    Fire Management: Lessons Learned From the Cerro Grande (Los Alamos) Fire
    and Actions Needed to Reduce Fire Risks (Testimony, 08/14/2000,
    GAO/T-RCED-00-273).

    Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the circumstances
    surrounding the Los Alamos wildfire, focusing on: (1) the events leading
    up to the prescribed fire and how it was managed; and (2) what fire
    management policies or practices need to be improved.

    GAO noted that: (1) the Cerro Grande fire exposed policy implementation
    issues that need to be addressed for managing prescribed fires; (2) most
    of the issues involved procedural gaps or a lack of clarity about how
    policies are to be implemented; (3) these issues affected both the
    planning and implementation of the burn; (4) some of the issues are
    specific to Bandelier National Monument and the National Park Service;
    (5) however, others involve other federal agencies; and (6) those
    problems that are not site--or agency--specific raise questions about
    the readiness of the federal land management agencies to effectively
    support and administer prescribed burns as a forest management tool.

    --------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

     REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-00-273
         TITLE:  Fire Management: Lessons Learned From the Cerro Grande
    	     (Los Alamos) Fire and Actions Needed to Reduce Fire
    	     Risks
          DATE:  08/14/2000
       SUBJECT:  Forest management
    	     Interagency relations
    	     Fire fighters
    	     National forests
    	     Safety standards
    	     Decision making
    IDENTIFIER:  Los Alamos (NM)
    	     Cerro Grande (NM)
    	     Bandelier National Monument (NM)

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    GAO/T-RCED-00-273

    Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee:

    We are here today to discuss two related issues, lessons learned from the
    recent Cerro Grande fire, and, on a broader note, actions needed to mitigate
    current hazardous forest conditions in the interior West.

    Only a few months ago, the Los Alamos fire, now officially known as the
    Cerro Grande fire, caused hundreds of families in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to
    lose their homes and more than 18,000 residents of the state to be
    evacuated. Over 1,000 fire fighters were required to bring the fire under
    control. Estimates have placed total damages at about $1 billion. This
    tragedy was the result of a prescribed fire ignited by officials of the
    National Park Service. Ironically, the fire was ignited in an effort to
    reduce some of the vegetative buildup in a forested area of Bandelier
    National Monument and thus help prevent the very kind of event that
    occurred. The plan was to burn up to 900 acres; in the end about 48,000
    acres were burned.

    The policy supporting the use of prescribed or controlled burns as a forest
    management tool has been in place for some time. According to analyses by
    federal land management agencies, the use of prescribed burns has been and
    will continue to be a critical component of forest management if the nation
    wants to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, particularly in the
    interior West. The need to reduce these risks has never been more obvious as
    it as at this time. While the Cerro Grande fire demonstrated this, as events
    have unfolded, it was only the beginning of what has turned out to be one of
    the worst wildfire seasons in history with over 4 million acres already
    burned and dozens of fires still burning in many western states. In
    reviewing the events surrounding the Cerro Grande fire, we examined how well
    the policy was implemented and what, if any, lessons can be learned to
    prevent future tragedies like it.

    To address your concerns, you asked us to look back at the events leading up
    to the prescribed fire and examine how it was managed. You also asked us to
    identify what fire management policies or practices need to be improved.
    Since we began our work over 2 months ago, we have reviewed the relevant
    documentation on the conduct and management of the fire, including the
    e-mail traffic and field notes of key staff involved in planning and
    implementing the prescribed burn. In addition, we reviewed the investigative
    report done for the Secretary of the Interior and the associated Board of
    Review report and interviewed the officials responsible in various
    capacities for managing and fighting the fire. We also visited the fire site
    at Bandelier National Monument to get a first-hand look at what happened and
    to review the events with local park officials and others.

