The Wildland Fire Service Can Work—But Not Without the Forest Service: Post by Eric Horne of Megafire Action

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Many thanks to the Megafire Action folks for digging into this- I was confused about the Senate bill vs. the budget justification and so on.  Just to get this on the table: Megafire Action is not associated with this Admin, in fact the CEO has a D California legislative background. So here’s one issue that hasn’t been partisanized, thank Gaia!

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The Wildland Fire Service can work—but not without the Forest Service

New Details on the Wildland Fire Service: budget, land management, and what’s left behind

By Eric Horne, National Policy Director, Megafire Action

The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget formally proposes consolidating wildland fire programs across the Departments of Interior and Agriculture into a unified U.S. Wildland Fire Service housed within DOI. While we still await further details, the newly released FY26 Interior Budget in Brief and Forest Service Congressional Justification—published June 8th—provide sufficient detail to broadly assess what the proposed consolidation looks like: what is the rough budget, what programs would move from USDA to DOI, and what would remain behind. As the President’s Budget acknowledges, the proposed reorganization is “contingent upon the enactment of legislation,” placing the responsibility squarely with Congress. In February, Senators Padilla and Sheehy introduced a bill requesting a plan to establish a National Wildland Firefighting Service, but beyond that there are few indicators about how Congress will respond to the Administration’s proposal, offering the wildland fire and forestry community the opportunity to present its view(s). In our February piece on One Department for Wildfire Management, we argued that unifying wildland fire and land management under one department—specifically, moving the entire Forest Service to Interior—could streamline preparedness, mitigation, and suppression, improve transparency, strengthen Tribal partnerships, and deliver better value to taxpayers. In short: if the Wildland Fire Service is going to work, it needs the whole Forest Service, not just parts of it. As Congress takes up this proposal in budget hearings this month, here are some considerations:

U.S. Wildland Fire Service overview: The Fire Service has a proposed FY26 budget of $6.55 billion—$3.70 billion for operations and $2.85 billion for the reserve fund. This is relatively flat with the combined FY25 fire budgets for USDA and DOI, which together totaled over $6.3 billion—$2.43 billion in operations and $2.39 billion in reserve funding for the Forest Service, and $1.15 billion in operations and $350 million in reserve funding for Interior. The Fire Service would oversee wildfire suppression, fuels management, preparedness, post-fire recovery, intelligence and technology, and fire-related research across more than 693 million acres of federal land, while also funding Tribal firefighting personnel. By centralizing command, appropriations, and other key functions, the Administration aims to improve efficiency, enhance initial attack success, and reduce long-term wildfire risk through a more integrated approach. The proposal’s effectiveness will ultimately depend on careful operational integration—as Bob B. noted in his Smokey Wire piece last month—and how well remaining land management functions are aligned.

Fuels management: The transfer of fuels management to the new Fire Service is a critical step toward more effective wildfire mitigation—one Megafire Action has been advocating for. The FY26 budget funds this work at $770 million, which is roughly flat with the combined FY25 fuels management budgets of Interior ($228 million) and Forest Service ($175 million plus an estimated $393 million in salaries and expenses for FY25). Note: the salaries and expenses estimate is based on the historical share of National Forest System (NFS) staff working on fuels, since the Forest Service hasn’t reported FTEs for this program since FY20 (this shift may also account for a significant share of the NFS budget drop from $1.86 billion in FY25 to $1.3 billion in FY26.) While unified fuels management under one department promises better integration of mitigation and suppression, its success depends on aligning land management authorities as well. Putting the Wildland Fire Service in Interior in charge of fuels management, while keeping responsibility for 193 million acres of Forest Service land under a separate secretary at USDA, risks repeating the same fragmentation that has long undermined effective wildfire prevention.

What is left behind at USDA: While it is promising that suppression and fuels management will stay linked under the new Fire Service, key wildfire mitigation programs and expertise will be left behind at the Forest Service—undermining the proposal’s overall efficiency. The Vegetation and Watershed Management Program, cut from $30 million to $21.3 million, supports prescribed fire, invasive species control, and post-fire restoration. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program—also cut by a third down to $21.5 million—provides vital data on pre- and post-fire conditions. Land Management Planning is left behind at the Forest Service and drops from $14.5 million to $10 million, raising questions about how the Fire Service will accomplish its stated objective of “integration of fire into land-use planning.” Meanwhile, the Forest Products Program—flat-funded at $39 million—is tasked with increasing timber production on high-risk fire lands in accordance with the President’s Executive Order. The $283 million State, Private, and Tribal Forestry account and $300 million Forest and Rangeland Research account—both of which have major wildfire and fuels management functions—are planned for complete elimination in the FY26 budget. All of these underfunded functions—and there are many more—are critical to fuels management but have been left out of the proposed consolidation, raising the specter of a significantly divided and weakened wildfire mitigation system. Other functions like law enforcement, recreation, and minerals management also have clear synergies with Interior agencies, prompting a critical question: if the goal is an “integrated, cost-efficient, and operationally more effective organization”, why not move the entire Forest Service to DOI?

