Copyright 2000 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
September 18, 2000, Monday
SECTION: PREPARED TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 2846 words
HEADLINE:
PREPARED TESTIMONY OF MIKE DOMBECK CHIEF FOREST SERVICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT
OF AGRICULTURE
BEFORE THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT
SUBJECT - FEDERAL AGENCY PREPAREDNESS FOR THE SUMMER 2000 FIRES
AND THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT ON MANAGING THE IMPACTS OF WILDFIRES ON COMMUNITIES
AND THE ENVIRONMENT
BODY:
MISTER CHAIRMAN AND
MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with
you today concerning the summer 2000 wildfires, and Secretary Glickman and
Babbitt's Report to the President. I am Mike Dombeck, Chief of the Forest
Service.
I appreciate your interest in what the agency is doing with
respect to catastrophic wildfire. As the 2000 fire season continues, it is clear
there is significant shortterm rehabilitation and long-term restoration work
that must be done. I would like to speak today about how the Forest Service is
positioned to implement the Report to the President in response to the wildfires
of 2000. The Report was issued on September 8, 2000, and is titled, "Managing
the Impact of Wildfires on Communities and the Environment."
The current
fire season corresponds to a historical pattern of extensive wildfires during
similar unusual weather conditions. The result has been an extended, severe fire
season with wildfires burning simultaneously across the western United States.
The Forest. Service's firefighters and our interagency partners have done an
outstanding job in these difficult conditions. So far this year, we have put out
a remarkable 76,000 fires that burned 6.6 million acres across the western
United States (2.5 million on Forest Service lands). We have already heard from
Under Secretary Lyons about the different elements of the Report to the
President. I would like to discuss the Forest Service's plans for implementing
the Report.
The Report to the President builds on many of the actions
that we are already taking. However, given the magnitude of the fire season and
its effects, there is clearly a need for additional action and resources than
would otherwise be possible within our baseline funding. We developed the
following principles to guide Forest Service efforts to address rehabilitation
needs and reduce future risk of unnaturally intense wildland fires to
communities and natural resources:
-- Assist state and local partners to
take actions to reduce fire risk to homes and private property through programs
such as FIREWISE;
-- Focus rehabilitation efforts on restoring watershed
function, including protection of basic soil, water resources, biological
communities, and prevention of invasive species;
-- Assign highest
priority for hazardous fuels reduction to communities at risk, readily
accessible municipal watersheds, threatened and endangered species habitat, and
other important local features, where conditions favor uncharacteristically
intense fires;
-- Restore healthy, diverse, and resilient ecological
systems to minimize uncharacteristically intense fires on a priority watershed
basis. Methods will include removal of excessive vegetation and dead fuels
through thinning, prescribed fire, and other treatment methods;
-- Focus
on achieving the desired future condition in collaboration with communities,
interest groups, and state and federal agencies. Streamline process, maximize
effectiveness, use ecologically conservative approaches, and minimize
controversy in accomplishing restoration projects;
-- Monitor to
evaluate the effectiveness of various treatments to reduce unnaturally intense
fires while restoring forest ecosystem health and watershed function; --
Encourage new stewardship industries and collaborate with local people,
volunteers, Youth Conservation Corps members, service organizations, and Forest
Service work crews, as appropriate, and;
-- Focus research on long-term
effectiveness of different restoration and rehabilitation methods to determine
those methods most effective in protecting and restoring watershed function and
forest health. Seek new uses and market byproducts of restoration.
The
Forest Service and other firefighting agencies understood early that this could
be a potentially difficult fire season. Early planning was done and resources
were in place before the season began. As we are now all too aware, the fire
season has been extremely difficult. We will continue to make all necessary
firefighting' resources available.
Concerns have been raised that
significantly less financial resources were available for fire preparedness this
year. The appropriation for preparedness went up this year, yet many operating
costs also went up, such as payroll, training, travel, vehicle acquisition and
operation, unemployment/worker's compensation costs, and contract costs, such as
for pre-suppression aerial support, to name just a few.
The
Administration has provided full support to the interagency firefighting effort
(see attachment A) and has implemented a series of budget and management
improvements.
Based on lessons of recent fire seasons, especially 1999
and 2000, the Forest Service has reassessed the assumptions and variables used
in planning models to determine the resources needed to fight fires. It
recommends funding 100 percent of this revised estimate of full preparedness.
In addition, the Forest Service has devoted special attention to
firefighting training and coordination. As part of this emphasis, it has added
training courses, modified current classes, and, in some cases, raised the
qualifications for certain positions. In 1999, the Forest Service and its
interagency partners issued a revised qualifications system for firefighting and
prescribed fire positions in order to ensure that the U.S. continues to field
the finest firefighting and prescribed fire force in the world.