    Madam Chairman, before proceeding with the specifics of what we found on the
    Cerro Grande fire, I think it is important to set the proper tone and
    provide some context for the points we will be making. Each year, federal
    land management agencies carry out hundreds of prescribed burns. The vast
    majority of these are done without incident. However, when a prescribed fire
    does get out of control, like the one we are talking about today, it is
    imperative that the events surrounding the incident be closely reviewed to
    determine what can be learned to help prevent such occurrences in the
    future. This kind of analysis has the benefit of hindsight. We did not have
    the burden of making urgent, on-the-spot decisions in the midst of trying to
    manage an ongoing fire. With the benefit of this hindsight, we have analyzed
    the management of the Cerro Grande fire. Accordingly, we are not here to
    assign blame but to help improve the way federal land management agencies
    manage future prescribed burns.

    In summary, we found the following:

       * The Cerro Grande fire exposed policy implementation issues that need to
         be addressed for managing prescribed fires. Most of the issues involved
         procedural gaps or a lack of clarity about how policies are to be
         implemented. These issues affected both the planning and implementation
         of the burn.

       * Some of the issues are specific to Bandelier National Monument and the
         National Park Service. However, others involve other federal agencies.
         Those problems that are not site-or agency-specific raise questions
         about the current readiness of the federal land management agencies to
         effectively support and administer prescribed burns as a forest
         management tool.

    We have made a number of recommendations aimed at addressing these issues.
    Both the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture agree
    with our recommendations.

    In addition to addressing the issues surrounding the Cerro Grande wildfire,
    you asked us to discuss the actions needed to address the current hazardous
    forest conditions in the western part of the nation. In summary, our past
    work shows the following:

       * The increasing danger of catastrophic wildfires has been caused, in
         large part, by excessive accumulations of vegetation in the nation's
         forests, particularly in the western states.

       * While efforts to address this problem are now beginning, the Congress
         needs to ensure that the responsible federal agencies use the available
         funding on those areas facing the most serious wildfire risks.
         Currently, it is not clear that this will be done.

    Lessons Learned From the Cerro Grande Fire

    Before proceeding with a discussion of our specific findings, I would like
    to show some slides we have prepared on the Cerro Grande fire. The slides
    map the progress of the fire, help describe how it was managed, and provide
    a common background and understanding of the flow of events that led to the
    fire getting out of control. The slides take you from the start of the fire
    on the evening of May 4, 2000, to its substantial containment on May 19,
    2000. (See app. I.)

    Clearly, many important lessons are to be learned from the experience at
    Cerro Grande. We will be highlighting the major ones here today. These
    lessons, if they are applied in planning and implementing future burns,
    should result in more effective use of prescribed fires as a tool to
    accomplish resource and forest health objectives throughout the public lands
    enterprise.

    Planning for the Prescribed Fire

    The National Park Service, like other federal land management agencies,
    requires a specific plan for each prescribed fire. Essentially, the
    prescribed burn plan documents the objectives of the burn and specifies how
    it is to be carried out. In addition, the burn plan is to provide for
    cooperation and coordination with other agencies and, where appropriate,
    public involvement, and the notification of affected agencies and the public
    on the day of the burn.

    Policy guidance and manuals on how to prepare these plans were jointly
    developed by the federal land management agencies, and each agency provided
    supplemental instructions to its staff. Once a plan is prepared, it is to be
    reviewed and approved by the top operating official at a park-usually a
    superintendent-before it is made final. However, the National Park Service's
    guidance does not require or encourage park managers to include other
    knowledgeable or potentially affected parties outside of the park in the
    review process.

    As a result of the Cerro Grande fire, we identified three important lessons
    to be learned about the planning process that could improve the management
    of future prescribed burns. First, prescribed burn plans need to be
    "peer-reviewed" by independent, knowledgeable individuals. Second,
    clarification is needed on how to get additional fire-fighting
    resources--called "contingency resources"--for a fire once it has begun and
    when to make these additional resources available for prescribed fires.
    Finally, federal agencies and nearby jurisdictions need more effective
    coordination and cooperation before a prescribed burn is started.