Moving the entire Forest Service to DOI: the Administration appears to be keeping this possibility open, stating in the FY26 budget that “additional operational capacity will be transferred from USDA FS to Interior in the future to ensure effective USWFS mission implementation.” This could eventually include relocating the entire Forest Service to the Department of the Interior, but we believe this should be done in conjunction with the creation of the Wildland Fire Service.  The Administration’s proposal—particularly the inclusion of fuels management within the new Fire Service—is a promising step toward a more integrated wildfire response system. However, by leaving key land management functions underfunded and siloed at USDA, the proposal risks recreating the very fragmentation it seeks to solve. By going half-way, we would forgo cost and performance synergies with DOI’s land management agencies and worsen the challenges facing an already overstretched land management workforce. Based on our research, we remain convinced that a truly effective, coordinated, and fiscally responsible Wildland Fire Service requires relocating the entire Forest Service to the Department of the Interior. Keep the green patches and distinct Forest Service identity, but rationalize and unify land management under a single, responsible Secretary.

As we have noted previously, structural reform on this scale comes with real risks and significant opportunities. Success will require the entire land management and wildfire community to engage Congress and ensure reforms strengthen responsible land management alongside suppression. Megafire Action is eager to continue to partner with other leaders and organizations on this initiative.

Megafire Action is a non-profit dedicated to ending the crisis of destructive wildfires by promoting a holistic approach to natural lands management, wildfire response, and community resilience to ensure that fire-dependent ecosystems and fire-affected communities thrive. 

 

Federal Lands Litigation – special edition: the Supreme Court’s rewrite of NEPA

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In my comments on the earlier post on this case, I questioned the role of deference, given the Supreme Court’s turnabout from Chevron deference to Loper Bright scrutiny.  And I said I’d better read the whole opinion.  That answered my question.  And raised a few others, so I thought it worth a separate post.  Maybe it’s not very productive to criticize a Supreme Court decision, but I think it provides a good example of  an “activist” court.  (I’m sure there’s been lots written about this case, but these opinions are my own.)

  • Court decision in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado (Supreme Court)

On May 29, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that would have required the U. S. Surface Transportation Board to consider the effects of increased oil and gas drilling and refining that would be facilitated by a proposed railroad.  Based on the procedural nature of NEPA, the court stated emphatically that, “The bedrock principle of judicial review in NEPA cases can be stated in a word:  Deference.” It distinguished NEPA cases from the new non-deference approach adopted by the Supreme Court in Loper Bright (quotes are not in the same order as in the opinion, which I found to be disorganized):

As a general matter, when an agency interprets a statute, judicial review of the agency’s interpretation is de novo. See Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 391–392 (2024). But when an agency exercises discretion granted by a statute, judicial review is typically conducted under the Administrative Procedure Act’s deferential arbitrary-and-capricious standard.”

While NEPA requires an EIS to be “detailed,” 42 U. S. C. §4332(2)(C), and the meaning of “detailed” is a legal question, see Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 391–392, what details need to be included in any given EIS is a factual determination for the agency… based on the usefulness of any new potential information to the decisionmaking process.

So long as the EIS addresses environmental effects from the project at issue, courts should defer to agencies’ decisions about where to draw the line—including (i) how far to go in considering indirect environmental effects from the project at hand and (ii) whether to analyze environmental effects from other projects separate in time or place from the project at hand…

The Court first determined that oil and gas development projects should not be considered “part of the proposed action.”  It then held, “when the effects of an agency action arise from a separate project—for example, a possible future project or one that is geographically distinct from the project at hand—NEPA does not require the agency to evaluate the effects of that separate project.”