An
important issue related to preparedness and firefighting capability is the need
to address firefighter pay equity issues. The availability of qualified
employees for critical firefighting overhead and support positions has been
affected by constraints on overtime pay for many employees. The Forest Service
and the other wildland firefighting agencies will continue to work with the
Office of Personnel Management to resolve this issue.
Burned area
emergency rehabilitation teams are already mobilized and conducting preliminary
assessments and rehabilitation projects needed to help prevent further loss of
life, property, and resources from the first damage-producing storms that may
cause excessive erosion, water quality degradation, and other damage from burned
areas. To date, 65 plans have been approved and $34 million has
been made available to treat over 400,000 acres.
Associated with the
emergency rehabilitation actions that result from wildfire' are additional
restoration needs to mitigate the devastating effects of the fires. The funds
requested may also address efforts to reforest burned areas, replace recreation
facilities, treat noxious weed infestations resulting from fire, survey and
monitor impacts to wilderness, survey and rehabilitate impacted heritage
resources, reconstruct fencing, and restore critical habitat, to replace
facility structures and restore impacted trails. The Forest Service will
evaluate these needs after the fires are contained to determine the extent of
the needs.
The recommendations in the Report to the President would also
expand our efforts working with the State and private landowners, the National
Fire Protection Association, and local firefighting organizations to help ensure
that home protection capabilities are improved and to educate homeowners in
fire-sensitive ecosystems about the consequences of wildfires, and techniques in
community planning, homebuilding, and landscaping to protect themselves and
their property. Our FIREWISE program has been very successful in helping
homeowners and communities reduce damage to their houses.
This year's
fires also reflect a longer-term disruption in the natural fire cycle that has
increased the risk of unnaturally intense fires in our forests and rangelands.
During the last century, rites have been aggressively extinguished in the West.
As a result, the annual acreage consumed by wildfires in the lower 48 states
dropped from 40 to 50 million acres a year in the early 1930s to about five
million acres in the 1970s. During this time, firefighting budgets rose
dramatically and firefighting tactics and equipment became increasingly more
sophisticated and effective.
Decades of excluding fire from our forests
has drastically changed the look, fire behavior, and ecological condition of
western forests and rangelands while simultaneously increasing the cost and
difficulty of suppressing fires. A century ago, when low intensity, high
frequency fires were common place, many forests were less dense and had larger,
more fire-resistant trees. For example, in northern Arizona, some lower
elevation stands of ponderosa pine that once held 50 larger trees per acre now
contain 200 or more smaller trees per acre. In addition, the composition of our
forests have changed from more fire- resistant tree species to non-fire
resistant species such as grand fir, Douglas fir, and subalpine fir. As a
result, studies show that today's wildfires, typically bum hotter, faster, and
higher than those of the past.
Wildland firefighting has become more
complex in the last two decades due to dramatic increases in the West's
population. Of the ten fastest growing states in the U.S., eight are in the
interior West. As a result, new development is occurring in tire-prone areas,
often adjacent to Federal land, creating a "wildland-urban interface"-an area
where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with
undeveloped wildland. Wildland firefighters today often spend a great deal more
time and effort protecting structures than in earlier years. Consequently,
firefighting has become more complicated, expensive, and dangerous.
The
Forest Service and its interagency partners have increased their efforts to
reduce risks associated with the buildup of brush, shrubs, small trees and other
fuels in forest and rangelands through a variety of approaches, including
controlled bums, the physical removal of undergrowth, and the prevention and
eradication of invasive plants. In 1994 the Forest Service was treating
approximately 385,000 acres across the United States to reduce hazardous fuels.
Today, the Forest Service has successfully increased annual treatment almost
four-fold. Last year the Forest Service treated approximately 1.4 million acres.
Reversing the effects of a century of aggressive fire suppression will take time
and money targeted to high priority areas of protecting people, communities,
critical watersheds, and wildlife habitat.
As stated earlier, the Forest
Service and Interior agencies are steadily increasing their capacity to reduce
hazardous fuels. They are also focusing these efforts on the wildland/urban
interface, but the scale of the problem is beyond our current means. The Report
to the President recommends increased resources to continue making progress in
reducing fuels, particularly in the wildland/urban interface areas.
The
General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report in April, 1999, titled: Western
National Forests: a Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire
Threats (GAO/RCED-99-65). The Forest Service has developed a draft cohesive
strategy to respond to the concerns raised by GAO. The draft strategy is not
operational in nature, but rather is a strategic blueprint that utilizes
coarse-scale national data to assess the problem of fuel buildup across the
west. The draft strategy is consistent with the broad objectives outlined in the
Report to the President, and provides a process for prioritizing and focusing
our treatments.