    Burn Plans Need to Be Peer-Reviewed

    The prescribed burn plan for the Cerro Grande fire was developed and written
    by staff at Bandelier National Monument and, in accordance with Park Service
    and federal wildfire management policy, approved by the park superintendent.
    However, while the process used in preparing the plan was consistent with
    the existing policy guidance, the circumstances surrounding this fire
    indicate that the current policy should be revised. The revised policy
    should require that, in risky situations, prescribed burn plans be
    peer-reviewed by technically competent reviewers outside of the agency. This
    kind of independent review would provide for an objective analysis of the
    burn plan and would provide an additional check and balance on what is an
    inherently dangerous activity.

    In the case of the Cerro Grande fire, the superintendent responsible for
    approving the plan acknowledged that he was not technically competent to
    analyze the plan's contents. Furthermore, as our analysis and others that
    have been done since the fire have shown, several aspects of the burn plan
    could have been improved.

    Our analysis shows that when all the surrounding weather, seasonal, and
    historical data and experience are considered, the timing of the burn can be
    questioned. Specifically, the fire was set on May 4, the time of year when
    the wildfire season in the southwestern United States is just beginning.
    Furthermore, this time of year typically brings high winds, the area was in
    the midst of a 3-year drought, and it was known that there were high levels
    of forest fuel buildup in the immediate area. Compounding the risk of
    starting a prescribed fire in this particular location was the fact that the
    town of Los Alamos, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and other populated
    areas were only a few miles from the burn area. Also, during the 2-week
    period before the fire was started at Bandelier, four prescribed fires got
    out of control in that region. While Bandelier officials acknowledge these
    points, they said that two additional factors need to be considered to
    understand the basis of their decision to proceed with the burn. First,
    their information indicated that the weather and moisture conditions in the
    area of the burn--at an elevation of 8,000 to 9,000 feet--were more
    favorable than the publicly available information suggested. And second, the
    official fire status of the entire southwestern region placed no
    restrictions on prescribed burning at the time the Cerro Grande fire was
    started.

    In addition to our analysis, the special investigative team and its
    associated board of review working for the Secretary of the Interior found
    numerous problems with the fire plan, including the fact that the overall
    complexity of the burn and the resources needed to keep it under control
    were underestimated. This occurred in large part because the agencywide
    instructions developed by the Park Service and used by the Bandelier staff
    in determining the complexity of the burn were incorrect. As a result,
    insufficient fire-fighting resources were available on site. The effect of
    having insufficient resources snowballed until the fire was out of control.
    Similarly, a post-fire analysis by staff from the Santa Fe National
    Forest--adjacent to Bandelier--found that the plan for managing the burn was
    inadequate because it did not provide for enough fire-fighting
    resources--particularly considering the timing of the burn. In our view, an
    independent, technically qualified peer review by individuals outside the
    responsible agency could identify and resolve areas of disagreement before a
    fire is started. This process would provide an additional check and balance
    and would help ensure shortcomings are identified and addressed before
    prescribed burns are initiated.

    Policies About the Availability and Use

    of Contingency Resources Need to Be Clear

    Another important lesson involves the availability and use of contingency
    resources in helping to manage prescribed fires. In this regard, one of the
    critical elements in determining whether to proceed with a prescribed fire
    is the availability of sufficient resources to assist in controlling it if
    and when they are needed. The Park Service's policy, as well as federal
    interagency fire management policies, indicates that if sufficient
    contingency resources are not available at the start of a prescribed fire,
    it should not proceed.

