Beyond suppression, Congress should treat the “root cause” of catastrophic wildfires

by Sonny LaSalle

Two bills currently before the U.S. House focus primarily on funding for fire suppression. Funding is an important part of the solution equation, but it is only half the solution. Treating half of the problem is analogous to a patient with intense pain, where the doctor prescribes a strong painkiller without identifying or treating the root cause.

There are three components to the root cause: climate, number of trees, and Forest Service management challenges. Climate. There is ample scientific evidence that we are warming. Our summers are earlier and longer, leading to longer drying periods and hotter fire seasons. Tree ring data showed that before Europeans settled the West there were numerous droughts more severe and protracted than any since then. When you combine the possibility of drought with warming the situation in our forest becomes more critical.

Number of trees. The combination of moisture and fire suppression has created forest conditions where we have significantly more trees than can be supported with normal moisture regimes. When you factor in the trends of warmer and dryer the need for action is even more critical. The impacts of an excess of trees have been demonstrated for a number of years by bark beetle epidemics all over the West.

The Payette National Forest was in a drought period during my tenure there (1986-1992) and five different bark beetles were killing trees where we had not thinned the stands. Over 300,000 acres of the Payette burned in 1994 and another 390,000 acres in 2007, mostly in beetle killed stands. There was some re-burn in 2007 so the numbers are not additive.

There are over 1,000,000 acres of beetle-killed lodgepole pine in Colorado and Wyoming, and the future is fairly certain without action. The excess live trees not only create moisture stress for the entire stand, but when they burn they are ladder fuel to move the fire from the ground to the crown which ensures the death of the very trees that should be saved.

Forest Service Management Challenges. The present system for appeals and litigation has progressed to the point where it is extremely difficult for the agency to act decisively, timely and efficiently on large-scale thinning and restoration projects. This is true even in cases where community health and safety concerns are demonstrated. The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) has created an incentive program for organizations to file lawsuits. The requirements for a NEPA document for the “Federal Official to make a reasoned decision” and those to defend in court are significantly different. The responsible official will spend considerably more time and money building a “bulletproof” document than one with sufficient information to make a reasoned decision.
We can’t do anything about the climate, but we can do something about the number of trees and the management challenges. I recommend:

Clearly define Congress’s expectations for the mission of the Forest Service in Fire Management. This includes: a focus on reducing hazardous fuels to prevent the large quantities of carbon released into the atmosphere; reduce the chances of large catastrophic stand replacing fires; increase the safety of firefighters; reduce the impacts to the health and economic stability of communities; increase the resiliency and sustainability of the National Forests; sequester carbon in live trees that will have an improved chance of surviving a bark beetle epidemic and/or a wildfire.

Direct the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture to collaborate with the Governors of each state to identify the communities that are at risk and agree on a comprehensive strategy to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.

Once the communities are identified and a strategy is in place, NEPA will be suspended, the appeals process will be suspended, EAJA will become a two way street (loser pays) and a bond of a significant amount will be required to file a lawsuit. In a two and one half year period, from 2005 to 2007, Region One of the USDA Forest Service paid $456,750 for attorney fees under EAJA.

I recognize this will be difficult and controversial, but the situation is critical and calls for bold action by Congress. Rather than waiting for the situation to get so bad that you have no choice, take preventative action now. Enable the agencies to move quickly and efficiently to prevent the impacts associated with large catastrophic wildfires. You will also see a significant savings in the long run, which makes taxpayers happy. The math is based on general estimates with approximate ranges: Fire suppression, $1,000 to $2,000 per acre; fire rehabilitation, $500 to $1,000 per acre; impact to communities – no estimate; carbon into the atmosphere, millions of tons annually.

Thinning will not prevent forest fires, but it will reduce the chances for a fire to grow in intensity due to accumulations of fuel. It will also aid in suppression efforts under all conditions. I have personally seen moving uncontrollable fires reduce their intensity, rate of spread and resistance to control when burning into a thinned area. The thinned biomass must be removed from the forest and ground fuels (needles, cones, limbs and trees) reduced to a prescribed tonnage per acre. This biomass has value as a direct fuel source as “fuel for schools” and as feedstock for conversion to liquid bio fuel. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the ponderosa pine stands on National Forest System lands in Montana will pay for the thinning and removal costs due to the value of excess commercial sized trees. Some subsidy will be required but it is far less that the amount that will be required for reforestation and rehabilitation after the stands burn.

Change the definition of renewable biomass in the 2008 Energy Bill. The definition makes no sense when you consider the: cost of fuel; reliance on foreign oil; goal of 25 percent of energy to come from renewable sources by 2025 (25x25); the amount of carbon being released from wildfire; impacts on air quality; the need for carbon sequestration; advances in technology to convert woody biomass to biofuel and the huge quantities of available feed stock in our forests.

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Sonny LaSalle is a founding member of the Big Sky Coalition. He is retired from the U.S. Forest Service, where he served as a forest supervisor. He prepared this testimony for the House Natural Resources Committee concerning H.R. 5541, the Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act (FLAME) and H.R. 5648, the Emergency Wildland Fire Response Act of 2008.