The circuit court had found that these effects were reasonably foreseeable, and the agency did actually acknowledge them (it found the effects of future oil and gas drilling to be “speculative” and attenuated, but it forecasted the number of additional oil wells; and it anticipated refining the oil and gas, but could not identify specific destinations where refineries would be located).  However, the Court dismissed the relevance of foreseeability:

The effects from a separate project may be factually foreseeable, but that does not mean that those effects are relevant to the agency’s decisionmaking process or that it is reasonable to hold the agency responsible for those effects…  Simply stated, a court may not invoke but-for causation or mere foreseeability to order agency analysis of the effects of every project that might somehow or someday follow from the current project.

The court reasoned that the federal action must be the “proximate” (but-for) cause of the effects, and “a separate project breaks the chain of proximate causation.”  Therefore, “agencies are not required to analyze the effects of projects over which they do not exercise regulatory authority,” such as these separate oil drilling and oil refining projects.

The concurrence takes a different approach, finding that, “the Board had no authority to reject petitioners’ application on account of the harms third parties would cause with products transported on the proposed railway.”  The circuit court had held that statutory language stating, “the Board ‘shall’ issue a certificate ‘unless’ inconsistent with public convenience and necessity” (emphasis by the court) allowed it to consider environmental impacts in making its decision, and therefore made it subject to NEPA.  The concurrence disagreed because of other statutory language prohibiting the Board from making its decision based on what might be transported on the railroad.  The plaintiffs had conceded this point, and their argument was therefore foreclosed by prior case law (Public Citizen).

Commentary

After establishing the principle of deference, the Court did not grant such deference to the agencies to determine whether these kinds of indirect effects could be relevant to decisionmaking.  Instead, it drew a bright line for all future cases that contradicted previous policy interpretations of NEPA.  This is a situation where you would expect Congress to decide whether the law needs clarifying, not the Court.

The Court has now limited the effects that must be considered to those from “connected actions” (“closely related and therefore should be discussed in the same impact statement”) even though the CEQ regulations in effect at the time required consideration of any reasonably foreseeable indirect effects.  The court also did away with the accepted NEPA principle that effects of future decisions by other parties were the kinds of “induced” indirect effects an EIS should address, regardless of the agency’s lack of any authority for the future actions (36 CFR §1508.8, the version that was in effect at the time the decision was made):

Indirect effects, which are caused by the action and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but are still reasonably foreseeable. Indirect effects may include growth-inducing effects and other effects related to induced changes in the pattern of land use, population density or growth rate, and related effects on air and water and other natural systems, including ecosystems.)

The Court may have considered effects of other actions to be “detail” that is up to the Court to exclude.  However, the Court has provided very little basis for revising the decades-old conventional interpretation of NEPA’s statutory language, now excluding effects based on how subsequent decisions are related instead of letting agencies apply the Court’s own stated principles – a “rule of reason” based on “usefulness” of the information.

The main precedents the Court cites are distinguishable.  Metropolitan Edison was about effects that would be attenuated because they are “psychological” reactions to nuclear risk, which is a greater and different kind of attenuation than in this case.  Public Citizen involved lack of authority to make the decision at issue, and therefore NEPA did not require effects of the decision to be addressed at all, which is not the case here.

The concurrence would have isolated this case based on the application of railroad laws and left the traditional NEPA requirement of reasonable foreseeability intact for other kinds of decisions.  If the majority did not like the concurrence’s reasoning, there was another easy way to decide this case.  The concurrence had characterized the circuit court decision as a holding “that the Board should have more carefully considered the deleterious environmental effects of increased oil production made possible by the Railway’s construction” (my emphasis). This Court could have simply disagreed and held that, given the degree of attenuation and affording deference, the agency did consider the nature of these indirect effects to the degree necessary to inform this decision.  This would have left it to future agency factual determinations of the relevance of separate actions, instead of the Supreme Court reinventing NEPA for energy development policy and disturbing decades of precedents.

The Court’s editorial comments about how NEPA “has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents” were unnecessary and inappropriate to decide this case, and simply reveals its policy bias. So too is this extraneous opinion: “In deciding cases involving the American economy, courts should strive, where possible, for clarity and predictability.”  That’s found nowhere in NEPA that I am aware of.

The court can speculate that Congress never thought NEPA would produce fewer and more expensive projects, but if not, what was the point?  There was no discussion of legislative history to support the Court’s reasoning.  Even though NEPA is a procedural statute, it purpose was not just to produce paperwork but to reduce environmental impacts – which would obviously require changes in projects that are sometimes more expensive, or even not pursuing the project.