    The Cerro Grande fire demonstrated that there is a great deal of confusion
    among the federal land management agencies about the availability and use of
    contingency resources. This confusion led to differing expectations among
    the Park Service personnel responsible for managing the burn, the Forest
    Service staff responsible for dispatching contingency resources to
    Bandelier, and the regional resource coordinating officials in Albuquerque.
    The Park Service staff believed that once they had confirmed the
    availability of the contingency resources identified in the prescribed burn
    plan, the resources would be available if and when they requested them.
    However, the Forest Service dispatching officer and officials at the
    regional coordinating center did not agree with the Park Service's view.
    Instead, they told us their interpretation of the policy was that
    contingency resources are only to be made available when a prescribed fire
    becomes a wildfire. As a result of this confusion, valuable time was lost in
    getting additional resources to the site. It was not until 7 to 9 hours
    after a Park Service official first requested contingency resources that
    they began to arrive at the burn site. Even then, the resources arrived only
    after the Forest Service dispatcher circumvented the regional policy by
    diverting the resources from another wildfire to Bandelier.

    The length of time required to get the contingency resources to the burn
    site highlights a significant problem. The confusion that existed about the
    availability and use of contingency resources during the Cerro Grande fire
    is reflective of all the land management agencies currently operating under
    the federal interagency policy for managing wildfires. The agencies'
    relevant policies and procedures contain no standard definition of what
    contingency resources are, how they are to be identified, or when and how
    they are to be used. The agencies need to work together to make sure that
    these policies and procedures are clarified and their implementation
    standardized. Then, when contingency resources are identified in a
    prescribed burn plan, they can be provided when needed, regardless of
    whether the burn is a wildfire or a prescribed burn. If they cannot be
    provided, the burn should not proceed. If this confusion had been worked out
    prior to the Cerro Grande fire, it is possible that the fire would have
    never gotten out of control.

    More Effective Cooperation and Coordination

    Among Agencies Is Needed

    The third and final planning point we want to highlight as an important
    lesson is the need for more effective coordination and cooperation among the
    nearby agencies, communities, and other parties that might be affected by a
    prescribed burn. As I have already mentioned, introducing fire into forests
    under any conditions, including a prescribed burn is inherently risky. This
    risk is compounded in a situation like that at Bandelier, with a large fuel
    buildup in the park, as well as on the adjacent Santa Fe National Forest,
    and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and thousands of people living in
    Los Alamos and other communities just a few miles from the burn site.

    Under such circumstances, it is critical that a prescribed burn be closely
    coordinated with officials from the jurisdictions that could potentially be
    affected by it. While the park officials at Bandelier notified
    representatives from potentially affected jurisdictions about their plan to
    conduct the prescribed burn, these notification efforts were apparently not
    enough in light of the concerns that have been raised since the fire
    occurred. Specifically, since the fire, representatives from a number of
    affected agencies and communities, including Los Alamos National Laboratory
    and the Santa Fe National Forest, have questioned the Park Service's
    decision to conduct the burn. Essentially, their concerns were based on the
    dry conditions that existed in that part of the country at the time of the
    burn and the heavy buildup of fuel in the area. In fact, Forest Service
    officials at the national forest bordering the park decided to stop all
    burning in the forest on the same day--May 4th--that the prescribed burn was
    started in Bandelier. However, the concerns expressed by these officials,
    including the Forest Service's decision to cease prescribed burns, were not
    communicated to Bandelier officials before they started the prescribed burn.

    Furthermore, officials from the park, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and
    the Forest Service knew that the most likely wildfire threat to the town of
    Los Alamos and the Laboratory was from the area of the prescribed burn. Yet
    the agencies did not work together to mitigate this threat before starting
    the fire. Instead, the Park Service attempted to reduce forest fuels within
    its boundaries and did not work with other agencies to identify, for
    example, possible fire breaks that could have been put in place before the
    fire started. Several experts we interviewed informed us that more could and
    should have been done to mitigate the threat to local communities and the
    Laboratory if there had been better cooperation and planning across
    jurisdictional boundaries.

    Having these circumstances come to light only after the fact is unfortunate
    and underscores the need for more substantive coordination and cooperation
    before prescribed burns are started. Improved coordination and cooperation
    need to occur in a way that puts public safety first, overcomes agency or
    other jurisdictional boundaries, and achieves buy-in by the affected
    parties. All of this needs to be done before a burn proceeds.

