restrictions, in 1998, Agriculture's
Office of General Counsel determined that only 6 of 23 projects
proposed by the Forest Service to demonstrate, among other things,
the role of timber harvesting in reducing accumulated fuels, could
proceed under the agency's existing statutory authority. The
remaining projects would, among other things, have involved removing
material of greater total value than is allowed under service
contracts or letting contractors keep some material in exchange for
removing it. In the Fiscal Year 1999 Omnibus Consolidated and
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, the Congress authorized
the Forest Service, through fiscal year 2002, to enter into 28
individual demonstration project contracts under which (1) the value
of the material removed may be used by the contractor to offset the
costs of removal, and (2) there is no limitation on the value of the
material to be removed. However, the more general authority
temporarily granted to the agency in the early 1990s to enter into
"land stewardship contracts"--under which contractors were allowed to
retain material they removed in exchange for achieving desired
conditions on the national forests--has not been renewed.\24
--------------------
\22 16 U.S.C. 472a.
\23 See Paul C. Ringgold, Land Stewardship Contracting in the
National Forests: A Community Guide to Existing Authorities, Pinchot
Institute for Conservation (Washington, D.C.: 1998).
\24 See Forest Service Timber Sale Practices and Procedures:
Analysis of Alternative Systems, Congressional Research Service,
95-1077 ENR (Washington, D.C.: 1995) and M. Mitsos, Improving
Administrative Flexibility and Efficiency in the National Forest
Timber Sale Program: Scoping Session Summary, Pinchot Institute
(Washington, D.C.: 1996).
COSTS FOR REMOVING HAZARDOUS
FUELS WILL BE VERY HIGH
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:1.4
Because the materials removed through fuel reduction efforts often
have low or no value, the revenue they generate will not cover the
costs of their removal. Consequently, agency officials and outside
analysts agree that reducing accumulated fuels in the interior West
is likely to require hundreds of millions of dollars a year in
appropriated funds. Our preliminary analysis of the Forest Service's
fuel reduction costswhich, according to the agency's data average
about $320 per acre for the combination of burning and mechanical
removal that is necessary in the interior West--indicates that as
much as $12 billion, or about $725 million a year, may be needed to
treat the 39 million acres at high risk of uncontrollable wildfire by
the end of fiscal year 2015. These costs might be less if the agency
reduced current hazards on the 39 million acres selectively, in
accordance with a systematic strategy and set of priorities.
For fiscal year 1999, the agency requested and received $65 million
to reduce accumulated fuels--or less than one-tenth of the annual
level that may be needed to accomplish its goal. At that time, it
projected that it would increase its request to $102 million for
fiscal year 2000, in keeping with its announced intention to increase
its fuel reduction efforts through fiscal year 2015. However, in its
recently released fiscal year 2000 budget request, the agency instead
asked for the same $65 million it received for fiscal year 1999. The
agency stated that, because fuels have already been reduced on the
least costly areas, this funding level will provide for even fewer
acres than it did in the previous year.
Moreover, our analysis of the costs to reduce fuels on national
forest acres identified as being at high risk examined only the
"first-time" costs of reducing fuels on them. Fuels will have to be
reduced periodically in order to maintain forest health. For
example, in 1998, the Wenatchee National Forest in Washington stated
that it would have to begin reducing fuels on areas treated only 10
to 15 years ago because undergrowth had accumulated in the interim,
posing new fire hazards. Forest Service officials we spoke with
agreed with a 1997 observation by the Secretary of the Interior that
substantial efforts to reduce fuels will have to be repeated three to
five times or more on these lands over many decades, although the
later repetitions may be less costly.
THE AGENCY LACKS A COHESIVE
STRATEGY FOR ADDRESSING
BARRIERS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 4:2
We have previously noted that the Forest Service lacks accountability
in implementing its ecosystem management approach to ensure
sustainable multiple uses of the national forests. Specifically, we
noted that (1) its goals and objectives under this approach are not
linked to performance measures to ensure their accomplishment and (2)
it lacks a goal or schedule for achieving accountability for its
performance.\25 This observation applies equally to the agency's
efforts to address the threat posed by catastrophic wildfires to
ensuring sustainable multiple uses. For instance, as noted in this
report, the incentive implicit in its current performance measure for
fuel reduction tends not to focus activities on the most hazardous
areas. Thus, the agency has no meaningful performance measure and
goal related to reducing catastrophic wildfire hazards. Such a
meaningful performance measure and goal are critical if the agency is
to develop a cohesive strategy for reducing accumulated fuels and be
held accountable for accomplishing this strategy.
