Fire and Fuels

Senate Requests GAO Review of Forest Management, LM Planning, and Firefighting Equipment

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Today, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and John Barrasso (R-WY), Chairman and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) requesting a review of the U.S. Forest Service’s practices concerning forest management, land management plans and firefighting equipment.

Below is the letter, with my comments.

America’s wildfire crisis continues to worsen. As your office recently reported, wildfires destroyed more than 12,000 homes, businesses, and other structures each year, on average, between 2017 and 2021. This is more than three times as many than the preceding 5-year period. These wildfires have killed hundreds of people, including 85 fatalities in the 2018 Camp Fire alone, and burned millions of acres. The cost of suppressing wildfires has also risen, from an annual average of $371 million between 1985 and 1990 to $2.85 billion between 2018 and 2022 (an increase of approximately 300% after inflation). 

The increasingly devastating outcomes from wildfires in the United States requires a change in how the federal government prepares for, responds to, and recovers from wildfires. Federal agencies have long recognized the need to significantly increase the pace and scale of forest management to reduce the extreme risk posed by wildfires. Nevertheless, efforts to reduce wildfire risk have not been undertaken at the scale necessary to address the crisis. The Forest Service is now recommending that hazardous fuels reduction treatments occur on 50 million acres across the United States over the next 10 years. Although the federal land management agencies have been provided with significant resources to enable this work, both in additional funding and new authorities, increases in proactive forest management have been modest. 

In this context, we are writing to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct assessments of the following issues:

  • Forest management. Active forest management can improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk—all while supporting local economies. Congress has provided authorities and funding to the Forest Service in an effort to speed up these projects. However, the agency continues to face questions about the scale and pace of its timber and hazardous fuels management program. We have heard concerns about the extent to which the Forest Service is using the available resources. For example, the Forest Service’s treatment target for Fiscal Year 2025 is lower than the number of acres treated in Fiscal Year 2023. We ask that your office conduct a review of the Forest Service’s use of existing authorities and existing programs that support forest management projects across ownership boundaries. We also request that your office identify improvements to increase the flexibility of federal funds to facilitate cross-boundary forest management work.

It seems to me that there are several questions:

1. Why are targets lower in 25 than 23? Are these timber and fuels reduction targets (both) or only fuels reduction? ( I could look it up, but someone out there probably knows).

2. Where did the funding go that was intended (perhaps “concerns about the extent to which the FS is using resources” is the same question)? Some rumors suggest that increased staffing happened at the WO and Regional level, not at the Districts where work gets done.

3. What has the Forest Service accomplished with the funding? While stashing the funding in Agreements is useful, it is not the end desired result on the ground.

4. It seems like the Westerman bill has ideas to facilitate cross-boundary work. Perhaps GAO will look at those.

FWIW, my previous experience with GAO reports has been uneven, including giving feedback from the agency.  It seems sometimes they have an specific axe to grind.

  • Land Management Plans: Of the 128 Land Management Plans maintained by the Forest Service, approximately 100 are more than 15 years old. These plans provide overall management directives and lay out guidelines for appropriate activities and uses in the forest. It is critical that the Forest Service regularly revises these plans to reflect changing forest conditions, public uses, and Congressional direction. The Forest Service has created new regional teams dedicated to updating land management plans, rather than asking each National Forest System unit to lead the efforts individually. We ask that your office review the Forest Service’s new model for updating land management plans and compare it with strategies employed by other federal land management agencies to identify options for improvement and streamlining.

I’ve heard that there are as many as 150 people employed on those teams. Also I’m sure there are documents describing exactly what the new organization is, although I don’t think that they are public.  I think the only other agency that does similar kind of planning is the the BLM, so it shouldn’t take GAO long to look at this.  And I don’t agree, of course that getting them done is “critical.” If Congressional direction changes, conceivably the FS would follow it without requiring all units to do plan revisions (!).  And then there’s the planned national OG amendment..

  • Firefighting equipment. Technology such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and communications devices are critical safety equipment for firefighters working to suppress wildfires or conduct prescribed fires. However, these systems have not been universally implemented or adequately maintained. A recent report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology identified improved communications and situational awareness tools as the number one technological priority for firefighters. Congress provided federal agencies with funding to purchase such equipment, including $15 million through the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act (P.L. 116-9) and $40 million through IIJA. However, it is unclear if the Forest Service has purchased any equipment with these funds. We ask that your office review what steps the agency has taken to assess and acquire this equipment and any reasons for delay. 

I think it’s a bit odd for this request to refer to the PCAST report– here are the leads on that…

Co-Leads
John O. Dabiri
Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering
California Institute of Technology
Kathryn D. Sullivan
Former NASA Astronaut
Former NOAA Administrator
Members
Ash Carter (1954-2022) Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs
Harvard University
Inez Fung
Professor of Atmospheric Science
University of California, Berkeley
Steve Pacala
Frederick D. Petrie Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Princeton University
William Press
Leslie Surginer Professor of Computer Science and Integrative Biology
The University of Texas at Austin

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I’d have more confidence in “what technology is needed” from people doing the work. Not that the Congress’s Wildfire Commission had many firefighters on it, but here is what they came up with: Recommendation 118.

While not a comprehensive review, the Commission notes a particular need for the following technologies be prioritized for greater development and adoption:
Chapter 6: Integrating Modern Science and Technology 213
• Expanded adoption of interoperable communication systems and extended field connectivity to all firefighting resources.lxii
• Incentivized and improved fire detection technologies including along electric utility corridors.
• The development of dynamic risk maps for the wildland environment that are updated regularly to better reflect changes in the natural environment, such as post-flood or fire alterations. While this process may take time, the development of such dynamic maps is important to better reflect rapidly changing environmental conditions.
• Improved resource tracking on wildfire incidents.
• Continued investments in innovative wood products and biomass utilization to help defray mitigation costs in the wildland environment.
• Rapid remote detection of vegetation change to inform fire risk and fire behavior models.
The Commission emphasizes that modernizing the wildfire mitigation and management space requires exploring and integrating new technology as well as more fully supporting and implementing existing technologies.

