Wildland Fire Management

The density of the nation's forests, along with drought and other weather conditions, has fueled wildland fires that have required billions of dollars to suppress and has forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes. The Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Forest Service and the Department of the Interior (Interior) are collaborating on a long-term effort to reduce the risk these fires pose. GAO was asked, among other things, to (1) assess the agencies' efforts to determine which federal lands require fuels reduction treatments, (2) determine how lands are prioritized for treatment, and (3) assess how progress is measured and reported.

The Forest Service and Interior have identified three categories of land for fuels reduction: (1) lands with excess fuels buildup, (2) lands in the wildland-urban interface where federal lands surround or are adjacent to urban development and communities, and (3) lands where vegetation grows rapidly and requires regular maintenance treatments to prevent excess fuels buildup. However, the agencies have not yet reliably estimated the amount or identified the location of these lands. Without identifying these lands there is no baseline against which to assess progress under the fuels reduction program. Local land management units prioritize lands for fuels reduction using a variety of methods, including professional judgment and ranking systems. Prioritization methods vary, in part, because the Forest Service and Interior have not issued specific national guidance on prioritization. Without specific national guidance on prioritization, it is difficult for the Forest Service and Interior to ensure that the highest priority fuels reduction projects nationwide are being implemented. A number of factors, including weather and diversion of resources to fire suppression have hindered the Forest Service's and Interior's ability to complete their annual fuels reduction workloads. While agency officials are addressing some of these factors, others, such as weather, are beyond human control. As a result, agency officials are uncertain whether increased funding would necessarily result in a proportional increase in acres treated. The Forest Service and Interior are developing results-oriented performance measures to assess the effectiveness of treatments in reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. However, since the agencies have not identified the amount or location of lands with excess fuels buildup, there is currently no baseline from which to assess program performance. In addition, annual performance reports provide misleading information on the overall progress being achieved under the fuels reduction program because the agencies are reporting all acres treated annually without separately reporting on acres that are treated to maintain a low level of wildfire risk and other acres that require several years of treatments to reduce risk.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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