Federal Lands

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the: (1) amount of money the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Fish and Wildlife Service expended on federal wildfire preparedness activities during fiscal years 1992 through 1996; (2) amount that these agencies expended for state and local wildfire preparedness activities; (3) amount of equipment and personnel these agencies loaned to state and local entities for wildfire preparedness activities; and (4) process these agencies used to formulate budget requests for wildfire preparedness activities.

GAO noted that during fiscal years 1992 through 1996, the federal land management agencies: (1) expended about $1.9 billion on wildfire preparedness activities; (2) provided about $82.3 million in grants to state and local firefighting organizations; (3) loaned states federal excess property valued at about $651 million; and (4) used a computerized model based on historical wildfire costs to formulate budget requests for wildlife preparedness activities.