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It’s interesting how DC-centric this all seems to be.  We will have DC people (GAO) take a look at what the FS is doing in forest management with the funding we gave them.  To me that makes some sense, although I would ask different questions.   They tell us that more plan revisions are …”critical”.  Not everyone thinks that.  And finally looking to PCAST instead of the Wildfire Commission for direction on what to fund. I’d just ask the Forest Service these questions directly, and maybe ask a panel of us regulars from across the country to review -and compare with the BLM plans for example on the planning side.  Not as written about,  but as experienced from both the public and the practitioner side.

 

Intertribal Timber Council Testimony on Westerman Bill Includes Support for Some Litigation Reform

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The E&E News article on the hearing did not mention Mr. Desautel’s testimony, and I didn’t see it covered elsewhere other than Tribal news sources, so I thought I’d focus a post on it.

Thanks to Nick Smith for the link to this video of Cody Desautel on Indianz.com.  Below is an excerpt from the Indianz.com story.

Cody Desautel, president of the Intertribal Timber Council and executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, testifies about federal forest management at a hearing on April 17, 2024.

Desautel, a Colville citizen, spoke of the need to include tribal governments in federal forest policy. He specifically pointed to the risks that tribes face from wildfires on federal lands, many of which include treaty territories. Federal lands also lie adjacent to a number of reservations.

“When these lands don’t receive adequate management, or are severely damaged by wildfires tribes feel the impact,” Desautel stated in his written testimony.

Desautel appeared at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, which is part of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The hearing was called to discuss a Republican-led draft forest management bill that has not yet been introduced in the 118th Congress.

Let’s take a look at which of the ideas in the Westerman Bill that the ITC supports. Here’s a link to his written testimony.

The legislation primarily uses a combination of priority firesheds identified in the “Wildfire Crisis Strategy” and existing national Fireshed Registry ratings to prioritize fuels reduction projects. The ITC recommends adding a provision that allows states and Indian tribes to identify and request additional areas for assessments and treatment. Wildfire is a complex phenomenon that can be unpredictable. Many of the areas most devastated by wildfire in recent years do not appear on the Registry at all. Likewise, areas that have burned in recent years are treated at a lower risk of future wildfire. While that may be true in the very short term, large areas with standing dead snags may pose a much greater risk of catastrophic fires as time goes on. We recommend more research about how to calculate wildfire risk from these massive dead zones on federal lands

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Treat Tribes the Same as Other Governments for Implementation (NEPA) Authorities

The ITC appreciates that the bill authorizes tribes to request participation in producing the fireshed assessments. Tribes are best situated to define risks, strategies for reducing the threat of those risks, and determining the benchmark goals for their communities. For the sake of parity, we request that Tribal Forest Protection Act projects on federal lands be provided the same implementation authorities, such as emergency NEPA procedures and categorical exclusions. This would be helpful in accelerating TFPA treatments across the country.

A prime example of this is the Tule River Tribe’s TFPA project in the Sequoia National Forest in California. The NEPA process for the project, intended to protect giant sequoias from stand-replacement fire, took roughly a decade to get through. By the time of implementation, wildfire was already affecting the sequoia stands. Congress ultimately stepped in to create emergency authorities for fuels treatment.

ITC would recommend that the Bureau of Indian Affairs be included as a member of the Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. The BIA is included as a  representative in the Fireshed Center and Public-Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership, and should serve in the same capacity to protect tribal interests in this program.

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The Colville tribe is working through a similar situation where a TFPA project that shares 10 miles of boundary with the reservation was approved in 2014, later reduced because of the 2015 Northstar fire, and had the NEPA decision litigated in 2023. Now –10 years later—we are working on a new version of the project with no treatment accomplished on the ground to date. While tribes understand the importance of environmental review, we also understand that we must live with those decisions and justify our actions to our tribal membership. Decisions that impact natural and cultural resources are not things we take lightly.

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The ITC appreciates the inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge in the definition of “Best Available Science” used in the fireshed assessments. This can be a critical tool to better understand the historic forest characteristics and fire behavior. It will be important to respect the tribal sovereignty of our 574 federally recognized tribes, and ensure we have a process for collection and protection of this data that meets the needs of each tribal government. The ITC also appreciates the inclusion of cultural burning as a designated fireshed management project. For many tribes this will be a critical tool to accomplish their risk reduction goals.

The ITC supports the bill’s provisions that address full tribal inclusion in Good Neighbor Authority, and adding the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to that authority. We also support extending the length of stewardship contracting authority. To ensure we have the infrastructure needed to accomplish these fireshed management goals we will need a healthy forest products industry. To achieve this, we must have long term commitments to forest products supply chains. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission also recommended investments in wood processing facilities and the wood utilization sector more generally.

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Litigation Reform

The bill’s provision on litigation reform mirrors existing direction from Congress in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Since federal forests are often managed by the whim of federal courts, we believe it is reasonable for Congress to direct courts to weigh the long-term effects of fuels reduction versus wildfire impacts to untreated areas. With approximately half of the reservation burning over between 2015 and 2021 we have firsthand experience with fire effects on untreated areas. Although we have an active forest and fuels management program, we are not funded to work at the pace and scale needed for our forest types. The consequence is high severity wildfire in many of untreated areas. It would be irresponsible to assume “no action” means “no impacts” as we continue to see the growing impacts past management practices and climate change.

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Better Accounting of Accomplishments

We also support better reporting of fuels reduction projects by type and effectiveness. A true accounting of footprint acres with a quantified risk reduction will help track our success, and inform future investments and projects. We would recommend the work done by the Department of the Interior to consider the “avoided costs” of various fuels treatments.

The ITC also supports the creation of an interagency group focused on technology development and deployment. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission had 16 recommendations dedicated to the integrating modern science and technology. By collaboratively combining the resources of the federal agencies, academia, and private industry we can utilize existing tools, and develop new tools that improve our effectiveness in achieving these wildfire risk reduction goal.

