Hearing on Wildland Fire Oversight
2/12/2008

Attendees:

• Chairman Norm Dicks (WA)
• Ranking Member Todd Tiahrt (KS)
• Ken Calvert (R-CA)
• Ranking Member Jerry Lewis (R-CA)

Top Issues in Hearing:

1. Fire costs are escalating at the detriment of other programs and FS work
2. Suppression budget - 10-year average
3. Preparedness - explain $77 million decrease
4. Haz Fuel funding decrease
5. State Fire Assistance and Volunteer Fire Assistance decline
6. DOI/FS merge into "Fire Service"
7. Funding alternatives - Partition; FEMA funding
8. Agreements with State and Local governments - state feels that we are just trying to pass costs. Fed lands not managed and fires running off to private lands
9. Incentives to enact "Firewise" building codes in the WUI
10. Haz fuels treatments in priority areas - collaborative approaches are creating positive change
11. CA firefighter pay
12. Military aircraft - MAFFS in So. CA

Key Points:

Panel I. Science orientation: Long term perspectives of fire and climate change and demographic trends in wildland-urban interface

Dr. Anthony L. Westerling, Sierra Nevada Research Institute, University of California, Merced, CA

• Temps are rising across the west. Early snow melt and drying vegetation are resulting in longer fire seasons and more severe fires.

Dr. Roger B. Hammer, Department of Sociology, Sustainable Rural Communities Initiative

• Wildlfire in WUI is a problem.
  
  
• Demographic trends indicate population rising, housing units increasing substantially in the west and southeast. These coupled with settlement patterns of baby boomer retirees all point to increased WUI.

Dr. Albert Hyde, consultant to the Brookings Institution Center for Executive Education and coordinator of the Federal Quadrennial Fire review

• The QFR allows for the opportunity for a strategy vs. a plan. Allow for projection into the future.
  
  
• The pace of change has picked up. More acres have burned and an increase in fire severity.
  
  
• Scalability - 2000 was the fire season of the century. We have surpassed that 4 times since.
  
  
• Haz. Fuels - we are not doing enough. There needs to be a national approach, not juts a Fed effort.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks asked about more haz fuels treatment work. Dr. Hyde responded that the pace of treatment is picking up. Approaches need to reach beyond treatment to maintenance. Success is evident in the southeast because regular maintenance is occurring.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks asked about collaborative efforts at the community level. Dr. Hyde said that a whole new dialogue is in process and good work is occurring.

Panel II. Management concerns and problems

USDA Deputy Inspector General Kathleen Tighe

• Air Safety audit - FS has taken strides toward improvement, but the FS needs a plan to oversee airworthiness of contracted and loaned aircraft.
  
  
• Large Fire Suppression Costs - the majority of costs coming from protecting private property. More equitable costs sharing with states and localities is needed.
  
  
• HFI - The FS are making gains on setting priorities for this work.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks asked who should pay? What about agreement negotiation. Mr. Dicks stated that it was not politically feasible for FS to just say that they would not assist in firefighting within the WUI.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks talked about incentives needed to be in place to encourage Firewise approaches.
  
  
• Mr. Tiarht stated that common sense building codes are needed to keep homes and firefighters safe.

GAO, Robin Nazzarro, Director for Natural Resources and Environment.

• A Cohesive Strategy with clear cost-containment goals. A strategy should have long-term options and anticipated costs.
  
  
• Repeated calls, since 1999, have not yielded an adequate strategy.
  
  
• The agencies do not have clear cost containment goals and there are no incentives for local line officers to curb costs.
  
  
• GAO has understood about more and better data needed. Data is coming around, now time to plan.
  
  
• Fire Program Analysis is a long time coming and preliminary finding is that it may not be able to meet goal of improved decision-making.
  
  
• GAO with Mark Rey and FS has agreed to develop a tactical plan for a cohesive strategy.
  
  
• Mr Dicks said that GAO keeps asking for a strategy, but GAO must realize that OMB would resist committing to future funding with not flexibility. GAO responded that she did not agree and that it could be like an investment strategy with options and costs associated with each option.

