This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-06-670 
entitled 'Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: Forest Service 
and BLM Could Benefit from Improved Information on Status of Needed 
Work' which was released on July 31, 2006. 

This text file was formatted by the U.S. Government Accountability 
Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part 
of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every 
attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of 
the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text 
descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the 
end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided 
but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed 
version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic 
replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail 
your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this 
document to Webmaster@gao.gov. 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright 
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed 
in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work 
may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the 
copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this 
material separately. 

Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, 
Committee on Resources, House of Representatives: 

United States Government Accountability Office: 

GAO: 

June 2006: 

Wildland Fire Rehabilitation And Restoration: 

Forest Service and BLM Could Benefit from Improved Information on 
Status of Needed Work: 

Wildland Fire Rehabilitation and Restoration: 

GAO-06-670: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-06-670, a report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on 
Forests and Forest Health, Committee on Resources, House of 
Representatives 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

Since 2001, Congress and federal agencies, including the Forest Service 
and Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM), have 
recognized the importance of rehabilitating and restoring lands 
unlikely to recover on their own after wildland fires. However, while 
funding has increased for fire prevention, suppression, and first-year 
emergency stabilization, it has decreased for rehabilitation (work up 
to 3 years after fires) and restoration (work beyond the first 3 
years). GAO was asked (1) how the Forest Service and BLM plan postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration projects, (2) how much needed 
rehabilitation and restoration work they have completed for recent 
wildland fires, and (3) what challenges the agencies face in addressing 
their needs. 

What GAO Found: 

The Forest Service and BLM use similar procedures to identify 
rehabilitation and restoration needs, but differ in how they plan and 
fund related projects. Given the variety of ecosystems they manage, 
Forest Service field staff have the discretion to locally prioritize 
projects, and the agency addresses them through various programs with 
appropriations from multiple accounts. In contrast, BLM has a standard 
process for planning needed rehabilitation projects and, through a 
single account, funds projects for up to 3 years after fires. For 
restoration projects—that is, work needed beyond 3 years after a 
fire—BLM requires them to be addressed through other programs such as 
rangeland management. 

With available information, it is not possible to reliably determine 
how much needed rehabilitation and restoration work has been completed 
for recent Forest Service and BLM fires. The Forest Service does not 
know how much work has been completed because it does not collect 
nationwide data. BLM reported that, according to its data, it has 
completed most of its rehabilitation work, but the agency does not 
collect data on postfire restoration work, which is done through other 
programs. GAO surveyed Forest Service and BLM officials to determine 
how much needed work has been completed, but the information provided 
in the survey was not sufficiently reliable to report. 

Forest Service and BLM officials face different challenges to 
addressing their rehabilitation and restoration needs. Forest Service 
officials cited factors such as competing priorities within constrained 
budgets and controversy over certain activities. Agency officials said 
that controversy over harvesting burned timber can be exacerbated by 
the limited scientific research available to guide such decisions. BLM 
officials cited challenges to achieving long-term success when seeding 
burned areas. The agency is taking several steps to improve success 
rates. 

Figure: Forest Service Building Partly Buried by Postfire Flood Debris 
(left) and Restored Later: 

[See PDF for Image] 

Source: Forest Service. 

[End of Figure] 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is recommending that the Forest Service and BLM improve their 
information on whether postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs 
are met, and that the Forest Service augment research to help guide 
decisions. 

In commenting on a draft of this report, the Forest Service and 
Interior generally agreed with GAO’s findings and recommendations. 

[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-670]. 

To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on 
the link above. For more information, contact Robin M. Nazzaro at (202) 
512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. 

[End of Section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Results in Brief: 

Background: 

Forest Service and BLM Differ in How They Plan Needed Rehabilitation 
and Restoration Work: 

Forest Service Lacks Data on Rehabilitation and Restoration Work; BLM 
Lacks Data on Restoration Work: 

Forest Service and BLM Officials Cite Different Challenges to 
Rehabilitating and Restoring Their Lands: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of the Interior: 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Table: 

Table 1: Verification Results for Survey Responses about Project 
Completion and Funding: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Postfire Flood Damage at Sabino Canyon Recreation Site, 
Coronado National Forest, Arizona: 

Figure 2: Completed Rehabilitation of Sabino Canyon Recreation Site, 
Coronado National Forest, Arizona: 