On the whole, the ITC supports the intent of this legislation to accelerate the pace and scale of high priority fuels work on federal lands. The ITC requests that the Committee review additional recommendations to Congress from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report, particularly those that involve tribes and tribal forest and fire management

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How much sovereignty do Tribes have over different National Forests (I assume it varies by Forest)? How would the Tribal rights be balanced, say if a Tribe were concerned that a project to protect their hunting and fishing or other rights were held up by litigation in court?  This seems like an interesting legal area.. maybe someone knows more about this.

E&E News Story on the Westerman Bill Hearing : Focus on the 10 AM and Out Idea

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Chris French, the Forest Service’s deputy chief, on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Natural Resources Committee/YouTube via E&E News

The Westerman bill is a compendium of policy ideas from various sources, some of which have been floating around for a long time. I think this E&E News story did a pretty good job of focusing on some of the main themes of the hearing.

I don’t think the 10am idea is going anywhere. I fully respect individuals who disagree, and I hope they move on to more detailed ideas for “being more careful.” If this Xprize or other technological innovations are successful, people will have to choose for every ignition and what will inform that choice? Human safety would seem to be less of a factors with unpersonned aircraft and so perhaps that will change the possibilities and choices of suppression as well.

What can we learn from fire with benefits that worked vs. those that didn’t work? How can we reimburse people who suffer when they don’t work? When wildfires are likely to hit private land, should landowners have a voice? It seems to me that there are many questions to be worked out. Perhaps with forest plan amendments or other pre-planning. Here at TSW we have seen a variety of people with concerns (Sarah Hyden and Michael Rains) and even Jon and I agree on the utility of plan amendments, which is fairly rare. Anyway, I think there’s a conversation around “if not 10 AM and out, how can FWB (fire with benefits) proponents build trust with impacted communities?”; a conversation that would be more complex than “10 AM or not.” Maybe the appropriate Congressional committee (perhaps not this one) can examine why FEMA seems to be uniquely unsuccessful at getting relief to impacted individuals after the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon escaped prescribed fires, as reported on in detail by The Hotshot Wakeup. I know that fire folks and academics are working on the trust issue.

Meanwhile, there’s a big story from NPR KRCC this morning on wildfire smoke health risks..

New research shows that the health consequences of wildfire smoke exposure stretch well beyond the smoky days themselves, contributing to nearly 16,000 deaths each year across the U.S., according to a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) analysis released in April. The analysis warns that number could grow to nearly 30,000 deaths a year by the middle of the century as human-driven climate change increases the likelihood of large, intense, smoke-spewing wildfires in the Western U.S. and beyond.

“This really points to the urgency of the problem,” says Minhao Qiu, a researcher at Stanford University and the lead author. “Based on our results, this should be one of the policy priorities, or the climate policy priority, of the U.S., to figure out how to reduce this number.”

Another analysis, led by researchers from Yale University, finds that the human death toll every year from wildfire smoke could already be near 30,000 people in the U.S. Deaths from cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems, kidney disease, and mental health issues all rise in the days and weeks after smoke exposure.

Together, the studies point to an underappreciated threat to public health, says Yiqun Ma, a researcher at Yale and an author of the second study.

“It’s a call to action,” she says—outlining the real, and significant, human stakes of failing to rein in further human-caused climate change.

Wildfire smoke is bad for people but fire is good for forests. How best to manage the trade-offs? How will climate change and the new technologies above balance out in terms of new future “large intense smoke-spewing wildfires”? How does planned prescribed fire, compared to Wildfire With Benefits fit into that? I don’t know, but I’m fairly certain health researchers don’t know either. Interestingly, it looks like the Wildland Fire Commission did not include folks from CDC?.

Anyway, here’s what Marc Heller reported on this.

Fire suppression debate
Westerman’s draft combines many ideas that haven’t advanced far in Congress, in some cases because Democrats won’t support them, but in others because they haven’t been attached to legislative vehicles that can get through the congressional logjam. The farm bill, for instance, covers the Forest Service but has languished for months on unrelated issues.

The quick extinguishing of wildfires has become a rallying point for some Republican lawmakers but would face hurdles with forest policy groups. It would place the requirement on drought-inflicted areas and on places the Forest Service has designated among the most at-risk landscapes, for instance.

One witness at the hearing, Kimiko Barrett, a member of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission, said the 24-hour proposal goes against recommendations the panel made in a report to Congress several months ago.

“Calls to return to a 24-hour suppression policy are antithetical to allowing more beneficial fire, supersede local decisionmaking and are in direct opposition to the commission’s recommendations,” said Barrett, a senior wildfire researcher at Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Montana.

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The chilly response to the fire suppression provision contrasted to more positive views of other aspects of Westerman’s draft, which calls for creation of “firesheds” that would receive expedited thinning and prescribed fire to reduce the threat of wildfire, as well as updates to shared stewardship arrangements that allow the Forest Service to partner with outside groups for forest improvement projects.

Westerman, the only professional forester in Congress, said the draft resulted from years of work and bipartisan cooperation on a number of issues.

A proposal to streamline consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service on endangered species issues has some Democratic support as well, and the community-based wildfire risk reduction programs and research have broad appeal.

In addition, the proposal would incorporate 10 of the nearly 150 recommendations the federal Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission made to Congress several months ago and adopt other policies that align with the commission’s findings — although it veers from that commission on the scope of fire suppression.

For some reason, Westerman said, forests have become politically divisive even though healthy forests benefit everyone through cleaner air and water, recreational areas and economic rewards of the wood products industry.

“It’s something we should all work toward,” Westerman said, adding that he took a bipartisan delegation to his alma mater, the forestry school at Yale University, last year to see how researchers manage its lands in Connecticut.

“People realize this shouldn’t be a divisive issue,” Westerman said.

French said a number of provisions in the draft that have been proposed in earlier legislation align with Forest Service goals. In the case of expedited environmental reviews for forest projects, he said the agency would want to clarify Westerman’s intent.

