|
Fire Chronicle #21
|
Laura McCarthy, Forest Trust
|
Aug 11, 2003 08:26 PDT
|
FIRE CHRONICLE: Stories of the National Fire Plan
Number 21
August 11, 2003
SLOW PROGRESS TO SET TREATMENT PRIORITIES FOR NATIONAL FIRE PLAN
The National Fire Plan appears to have made little progress in
establishing priorities for fuel reduction treatments. The number of
acres at risk of catastrophic fire exceeds the number of acres that the
federal government can treat annually by 80 to 300 times. Yet the
agencies have no consistent national criteria for identifying the most
important places to treat. As a result, the U.S. Congress may soon enact
legislation that will cast treatment priorities into law. This issue of
the Fire Chronicle reviews the National Fire Plan’s progress to set
national priorities for fuel reduction treatments and describes the
mechanisms proposed in legislation.
The Need to Choose
Forest Service scientists estimate that 75 million acres of public land
have been so altered by fire suppression that they are at high risk of
losing key ecosystem components. In two years, the National Fire Plan
has treated about 5 million acres to reduce fuels, addressing less than
3% of the problem in high risk areas. The capacity of the National Fire
Plan to reduce fuels is determined by the size of budgets, the pace of
environmental reviews, weather conditions, workforce and contractor
availability, and disposal of slash and utilization of woody material.
Capacity issues aside, there are still more acres at risk, and more
communities in vulnerable locations, than can be treated in one, five,
or even ten years.
At-Risk Communities
Recognizing that priorities need to be set, Congress asked the
Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to “inventory communities at
risk that require hazardous fuel reduction treatment” in the managers’
direction to the 2001 Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act
that funded the National Fire Plan. The Secretaries were given only 90
days to accomplish this priority setting task, and the inventory
produced unsatisfactory results. The agencies adopted a definition of
wildland urban interface previously developed by the Western States Fire
Managers, then asked states to submit lists of communities at risk of
catastrophic wildfire. No standard methodology for determining risk was
given to the states, so a wide variety of processes was used. The
federal agencies compiled the results and published a list of 22,000
at-risk communities. The list was then winnowed down to 11,000
communities by including only those in vicinity of federal lands, but it
was still viewed by most resource professionals as unreliable. In a
review of this effort, the General Accounting Office wrote that, even
after publishing the list, the federal agencies “do not know how many
communities are at high risk of wildland fire…[and] therefore, they
cannot set priorities for treatment.”
Wildland Forest Priorities
Congress did not specify in the 2001 Interior Appropriations how
priorities should be set for fuel reduction treatments in wildland
forests -- the interior forests that are not adjacent to communities but
that are sometimes the starting point of fire storms that threaten
communities. However, in 2002, fire regime condition class appeared as a
priority setting device in two bills (H.R. 1319 and H.R. 5376) and again
in 2003 in four bills (H.R. 1904, S. 1352, S. 1449 and S. 1453).
Fire regime condition class was not developed as a tool to choose where
to locate fuel reduction projects. Condition class was developed by
agency scientists to provide “national-level data on the current
condition of fuel and vegetation” such as the estimate of the number of
acres at high risk of “loss of key ecosystem components” in the second
paragraph above. The scientists who developed the condition class data
clearly state that the national-scale information currently available is
not accurate at the scale used to locate projects to reduce forest
fuels.
Forest Service Chief, Dale Bosworth wrote in a letter to Senator Diane
Feinstein (D-CA) in late July that existing national maps of lands in
condition class 3 cannot be used at this time to identify the highest
priority sites for fuels reduction projects. “[N]ational data on fire
regimes and condition class are mapped at too coarse a scale to be used
for site-specific priority setting,” he wrote, adding that condition
class should not be used alone to set project priorities. Rather, he
suggested that the next iteration of more accurate and precise condition
class data, to be developed by the LANDFIRE project, should be used when
it becomes available (in 3-5 years) along with other criteria to set
priorities.
Collaborative Priority Setting Process
While the Congress debated wildfire legislation last summer and again
this year, the National Association of State Foresters (NASF) has been
quietly moving ahead to advance the National Fire Plan. NASF has
developed national standards for a collaborative process to identify
high priority fuels reduction projects, after being assigned the lead
role for priority setting in the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy
Implementation Plan. The Implementation Plan was developed by the
Western Governor’s Association (WGA) and endorsed by the Secretaries of
the Interior and Agriculture. NASF was charged with creating a standard
definition of “community at risk” and developing a multi-agency
collaborative process for fuel reduction program planning.
In January 2003 NASF was instrumental in developing a memorandum of
understanding between the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture,
the National Association of Counties, and NASF to set fuel treatment
priorities collaboratively. This MOU was later approved by the
interagency Wildland Fire Leadership Council.
Next, NASF took on the task of developing field guidance for identifying
and prioritizing communities at risk. Through several drafts, and with
review by many of the stakeholders and partners that participated in the
10-Year Implementation Plan, NASF created a five-page document that
spells out a collaborative approach to setting priorities and specifies
a consistent methodology and national criteria for deciding which
projects to prioritize. Condition class may be used, but is not
required. The approach and methodology are flexible enough to be used
across the nation, yet they provide consistent criteria to evaluate
national priorities. NASF presented its draft field guidance to the
Wildland Fire Leadership Council in June. Final approval is expected by
September 2003.