Figure 3: A Helicopter Prepares to Aerially Seed a Burned Area after a 
2005 BLM Fire: 

Abbreviations: 

BLM: Bureau of Land Management: 

United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548: 

June 30, 2006: 

The Honorable Greg Walden: 
Chairman: 
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health Committee on Resources: 
House of Representatives: 

Dear Mr. Chairman: 

In the past 5 years, wildland fires have burned millions of acres of 
federal land, breaking records in size, costing billions of dollars to 
suppress, and drawing greater attention to the risks associated with 
wildland fires. Many fires occur naturally, and some ecosystems are 
adapted to fires, relying on them to maintain their health. However, 
wildland fires can sometimes leave behind a burned landscape that 
threatens human safety, property, and ecosystems. In areas of steep 
terrain, postfire rainstorms can cause mudslides that bury homes, 
destroy roads, and clog streams. Wildland fires also can create 
postfire environments that are ideal for the growth of noxious or 
invasive weeds. If these weeds replace native plant species, threatened 
or endangered wildlife species can lose their habitat. When fires 
result in such adverse effects, land managers may conduct emergency 
stabilization, rehabilitation, and restoration activities to mitigate 
the effects and to prevent further damage. The U.S. Department of 
Agriculture's Forest Service and the Department of the Interior's land 
management agencies are responsible for such activities on federal 
land.[Footnote 1] Combined, the Forest Service and Interior manage 
about 630 million acres, or 94 percent, of the nation's federal land, 
including forests, rangelands, and other lands. 

In 2001, in response to one of the worst fire seasons in over 50 years, 
the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, in collaboration with 
state governors, adopted a 10-year strategy to address federal, state, 
local, and tribal management of wildland fires.[Footnote 2] One of the 
four goals adopted in the strategy was to restore fire-adapted 
ecosystems through rehabilitation and restoration efforts, combined 
with scientific research and monitoring. In support of this goal, 
Congress began providing funds in fiscal year 2001 to the Forest 
Service and Interior specifically for postfire rehabilitation and 
restoration. 

In 2003, as a step toward coordinating their approaches to postfire 
management, the Forest Service and Interior adopted the following 
common definitions for emergency stabilization, rehabilitation, and 
restoration: 

* Emergency stabilization activities are conducted within 1 year of a 
fire to address threats to life, property, or resources. Such 
activities may include seeding and mulching to prevent soil erosion. 

* Rehabilitation activities, conducted within 3 years of a fire, 
address damage to minor facilities such as picnic facilities, or to 
lands unlikely to recover to a desired condition on their own. Such 
activities may include repairing roads or trails, planting trees, and 
restoring wildlife habitat. 

* Restoration activities are a continuation of rehabilitation 
activities beyond the initial 3 years, or the repair or replacement of 
major facilities, such as a visitor center. 

Although the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-- 
the agency that manages the most land within Interior--are both 
responsible for managing postfire work on federal lands, the task is 
different for the two agencies. The Forest Service conducts emergency 
stabilization, rehabilitation, and restoration activities under 
multiple programs such as its watershed improvement and reforestation 
programs, while BLM conducts emergency stabilization and rehabilitation 
activities under distinct postfire programs that do not address 
restoration needs. Forest Service land encompasses a wide variety of 
ecosystems--ecological communities such as old-growth forests, alpine 
meadows, and marsh wetlands--and watersheds that provide drinking water 
and timber, while most of BLM's land consists of rangeland (although 
BLM also manages about 55 million acres of forests and woodlands). 
These land characteristics influence the agencies' work. For example, 
the Forest Service's rehabilitation and restoration activities commonly 
include reforestation, road work, trail work, and weed control, but 
also can include activities ranging from surveying boundaries to 
securing archaeological sites. On the other hand, BLM's rehabilitation 
activities include primarily weed control, grass and shrub seeding, and 
fence repair or replacement. 