But in exchanges with lawmakers, French also acknowledged that tasks such as endangered species consultations, litigation and environmental reviews sometimes add substantial costs to forest management projects.

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Like I said, since this bill is a lengthy mix of different ideas, and the folks testifying had many interesting things to say (also in their written testimony), I’ll be posting in depth about some of the testimony and my observations.

From Frivolous Litigation to Western Headquarters Via Many Other Ideas: Westerman’s Bill: What’s In it and What Do You Think?

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Subtitle C actually says “addressing frivolous litigation” and Section 121 is titled “Commonsense Litigation Reform”

Here’s the text. We’re going to need help from lawyers out there..

a) IN GENERAL.—A court shall not enjoin a fireshed management project under this Act if the court determines that the plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that the claim 7 of the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.
8 (b) BALANCING SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF FOREST MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES IN CONSIDERING INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—As part of its weighing the equities while considering any request for an injunction that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act, the court reviewing the agency action shall balance the impact to the ecosystem likely 15 affected by the fireshed management project of—
16 (1) the short- and long-term effects of under taking the agency action; against 18 (2) the short- and long-term effects of not undertaking the action.
20 (c) TIME LIMITATIONS FOR INJUNCTIVE RELIEF.—
21 (1) IN GENERAL.—Subject to paragraph (2), the length of any preliminary injunctive relief and stays pending appeal that applies to any agency action as part of a fireshed management project under this Act shall not exceed 30 days.

1 (2) RENEWAL.—
2 (A) IN GENERAL.—A court of competent  jurisdiction may issue one or more renewals of any preliminary injunction, or stay pending appeal, granted under paragraph (1).
6 (B) UPDATES.—In each renewal of an injunction in an action, the parties to the action shall present the court with updated information on the status of the fireshed management project.
11 (d) LIMITATIONS ON CLAIMS.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a claim arising under Federal law seeking judicial review of a fireshed management project  shall be barred unless—  such claim is filed not later than 120 days after the date of publication of a notice in the Federal Register of agency intent to carry out the proposed agency action;

This sounds like a time limit for filing.

19 (2) such claim is filed after the issuance of a record of decision or other final agency action with respect to the relevant proposed agency action; and

How could it be filed before the ROD is issued?

22 (3) such claim does not challenge the use of a categorical exclusion under this section.

I’m kind of lost in the negatives here. “a claim shall be barred unless it does not challenge the use of a CE? So claims about CE-hood would be barred? Under “this” what (?) section.

Section 122 sounds like the Cottonwood fix but maybe not.

ARBITRATION PILOT PROGRAM

This is always one of my favorites. People learn a lot from pilots. This one has a ceiling, no more than 15 projects per year per FS Region or BLM States. You could lower the numbers, but is anyone really against it? Apparently the results would not be subjected to judicial review, except “as 16 provided in section 10(a) of title 9, United States Code.” Maybe someone knows what that is.

COMMUNITY WILDFIRE RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM.

Then there’s a section on WUI. My friends who are involved in community wildfire programs tell me that this would be very useful

create a single, uniform application and portal for local communities seeking to apply for Federal financial assistance or 23 technical assistance programs targeted at reducing fire risk to communities

Also these:

SIMPLIFICATIONS.—In creating the portal under paragraph (1), the Secretaries and the Ad1ministrator shall seek to reduce the complexity and length of the application process.
18 (3) TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE.—The Secretary of the Interior shall provide technical assistance to communities looking to apply for financial assistance under the streamlined application and portal created under paragraph (1).

Of course, Congress can’t do that, but a really wild and crazy idea would be for States to try to simplify  procedures for funding as well and maybe try to harmonize with the feds..

Then there’s section 202 which seems to be about controlling management of fires for resource benefits. That’s probably worth its own post, if anyone wants to take a look.

A Community Wildfire Defense Research Program (expanding JFSP to include):

(1) different affordable building materials, including mass timber;
5 (2) home hardening;
6 (3) subdivision design and other land use planning and design;
8 (4) landscape architecture; and
9 (5) other wildfire-resistant designs for structures or communities, as determined by the Secretary.

And a Community Wildfire Defense Innovation Prize

A new CE for power line operation and maintenance:

“the development and approval of a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and maintenance plan submitted under section 512(c)(1) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1772(c)(1)) by the Secretary concerned; and 11 (2) the implementation of routine activities conducted under the plan referred to in paragraph (1).

Plus a change to FLPMA from 10 to 50 feet of a power line for hazard trees.

Seeds of Success

I imagine Defense is included here as federal lands include Forest Service, some Interior agencies and DOD. The point seems to be enhance the domestic supply chain of native seeds, in a manner coordinated across agencies. It seems like it’s about native plants perhaps not including trees, as it appears to be BLM focused. I’d put them (trees and other natives) together somehow and get them coordinated.

Biochar Demonstration Projects and Biochar Competitive Grants. (more on this later)

Accurate Hazardous Fuels Reduction Reports

This approach sounds plausible to me, certainly it needs clarification and consistency. Many other groups, of various persuasions, have pointed out the problems with the current approach.

Public Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership
This seems like a mechanism for coordination among agencies to ensure real-world testing of new technologies. Hopefully, this will ensure that less USG funding is spent on random “sounds plausible” technologies, and gets them to field testing. Note that it includes say, thinning as a hazardous fuels reduction, so all our friends interested in mechanizing and improving marking and harvesting would be included.

(A) hazardous fuels reduction treatments or activities;
5 (B) dispatch communications;
6 (C) remote sensing, detection, and tracking;
8 (D) safety equipment; and
9 (E) common operating pictures or operational dashboards; and
11 (3) partner with each covered entity selected to participate in the Pilot Program with the appropriate covered agency to coordinate real-time and  on-the-ground testing of technology during wildland  fire mitigation activities and training.

GAO Study on Forest Service Policies

(A) the effectiveness of Forest Service wildland firefighting operations;
(B) transparency and accountability measures in the Forest Service’s budget and accounting process; and
(D) the suitability and feasibility of establishing a new Federal agency with the responsibility of responding and suppressing wildland 2 fires on Federal lands;

What happened to C? Also I’d have two studies, one that looked at the Interagency wildland firefighting and the idea of a new Federal Agency (why just FS?) and a separate one for FS budget transparency and accountability.