Here’s a strange statement from the Court: “Even if an EIS falls short in some respects, that deficiency may not necessarily require a court to vacate the agency’s ultimate approval of a project, at least absent reason to believe that the agency might disapprove the project if it added more to the EIS.”  This is clearly dicta, but it suggests that there must be evidence of how important different factors would be to the agency before a decision can be vacated.  That would be nice, but how often do you see this in the administrative record?

 

Colorado Communities and Counties Supporting FS Recreation: Colorado Sun Story

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Stewardship coordinators for the National Forest Foundation in Gunnison County staff an information kiosk at the Judd Falls trailhead near Gothic, Colorado on August 1, 2021. The staff dispenses information about the new designated camping regulations in Gunnison County and hands out portable toilet kits maps and brochures to aid hikers and campers. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)

I’ve always found some of the recreation discourse to be complex

Sometimes, folks will use “outdoor recreation economic benefit” numbers to argue for Wilderness, and yet the economic benefit numbers include RVs and OHV’s (and possibly soccer balls, sometimes it’s hard to tell.) That’s always been a bit puzzling to me.

Then there is the general feeling that federal lands provide recreation that communities make money from, so federal taxpayers should pay for it.  Let’s look at this news story, for example. This is a Colorado Sun story about how the locals are and have been stepping up in Colorado. The story is from June 4 and incorporates concerns about the GMUG’s toilet cleaning contract and DOGE.  Although Chris French said they were working on those contracts.

Anyone who remembers locked toilets at trailheads and boat ramps during the early months of the pandemic in 2020 knows that does not stop people from pooping. That could lead to widespread closures of those public lands as the government grapples with serious health and safety concerns.

(Local U.S. Forest Service officials have been ordered not to speak with the media and direct all inquiries to regional and national offices that do not respond beyond saying they have received the request for comment.)

I haven’t tried separately from reporter Blevins, so we don’t know.

I’d only add, there were not “widespread closures” of FS land then and are unlikely to be now. And the pre-Trump loss of this years’ seasonals seems to be elided with Trump Admin buyouts or layoffs(and I thought those laid off were rehired?). Indeed it is hard to keep up.

It’s interesting that different counties have different views (or at least individual Commissioners do).

Could local support set a dangerous funding precedent? 

There’s also some concern that if local communities contribute financial support to federal management of public lands, budget-slashing bureaucrats may pinch future funds.

Hmm “budget-slashing bureaucrats”.. are those the same as federal elected officials- or federal employees?

What if they say ‘See, you don’t need us. You can take care of this,’” Gunnison County Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels said. The county actually declined to pitch in for the backcountry Forest Service workers, not because of a lack of appreciation for public lands but to save funding for health and human services that could be slashed as the federal government shrinks.

For those of you not familiar with Colorado counties, the other counties mentioned are more wealthy than Gunnison County based on per capita income, according to Wikipedia.

Local budgets — even in communities where second homeowners pay big property tax bills — feel the strain of funding public land management, Daniels said.

I went down a bit of a side trail here. How did second homeowners get into the mix? Don’t primary homeowners also pay big property tax bills? Then I cam across this interesting NWCCOG (Northwest Colorado Council of Governments) report from 2024

. Quality of life perception is dramatically different between some respondent cohorts. Full-time, year-round residents who own or rent their residence feel dramatically more negative about the impacts of the tourism economy and QoL than their Second Homeowner counterparts that either do or do not rent their home as an STR. These residency-based
differences are the most pronounced in the study.

The whole report is very interesting. When we think about FS recreation, we tend to think about everyone, local and others. But the communities clearly have a “tourism economy” which can result in overcrowding and lessening the quality of the experience for residents. So perhaps it makes sense to think about “tourism industry-based recreation.”

Anyway, back to the original story.

“I don’t want to create the case for the federal government to divest,” she said. “We just don’t have the income the federal government does to absorb the magnitude of this work for very long at all even with the help of our partners. We can do this as a Band-Aid but we don’t have the funding streams to do it for the long term.”

Pitkin County is supporting two backcountry rangers through the county’s sheriff’s office, giving the rangers the ability to enforce rules around fires and reservations in heavily-trafficked zones.

I hadn’t heard of this approach before to ramp up LEO presence.

Pitkin County Commissioner Patti Clapper is not too troubled by setting a precedent for local-over-federal funding of public lands because the county – like Eagle, Gunnison and Summit counties – has been supporting seasonal Forest Service workers for several years.

“We see this more of a continuation of efforts we have done in the past to maintain our focus on public safety and forest safety,” Clapper said.