    Implementation of the Prescribed Fire

    In addition to lessons learned in planning for the fire, we identified a
    number of important lessons to be learned from the implementation of the
    prescribed burn. First, before an agency ignites a fire it should be assured
    that all the necessary preparatory steps have been completed. Second, public
    safety should take precedence over resource protection considerations in
    deciding on which fire-fighting tactics should be used. And third, guidance
    is needed for determining the amount of resources that should be used in
    managing prescribed burns.

    Better Assurance Is Needed That All Key Factors

    Are Considered Before Initiating a Prescribed Burn

    Before proceeding with a prescribed burn, current interagency and Park
    Service policies and procedures call for the fire manager to determine
    whether all of the necessary preparatory steps have been completed. This
    determination is commonly referred to as the "go/no-go" decision. If the
    on-site fire manager determines that any important factor is not consistent
    with the plan, the burn is not to proceed.

    Existing policy and procedural guidance available to Park Service managers
    and the land managers in other federal agencies provide some guidance on
    this decision-making process. This guidance includes the suggested use of a
    go/no-go checklist to help ensure that all of the key factors are addressed
    before starting the burn. However, current policy and procedures do not
    require the use of this checklist. In addition, agencies are not required to
    document that all of the relevant factors have been properly considered.

    The fire managers at Bandelier did not use the suggested go/no-go checklist
    to document their decision because they were not required to do so. They
    told us, however, that they reviewed all of the factors on the checklist
    prior to igniting the burn but did not document their decision to proceed.
    Without such documentation, there is no record of which factors were
    considered in the go/no-go analysis, whether each factor was actually
    reviewed, and whether all of the conditions that existed on site were
    consistent with the burn plan and applicable policy.

    In our opinion, the events at Cerro Grande demonstrate a need to change
    current policy so that a documented and reviewed record of go/no-go
    decisions is required for every prescribed burn. Requiring the use of a
    checklist can serve this purpose as well as provide structure and discipline
    to the decision-making process.

    Policy Needs to Make Clear That Public Safety

    Has Priority Over Natural Resource Protection

    Perhaps the most important lesson learned from this fire involves the
    choices that were made about the tactics used to suppress the fire once it
    was declared a wildfire and was still within the boundaries of Bandelier
    National Monument. According to current interagency fire management policy,
    once a prescribed fire gets out of control and becomes a wildfire, the
    fire-fighting strategy can change. Under this policy, the revised strategy
    can range anywhere from continuing to manage the fire to achieve forest
    thinning or other natural resource benefits to complete suppression. The
    change in strategy may trigger changes in the fire-fighting tactics that are
    employed. At Cerro Grande, some of the tactics that were employed have been
    questioned.

    In particular, after the fire was declared a wildfire on the afternoon of
    May 5, the Bandelier officials used a fire suppression tactic that required
    the introduction of more fire into the western section of the burn area.
    According to Park Service policy, agency officials must decide on the
    tactics that minimize costs and resource damage. According to the on-site
    Park Service officials, the introduction of this additional fire was done in
    order to establish wider, more effective fire breaks called blacklines in
    the western section of the burn area. The alternative was to create these
    fire breaks by using mechanical means such as chainsaws and bulldozers.
    However, this alternative was not chosen because it would have been
    inconsistent with Park Service policy calling for resource damage to be
    minimized.

    During the fire, none of the on-site fire-fighting officials expressed
    concerns about introducing fire along the western side of the burn area.
    However, after the fire, the on-site Park Service official who was in charge
    recognized that this was a tactical error and said that if he had better
    information on the wind for May 7, the day the fire began to move towards
    Los Alamos, he would not have introduced fire into the western portion of
    the burn area. According to some on-site firefighters, the suppression
    tactics used by the Park Service fire managers appeared to be more directed
    at accomplishing the original objectives of the prescribed burn than in
    suppressing the fire. On-site Park Service officials did not agree with this
    assessment. They told us that once the burn was declared a wildfire, fire
    suppression and fire fighter safety were their overriding objectives in
    deciding which tactics to use.

