STATEMENT OF
DALE BOSWORTH,
REGIONAL FORESTER,
NORTHERN REGION
UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Concerning
WESTERN
CATASTROPHIC WILDFIRES:
PREVENTION,
SUPPRESSION, AND REHABILITATION
COMMITTEE
ON rESOURCES
sUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
September 16, 2000
MADAM CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today concerning western wildland fire prevention, suppression, and rehabilitation. I am Dale Bosworth, Regional Forester of the Northern Region of the Forest Service, and with me today is Jack Blackwell Regional Forester of the Intermountain Region.
We appreciate your interest in what the agency is doing with respect to catastrophic wildfire. The 2000 fire season is already one of the worst in recent memory, and it is not over yet. Fire has burned approximately 6.6 million acres of federal (2.5 million acres of National Forest System lands), State, tribal, and private land so far this year. The Federal government has spent over $ 750 million in its attempt to contain these large fires and prevent loss of life and property, and protect critical natural resources. To date over $34 million have been spent to rehabilitate severely burned lands in the aftermath of these fires. Six battalions of military have provided critical assistance, while specialists, crews, and equipment from several other countries have been used to supplement our strained resources.
Regionally, in the states that make up Forest Service
Regions 1 and 4, where Jack Blackwell and I are Regional Foresters, over 3.3
million acres and 463 structures have burned so far this year, yet thousands of
buildings threatened by fire were saved.
By comparison, the Greater Yellowstone area fires of 1988 covered 1.4
million acres.
The prediction is that in both Regions 1 and
4, fires will continue to burn, at least through September. We anticipate that
short and long term restoration activities will be required on 5 times the
number of acres normally treated.
This fire season is a result of extremely hot and dry weather conditions in the west. Fires have burned in many ecological types, including rangeland, pine forests, typically moist Douglas-fir forest types, and mid-to high elevation spruce/fir/lodgepole forest types. Some of these forest types are historically low frequency fire interval ecosystems, which would typically be expected to have stand-replacing crown fires every 100 to 150 years, similar to the Yellowstone fires of 1988. Millions of acres of forests and rangelands were affected this year that historically burned at 1-35 year interval. These fires generally served to remove underbrush and small trees, while leaving larger trees intact.
Decades of effective fire suppression, in conjunction with variations in climate, natural succession processes, the introduction of exotic and invasive species and other factors created buildups of small diameter fuel that put many forests at higher risk from unnaturally intense large-scale wildfires. Because we have effectively reduced the cleansing role of fire, there has been little natural thinning of tree stands across the landscape, and trees in these crowded stands must compete for available moisture.
This combination of dense stands, coupled with mortality from insect and disease outbreaks or effects from the presence of invasive species, have created an increasingly hazardous situation on many of our western national forests. For example, cheatgrass, an invasive species from China, has changed the fire cycle in western ranges from the historic 60-100 years to only 3-5 years. In Montana and northern Idaho, white pine blister rust, another invasive species from Asia, led to the proliferation of Douglas-fir into historical white and Ponderosa pine habitat and created a fuel situation that contributes to fire burn intensities. This invasion and subsequent Douglas-Fir bark beetle mortality has resulted in the loss of biological diversity, affected property and other resource values, and greatly increased fire control costs.
Perhaps most significantly, the western region of the United States is the fastest growing in the country. Forested lands in the West have seen an explosive growth of primary residences and second homes. Many of the owners of these homes in the wildland/urban interface do not recognize the risks of living in a wildland forest environment.
In 1994, the Forest Service was treating approximately 385,000 acres across the United States to reduce hazardous fuels. Today, we have successfully increased annual treatment almost four-fold. Last year we treated approximately 1.4 million acres. In the past, due to funding constraints and agency priorities, we focused our efforts largely on slash reduction in or near harvested areas. Timber receipts were used to help offset the cost of other fuel treatments in the timber sale area.
Today, high-risk areas such as the wildland/urban interface have become a high priority for treatment. There are many opportunities to treat these high priority areas to reduce fuels. Our approach today, with needed new investments, would focus on protecting communities at risk from unnaturally intense fires. This would be accomplished by removing small, generally non-commercial fuels through a combination of thinning, prescribed fire, and working with landowners to reduce fuel buildups and other hazardous conditions on their own property.