Eagle County and its towns launched its Front Country Ranger program in 2018 as “a way to enhance support for the Forest Service,” said Marcia Gilles, Eagle County’s first director of open space and natural resources, who spent more than two decades working for the Forest Service and Park Service.

“The Front Country Rangers was about enhancing a seasonal program we considered underfunded and now we are the sole support system,” Gilles said. “If it was not for this program, we would not have anyone out in a forest that sees 18 million to 20 million visitors a year.”

While Eagle, Gunnison, Pitkin and Summit counties are well-positioned to weather the loss of staff in public lands, the counties’ seasonal programs “are not sustainable,” Gilles said.

“It’s a stewardship responsibility of the federal government to support the Forest Service management,” she said. “We do have a recognition that there is a community-level need for support as well. This is about stewardship and partnership.”

Still, Daniels worries that local funding could lead a newly overhauled federal government to scale back support for public lands. That would create a patchwork of management policy that may hinder access and injure wildlife and habitat.

“If this becomes a state and county or regional management system, we could see a huge breakdown in what public lands mean,” Daniels said.

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So if we grant that communities and the feds have responsibilities, what should those be? Should it vary by the wealth of the communities, or by the amount that Forest-based recreation contributes to the local economy? Does advertising for more visitation bring with it responsibility to address the impacts?

Wildfires and Data?: Guest Post by Dan Reese

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Last week I posted again about the need for The Peoples’ Database, in which some group of citizens would give advice to the Forest Service on what information in what formats it should make available to the public.  Having FOIAd various master agreements, SPAs and quarterly reports, for example, I didn’t see anything that couldn’t be made public (with names redacted perhaps).  Matthew Haggerty brought up the need for budget and personnel data.

Dan Reese wrote these pieces on Wildfire Data on Linked-In on the same topic, so I’m re-posting here. Compatible data sets across agencies seems like one of the Holy Grails of our world.. do I remember John Teply in Region 6 in the 80’s and a discussion about whether FS data should match nationally, Oregon, or with BLM? Conceptually, it seems like it should be simple.

1. Defining who needs the data (across agencies and landowners)

2. Asking them what they need

3. Prioritizing based on that

4. Collecting info.

Clearly it is not, and has never been, that simple. Perhaps with today’s platforms and sensing capabilities, it should be easier?

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Post Title: Wildfires and Data: Where Are We Falling Short?

Wildfires are relentless, wreaking havoc on our communities and costing lives, resources, and billions of dollars. Despite living in an era of advanced technology, why are we still struggling to manage them effectively?

The truth is, the challenges are complex. Bureaucratic red tape, fragmented response efforts, and cautious decision-making (often influenced by litigation) create significant obstacles. But perhaps the biggest hurdle is our incomplete understanding of data.

We still lack a fully integrated system that combines information from drones, satellites, dispatch records, flight logs, ground resource data, and beyond. Firefighters, often overwhelmed and exhausted, cannot reliably input this data manually. Without automation and advanced analytics—potentially powered by supercomputers—fire managers are left navigating a maze without a map.

The opportunity is clear: better data integration and analysis could transform how we prepare for and respond to these infernos. So, how do we get there? Stay tuned for more insights in the next post.

Post Title: Wildfires and Data; Bridging the Data Gap to Fight Wildfires

Imagine a world where fire managers have access to real-time, integrated data to guide their strategies. Predictive models anticipate fire patterns, and advanced analytics inform decisions—before fire suppression efforts even begin.

This isn’t wishful thinking; it’s achievable. But to unlock this potential, we must break down silos between government and private sectors. Standardized data collection and analysis across agencies and jurisdictions is essential. No more “chess games with mismatched pieces.”

Yet collaboration alone isn’t enough. Leaders must advocate for funding, create testing environments for new technologies, and foster innovation in the private sector. Without real-world testing opportunities—like on active wildfires—companies can’t refine their solutions.

The good news? The fire service, environment, and public would all benefit from these advancements. Let’s commit to bridging this gap and creating a unified, data-driven approach to wildfire management.

Post Title: The Future of Wildfire Management: A Call to Action

The wildfire crisis demands more than incremental change—it requires a bold, transformative shift. The tools and technologies we need are within reach, but they require decisive leadership and investment.