Getting to Yes on Fuel Treatment Priorities
Congress will consider wildfire legislation when it reconvenes in
September after the summer recess. Many have now questioned the
appropriateness of condition class data for setting treatment
priorities, and the use of condition class alone is being discouraged by
the Forest Service. At the same time, the NASF collaborative process has
emerged as a viable method for setting fuel reduction priorities within
the context of scientific information and social values. Wildfire
legislation should adopt the NASF’s field guidance for collaboration,
and make the process a prerequisite for 2005 hazardous fuel reduction
funding and for the use of categorical exclusions to expedite NEPA in
designated condition classes after 2004.
A recent debate among diverse interest groups at the Western Governor’s
Association Forest Health Summit in June offered further support for the
collaborative process. The group unanimously identified the need for
hazardous fuel reduction treatment priorities, but could not come to
consensus on criteria. Many felt confident that a collaborative process
would eventually yield results, and there was widespread support for the
Western Governors’ Association’s ability to facilitate this.
The NASF collaborative process offers all the necessary elements of a
solution to the priority-setting debate. First, the process emerged from
the WGA- and agency-sanctioned 10-Year Implementation Plan. Second, the
field guidance provides national standards for identifying priority
projects, yet is flexible enough to accommodate regional differences.
Finally, the process relies on collaboration and science, and its
outcome cannot be controlled by any single interest. Such collaboration
can require a great deal of effort, but the NASF process offers a timely
solution to the thorny problem of fuels-reduction priority-setting. Only
by setting clear priorities can we begin to address the need for fuel
reduction at a meaningful scale.
FIRE CHRONICLE is edited by the Forest Trust. Laura McCarthy, Forest
Protection Program Director, wrote this issue. The Forest Trust welcomes
your comments, stories, and observations about how the national fire
plan is being implemented (just send a reply message and it will go to
the list moderator). To subscribe to FIRE CHRONICLE go to
http://www.topica.com/lists/firechronicles/ or send an email message to
lau-@theforesttrust.org.
REFERENCES
Hill, Barry T. 2001. The National Fire Plan: Agencies are not Organized
to Effectively and Efficiently Implement the Plan. Testimony before the
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, Committee on Resources, House
of Representatives, July 31, 2001 by the General Accounting Office,
Natural Resources and Environment, Washington D.C. GAO-01-1022T.
National Association of State Foresters. 2002. Communities At Risk.
Concept Paper. December 2, 2002. Available at
http://www.stateforesters.org/report.
Schmidt, K.M., J.P. Menakis, C.C. Hardy, W.J. Hann, and D.L. Bunnell.
2002. Development of coarse-scale spatial data for wildland fire and
fuel management. RMRS-GTR-87. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain
Research Station, Fort Collins, CO.
USDA Forest Service, Department of Interior, National Association of
State Foresters, and National Association of Counties, Memorandum of
Understanding for the Development of a Collaborative Fuels Treatment
Program, January 13, 2003. Available at http://www.fireplan.gov/reports.
Western Governors’ Association. 2002. A Collaborative Approach for
Reducing Wildland Fire Risks to Communities and the Environment: 10-Year
Comprehensive Strategy Implementation Plan. May 2002. Available at
http://www.fireplan.gov/reports.
PAST ISSUES OF FIRE CHRONICLE can be downloaded from
http://www.theforesttrust/forest_protection.html#fire
1. 2002 Fire Plan Appropriations will Benefit from 2001 Experience
2. Wildland-Urban Interface Definition a Barrier to Accountability
3. Stewardship Blocks: Innovative Tool Brings Fire Plan Benefits into
Community
4. Youth Training Needed for Fire Plan to Benefit Local Workforce
5. Grants Get National Fire Plan Money into Communities
6. Collaborative Forest Restoration Program Creates New Solution to
Gridlock
7. Permits Regulate Prescribed Burning on Private Land
8. Accountability Remains a Key Issue for National Fire Plan
9. National Partnership Advances Landscape-Scale Forest Restoration
10. Poor Communities Most Threatened By Wildfire
11. A New Model to Fire-Proof Forest Homes
12. Consensus Over Fuel Reduction Treatment Dissolves
13. Wildland Urban Interface Definition Needed for Effective Policy
14. Funding Gaps Prevent Completion of Hazardous Fuel Reduction
15. Agencies Propose to Streamline Environmental Review for Hazardous
Fuel Reduction Treatments
16. National Fire Plan Provides Economic Opportunity for Rural Residents
17. Bark Beetles Heighten Wildfire Concerns
18. Small And Local Businesses Cite Barriers To Reaching National Fire
Plan Goals
19. Federal Report Fuels Public Debate Over Healthy Forests Act
20. New Report Evaluates Efficacy Of Fuel Reduction Treatments
|
|
 |
|