Since 2001, Congress and the agencies have taken actions that recognize 
the importance of rehabilitation and restoration activities, including 
directing funds toward these activities and developing strategy 
documents. However, while resources for fire prevention, suppression, 
and emergency stabilization have increased, fewer resources have been 
focused on the long-term rehabilitation and restoration of lands burned 
by fires. Between fiscal year 2001 and 2005, annual appropriations to 
the Forest Service and Interior for fire prevention, suppression, and 
emergency stabilization increased by about 26 percent (15 percent 
adjusted for inflation), but rehabilitation and restoration 
appropriations (directed in law or committee reports) declined steeply, 
from $246 million in fiscal year 2001 to $37 million in fiscal year 
2005--a decrease of about 85 percent (86 percent adjusted for 
inflation).[Footnote 3] In this context, you asked us to determine (1) 
how the Forest Service and BLM identify and plan postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration activities; (2) how much needed 
rehabilitation and restoration work the agencies have completed for 
wildland fires that occurred between 2000 and 2004; and (3) what 
challenges the agencies face in addressing their postfire needs, and 
any actions they are taking in response. 

In conducting our work, we met with Forest Service and BLM officials; 
reviewed agency documents about postfire rehabilitation and restoration 
programs, projects, and funding procedures; and discussed challenges 
the agencies face in addressing needed rehabilitation and restoration 
work. We visited seven forests and three BLM units in western states, 
where rehabilitation and restoration efforts are concentrated, to 
interview agency officials and observe postfire conditions and 
rehabilitation and restoration projects. We also administered a Web- 
based survey to agency officials for 276 randomly sampled fires that 
occurred between 2000 and 2004 and burned over 500 acres each. For each 
of the fires in our sample, we surveyed agency officials in the field 
about any needed rehabilitation and restoration projects they 
identified, whether the projects were completed, factors preventing 
their completion, and any effects of not completing needed projects. 
However, when we collected source documents to validate responses for 
10 percent of the completed surveys, we found that the data provided 
were not sufficiently reliable to report. A more detailed description 
of our scope and methodology is presented in appendix I. We performed 
our work from May 2005 through May 2006 in accordance with generally 
accepted government auditing standards. 

Results in Brief: 

In the aftermath of wildland fires, the Forest Service and BLM use 
similar procedures to identify rehabilitation and restoration needs, 
but differ in how they plan, prioritize, and fund needed work. To 
determine what rehabilitation or restoration projects, if any, are 
necessary after a wildland fire, both the Forest Service and BLM first 
assess the condition of the burned area and compare it with prefire and 
desired conditions. In many cases, the condition of the land is 
satisfactory--for example, because the fire did not burn severely--and 
no rehabilitation or restoration is needed. For fires that need 
rehabilitation or restoration, the Forest Service and BLM differ in how 
they plan, prioritize, and fund projects. The Forest Service has no 
national requirements for its rehabilitation and restoration 
activities; instead, it gives its regions and forests the discretion to 
develop procedures independently, so they can tailor them to their 
particular ecosystems and priorities. For example, some regions place a 
higher priority on infrastructure projects, such as repairing roads, 
trails, and recreation facilities, while others prioritize projects to 
help ecosystems recover, such as replanting burned areas. The Forest 
Service pays for its rehabilitation and restoration projects using 
funds from several different appropriations, including appropriations 
specifically designated for such activities under the wildland fire 
management account; appropriations from the national forest system 
account, which are available for recreation and vegetation management, 
for example; and appropriations from the capital improvement and 
maintenance account, which are available for road and facility 
construction or repair, among other things. According to Forest Service 
officials, relying on these other program funds allows regions and 
forests greater flexibility to determine their priorities across many 
program areas and to accommodate needs that arise after other 
unpredictable events, such as hurricanes. BLM, on the other hand, uses 
a standardized process to plan, prioritize, and fund its rehabilitation 
work. BLM field staff develop 3-year rehabilitation plans, its state 
and headquarters officials review and approve the plans, and 
headquarters officials allocate the available funding. Unlike the 
Forest Service, BLM pays for nearly all of its rehabilitation work with 
appropriations from a single source--its wildland fire management 
account--and requires the work to be complete within 3 years after a 
fire. BLM requires any subsequent restoration work to be addressed 
through other programs, such as range improvement and noxious weeds. 