Here’s what we need:
1️⃣ Standardization: Compatible data sets and equipment across agencies.
2️⃣ Collaboration: Foster partnerships between public and private sectors to share expertise and resources.
3️⃣ Real-World Testing: Agencies must provide environments for testing and scaling innovative solutions.
4️⃣ Appropriate Funding: Agencies must encourage the use of new innovations by providing exclusive proof-of-concept use contracts to help grow and refine these technologies.

The private sector alone can’t simulate the complexities of managing massive wildfires. Government agencies must support these efforts, ensuring new technologies are field-tested and ready to deploy.

The stakes are too high to settle for less. Let’s equip the next generation of fire managers with the tools they need to protect our communities and planet.

 

Forest Roads Provide Critical Access to Recreation, Wildfire, and Forest Health Activities: Guest Post by Don Amador

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POST 2020 AUGUST COMPLEX FIRE ROADSIDE HAZARD TREE MITIGATION
Mendocino National Forest

Don Amador writes:

There are a growing number of FS staff and partners who are voicing concerns about the issues of Roads is mostly AWOL  in current policy statements, etc. when no management takes place when a road is washed out during heavy rains in the winter.

If we take the long view, there was a time when Travel Management planning was the thing.. then I remember Sustainable Recreation seemed to argue that budgets were never going to improve, so roads should be right-sized so the FS could afford to maintain them.  Then people (at least in some parts of the country) started using forest roads more during Covid.

There is the idea that roads are bad for wildlife because people use them, but wasn’t Travel Management supposed to settle that (yes, I know some plans are still in litigation)? So does everyone agree that the roads that survive travel management (and various veg projects don’t have permanent roads, so there are probably no new ones) should be maintained?

What’s the status on your local unit, and do you agree that roads need more policy attention?

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FOREST ROADS PROVIDE CRITICAL ACCESS TO RECREATION, WILDFIRE, and FOREST HEALTH ACTIVITIES

As a long-time partner that depends on access to Forest Service System Roads and Trails for OHV recreation and post wildfire trail stewardship efforts, QWR appreciates Chief Tom Shultz’s commitment to managed outdoor recreation, resource management, fuel projects, and wildfire mitigation activities.

In fact, the Forest Transportation System functions as the common thread that binds or connects virtually all forest recreation, management, research, or cultural activities.

KEY FOREST ROAD NORTH/SOUTH TRANSPORTATION ROUTES

Mendocino National Forest

Yet to date, none of the Administration’s stated policies or guidelines – including the May 20 post by Acting Associate Chief Chris French – highlight “roads” as a key focus area or acknowledge that none of the on- the- ground Forest management objectives or goals happen unless Forest roads damaged or blown out during winter storms are repaired in a timely manner.

ACTING ASSOCIATE CHIEF CHRIS FRENCH, MAY 20, STATEMENT ON OPERATIONAL PLANNING

https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/leadership/update-interim-operational-planning

French notes the actions below aim to maintain essential services, address critical risks, and support the agency’s priorities. Key focus areas (sans ROADS) with dedicated working groups include:

  • Employee and public safety
  • Disaster recovery
  • Active management (timber/vegetation/fuels)
  • Recreation
  • Energy, minerals and geology
  • NEPA planning
  • Grants and agreements
  • Information technology
  • Communication and legislative affairs
  • Fire response (incident management capacity)
  • Human resources
  • Law enforcement and investigations
  • Budget
  • Chief Finance Office (payments, billings & reimbursable agreements)
  • Procurement & property services/contracts, facilities & leasing

Over the last 4-5 years, the subject of not having the funds and resources to effect post-winter repairs of FS storm damaged roads is almost always part of any conversation that QWR has had with agency staff or partners.


POST 2020 AUGUST COMPLEX FIRE ROADSIDE HAZARD TREE MITIGATION

Mendocino National Forest

QWR believes the Administration and Congress should make maintaining a quality Transportation System a top priority if they plan on increasing the pace and scale of forest management treatments and providing access to outdoor recreation.

CHIEF TOM SHULTZ POSTS MAY 6 UPDATE ON NEXT STEPS

https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/leadership/our-next-steps

PS- Thanks to the hard work by Mendocino NF crews and partners to recover forest lands and recreation facilities damaged by the 2018 Ranch Fire and 2020 August Complex Fire.

# # #

 

Don Amador has been in the trail advocacy and recreation management profession for 35 years.   Don is President of Quiet Warrior Racing LLC. Don is Past President/CEO and current board member of the Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance. Don is a Co-Founder and Core-Team member on FireScape Mendocino, a forest health collaborative that is part of the National Fire Learning Network. Don served as an AD Driver for the Forest Service North Zone Fire Cache during the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Fire Seasons. Don is a  Northwest  California native and writes from his home in Cottonwood, CA.  Don may be reached by email at: damador at cwo.com

 

The People’s Database Redux: New Admin, New Transparency?