Forest Service Western Headquarters Study

It’s not clear to me whether this is to substitute for Regions or to add another layer of bureaucracy. Perhaps it will be clear in FS testimony tomorrow.

Summary: there are lots of interesting ideas in this bill.  It will be interesting to see the FS testimony.  What do you think?

Westerman’s Bill: What’s In it and What Do You Think? Up to Subtitle C

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I’m working off the discussion draft here.

The idea is to designate firesheds.

are identified as being in the top 20 percent of firesheds for wildfire expo6 sure based on the following criteria:
Wildfire exposure to communities, including risk to structures and life.
Wildfire exposure to municipal watersheds.
Risk of forest conversion due to wildfire.
shall not overlap with any other fireshed management areas;
may contain Federal and non Federal land; and where the Secretary concerned shall carry out fireshed management 20 projects.

I am not a fan of the “risk of forest conversion” criterion..seems to me (given my background in refo practices) that where there are trees, with appropriate practices you can get trees back. Plus with lots of bucks at stake, this could lead to a great deal of..err.. creativity

Agencies Get Their Stuff Together
The Bill would establish a Center where agencies would coordinate efforts. Which ones?
The Forest Service.

8 (B) The Bureau of Land Management.
9 (C) The National Park Service.
10 (D) The Bureau of Indian Affairs.
11 (E) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
12 (F) The U.S. Geological Survey.
13 (G) The Department of Defense.
14 (H) The Department of Homeland Security.
16 (I) The Department of Energy.
17 (J) The Federal Emergency Management Agency.
19 (K) National Science Foundation.
20 (L) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
22 (M) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
24 (N) The National Institute of Standards and Technology.

What Would the Center Do?

The purposes of the Center are to—
13 (1) comprehensively assess and predict fire in 14 the wildland and built environment interface through 15 data aggregation and science-based decision support services;
17 (2) reduce fragmentation and duplication across Federal land management agencies with respect to predictive service and decision support functions related to wildland fire;

I’d strike “land management”..it’s likely that NASA NOAA NSF and DOE are all feeding at the prediction and decision support modeling research funding trough.

21 (3) promote interorganizational coordination
22 and sharing of data regarding wildland fire decision making;

1 (4) streamline procurement processes and cybersecurity systems related to addressing wildland fire;

Not sure what problem that is intended to address but it sounds interesting…

4 (5) provide publicly accessible data, models, technologies, assessments, and fire weather forecasts 6 to support short- and long-term planning regarding wildland fire and post-fire recovery; and 8 (6) maintain the Fireshed Registry created 9 under section 103.

I’d add open (including practitioner) peer review of models, technologies and assessments, including involvement of practitioners in modeling, technology development and assessment.

Fireshed Registry Data (interactive spatial)

(a) FIRESHED REGISTRY.—The Secretary of Agri17 culture, acting through the Director of the Fireshed Cen18 ter appointed under section 102, shall maintain a Fireshed 19 Registry on a publicly accessible website that provides 20 interactive geospatial data on individual firesheds, including information on—
22 (1) wildfire exposure delineated by ownership,23 including rights-of-way for utilities and other public 24 or private purposes;
1 (2) any hazardous fuels reduction treatments 2 that have occurred within an individual fireshed in 3 the past 10 years;
4 (3) wildfire exposure delineated by—
5 (A) wildfire exposure to communities, including risk to structures and life;
7 (B) wildfire exposure to municipal watersheds; and
9 (C) risk of forest conversion due to wild10 fire;
11 (4) the percentage of the fireshed that has 12 burned in wildfires in the past 10 years, including, 13 to the extent practicable, delineations of acres that 14 have burned at a high severity;
15 (5) spatial patterns of wildfire exposure, including plausible extreme fire events; and
17 (6) any hazardous fuels reduction treatments 18 planned for the fireshed, including fireshed management projects under section 106 of this Act

This almost sounds like an assessment for a fire plan amendment..whoops.. Section 105 is.. Fireshed Assessments.

Then there’s a Peoples’ Permitting Database

(1) publish fireshed assessments created under 5 section 105; and
6 (2) maintain a searchable database to track—7 (A) the status of Federal environmental reviews, permits, and authorizations for specific fireshed management projects conducted under
10 section 106, including—
11 (i) a comprehensive permitting timetable;
13 (ii) the status of the compliance of each lead agency, cooperating agency, and participating agency with the permitting timetable;
17 (iii) any modifications of the permitting timetable required under clause (i), in1cluding an explanation as to why the permitting timetable was modified; and
21 (iv) information about project-related public meetings, public hearings, and public comment periods, which shall be presented in English and the predominant
25 language of the community or communities most affected by the project, as that information becomes available;
3 (B) the projected cost of fireshed management projects; and
5 (C) the effectiveness of completed fireshed management projects in reducing the wildfire exposure within an applicable fireshed, including—
9 (i) wildfire exposure to communities, including risk to structures and life;
11 (ii) wildfire exposure to municipal watersheds; and
13 (iii) risk of forest conversion due to wildfire.

Now, the NEPA part is confusing to a new reader.
If a project is identified through the Assessment and falls into these (pretty broad) categories..

2) FIRESHED MANAGEMENT PROJECTS.—The 4 responsible official shall carry out the following for5 est management activities as fireshed management projects under this section:
7 (A) Conducting hazardous fuels manage8 ment, including mechanical thinning, prescribed 9 burning, cultural burning, timber harvest, masication, and grazing.
11 (B) Creating fuel breaks and fire breaks.
12 (C) Removing hazard trees, dead trees, dying trees, or trees at risk of dying, as determined by the responsible official.
15 (D) Developing, approving, or conducting routine maintenance under a vegetation management, facility inspection, and operation and
18 maintenance plan submitted under section 19 512(c)(1) of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1772(c)(1)).
21 (E) Removing trees to address overstocking or crowding in a forest stand, consistent with the appropriate basal area of the forest stand as determined by the responsible 25 official.
1 (F) Using chemical treatments to address insects and disease and control vegetation competition or invasive species.
4 (G) Any activities recommended by the state-specific fireshed assessment carried out under section 105.
7 (H) Any activities recommended by an applicable community wildfire protection plan.
9 (I) Any combination of activities described 10 in this paragraph.