Using available information, neither the agencies nor we could reliably 
determine how much needed rehabilitation and restoration work has been 
completed for Forest Service and BLM fires that occurred between 2000 
and 2004. The Forest Service does not maintain comprehensive data on 
rehabilitation and restoration work, and thus could not determine how 
much rehabilitation and restoration work has been completed nationwide. 
In our visits to several national forests, agency officials reported 
completing all needed rehabilitation and restoration work for some 
fires, and little or no needed work for other fires, but without 
nationwide data, it is unclear how widespread either of these 
situations is. Also, while BLM maintains data on its rehabilitation 
work, the agency does not maintain data on its postfire restoration 
work, which is completed through other programs. BLM officials told us 
that, according to their data, most rehabilitation work needed through 
fiscal year 2005 has been completed. However, we could not 
independently validate all of BLM's rehabilitation data because these 
data are commingled with the agency's emergency stabilization data for 
fires before 2004. We administered a survey to officials from both 
agencies to obtain this information, but determined that the data 
provided in the survey was not reliable. Specifically, we requested 
source documents from a sample of respondents to validate the survey 
data, but a significant portion of the documents we received did not 
substantiate the survey responses. Without comprehensive data on needed 
and completed rehabilitation and restoration work, Forest Service and 
BLM officials make management decisions, including requesting and 
allocating funding, without knowing to what extent they are addressing 
the needs on their lands. 

Forest Service and BLM officials said they face different challenges in 
their efforts to address postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs, 
in part reflecting their different management approaches, ecosystems, 
and postfire activities. Forest Service field officials reported that a 
lack of dedicated funds, insufficient workforce, and other factors 
prevented many needed projects from being completed. In addition, 
officials told us the method the agency used to allocate annual 
rehabilitation and restoration funding to regions meant that available 
funds fluctuated dramatically from year to year, making it difficult to 
manage the program. Forest Service officials said they have tried to 
stabilize the erratic funding levels by changing how they allocate 
these funds to regions in fiscal year 2006, but have not asked for 
additional rehabilitation and restoration funding because of other 
competing program priorities and budget constraints. Forest Service 
field officials also noted that controversy about postfire activities, 
such as using chemical herbicides and harvesting burned timber, 
presented challenges. Disagreements about whether such actions would 
result in beneficial or harmful effects compared with doing nothing 
sometimes delayed projects, they said. Several Forest Service officials 
expressed concern that in some cases there is insufficient scientific 
evidence to support one action over another, and further noted that 
little research has been done to address this shortage. Consequently, 
officials rely on a limited number of studies when making decisions in 
these cases, which may at times exacerbate the existing controversy. 
For BLM, headquarters and field officials told us that while they 
believe they have completed most of their projects, they face 
challenges in achieving long-term success with some of their completed 
projects. According to agency officials, many of BLM's seeding and 
planting projects fail or are only partially successful because there 
is not enough rain for seeds to grow, or because officials, relying on 
limited information, use planting techniques that prevent seeds from 
germinating. To address this issue, BLM officials said they are now 
monitoring rehabilitation projects more consistently to learn why 
projects are effective or not, and have begun developing standard 
monitoring protocols and a Web-based information-sharing network that 
will allow staff to share lessons learned. 

To ensure that agency and congressional decision makers know if high- 
priority needs are being met, and to help them make informed funding 
and other decisions, we are recommending that (1) the Secretary of 
Agriculture direct the Forest Service to track and report to Congress 
the extent to which it is addressing its high-priority rehabilitation 
and restoration work, and (2) the Secretary of the Interior direct BLM 
to establish a procedure to address any postfire restoration work 
needed after 3 years, and to track and report to Congress the status of 
such work. We also are recommending that the Secretary of Agriculture 
direct the Forest Service to conduct additional research on the effects 
of postfire projects to provide agency officials with more scientific 
evidence to better support their decisions, especially about 
controversial actions. In commenting on a draft of this report, the 
Forest Service and Interior generally agreed with our findings and 
recommendations. 

Background: 

Although wildland fires are inevitable natural disturbances that have 
helped shape ecosystems over time, they can be unpredictable and 
destructive as well. Fires can kill trees and other vegetation, alter 
wildlife habitat and soils, and destroy roads, buildings, campgrounds 
and other infrastructure. Fires can also leave lands denuded of 
vegetation and vulnerable to severe erosion and mudslides, which can 
contaminate municipal water supplies and compromise water quality in 
streams and lakes. In addition, the open landscapes left by fires can 
create opportunities for invasive plants to become established or 
expand, crowding out native plants and the animals that depend on them. 
When wildland fires have adverse effects on natural resources, and 
federal land managers believe the lands are unlikely to recover to a 
desired condition on their own, they may conduct rehabilitation or 
restoration work to aid or accelerate recovery. Similarly, when 
wildland fires damage developed features such as roads, trails, 
buildings, fences, or campgrounds, land managers may identify needed 
work to repair or replace them, as shown in figures 1 and 2. 
Rehabilitation and restoration projects include, for example, repairing 
or maintaining roads and trails, controlling noxious and invasive 
weeds, replanting forests or grasslands, repairing or replacing fences, 
restoring fish or wildlife habitat, rebuilding burned facilities, 
replacing boundary markers, and stabilizing archaeological sites. 