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I couldn’t get the MS AI to remove the smoke from Smokey. Smokey looks puzzled and slightly disappointed. He must have tried to round up personnel data.

Mark Haggerty of Headwaters mentioned the need for the FS to produce information.. which reminded me of an earlier concept of “the People’s Database” in which an Admin could bring people together to prioritize information to be publicly available and develop formats, etc. So that IT and other folks wouldn’t have to guess. Could be a FACA committee (although establishing those is painful and long). As far as I can tell, transparency is an idea generally favored by both kinds of Admins, and yet our simple world with our few relatively simple requests seems to be overlooked.

Anyway, I’m reposting The People’s Database post below. For the previous comments, you can go here.  Also there’s a category for People’s Database which has several posts from 2012 on.

When I think about this now, I think perhaps we don’t need the Chief to get a FACA committee, some organization (Headwaters?) could organize a group to develop recommendations for what data should be public and in what format, similar to how AF&PA organized the Blue Ribbon Panels for FIA.

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Needed: Coalition for Public Access to Information on National Forests (AKA The People’s Database)

(originally posted

Recently, SAF signed on to an effort to get funding for FIA- forest inventory and analysis- which collects information about forests across the US. A couple of times I served on two “Blue Ribbon Panel” of users of the information who (excerpted from this):

The American Forest and Paper Association has organized two Blue Ribbon Panels (1991 and 1997) to review the national FIA program and provide recommendations to the Forest Service on needed changes to the content and capabilities of the program. The most recent panel recommended that the Forest Service should 1) elevate the priority of FIA in the Forest Service program, 2) convert the FIA program from a periodic inventory to an annual inventory, 3) fulfill the congressional mandate of reporting on all lands regardless of ownership, 4) concentrate on the core ecological and timber data, and 5) develop a strategic plan to implement the full FIA program.

FIA also has regular meetings with user groups to help guide their activities and generate support.

It seems to me that we are missing a group (Coalition) that can reach across different interest groups and ask for information that we might agree that we all need about National Forests. We don’t have an AF&PA to speak for us and get things started, so perhaps we have to organize ourselves.

We could ask the Chief to convene a panel of citizens representing different groups to ask 1) what information is important to be collected in a standard format across forests and regions? and 2) how best do we make that accessible to the public? For example, PALS has searches that internal folks can do but not external.. should it remain that way?

Stakeholders outside of the FS could lobby strongly for this information the same way that they lobby for FIA.

Some topics we’ve mentioned here are budgets and outputs, costs of environmental document developments, number of acres treated, etc., as in the “vegetation management” thread here and here. it seems to me that we could take advantage of having an Administration who promotes transparency to set such a framework of an advisory committee.

At first, I was thinking volunteers could find and enter the data, but then I thought “if the public wants this information, why doesn’t the agency just provide it?”. I’m sure that the agency could save some bucks by stopping collecting information on a variety of things that someone used to be interested in, and focus on things the public is currently interested in. The public could actually help the Forest Service prioritize information across silos, something that is problematic internally.

But we can’t ask poor Region 1 to do more work on their own.. when these are national forests, and data should be captured and made available consistently across regions. Besides, they appear to already be doing more work than some other regions, based on the GAO reports and Derek’s observations.

What do you think?

 

Useful FS Research and Researcher: Dr. Reeves and the West-Wide Rangeland Fuel Assessment

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This video series “Reading the Tea Leaves” on fuel moisture by Dr. Reeves of the Rocky Mountain Research Station reminds me of what intramural pragmatic FS R&D can be. Researchers who have been paying attention to the same things for their careers become experts. Practitioners give them info, they do research and provide info back to practitioners as researchers and practitioners mutually learn through time.

For me, it’s about researchers engaging directly with the folks their research is supposed to help. Reaching out via mechanisms other than journal publications. Not using more abstract or trendy terminology than is necessary to get the point across. These folks are treasures.

Reeves’ Fuelcasting system is an important component of the Rangeland Production Monitoring System. Both sound extremely useful to me.

Anyway, to the Index:

Who benefits: fuels, wildfire and grazing folks
Scale: West-wide
Time: The current year, comparison to past years
What Questions: How are fuel conditions looking this year in terms of wildfire?

