The Federal Wildland Fire Budget: Let's Prepare, Not Just React (full report)

The Federal Wildland Fire Budget: Let's Prepare, Not Just React

This report identifies several important issues that must be resolved in relation to funding of wildland fire management:

The seemingly never-ending cycle of borrowing from preparedness, risk-reduction, and other accounts to pay for wildland fire suppression
The ever-spiraling expenditures for wildland fire suppression
The urgent need to reduce hazardous fuel loads
The role of natural fire in cost containment and ecological processes
The need for information to help protect communities in the wildland-urban interface

Report Highlights
Federal funding for wildland fire management has become a political priority, driven in part by high-profile media coverage of fires that have taken lives, destroyed property, forced families to flee their homes, and damaged important wildlife habitat.

Over the past several years, prolonged drought in the West has been cited as one of the main culprits. But drought conditions only exacerbate the underlying causes. Decades of aggressive fire suppression in fire-adapted ecosystems have allowed fuels to accumulate to dangerous levels on forest floors and across grasslands, while continued expansion of residential and commercial development into what is commonly called the "wildland-urban interface" puts more and more communities at higher risk from wildland fire.

Increased intensity and frequency of wildland fire is certainly cause for concern and for appropriate action. Over the past few years, Congress has allocated large sums to federal wildland fire management, beginning with implementation of the National Fire Plan in 2001. Appropriations for fuels reduction, preparedness, and other risk-reduction programs, as well as fire suppression, are significantly greater than ever before.

Yet, the federal agencies charged with wildland fire responsibilities continue to borrow from risk-reduction and other land management programs to cover expenditures for emergency fire suppression.

It is logical to ask, as a congressional committee did in early 2004, why the federal agencies need to borrow funds from readiness and other land management budgets to cover suppression expenditures and why Congress must then allocate emergency funds to cover the borrowing.

This report on the budget process reveals several important issues that need to be addressed.

Borrowing to fund fire suppression. Borrowing from preparedness, risk-reduction, and other Forest Service and Department of the Interior land management budgets to fund fire suppression is clearly allowed under federal budget procedures. It is equally clear that borrowing is rarely repaid in full. As one example, the Forest Service transferred $695 million to fire suppression from other accounts in 2003. The total amount repaid through supplemental funding bills was $552 million, leaving the Forest Service with a shortfall of $143 million. Even if fully repaid, borrowing disrupts or brings to a halt many important Forest Service and Department of the Interior activities -- from control of noxious weeds and insect and disease outbreaks to timber sales, wildlife habitat improvement, reforestation, and programs that assist private landowners in their conservation efforts.
Spiraling costs of wildland fire suppression. The agencies continue to ask for bigger budgets to cover the ever-climbing costs of fire suppression. But because they have no incentives to control costs and because intra-agency borrowing is permitted, it is seems likely that expenditures will continue to exceed appropriations, as they have for the last several years.
Reducing the hazardous fuel load. A key goal of the National Fire Plan is to reduce the build-up of hazardous fuels on forests and rangelands, thus lowering the risks of catastrophic wildfire in nearby communities. But only one-fifth of the total annual funding for wildand fires is dedicated to achieving this goal. Projects in the wildland-urban interface receive just half of that amount. Even though appropriations for fuels reduction have increased since 2001, funding falls far short of annual needs.
Restoring the natural role of fire. The simplest way to reduce expenditures for wildland fire management is to fight fewer fires. Many fires that are suppressed occur in remote locations where they cause no harm to people and actually benefit ecosystems. Identifying where such fires should be managed to burn requires landscape analysis and the development of fire management plans. Where fire management plans exist, natural fires that pose little risk to people and structures can be managed to burn, and fire can be restored to its natural role.
Lack of information to help protect communities in the wildland-urban interface. The federal definition of the wildland-urban interface includes communities (identified by each state) within the vicinity of federal lands where the risk from wildland fire is high and where people and communities "meet or intermix" with wildland fuels. But the General Accounting Office found that states are not applying the definition consistently. And while Forest Service researchers have developed a map-based assessment of the wildland-urban interface, the agency is apparently not using that information. Nor has the Forest Service identified priorities for the treatment of hazardous fuels in the wildland-urban interface.

Funding for federal wildland fire management is complex, requiring a mix of inter- and intra-agency decisions on how best to allocate monies among preparedness, prevention, emergency suppression, and state and local assistance. The process is further complicated because the timing, location, and severity of wildland fire are unpredictable. Nevertheless, several changes can be made to help ensure that the federal wildland fire budget achieves policy goals. Among them:

Congress should appropriate money for emergency wildland fire suppression from the general fund. This is needed to stop the cycle of borrowing from longer-term prevention and land conservation programs to cover emergency fire suppression expenditures.
Congress should create appropriate incentives for federal agencies to contain the costs of wildland fire suppression. This is needed to stop the spiraling expenditures for fire suppression.
Both Congress and the federal agencies must consider completion of Fire Management Plans for all federal land units as a top priority. This is needed to manage natural fires to burn where such fires pose little risk to people and structures. Congress could make some portion of fiscal year 2005 funding contingent upon the completion of the plans.
The federal government should provide specific guidelines for states and communities to prioritize federal funding and other resources -- particularly for fuels reduction -- to the highest-risk federal lands, starting with the lands closest to communities. And Congress should adequately fund community assistance grant programs to aid the highest-risk communities. This is needed to help communities develop and implement fire protection plans that reduce the risks associated with wildland fires.