According to Forest Service officials, the agency has not established
such a meaningful performance measure and goal for reducing fuels
because it lacks sufficient data on the location of acres in national
forests at high risk of catastrophic fire, as well as on the
cost-effectiveness and effects on other resources of methods for
reducing them. Our observations at the forests we visited confirmed
this lack of data. Forest officials could only estimate or tell us
in general terms how many acres they believed were at such risk, but
could not identify particular high-risk locations or high-priority
areas with any significant precision. Agency officials believe that
having such data, which the Joint Fire Science Program is intended to
identify, will better enable them both to develop a meaningful
performance goal and measure and to better reconcile different fuel
reduction approaches with other stewardship objectives. Similarly,
they believe that data from the stewardship contracting demonstration
projects will help them identify changes in statutorily defined
contracting procedures that would better facilitate the
accomplishment of fuel reduction goals.
However, the agency has not systematically identified a cohesive set
of activities or steps that it will undertake to obtain needed data,
better reconcile objectives, or identify desirable changes in
contracting procedures. Nor has it outlined a schedule for
accomplishing these tasks.
--------------------
\25 Forest Service: Lack of Financial and Performance Accountability
Has Resulted in Inefficiency and Waste (GAO/T-RCED/AIMD-98-135, Mar.
26, 1998).
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION
============================================================ Chapter 5
CONCLUSIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:1
We believe that the threats and costs associated with increasingly
uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires, together with the urgent need
for action to avoid them, make them the most serious immediate
problem related to the health of national forests in the interior
West. We also believe that the activities planned by the Forest
Service may not be sufficient and may not be completed during the
estimated 10- to 25-year "window of opportunity" remaining for
effective action before damage from uncontrollable wildfires becomes
widespread. The tinderbox that is now the interior West likely
cannot wait that long for a cohesive strategy to be implemented.
Simply allowing nature to take its inevitable course may cost
more--not only for fire suppression, but also in human lives and
damage to natural resources, human health, property, and
infrastructure--than would undertaking strategic actions now.
The increasing number of uncontrollable and often catastrophic
wildfires in the interior West, as well as the significant costs to
reduce growing hazards to natural resources and human health, safety,
property, and infrastructure, present difficult policy decisions for
the Forest Service and the Congress: Does the agency request, and
does the Congress appropriate, the hundreds of millions of dollars a
year that may be required to fund an aggressive fuel reduction
program? If enough is not appropriated, what priorities should be
established? How can the need for reintroducing fire into
frequent-fire forests and mechanical removals best be reconciled with
meeting air quality standards and other stewardship objectives? What
incentives and changes in statutorily defined contracting procedures
are needed to facilitate the mechanical removal of low-value
materials?
Such decisions should be based on a sound strategy that, in turn,
depends in large part on data being gathered under the Forest Service
and Interior's Joint Fire Science Program and the Forest Service's
stewardship contracting demonstration projects. With these data, the
agency will be able to establish more meaningful performance
measures, priorities, and goals for reducing fuels. It will also be
better able to (1) reconcile different fuel reduction approaches with
its other stewardship objectives, (2) identify changes in incentives
and statutorily defined contracting procedures that will better
facilitate the accomplishment of fuel reduction goals, and (3)
determine the associated costs of different options for doing so.
All of these elements will be essential in the more cohesive agency
strategy needed to address the problem of catastrophic wildfires now
threatening the sustainability of multiple national forest uses and
the security of human life, health, property, and infrastructure in
communities near those forests. However, because of concerns about
the agency's accountability, we believe that the credibility of its
efforts to devise such a strategy hinge upon the establishment of a
clearly understood schedule for expeditiously developing and
implementing this strategy.