A West-Wide Rangeland Fuel Assessment: Reading the Tea Leaves
In this monthly recorded series, Dr. Matt Reeves – an RMRS Research Ecologist specializing in remote sensing and ecological modeling – will analyze current rangeland fuel conditions across the west, with emphasis on emerging hotspots. New episodes will be posted every month and more frequently as the summer progresses.

Projections are based on Reeves’ Fuelcasting system, a new program that provides projections of expected fuel conditions this grazing season. It is an important component of the Rangeland Production Monitoring System.

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Wildfires are a result of fuels, weather, and topography. Topography is static, but weather and fuels change constantly and require regular monitoring. One of the techniques used to monitor fuel conditions is analyzing the Seven-Layer Cake. The Seven-Layer Cake consists of:

Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI; both 6- and 12-month varieties)
Change in fine fuel production compared to long term average
Total fine fuel amount
Wildfire history
Density of larger diameter fuels
Density of invasive annual grasses

In this webcast, USDA Forest Service Research Ecologist Dr. Matt Reeves analyzes rangeland fuel conditions around the western United States and draws parallels to the 2017 fire season in the northern Rockies, especially western Montana. Moreover, conditions in California, northern Great Basin, central and southeastern Arizona, Columbia Basin and eastern Cascades, and parts of the Black Hills region exhibit interesting fuel characteristics. All previous recordings are located on the Reading the Tea Leaves page.

Useful FS Research and Researchers: Developing Our Own Indices of Research Utility

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I thought as I posted these we might develop our own indices of research utility. So far, I’ve thought of these questions.

1. Whom is this information intended to help?
2. How are they involved in design and feedback (e.g. FIA has a super-formal approach, others may be more organic)
3. What specific questions of theirs does it answer?
4. Would a reasonable person think that the answer to that question was already known?
5. What is the spatial scale to be helped?
6. What is the temporal scale to be helped?

I’m sure we can think of more questions in developing our own IRU’s.
Other questions?

Employees vs. Contractors: A Pilot Asks for Your Thoughts

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One of our Anonymous colleagues sent in this question:

I am curious about thoughts on agency vs. contract pilots, specifically in the smokejumper program. There is some fear that if everything ends up under DOI, given their current model, that FS agency smokejumper pilots may be relieved of their positions while being replaced by contract pilots/aircraft. Are agency pilots that stay in their area of operations long term, gaining and passing on institutional knowledge of the mission and locale worth keeping around? Are contractors actually cheaper in the long run? Should agency aviators step out of the way and not be bothered about losing their fed jobs and doing the same thing for a contractor with fewer benefits and more time away from home? You might have guessed where my bias is, but I’m truly open to others’ honest (and hopefully kind) opinions on the subject.

Boy howdy, does that bring back memories of many discussions! Most recently my concerns about seed orchard manager and reforestation positions being farmed out as temporaries to NGO’s. Of course, contracts are not grants, but the impacts to the workforce can be the same. I’m not sure that has ever been explored, but I think GAO could probably take a look at employees vs. contractors vs. granting and check out various measures of efficiency.

My experience is almost entirely with vegetation work, so I don’t know how widely applicable that would be to aviation. But here goes…

When I entered the FS scene, timber sales were contracted. There are folks out there who remember more. Cone collection and planting contracts could be force account (employees) or contracts. The contractors tended not to reside in local communities.. and tended to be the lowest bidders. Of course, in some cases, the contracts were cheap because the contractor was taking advantage of people who weren’t legally in the country and there were horror stories about how some were treated. The problem of what it takes to be the “lowest bidder” and what shortcuts are taken via safety or quality maybe can’t be quantified.

What is “inherently governmental”? Would a successful Ranger District just be three people, a Ranger, a contracting officer and a grants and agreements person? But as we’ve seen, recently the FS has granted funds for outside groups to administer federal contracts, which seems like it should be “inherently governmental.” It’s all very puzzling and seemingly inconsistent.

What’s the value of knowledge and experience and where should it be placed in employees? There may be no right answer, just what works currently with some idea of costs and risks.

What do others think?

Useful FS Research and Researchers: Timber-Related Research Round-up by Rocky Mountain Station

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In case you haven’t been following, the new Admin supports efforts to produce more timber from federal lands. It turns out the FS R&D had many research programs directed at both federal and private land timber production. The Rocky Mountain Station yarded up some of their research and sent it out yesterday. Clicking on the links here won’t work but you can get to them using the link above.