Our lawyer friends probably know the CFRs under emergency fireshed management on page 21. Section B on page 22 talks about using existing CE authorities under HFRA, the Lake Tahoe CE, and the IIJA CE’s. It also seems to replace the Emergency Situation Determination described in IIJA with projects identified in the assessment. The practical result seems to be no objection process and this clause:

A court shall not enjoin an authorized emergency action under this section if the court determines that the plaintiff is unable to demonstrate that the claim of the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits.

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The bill also adds Indian Tribes to getting funding from Good Neighbor Authority projects (I thought this had been done a while back, but I guess not).

Intra Agency Strike Teams. I read about this and they sounded like inter-agency strike teams, to facilitate coordination so I was confused.

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This is getting long so I will start another post..Subtitle C- Addressing Frivolous Litigation is the next topic.

Hearing Tomorrow on Westerman’s Bill: E&E News Story

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Thanks to a TSW reader for this.

 

E&E DAILY | The House Natural Resources Committee will focus this week on a Republican bill to more quickly thin forests deemed in danger of wildfire.

Rep. Bruce Westerman, the chair of the committee, has proposed draft legislation to create federal “firesheds,” or areas the Forest Service has determined are at the highest risk of fire, and to expedite projects to remove overgrowth and dead or dying trees. The Subcommittee on Federal Lands, chaired by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), is scheduled to take testimony on it.

The draft bill calls for categorical exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act to designate emergency firesheds every five years, beginning with areas already highlighted in the Biden administration’s 10-year wildfire strategy. More areas would be listed every five years, with projects not subject to environmental assessments or environmental impact statements.

We’ll discuss this in greater detail in the next post.

The draft also would provide for such exclusions along electric power rights of way, responding to the danger of fires started by downed power lines.

Now if we go back to Senator Tester’s questions last week about how a 100 foot tall tree fell on a power line.. and the Forest Service only let the Coop cut trees 10 feet on each side (if that is true, did not hear the FS side of the story) despite the Coop’s asking to do it, then there might be something useful there.  Also, in the Region 2 public meeting about Environmental Analysis and Decision-making, the power company folks offered that power line maintenance would be best served by a power line-wide decision, not District by District.  I wonder whether the Forest Service and the country might be better off with a national plan amendment for power lines rather than Old Growth.

Westerman, a trained forester, is one of Congress’ most outspoken proponents of a more intensive approach to managing forests, many of which have grown thicker with vegetation due to past polices of fire exclusion.

I hope I’m not being overly sensitive about natural resource professionals here, but he’s a Yale-educated forester.  Sounds better than “trained.” Also has experience in practice as a forester and engineer.

From Wikipedia:

He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in engineering in 1990 and subsequently received a master’s degree in forestry from Yale University.[2]

Westerman worked as an engineer and forester before being elected to the Arkansas House in 2010. He was formerly employed as an engineer and forester by the Mid-South Engineering Company.

Back to the story.

Projects to remove trees — dead or alive — on fire-prone federal lands sometimes face years-long delays through NEPA reviews and litigation, both of which Westerman has tried to tamp down through legislation.

On the other side are environmental groups and advocates who say forests are better off, and more resilient, with less removal of trees for timber harvest and other purposes.

Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a Berkeley, California, environmental group, charged Westerman with “gutting the nation’s bedrock environmental laws as we approach Earth Day,” which is April 22.

Mature forests and large, old trees, on national forests store from 35 percent to 70 percent more carbon than logged areas, contain clean drinking water, support imperiled wildlife and are a guard against wildfire, DellaSala said. “They need to be taken off Westerman’s legislative cutting board.”

Here we go again.. thinning doesn’t help trees survive in dry areas.  As if there was one practice known as “logging” ..

Westerman’s proposal addresses other forest priorities as well, including promoting biochar — partially combusted wood that acts as a soil conditioner — produced from forest thinnings.

The draft bill would also promote re-seeding of native or fire-resistant grasses in burned-over areas, particularly in the wildland-urban interface.

And the proposal would tweak Forest Service provisions for long-term contracting with outside organizations for forest management, including by requiring the government to pay 10 percent of the contract cost as a termination fee, if the government ends such a contract early.

This bill is interesting so we’ll check it out in the next post.

 

Smokey Has a Point: Housefresh Analyzes Human-Caused Wildfires

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Well actually, Smokey never left, although he was defamed in certain circles. Here’s BCm and here’s Burnie the Bobcat. As I said on XTwit or TwitX last weekish.

Thanks to Wildfire Today for this:

Air quality publication HouseFresh analyzed NIFC data from 2023 and ranked the causes of wildfires by number of occurrences. Of the recorded fires, 72.6 percent were directly caused by humans.

The bulk of last year’s wildfires were caused by debris burning and open burning, resulting in 1,302 wildfires. That is an increase from the 1,120 fires started by debris and open burning in 2022. Equipment and vehicle use, power generation/transmission/distribution, and arson were the next listed causes of wildfires in 2023 at 507, 390, and 364 respectively.

“The balance between human and natural fires has almost reversed since 2014, although the trend has not been smooth,” the HouseFresh report said. “The proportion of human-caused wildfires grew significantly in 2015, 2016 and 2020, peaking at 77.2 percent in 2020.”

Here’s a link to the Housefresh report.

A person might wonder if some climate modeling of wildfire dollars could be rerouted to understanding the social science of human ignitions and looking at successful interventions?

Tester Presses Forest Service Chief on Unwarranted Fines on Montana ­Electric Co-op

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This is a case in which maybe our lawyer friends can chime in..or maybe folks from Region 1 know more?