Figure 1: Postfire Flood Damage at Sabino Canyon Recreation Site, 
Coronado National Forest, Arizona: 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: Forest Service. 

A Restroom and turnaround (left) in a popular recreation area near 
Tucson, Arizona, were inundated with 4 feet of debris that washed down 
the canyon in August 2003, 1 month after the Aspen fire was controlled. 
Mud blocked the restroom door (right) and completely covered trash 
cans. The rock wall behind the restroom was damaged, and the road 
leading to the site was impassible. Concerns about public safety and 
accessibility necessitated public-use closures for about a year as 
additional floods continued to damage the site. 

[End of figure] 

Figure 2: Completed Rehabilitation of Sabino Canyon Recreation Site, 
Coronado National Forest, Arizona: 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: Forest Service. 

Forest Service officials repaired the damaged restroom in 2005 using 
rehabilitation and restoration funding. They also replaced the small 
corrugated metal pipe that existed prior to the fire with a large 
grated-box culvert (foreground, left photo), to prevent future clogging 
like that which caused much of the damage during the August 2003 flood. 

[End of figure] 

In some cases, land managers may determine that no rehabilitation or 
restoration projects are needed because a fire did not have adverse 
effects on any resources or infrastructure, or because the burned lands 
are likely to recover on their own. Under historical conditions, many 
forest and rangeland ecosystems have adapted to wildland fire, and the 
vegetation, insects, fish, and wildlife in such systems benefit from 
the kind of fires that occur there, surviving and regenerating after 
fires occur. Fires can benefit resources by recycling soil nutrients, 
renewing vegetation growth, adding material to streams that improves 
spawning habitat for fish, and sustaining ecological functions. For 
example, when ponderosa pine forests are adapted to wildland fires, 
frequent less-intense fires remove brush and small trees, which allows 
the large trees to survive and grow. 

Recognizing the need to restore historic vegetation conditions to help 
reduce the risks of wildland fires, as well as the need to address 
adverse effects that can result from fires, in 2001 and 2002, federal 
agencies, states, and others developed a 10-year strategy and 
implementation plan. The strategy established four broad goals for 
wildland fire management: (1) improving fire prevention and suppression 
for those areas that need it; (2) reducing hazardous fuels, by 
mechanically thinning forests and using controlled burns; (3) restoring 
fire-adapted ecosystems and rehabilitating burned areas; and (4) 
promoting community assistance to help conduct fire management 
activities. The implementation plan established measures for showing 
progress toward each of the goals. 

Around the same time, in fiscal year 2001, Congress began providing 
funds to the Forest Service and Interior specifically for postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration. The funding was greatest in 2001, and 
decreased after that, particularly for the Forest Service. To 
administer these funds and address its rehabilitation and restoration 
needs, the Forest Service relies on existing staff and programs, such 
as watershed improvement and recreation programs. On the other hand, 
BLM has a specific rehabilitation program and some dedicated staff to 
administer its funds. BLM's program initially included both emergency 
stabilization and postfire rehabilitation work, but since 2004 has been 
separated into two programs. BLM's rehabilitation program covers work 
up to 3 years after a fire and does not provide for subsequent postfire 
restoration work. The Forest Service manages its rehabilitation and 
restoration work through nine regional offices, and offices overseeing 
155 national forests and 20 national grasslands across the nation. Each 
forest and grassland is divided into several ranger districts. BLM 
manages its rehabilitation program through state offices in 12 western 
states, including Alaska, that oversee field and district offices. 

