Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
June 7, 2000, Wednesday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2284 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF MR. MICHAEL T. RAINS AREA DIRECTOR NORTHEASTERN AREA STATE
AND PRIVATE FORESTRY FOREST SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
SUBJECT - FIRE
MANAGEMENT ON FEDERAL LANDS
BODY:
Madam
Chairman, Mister Chairman, and Members of both Subcommittees:
Thank you
for the opportunity to be here today to discuss fire management on federal
lands. I am Michael Rains, Area Director for the Northeastern Area State and
Private Forestry, and recently led the effort on policy implications of large
fire management in the Forest Service. I am here today with Jose Cruz, Director
for Aviation and Fire Management for the Forest Service, and Lyle Laverty,
Regional Forester for the Rocky Mountain Region of the Forest Service. Regional
Forester Laverty led the effort to develop the Forest Service's strategy for
dealing with hazardous fuels in the western United States. Also with me today is
Denny Truesdale, Assistant Director of the Fire and Aviation Management Staff.I
would like to briefly cover the following topic in my testimony: - The current
fire situation Using partnerships and new tools in the wildland/urban interface
Addressing current forest conditions
The Fire Situation
As you
know, unfortunately, we are already experiencing a number of wildland fires
across the nation. The tragedy of the Cerro Grande Fire near Los Alamos, New
Mexico has filled the recent headlines. Florida and Arizona are also
experiencing large fires this year, and it is just the beginning of the fire
season. As of May 31, 2000, the Forest Service with our State and Federal
partners has fought 70 large fires across the southwest. The wildland fire
situation remains critical in New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of the southern
United States. We expect dry conditions to persist for another month in the
southwest until the onset of the summer monsoon rains and longer in other parts
of the country.
Using Partnerships and New Tools in the Wildland Urban
Interface The threat of wildland fires to our communities and businesses is real
and continues to grow, especially in the west where more and more people are
building homes and businesses in fire-sensitive ecosystems. Intermixing homes
and forests can create dangerous situations and result in evacuations and great
damage and loss of property. Destructive wildland fires occur naturally in
California and other areas of the country, from Spokane, Washington, to Boulder,
Colorado, to Florida.
Protecting the public and firefighter safety is
the top priority for Federal firefighting agencies. Since 1985 in response to
the growing risk, we have been working with the National Association of State
Foresters, the National Fire Protection Association, and local firefighting
organizations to educate homeowners in fire-sensitive ecosystems about the
consequences of wildfires and techniques in community planning, homebuilding,
and landscaping so that they can protect themselves and their property. Working
with Federal, State, and private partners, the Forest Service has reached out to
hundreds of communities adjacent to the national forests, including communities
in Utah, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, and other States
across the county.
Through this partnership, the Federal agencies along
with the National Fire Protection Association developed the concepts and
practices of FIREWISE landscaping. Using appropriated funds, the federal
partners offer education, information, and sometimes even fire resistant
vegetation to help communities in the wildland urban interface be prepared for
the inevitable fire outbreaks that occur in these ecosystems. We are also
working with the Insurance Standards Office, the body that sets standards and
premiums for property and homeowners insurance, on the significant protection
offered by FIREWISE concepts. We believe that these techniques will reduce
insurance premiums and protect lives and property, as well. The Federal agencies
are also leading workshops across the nation for developers, bankers, and
insurance agents to assure that future developments in fire-sensitive ecosystems
will be planned and constructed to better withstand the inevitable outbreaks of
wildfire.
Also as part of the State Fire Assistance the Wildland/Urban
Interface Cooperative Fire Protection Program funds competitive grants to State
and local entities to implement community fire risk reduction activities. This
program supports coordination with States and localities to reduce long-term
wildfire costs through prevention by hazardous fuels reductions and fire
planning for wildland/urban interface. The States have agreed to spend
$10 million as matching funds for the $10
million included in the President's fiscal year 2001 budget to implement special
projects to improve protection of high risk wildland/urban interface areas.
House action on the fiscal year 2001 Interior and Related Agencies
appropriations bill has reduced this amount to less than $5
million available for vegetation modification and FIREWISE homeowner programs.
In addition to the FIREWISE effort and the Wildland/Urban Interface
Cooperative Fire Protection Program, the Federal government supports State fire
management programs through assistance to volunteer fire departments.
Addressing Current Forest Conditions
As we have previously
testified, the buildup of hazardous fuels in the national forests poses a
significant threat to public safety and ecosystem health. We have been working
on several fronts to address current forest conditions. We are increasing our
emphasis on treatment of hazardous fuels, and developing a strategy to reduce
the hazardous fuels build-ups on national forest lands.
Decades of
effective fire suppression, selective timber harvesting, and grazing, have put
many forests at higher risk from damaging wildfires. Large numbers of small
diameter trees have grown into forest stands during the last century of
aggressive fire suppression. These fuels have grown under larger remnant trees
and created ladder fuels that allow fires to climb into the overstory and race
through the tree crowns, defying our control efforts.
The Federal
agencies with wildland firefighting responsibilities are aware of the growing
risk, and the Forest Service has been steadily increasing its program to treat
hazardous fuels through the last decade to reduce fire risks. The Forest service
uses a variety of tools and techniques to treat hazardous fuels, including
mechanical treatment and removal, prescribed burning, or a combination of the
two.
Since 1994 when the Forest Service treated approximately 385,000
acres across the United States, we have increased annual treatment almost
fourfold. Last year we treated approximately 1.4 million acres.