When does the FS simply determine a fine, and when do they litigate (as I think they did with Sierra Pacific in California) for starting wildfires? For example, Sierra Pacific was sued for damages and fees in excess of $1 billion for allegedly causing the fire.  Does it depend on the nature of the organization (profit/not for profit?)? The certainty of who started it (as per legitimacy of investigation)? The amount of damage? I guess the questions are “who decides how to proceed and what to charge?” “based on what factors”?

Why did the Chief seem to say (maybe I misunderstood) that it was up to DOJ and he has little control over the decision?

Below is  the press release from Tester’s office on the hearing today. Here’s a link to the exchange with Chief Moore. Thanks to Senator Tester’s office for providing this material!

U.S. Senator Jon Tester today pressed U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Chief Randy Moore during a Senate Appropriations hearing, questioning him on the USFS’s decision to stick Vigilante Rural Cooperative, a Montana electric cooperative, with a more than $5 million bill.

 

Following the Deep Creek Canyon Fire, which occurred in the Helena National Forest in 2021, USFS is seeking to fine Vigilante Rural Cooperative for fire suppression costs. This decision is based on a questionable determination of fault and fails to recognize the potential for this bill to jack up costs for Montana ratepayers. Senator Tester recently called on Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to reverse the fine.

 

Tester began by outlining the magnitude of the fine on the operating revenue of the cooperative: “The Forest Service fined a small electric cooperative in Montana a little over $5 million for a fire in 2021. To put this in perspective, the annual operating revenue for this small cooperative is $15 million. If this isn’t crazy enough, I recently learned that there is not a process in place for the cooperative to appeal this case directly to the U.S. Forest Service.”

 

Tester continued to specifically note the questionable determination of fault: “While I appreciate the importance of holding folks accountable and I believe in it strongly, I can tell you the jury is still out on whether the cooperative was negligent at all. Put that together, this process seems extremely broken.”

 

Tester went on to outline the consequences of this fine not just on the cooperative, but on Montana ratepayers: “Chief Moore, you know very well…that fining a cooperative with a $15 million budget, one third of its revenue – a cooperative that’s been around, by the way, for 87 years – would have two outcomes. The cooperative either goes out of business, and folks lose electricity, which is pretty darn critical in the 21st century, or the cooperative has to jack up energy costs on its entire members – because cooperatives are owned by the customer – to cover the bill.”

 

“Given that the blame for the 2021 fire is disputable,” Tester concluded. “My question to you, Chief Moore, is how the hell did we end up here?”

  

Tester’s recent letter to Secretary Vilsack can be read HERE.

The Wildfire Policy Rodeo: Eyes on the Insurance and Power Company Events

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Pretty sure this isn’t about wildfire risk based on this map.

 

The Hotshot Wakeup is best at covering this stuff, but we have folks in the media saying that wildfires will get worse, due to climate change.

Meanwhile, we also have the military-industrial complex developing early sensing and unpersonned firefighting helicopters, which conceivably can reduce spread.

We have fire retardant litigation, the EPA working on permits,  one fire retardant contract that is under protest and can’t be awarded, and one for more “environmentally friendly” retardant that eats away at the metal in aircraft such that some will not be available for the 2024 fire season.

I’m not sure how scientists can model the climate fingerprint of all that.

We have power companies shutting off power (so conceivably we will have fewer ignitions) although their approaches raise questions (in Colorado the PUC will be investigating), and maybe also have unequal impacts based on socioeconomic conditions.

More than 150,000 Xcel customers lost power because of the intentional shut offs or damaged equipment during the winds that included gusts of nearly 100 mph Saturday into Sunday. As of 10 a.m. Wednesday, the company reported 75 outages affecting 929 customers.

Residents and at least one food bank were forced to toss unrefrigerated food, and several metro Denver schools were closed through Tuesday. Employees at a Boulder wastewater treatment plant had to scramble to make sure raw sewage didn’t flow into Boulder Creek when power was cut to the plant’s two electric substations.

Then there’s this fascinating story from the San Fran Chronicle on for which zip codes State Farm will be non-renewing policies. We can check out the map and see .. whatever it’s about, it’s not about wildfire.

According to the article:

State Farm wrote in state filings that it would not renew policies “that present the most substantial wildfire or fire following earthquake hazards, or that are in areas of significant concentration.”

And probably not about earthquakes.  If you go to that link it says:

Last October, Marc Snyder’s insurance company informed him it wouldn’t be renewing his homeowners insurance this year for a reason he had never heard before: density.

The letter from Liberty Mutual said Snyder’s home was “located in a region where the dwellings are considered to be too densely concentrated for us to continue to provide coverage.”

But increasing density is supposed to be good for climate change, and climate change is supposed to be bad for wildfires.  That’s what I mean by the circle of life..  California’s policies are to increase density.  Anyway, sounds like there will be much work for PUCs and insurance commissions to investigate in terms of maps, and I hope they dig deeply.  Perhaps California, as well funded as it is, can figure the insurance/power company conundrum out and let the rest of us know what they find.

150 K Folks in Front Range Colorado Have Power Shut Off: TSW PSA on How to Prepare

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Sorry this image is so fuzzy, pulled from news video.

This may be of interest to other folks…. dried grass and high winds are nothing new to the Front Range of Colorado.  However, after the Marshall Fire, a concern over liability on the part of Xcel Energy may well be new, hence.. preventative as well as accidental outages.

From the Denver Post:

The news follows the utilities company’s Sunday prediction that it could take through Monday or longer to restore power to more than 87,000 Xcel customers statewide who were still experiencing outages by 5:45 p.m. on Sunday.

As of Monday morning at 10:25 a.m., over 750 outages were reported by just over 29,000 customers in the Denver area, whereas the Boulder area still saw close to 225 outages affecting roughly 12,000 customers, according to the Xcel electric outage map.

A total of more than 150,000 were impacted by the loss of power — severe weather caused outages for around 100,000 customers, while another 55,000 in six counties had their power shut off by Xcel in an effort to prevent wildfires.