Both the Forest Service and BLM manage their lands for multiple uses, 
including timber production, wildlife, recreation, and wilderness 
purposes. Under the National Forest Management Act, the primary law 
governing the land management planning activities of national forests 
in the Forest Service, all national forests must have land and resource 
management plans for the lands they manage. Generally, these plans 
describe desired future conditions for lands and resources in various 
geographic areas within the forest, and identify strategies to maintain 
or achieve those conditions. Similarly, BLM field offices develop 
resource management plans under the Federal Land Policy and Management 
Act for the lands they manage. Like the national forests' plans, BLM 
plans identify specific desired outcomes and allowable uses and actions 
to achieve those outcomes. Generally, neither agency's plans identify 
strategies or actions specifically related to postfire recovery. 

When agency officials identify needed projects--including postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration projects--they must ensure that the 
projects are consistent with these land management plans. In addition, 
if a project could have environmental impacts, the agencies are 
required to conduct an analysis of the potential impacts. Under the 
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, agencies generally evaluate 
the likely effects of projects they propose using a relatively brief 
environmental assessment or, if the action would be likely to 
significantly affect the environment, a more detailed environmental 
impact statement. One purpose of this analysis is to ensure that 
agencies have detailed information available to inform their decision 
making. The agencies give the public an opportunity to comment on draft 
environmental assessments and impact statements. Also, the Forest 
Service and BLM have established procedures for administrative appeal 
of their decisions. As a general rule, once the administrative appeals 
process is complete, the public can litigate the relevant project 
decision in federal court. 

Forest Service and BLM Differ in How They Plan Needed Rehabilitation 
and Restoration Work: 

The Forest Service and BLM use similar procedures to determine whether 
any rehabilitation or restoration work is needed after a wildland fire, 
but they differ in how they plan, prioritize, and fund needed work. 
These differences reflect the distinct approaches the Forest Service 
and BLM have adopted for managing postfire rehabilitation and 
restoration. The Forest Service has no national guidance for postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration, in part because it does not have a 
discrete program for such activities. Instead, the agency addresses its 
rehabilitation and restoration needs through existing programs, 
including its watershed, forest management, recreation, rangeland 
management, wilderness, and construction programs, among others. Forest 
Service regions and forests have discretion to determine how to plan, 
prioritize, and fund needed rehabilitation and restoration work in the 
context of these programs. To fund such work, the agency draws from 
several different appropriations.[Footnote 4] On the other hand, BLM 
has a distinct program for postfire rehabilitation, and has issued 
national guidance for the program. Following this guidance, agency 
officials use a standard process to plan, prioritize, and fund 
rehabilitation work, nearly all of which is paid for with funds 
specifically designated for rehabilitation under the wildland fire 
management appropriation. BLM's rehabilitation program covers postfire 
work up to 3 years after a fire, and any subsequent restoration work 
must be addressed by other ongoing BLM programs, such as the wildlife 
and noxious weeds programs. 

Forest Service Regions and Forests Have Discretion to Plan Projects 
Using Varied Procedures: 

The Forest Service has no national guidance on how to identify, 
prioritize, and fund postfire rehabilitation and restoration work. 
According to a headquarters official, the agency has not developed 
guidance in part because appropriations specifically designated for 
these activities--about $12.8 million for fiscal year 2005 and $6.2 
million for fiscal year 2006--did not warrant development of a manual. 
Instead, the agency provides its regions and forests with wide latitude 
to use varied procedures that accommodate their diverse ecosystems, 
priorities, and unique circumstances. 

The Forest Service allocates the appropriations designated for 
rehabilitation and restoration to its regions annually based on each 
region's proportion of Forest Service acreage severely burned over the 
previous 5 years. The regions, in turn, allocate these funds to 
forests, usually applying a prioritization system to select among 
project proposals and funding requests submitted by forests. In 
addition, Forest Service regions and forests use appropriations 
available for activities such as reforestation and construction to help 
pay for related rehabilitation and restoration work. According to 
agency officials, relying on these other funds gives regions and 
forests the flexibility to determine their priorities while considering 
needs on burned lands as well as in other areas, and to accommodate 
needs that arise after unpredictable events in addition to fires, such 
as hurricanes. The Forest Service does not keep track of how much 
rehabilitation and restoration work is funded through these programs. 