Panel III. Wildland Fire practitioners and Administration response

Kirk M. Rowdabaugh, President, National Association of State Foresters and Arizona State Forester

• The FY 2009 budget means less money for states and communities.
  
  
• SFA and VFA need more funding. Localities are on the front line and can aid in effective initial attack success.
  
  
• Feds are responsible for suppression and protection on federal lands. Fire is burning off of unmanaged federal lands and onto state and private lands.
  
  
• NASF has two-fold solution: a separate account for emergency events; and to examine the FS budget in a different way.

Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Policy and Budget, James Cason

• Factors that influence cost and severity of fires.
  
  
• Impacts of fires costs. FS 48% of agency budget.
  
  
• HFI accomplishments.
  

USDA Undersecretary for Natural Resources & Environment, Mark Rey

• 2008 fire season outlook.
  
  
• Preparedness - we will have resources comparable to 2007.
  
  
• So. CA as an example of coordination, forest fuels treatment and success.
  
  
• Submitted 47 management efficiencies, 2007 Fire and Aviation Management Annual Report for the record.

Question and Answer for Panel 3:

• Mr. Dicks asked that in the face of large increases in Suppression how the FS justifies a $77 million decrease in Preparedness. Mark Rey replied that 4 years of cost controls have resulted in savings to meet these cuts. Operational controls and management efficiencies resulted in $200 million in savings last year and $14 million in aviation alone. The flexibility in the Suppression budget line will allow us to move funds into Preparedness for aviation costs.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks asked about the decline in FTEs reflected in the Budget Justification. Mr. Rey replied that theses would not be achieved through reduction in some supervisor positions and accomplished through attrition. The key point was that we have realized savings from tactical changes not uncalculated cuts.
  
  
• Mr. Dicks asked about cuts to haz fuels funding. If it an agency priority, why did the work get cut in the President's budget. Mr. Rey replied that hazardous fuels treatment continues to be a priority activity for the agency and the FY09 request represents the second highest funding level in history. He reminded the subcommittee that fuels treatment, and other vegetation management accounts, contribute to accomplish fuels treatment goals.
  
  
• Mr. Tiarht asked about the benefits of merging the fire operations of the Forest Service and DOI bureaus into one Fire Service. Mr. Rey and Mr. Cason both stated that such a merger would produce no material positive effect - no significant cost savings or increase in efficiency. Because the two Departments operate under a unified command and perform in an integrated way, the Departments are already working together in ways that produce good coordination and efficiency.
  
  
• Mr. Tiahrt asked about options to fund wildland fire. He stated that perhaps an approach that maintained training, personnel and equipment with the land management agencies and that FEMA paid the costs of suppression as natural emergencies was plausible. Mr. Rey said that a proposal to consider a government-wide fund had been developed in 2002.
  
  
• Mr. Lewis asked about military aircraft availability for the southern California fire season. Mr. Rey replied that 6 Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) would be available for the H-model C130s and that the units being developed for the J-model C130s would likely be ready for the fall southern California fire season.
  
  
• Mr. Lewis asked about the disparity in pay rates for wildland fire fighters in southern California. Mr. Lewis stated that it appears to be a problem for retention for federal agencies. Mr. Rey responded that we are not having a problem with recruitment. Fire fighters want to work for the Forest Service. He said that retention problems are a reality in southern California we are looking at options to address it. We are working on this now. Mr. Rey said that part of the analysis is to assess how big of a problem this is. He said that we hate to lose people, but we will continue to work in a unified command shoulder to shoulder with state fire fighters. One benefit is that we are helping to produce highly trained and capable fire fighters for the state. The bottom line is that good people will be out to get the job done. We are finding that this is a complicated issue which reaches beyond pay alone to other areas of compensation, such as retirement benefits, overtime and hazard pay. We are working on this, but do not have a decision at this time.
  
  
• Mr. Calvert asked about delays in aviation assistance in the 2007 fall fire in southern California. Mr. Rey said that there was a 36-hour delay and that the after action review indicated that the issue related to the "spotters" resulted from no formal agreement signed between CalFire and the Marines. It resulted in orders going up to NIFC and then back to the field.