RECOMMENDATION TO THE SECRETARY
OF AGRICULTURE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:2
We recommend that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Chief of
the Forest Service to develop, and formally communicate to the
Congress, a cohesive strategy for reducing and maintaining
accumulated fuels on national forests of the interior West at
acceptable levels. We further recommend that this strategy include
(1) specific steps for (a) acquiring the data needed to establish
meaningful performance measures and goals for reducing fuels, (b)
identifying ways of better reconciling different fuel reduction
approaches with other stewardship objectives, and (c) identifying
changes in incentives and statutorily defined contracting procedures
that would better facilitate the accomplishment of fuel reduction
goals; (2) a schedule indicating dates for completing each of these
steps; and (3) estimates of the potential and likely overall and
annual costs of accomplishing this strategy based on different
options identified in the strategy as being available for doing so.
(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix I
COMMENTS FROM THE FOREST SERVICE
============================================================ Chapter 5
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
The following are GAO's comments on the Forest Service's letter dated
March 22, 1999.
GAO'S COMMENTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 5:3
1. Our report notes that there is a lack of consensus on what
constitutes forest health. We have added language in our report to
incorporate the agency's observation that greater community awareness
and acceptance of needed actions are important elements in
implementing a successful fuel reduction strategy. Moreover, we
believe that the agency, through improving the cohesiveness of its
strategy, may provide communities and those concerned about forest
health with a clearer basis for both reaching consensus on and
accepting needed actions.
2. We do not presume that there is a broad scientific consensus
surrounding appropriate methods or techniques for dealing with fuel
build-up or agreement on the size of the areas where, and the time
frames when, such methods or techniques should be applied. Our
report recognizes that the agency is currently pursuing better
answers to these questions through the Joint Fire Science Program and
other efforts, and we have added clarifying language in our report to
incorporate the agency's observation.
3. We agree that the other forest management activities, identified
by the Forest Service as contributing to overall forest health and as
having an impact on acres at risk of wildfire, should not overlooked
and can be important elements in the agency's more cohesive strategy.
For instance, our report notes important interrelationships that the
agency must consider when balancing fuel reduction goals with other
stewardship objectives, such as preserving air and water quality.
4. We agree that expanding the Forest Service's fuel reduction
program over the next few decades could significantly reduce the risk
of high-intensity fire and allow for the successful suppression of
wildland fire in areas where fuels have been reduced. However, as
noted in our report, the agency's planned expansion of this program
is not on schedule, and its fiscal year 2000 budget request, compared
with its fiscal year 1999 appropriation, will provide for reducing
fuel on fewer acres, rather than on more, as originally planned. We
believe this change demonstrates the need for the agency to better
identify estimates of potential and likely costs to accomplish a more
cohesive strategy as recommended in our report.
5. We did not evaluate the relationship between specific funding
levels for the Forest Service's initial responses to wildfires and
the resulting likelihood of acreage lost to catastrophic wildfire.
However, our report notes that the agency's fiscal year 2000 budget
request will only maintain current funding level for preparedness,
not increase the funding for it. According to the agency,
maintaining the current funding level will increase the risks of
injuries and loss of life to the public and firefighters next year.
We believe this statement further supports our recommendation that
the agency needs to better identify estimates of potential and likely
costs to accomplish a more cohesive strategy.
6. Our report notes that fuel reduction is not required on every
national forest acre currently at high risk of catastrophic wildfire
and that blocks where fuels have been reduced, called fire breaks or
fuel breaks, may prevent fires from reaching high intensity or large
size. However, we also note that the Forest Service has not yet
developed a general strategy for constructing such fire breaks, nor
for implementing any alternative strategic approach that would allow
it to systematically assign priorities to areas and thus safely avoid
reducing fuels on some of them. Until the agency develops such a
strategy, it has no basis for eliminating any current high-risk areas
from its fuel reduction efforts, nor can it adequately evaluate the
relative effectiveness or efficiency of its current efforts.
7. We agree that some of the acres at high risk will burn in the
interior West, thereby reducing fuels on them and lowering the total
number of acres remaining at high risk. However, as we point out in
our report, in many areas fuels will have to be reduced repeatedly.