In the southwest, we have increased annual treatment
three-and-a-half times, from about 37,630 acres of hazardous fuels treatment in
1994 to over 122,480 acres last year.
High-risk areas, such as
wildland/urban interface areas are the focus of much of our immediate priority
work. There are many opportunities to treat these high priority areas that are
dominated by non- commercial material, where commercial timber contracts are
infeasible. For example, at the request of the New Mexico delegation, we
recently provided information outlining strategies and tools for reducing fire
risks by treating small-diameter trees and non-merchantable hazardous fuels.
To protect communities from fire, it is necessary to accomplish work on
private as well as public lands. The Administration has testified in support of
S. 1288, the Community Forest Restoration Act, which if enacted into law would
authorize cost-share grants to stakeholders for collaborative forest restoration
projects, and would help deal with treating these high-risk areas in New
Mexico.In the past year, we have been working on three strategies to improve our
fire management programs and have issued reports addressing large fire costs,
workforce capacity and configuration, and a strategy to reduce
vegetation-related fire risks across our nation. Teams are in place to begin
implementing the recommendations of all three of these reports, but I would like
to concentrate on the hazardous fuels strategy report.
Our effort was
spurred by an April 1999, General Accounting Office (GAO) report titled: Western
National Forests: a Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire
Threats (GAO/RCED-99-65). The GAO asserted, "The most extensive and serious
problem related to the health of national forests in the interior West is the
over- accumulation of vegetation". Regional Forester Laverty led the team that
is developing the draft report "A Cohesive Strategy for Protecting People and
Sustaining Resources in Fire-Adapted Ecosystems." The report is currently under
review Within USDA.
The team is developing a strategy to drastically cut
the hazardous fuels problem and reduce the risks to public safety and ecosystem
health. They based their recommendations on the premise that healthy, resilient
ecosystems will produce sustainable resources and emphasize the significance of
fire to the health of fire-adapted ecosystems, fire-maintained forests and
grasslands. The objective of the strategy is to: Improve the resilience and
sustainability of forests and grasslands at risk, Conserve species and
biodiversity, Reduce wildfire costs, losses, and damages, and Better ensure
public and firefighter safety.
Direct treatment costs include planning,
mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, supporting research, invasive species
mitigation, monitoring, and evaluation. In the West, we will emphasize treatment
of high-risk areas that used to be areas of historically low fire risk.
While emphasizing restoration in the interior West, the strategy also
supports ongoing efforts to maintain healthy ecosystems where they currently
exist, particularly in the South, where, without treatment, fuels rapidly
accumulate to dangerous levels. The strategy acknowledges the importance of
maintenance treatments in the southern and eastern United States. The current
fire activity in the Florida serves as a reminder of the importance of
treatments in this volatile area.
The strategy requires a strategic
approach, so that we will not need to treat every acre of land in a high-risk
category. By focusing treatments on high priority areas that have high fuel
concentrations in forest types where fire is a natural element that has been
excluded for a significant period, and by considering landscape dynamics and
other project design and layout factors, we can achieve the overall objectives
without treating every acre.
Although much of the Forest Service timber
sales program has previously not been targeted in a way to address fire risk
reduction, Forest Service policy is to begin to target funds to reduce fire
risk. Similarly, the fiscal year 2001 House Committee appropriations report
language (the Forest Products budget line) encourages the agency to alter its
allocation of timber sales and vegetation management funds to include a
mechanism to provide substantially more resources to those areas of the Nation
at risk to insect, disease or wildfire loss. The Forest Service is reviewing its
existing budget allocation mechanisms to consider the most appropriate way to
enhance forest health and reduce fire risks.
We are already using the
priorities and principles articulated in the strategy, such as using the fire
risk mapping tools available to us for identification and prioritization of
high-risk areas. Performance measures in the Forest Service strategic plan have
been changed to account for this priority work.
Finally, I would like to
briefly discuss how the Forest Service's roadless proposal would affect the
agency's ability to fight fires or reduce hazardous fuels. The proposal would
not affect fire suppression activities, as our fire suppression organization is
staffed and equipped to fight fires in all types of areas and conditions,
including in wilderness and roadless areas. While some
roadless areas are in the moderate to high-risk categories, the
vast majority of our hazardous fuels in need of treatment occur in areas that
are well- roaded, and would generally be of much higher priority for treatment
than most of the inventoried roadless areas.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the threat of wildland fires to our communities and
businesses is real and continues to grow as we build homes and businesses in
fire-adapted ecosystems. Fires occurring within the wildland/urban interface are
inevitable, and when fires break out, our first priority is protecting the
public and our firefighters' safety. Although the property losses associated
with catastrophic fires such as the recent Cerro Grande fire are staggering, we
were successful in protecting the lives of both the public and firefighters.
This is a tribute to the excellent training of our firefighting workforce and
our attention to safety.
The Forest Service is committed to avoiding
future tragedies like those in Los Alamos and to implementing a cohesive
strategy to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems on national forest lands.
That means reducing hazardous fuels that have built up over the better part of a
century as a result of fire suppression and past land management practices,
while ensuring cautious and consistent protocols in any uses of controlled
fires.
We will continue to work with our Federal, State, and local
firefighting cooperators, and with the Congress to assure that the Federal
firefighting agencies have the resources we need to educate home and landowners
to the inevitable action of fire in the ecosystem, protect the public, property,
and resources when fires occur.
This concludes my statement. I would be
happy to answer any questions you or the members of your subcommittees might
have.
END
LOAD-DATE: June 9, 2000