For example, one of the high priority projects on the Boise and Payette national forests is near the community of Yellowpine, Idaho and involves local community leaders and the Forest Service working collaboratively to design the project that will include mechanical thinning and prescribed burning.
Another example of a collaborative effort was the Ponderosa Heights urban interface project on the Libby Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest. Through a series of public meetings, on-the-ground field reviews, and in cooperation with private landowners, the project was designed to reduce the spread of wildfire by treating fuels on both private and adjacent national forest system lands. The public assisted in the design of a commercial thinning of second growth ponderosa pine stands and helped in the slashing and hand piling of sapling sized ladder fuels.
During his trip to the western fires on August 8th and 9th this year, the President requested a report from the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior outlining the Departments’ plans for immediate and short-term activities to help rehabilitate burned areas and assist rural communities to recover from the impacts of fires. In addition, the President asked us to develop actions to help protect communities and natural resources from the risk of future unnaturally intense fires. The Secretaries released the report, Managing the Impact of Wildfires on Communities and the Environment, on September 8, 2000, and recommended a significant contingent emergency appropriation for wildland fire programs and outlined several areas of increased emphasis.
I would like to share the major findings and points made in the report to the President with you today.
The Report covers five major areas:
·
Continuing to make all necessary firefighting resources
available to protect
communities and forests as the fire season continues;
· Restoring landscapes and rebuild communities and landscapes impacted by the fires;
· Investing in projects to reduce fire risk by removing brush, shrubs, and small trees;
· Working directly with communities to increase local firefighting capacity and reduce fire hazards, and;
· Being accountable through creation of a cabinet-level coordinating team.
The recommendations to the President build 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 that are not possible within our baseline programs.
Burned area emergency rehabilitation (BAER) teams are already mobilized and conducting preliminary assessments and implementing rehabilitation projects. These projects are designed to prevent further loss of life and property and resource damage such as excessive erosion and water quality degradation that often result from the first damage-producing storms following the burn. We are also using the BAER reports to identify areas where noxious weed are aggressively invading burned areas and where longer-termed treatments will be required.
As stated earlier, we are steadily increasing our capacity to reduce hazardous fuels and are focusing these efforts on the wildland/urban interface, but reversing the effects of a century of fire suppression will take time and additional resources. All this work will be completed within existing law and policy and with local public involvement.
The recommendations in the President’s report would also expand our efforts 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 to protect themselves and their property.
The Report’s recommendations reinforce the need to have adequate initial attack and extended attack resources. It also reinforces the need to build a strong scientific basis for fire and fuels management, and ensure that resources are available to adequately support the fire prevention, fuels reduction, and fire suppression programs.
The report to the President identifies a need for an additional $1.58 billion for the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior in FY 2001 to implement the recommendations. This funding will be used for fire preparedness activities such as personnel and training, prevention, detection, and equipment; fire operations that include fire suppression and fire use; State and volunteer fire assistance; forest health management activities including thinning and prescribed burning; and economic action programs related to accomplishment of the Report’s recommendations. Funds will also be used to repay trust fund borrowing that occurred in FY 2000, after all fire related resources were exhausted.
Increasing funding for the work that needs to be accomplished will require new investments. Congress and the Administration must work together to help the agencies achieve this important goal of reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfire across the landscape and implement an effective recovery and rehabilitation program.
Summary
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. The Forest Service is committed to working
with communities to implement a strategy to restore and maintain healthy
ecosystems on National Forest System lands and adjacent lands under State,
private, and local jurisdiction. That means reducing hazardous fuels, while
ensuring cautious and consistent protocols in any use of prescribed fire.
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 assist in educating home and land owners about fire risks, fire risk
reduction strategies, and to protect the public, property, and resources when
fires occur.
As I have
stated before, it is also essential to recognize that hazardous fuels buildups
in the West occurred over many decades.
Restoring the health and resilience of these ecosystems while protecting
nearby communities from the effects of catastrophic fire will take many years.
Our strategic approach will 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 members of your subcommittee may have.
For more information contact Bud Risner