    As events unfolded, the introduction of fire in the western portion of the
    burn area led directly to the fire's getting out of control on May 7. With
    fire in the western portion of the burn area on May 7, and estimated wind
    gusts from people on site of 20 to 50 miles per hour, the fire intensified
    and began moving towards the Los Alamos and White Rock communities. In light
    of the conflicting views and assessments, this experience provides a
    valuable lesson. The existing Park Service policy requiring fire mangers to
    protect resources while trying to suppress a wildfire should be revised in
    instances like Cerro Grande. In these cases, where the threat of a
    prescribed fire's getting out of control poses direct and serious public
    safety risks, there should be no question that fire suppression should be
    the top priority.

    Guidance Is Needed for Determining the Resources

    Necessary for Managing Prescribed Burns

    The last major lesson that we would like to highlight involves the amount
    and experience of fire-fighting resources needed to implement prescribed
    burns. The lack of experience and inadequate fire-fighting resources were
    common themes that began during the planning stage of the burn and carried
    through to the implementation stage.

    The Secretary of the Interior's investigative report raised questions about
    whether a more experienced team with more fire-fighting resources should
    have been used in light of the fire conditions and the proximity to nearby
    communities. This situation became more critical on May 5, the second day of
    the fire, when Park Service staff determined that additional resources were
    needed in order to keep the fire under control. As we mentioned earlier,
    when these additional resources were requested, it took 7 to 9 hours to get
    them to the site. Without this delay, the fire might never have gone out of
    control. Furthermore, on May 7, the day the fire began to spread toward Los
    Alamos and White Rock, most of the fire-fighting resources on site were
    being deployed on the eastern portion of the burn area because of
    containment concerns there. At the same time, fire had already been
    introduced into the western portion of the burn area without sufficient
    resources to monitor and control the fire in that area. As I have already
    pointed out, this situation resulted in the fire's burning out of control.

    Currently, there is very little guidance available on the amount or
    experience of, fire-fighting resources needed to manage prescribed burns.
    While the current policy and procedures provide guidance on how to determine
    resource needs for managing wildfires, they provide no guidance for
    determining resource needs for managing prescribed fires. We discussed this
    issue with officials in both the Park Service and the Forest Service. They
    told us that making these kind of resource determinations for prescribed
    fires is "more art than science" and that the quality of these
    determinations is based more on experienced judgment than anything else.
    However, the experience at Cerro Grande suggests that just relying on the
    experience and judgment of individuals is not enough. While a cookbook
    approach to determining staffing needs for prescribed fires may not be
    prudent, a more structured, systematic approach can and should be adopted to
    assist fire managers in making resource decisions.

    To address the lessons of Cerro Grande, we have recommended that the current
    interagency policy for federal wildfire management and its implementing
    procedures, as well as those of the respective agencies that are signatories
    to it, be revised to

       * require that, in risky situations like Cerro Grande, prescribed burn
         plans be peer-reviewed by qualified individuals outside the agency
         responsible for managing the burn;

       * better define what is meant by the term "contingency resources,"
         including clarifying the circumstances under which these resources can
         be used, the process for getting them, and the appropriate response
         time;

       * require that federal agencies better coordinate and cooperate in
         developing prescribed burn plans so that public and fire fighter safety
         is the top priority, without regard to agencies' administrative or
         jurisdictional boundaries;

       * require that a decision to proceed with the ignition of a prescribed
         burn is fully justified by requiring the responsible officials to
         complete the analysis called for in the go/no-go checklist and
         requiring that the supporting analysis be documented and reviewed;

       * make clear that, once a prescribed fire becomes a wildfire, the goal
         should be to suppress the fire as quickly as possible without
         compromising fire fighter or public safety, even if suppression
         requires the use of mechanical means; and

       * provide guidance to assist in making decisions about the amount and
         experience of personnel needed to properly manage and control
         prescribed fires.