Some critics have expressed concern that the
Administration's roadless area policy could increase wildfire
risks and hinder both suppression and hazardous fuels management needs. The
analysis in the draft Environmental Impact Statement indicates that the degree
of overlap of high risk areas with inventoried roadless is relatively small,
with only 3 million acres of inventoried roadless in high hazard condition out
of the estimated 24 million acres at high risk. Furthermore, the priorities that
focus on protection of life and property, usually not a problem for
roadless areas, are more important for the wildland- urban
interface were roads are more prevalent.
Two fires in the Bitterroot
National Forest help make the point that fires in wilderness or roadless
areas can be much less costly to fight. The Skalkaho Fire burned 64,000
acres, required 755 firefighters, and cost $7.2 million.
Meanwhile, a fire in the Selway- Bitterroot Wilderness burned 63,000 acres,
required only 25 firefighters, and cost $709,000.
Working with local communities is a critical element in restoring
damaged landscapes and reducing fire hazards near homes and communities. This
work will be pursued through expanding community participation, increasing local
capacity, and learning from the public. Rural and volunteer fire departments
provide the front line of defense, or initial attack, on up to 90 percent of the
communities. Strong readiness capability at the state and local levels goes
hand- in-hand with optimal efficiency at the Federal level. The level of funding
being proposed in the Report to the President will provide a greater efficiency
level for the states and local fire departments in the impacted areas.
Accountability is of utmost importance, and the Forest Service is taking
action to ensure accountability. The additional funding need identified in the
Report to the President is $1.57 billion for the Departments of
Interior and Agriculture. The Forest Service portion of this additional need is
approximately $896 million. This funding will be used for fire
preparedness, fire operations, State and volunteer fire assistance, forest
health management, to repay monies borrowed from trust funds to pay for current
emergency fire operations, and economic action programs related to
accomplishment of all of the actions outlined in the Report to the President.
The funds associated with the Report to the President are requested as
contingent emergency funds, reflecting the uncertain nature of the additional
needs for various activities and programs for the 2000 (e.g., rehabilitation)
and the upcoming 2001 fire seasons, as well as uncertainty over when some funds
will be needed. Only by flexible funding, supporting the agency's ability to
respond to the variable nature of the program needs, will we know the full range
of priority needs.
Funding levels in different categories are
approximate, and will be adjusted as needed as the year progresses. However,
reasonable estimates for likely program components of this funding are:
-- $203,547,000 for Fire Preparedness; --
$338,971,000 for Fire Operations; --
$276,000,000 for the Emergency Fire Contingency; --
$42,994,000 for State Fire Assistance; --
$10,790,000 for Volunteer Fire Assistance; --
$12,000,000 for Forest Health Management; --
$12,500,000 for the Economic Action Program.
The Forest
Service is reviewing its performance measures and strategic plan goals and
objectives to ensure that measures accurately reflect the outcomes anticipated
from the work and actions contemplated by the Report to the President. The
outcomes associated with the additional funding are significant, and we estimate
the following:
-- 455,000 acres of fuels management on federal lands,
targeted to high priority areas including wildland-urban interface areas. This
is in addition to the President's fiscal year 2001 request for treating 1.345
million acres;
-- 315,000 acres of fuels management on wildland-urban
interface areas on non-federal lands (through cost-sharing);
-- At least
750,000 acres of rehabilitation and restoration of burned areas;
--
4,300 volunteer fire departments in high-risk areas receiving increased
assistance for training and equipment, and increase of over 1,800 from the
President' s fiscal year 2001 request, and;
-- 8,000 new jobs created.
Summary
We will continue to provide the national leadership, and
to work with our federal, State, and local firefighting cooperators, and
Congress to ensure that the federal firefighting agencies and their cooperators
have the resources needed to fight fire.
The Forest Service and other
federal agencies with firefighting responsibilities are committed to minimizing
the losses from future unnaturally intense fires such as those in New Mexico,
Idaho, Montana, and across the interior West. We are committed to working with
communities to implement a strategy to restore and maintain healthy ecosystems
on National Forest System lands. That means reducing hazardous fuels, while
ensuring safe and effective use of prescribed.tire. Our strategic approach and
guiding principles will enable us to treat areas that pose the highest risk to
people, property, and natural resources, and to do so in the most expeditious
manner possible. This will require partnerships, resources, and common sense
approaches that avoid needless controversy.
This concludes my statement.
I would be happy to answer any questions you or the members of your subcommittee
might have.
END
LOAD-DATE: September 21, 2000