Moreover, as our report points out, the concern about catastrophic
wildfires is not just how many acres they burn, but where those acres
are located. In particular, future catastrophic wildfires that (1)
burn many acres in the wildland/urban interface, taking lives and
damaging human health, property, or infrastructure; (2) destroy
critical terrestrial or aquatic habitat; or (3) needlessly destroy
timber available for harvest should be considered as part of the
problem rather than as contributions to reducing it.
8. We agree with the agency that it is important to maintain current
satisfactory conditions in regions other than the frequent-fire
forests of the interior West, including the Forest Service's Southern
Region, so that fire risks in these areas do not also become
hazardous to resources or people, as many areas in the interior West
are now. We also do not question the level of funding for fuel
reduction efforts in these other regions. Our report states,
instead, that the acres in these other regions on which it plans to
maintain the current lower fuel levels must be taken into account
when determining the adequacy of the agency's plans to reduce fuels
on a total of 3 million acres nationally each year.
9. We do not disagree that Joint Fire Science Program's projects are
currently planned to be completed in 3 to 5 years. Instead, our
report notes an agency official's estimate of how long they may
actually take. In our view, the project's experience to date with
mapping fire risks suggests that tasks under this program may, in
fact, take longer than currently planned. This task, which was
originally scheduled for completion in November 1998, is now,
according to the agency's comments on our draft report, not projected
to be completed until September 2000. Finally, we note that the plan
adopted in 1998 for carrying out the program provides for members of
its governing board to serve for 10 years.
10. We did not assess the extent to which the increase in the
acreage burned in the interior West over the last few years can be
partly attributed to more flexible suppression strategies. Nor do we
question whether such strategies may be an important element in the
agency's overall strategy to reduce fuels. However, regardless of
the reasons for the increases in the acreage burned, substantially
more acres are now burning unintentionally, with increasing costs and
threats to resources and people. The agency has on several occasions
concurred that this is a serious problem. For instance, as we note
in our report, the agency has stated in its fiscal year 2000 budget
request that the risks of injuries and loss of life to the public and
firefighters will increase next year. Finally, we agree that these
more flexible suppression strategies are not acreage driven, but
hazard based. However, as we point out in our report, current
incentives in the agency's main fuel reduction program are acreage
driven, not hazard based, and incentives in its timber program are
largely driven by commercial rather than safety considerations. Our
report urges the development of a more cohesive fuel reduction
strategy that addresses ways to better integrate these incentives
around hazard reduction.
11. The Forest Service is correct in pointing out that the level of
fuels was not specifically identified as a cause of the fatalities in
the investigative reports on this fire and that the predominant
vegetation type was not, in this case, long-needle pine. However,
according to the investigative reports we reviewed, this was a very
large, intense fire that spread to the canopy (i.e., crowns of the
trees), and highly flammable and hazardous fuels were a significant
contributor to the fatalities.\26 While our report notes that
long-needle pines such as ponderosa are a predominant forest type at
lower elevations in the interior West, the example serves to point
out that catastrophic wildfire hazards on national forests of the
interior West are not limited to this forest type. Our report
considers all wildfire hazards in the region and is not limited to
fire hazards associated with any specific type of tree stand or
vegetation. Our purpose in citing this example was simply to
demonstrate that large, intense fires occurring on the interior
Western national forests can be life threatening, irrespective of all
of their causes and sources. We have added the language in the
report to reflect the agency's comment about the fire and clarify the
scope of our report.
--------------------
\26 Report of the South Canyon Fire Accident Investigation Team,
Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service (Aug. 17, 1994); and
Fire Behavior Associated With the 1994 South Canyon Fire on Storm
King Mountain, Colorado, USDA, Forest Service, Research Paper
RMRS-RP-9 (Ogden, Utah: 1998).
MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix II
RESOURCES, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMIC
DIVISION
Ryan T. Coles
Susan L. Conlon
Charles S. Cotton
Elizabeth R. Eisenstadt
Lynne L. Goldfarb
Brent L. Hutchison
Chester M. Joy
Hugo W. Wolter, Jr.
OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL
Doreen Stolzenberg Feldman
*** End of document. ***