    Both the Departments of the Interior and of Agriculture generally agreed
    with the facts, conclusions and recommendations of this statement.

    Actions Needed to Mitigate Current Hazardous Forest Conditions

    Our review of the circumstances surrounding the Cerro Grande fire underscore
    other recent findings about the difficulties faced by the Park Service,
    Forest Service, and other federal land management agencies in coping with
    the increasingly grave risk of uncontrollable, catastrophic wildfires
    threatening communities and natural resources in the dry interior regions of
    the western United States. In particular, as we noted last year, past forest
    management practices, including the decades-old policy of putting out
    wildfires, has disrupted the historical occurrence of frequent,
    low-intensity fires. The

    routine occurrence of these low-intensity fires have periodically removed
    flammable undergrowth without significantly damaging larger trees. Because
    this normal cycle of fire has been disrupted, vegetation has accumulated in
    many forested lands, creating high fire fuel levels for catastrophic
    wildfires. These conditions have, in turn, transformed much of the western
    part of the nation into a virtual tinderbox.

    Without actions to reduce these accumulated fuels, the current trend of more
    frequent and more intense wildfires can be expected to continue and perhaps
    get even worse. These fires not only compromise forests' abilities to
    provide timber, outdoor recreation, clean water and other resources, but
    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 - the so-called "wildland/urban
    interface."

    As our past work has shown, effectively addressing the problem will require
    changes in land management priorities at all levels. Accordingly, on the
    basis of evidence that 39 million acres of national forest lands are at high
    risk of such catastrophic wildfire, we recommended that the Forest Service
    develop a coherent strategy to address this problem. Earlier this year, the
    Service produced a strategy that (1) established forest fuel reduction
    priorities for areas where communities, species, watersheds, and ecosystems
    are at risk of such fires, and (2) proposed undertaking vastly increased
    fuel reduction efforts in these areas using both mechanical methods
    (including some timber harvests) and controlled burning where feasible to
    reduce fuels. According to the Forest Service, evidence from fires in
    Colorado this year supports our prior finding that, when major fires reach
    large areas where fuels have been reduced a fire's intensity and rate of
    spread slow sufficiently so that they can be put out. Thus, we believe the
    Forest Service strategy is a good start and that a similar strategy for
    Department of the Interior lands, may help to establish a coherent approach
    across nearly all federal lands. Interior officials have told us that such a
    plan is under development.

    Currently, the Congress is considering an additional $240 million in funding
    for fuel reduction activities on Forest Service and Department of the
    Interior lands for fiscal year 2001. This is consistent with the finding in
    our report last year that reducing fuels will be costly and require
    substantial increases in current funding levels. On the other hand, such an
    approach could pay for itself in reduced fire fighting costs as well as
    property loss and reduced resource impacts. However, we are concerned that
    there be adequate accountability to ensure that these funds are spent on the
    highest priority areas. For instance, although the Forest Service's new
    strategy identifies, as we recommended, priority categories of lands for
    fuel reductions, the agency has no firm schedule for identifying the
    specific areas that fit in these categories. Thus, it is important for the
    Congress to ensure that the agencies (1) identify which lands meet these
    priority criteria and (2) that the additional funding will be spent only on
    these lands. Additionally, as both the Los Alamos and other recent fires
    demonstrate, much of the risk to communities --as well as to federal
    forests--can be reduced by fuel reduction efforts on adjacent lands.

    - - - -

    This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer questions that you
    or other Members of the Committee may have.

    Contact and Acknowledgements

    For further information on this testimony, please contact Barry T. Hill at
    (202) 512-3841. Individuals making key contributions to this testimony
    included Lew Adams, Amy Sue Bunting, Linda Chu, Alan Dominicci, Cliff
    Fowler, Chester Joy, Frank Kovalak, Bob Lilly, and Paul Staley.

    (141484)

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