“For the first time in Colorado, Xcel Energy conducted a public safety power shutoff,” said spokesperson Tyler Bryant in a Sunday statement. “While many customers will have service restored later today, with the significant number outages from this weather event, this restoration process will extend into Monday, April 8 and possibly longer for some customers.”

With more than 400 crew members working on restoring power to more than 600 miles of affected lines, the company had addressed the needs of about 63,000 customers by Sunday evening.

Because Xcel changed its system settings during the extreme winds to restrict automatic power restoration, “this safety measure means power outages are likely to last longer than they typically would,” Bryant said.

Since we have both high wind and dried grass in the winter, perhaps electrifying everything is not a very resilient approach? Just a thought.  Also, on the app Nextdoor, there was a certain (large) amount of unhappiness with the way this rolled out (although Xcel had its defenders, and lots of appreciation for employees working to get power restored). A critique From one neighbor:

1. Confusing messages sent out before cutting off our power.

2. No map provided in advance that would have helped know if any businesses, friends, neighbors still had power.

3. Outage map provided after power cut off that is just as useless.

4. Automated emails sent after power cut off assuring us that they are working diligently to get the power back on. Which we know they are not.

5. Another automated email sent out asking what we think of the new electricity rate structure.

6. They have now said that people preemptively shut off have lower priority than those who lost power due to the storm 🤦 Hard to think how they could have done this any worse.

Another thought.. a human being might want to review automated emails prior to sending to  see if they fit the current situation.

You all might remember this piece from the LA Times in 2019-

Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to more than 700,000 customers in 34 counties early Wednesday because of high winds. Some households were without electricity for 72 hours, a spokesman said. Southern California Edison shut off electricity to more than 24,000 customers, also starting Wednesday.

The biggest failure, experts and customers alike said, was communication. Residents complained they did not receive adequate notice of the shutdown or no notice at all and could not get on the utilities’ websites.

Lessons learned from the shutdowns are critical because more will take place, experts said.

“I suspect for the next few years these are going to occur,” said Severin Borenstein, faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute. “No one involved in this thing thinks it was a one-time event.”

The California Public Utilities Commission on Monday ordered PG&E to take immediate corrective actions, and Gov. Gavin Newsom called on the utility to give residential customers who lost power $100 rebates.

Commission President Marybel Batjer told PG&E it must try to restore power within 12 hours in the future, reduce the size of outages, develop systems to ensure call centers and the website are accessible and develop a “communication structure” with counties and tribal governments so they can respond to emergencies.

“Failures in execution, combined with the magnitude of this … event, created an unacceptable situation that should never be repeated,” Batjer said.

He said the state should create some sort of committee that includes public safety officials, elected officials, utilities and the Public Utilities Commission to make power shut-off calls in the future.

Utilities have sparked fires for decades, but they are now more destructive because of droughts produced by climate change and the movement of people into more remote, highly vegetated regions, experts said.

Southern California Edison’s customers complained the utility failed to give them adequate warning.

They hit the utility with questions about the timing, criticism over lack of immediate notice and outrage over spoiled food, stress-related health effects and fears that trapped cars beneath electric garage doors would leave people stranded in the event of a fire.

“We strive to keep the customer informed always, but we may not be able to depending on circumstances,” said Edison spokesman Robert Villegas.

Anyway, the article has interesting lessons learned and ideas for improvement (that could have helped Xcel) .. but given the warning timeframes, maybe it’s best to be ready for a shutoff, even if you live far from the WUI.

Here’s the PSA from Xcel:

Put together an outage kit
Include things like flashlights, batteries, portable chargers, a phone that does not require electricity, a non-electric clock, bottled water, non-perishable food, a manual can opener and a first aid kit
Make sure your computer is protected from surges
Keep devices charged
“Customers who use medical equipment that relies on electrical service should take steps to prepare for extended outages,” Xcel said.

Other things to consider include lighting options for when the power goes out, using a cooler to avoid opening the fridge and using a generator.

“For customers with power outages, you may want to unplug appliances containing electronic components, such as televisions, microwaves, and computers to prevent damage as power is being restored,” Xcel said.

Last year, Sammy Roth wrote a piece on the problem of reliability with regard to tolerating more blackouts during the transition time to solar and wind energy storage technologies.

I got a similar reaction on Twitter.

Of the hundreds of people who responded to my question, most rejected the idea that more power outages are even remotely acceptable — for reasons beyond mere convenience. A former member of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s board of commissioners wrote that “someone dies every time we have a power outage.” An environment reporter in Phoenix — where temperatures have exceeded 110 degrees for a record 20 straight days — said simply, “Yikes.”

Moura expanded on his skepticism by noting that modern life is more reliant on electricity than ever before.

Those of us lucky enough to have air conditioning depend on it to stay safe during heat waves — which can already kill thousands of people and are only getting more dangerous as fossil fuels warm the planet. Elderly people and individuals with certain health conditions are more vulnerable to heat illness and sometimes need electricity to power their medical equipment, such as ventilators, dialysis machines and motorized wheelchairs. Our refrigerators, cellphones and internet service all depend on reliable electricity.

“It’s not really about keeping the lights on. It’s about keeping people alive,” Moura said.

Two years ago this month, California narrowly avoided rolling outages after wildfire smoke knocked out electric lines that carry large amounts of power from the Pacific Northwest. The state again toed the precipice during a hot spell last September, fending off blackouts only after officials sent out an emergency alert to millions of mobile phones begging people to use less power.

Again and again, I’ve found myself asking: Would it be easier and less expensive to limit climate change — and its deadly combination of worsening heat, fire and drought and flood — if we were willing to live with the occasional blackout?

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Indeed, solving climate change isn’t as simple as replacing gas and coal plants with solar and wind farms. We need to get tens of millions of electric vehicles on the road, and tens of millions of electric heat pumps in people’s homes. We also need to build a lot more long-distance power lines to move renewable electricity from where it’s generated to where it’s needed.

More powerlines, more maintenance, more cutoffs, more dependency on electricity.. maybe  it’s time to rethink this?