According to agency officials, the first step in planning postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration projects is for forest and district- 
level staff to determine whether any such work is needed, by comparing 
postfire conditions with prefire and desired conditions. Typically, 
immediately after a wildland fire is contained, field officials 
assemble an interdisciplinary team made up of specialists such as 
foresters, wildlife biologists, hydrologists, botanists, and soil 
scientists, among others, to conduct an on-the-ground evaluation of the 
burned area. Officials use this evaluation along with satellite 
photographs of the burned area, for example, to assess a fire's effects 
on the land and resources. Finally, agency officials compare these 
postfire conditions with historical photos and data on prefire 
conditions, and with descriptions of desired conditions detailed in 
forest plans and other guidance documents. 

Agency officials told us that, in many cases, no rehabilitation or 
restoration work is needed. According to the officials, there are 
various reasons that natural recovery may be sufficient, and active 
rehabilitation and restoration efforts may not be needed. For example, 
some fires burn in areas adapted to wildland fires and leave natural 
resources no worse off than before the fire, or benefit resources, for 
example, by stimulating vegetation growth or increasing denning and 
foraging habitat. When fires also do no damage to infrastructure such 
as fences or campground facilities, there is usually no need for any 
active rehabilitation or restoration, according to agency officials. In 
other cases, agency officials said rehabilitation or restoration may 
not be needed if the burn is not severe; the burned area is 
inaccessible due to topography, legal access, or other issues; or the 
fire burned in a management area where such work is precluded, such as 
a wilderness or roadless area.[Footnote 5] 

Often, forest officials determine that postfire rehabilitation or 
restoration is needed to repair damage to resources or infrastructure, 
or to prevent further damage from occurring after postfire rainstorms. 
The officials must then determine what projects are needed. Many Forest 
Service regions have no specific guidance for this step, and officials 
rely on the guidance available in program handbooks and legislation. 
For example, the trails management handbook includes guidance for 
planning projects, such as how to assess trail conditions against 
height, width, and other trail construction standards, depending on 
whether the trail is designated primarily for use by hikers or by pack 
animals as well. In addition, some laws include requirements or 
provisions that guide agency officials' actions when planning projects. 
For example, for projects significantly affecting the environment, the 
National Environmental Policy Act requires agency officials to evaluate 
the environmental impacts of the proposed project and alternatives to 
the project in an environmental impact statement. Implementing 
regulations for the act require the agency to provide opportunities for 
the public to comment on the draft statement. In accordance with other 
laws, agency officials assess whether any cultural resources, such as 
archaeological sites, will be affected by their proposed actions, and 
whether any threatened or endangered species--or their habitat--will be 
affected. 

Once forest officials determine that rehabilitation or restoration work 
is needed, they have various approaches to documenting a need for the 
work, depending in part on legislative requirements, as well as the 
severity, complexity, and extent of the fire's effects; available 
funding; anticipated level of controversy; and established regional or 
forest procedures. In some cases, forests prepare rehabilitation and 
restoration planning documents that describe and analyze all needed 
projects for a given fire, and cover time periods up to 9 years or 
longer. According to agency officials, such plans are useful when a 
wildland fire has widespread, severe, or complicated effects over a 
large territory and officials anticipate needing extensive analysis and 
planning efforts to determine project needs, costs, and time frames. 
Agency officials told us they also use comprehensive formal plans when 
they expect their actions to be controversial, so that the rationale 
for their decision is clearly documented. On the other hand, sometimes 
agency officials do not prepare such planning documents because they do 
not have enough funding or they believe the funds are better spent 
elsewhere. They may instead prepare separate shorter plans in each of 
the program areas affected, or create a simple spreadsheet listing 
needed projects and estimated costs, for example. In other cases, 
officials do not prepare any planning documents even if they believe 
rehabilitation or restoration work is needed, because they do not 
expect to receive funding to cover the costs of the work. 

The Pacific Northwest region, unlike other Forest Service regions, 
issued standardized guidance for its postfire rehabilitation and 
restoration activities in December 2005, to be used by forests in the 
region beginning in 2006. The guidance established a uniform process to 
be followed by all forests in the region when assessing rehabilitation 
and restoration needs after wildland fires or other disturbances. It is 
intended to be instructional as well as to ensure consistency among 
forests' project proposals, so that regional officials can compare them 
equitably when deciding how to allocate funds. 

Generally all of the regions follow similar processes to prioritize and 
fund projects, although the specifics vary widely.[Footnote 6] 
Typically, forests submit project proposals and requests for postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration funding to regional officials 
annually.[Footnote 7] In most regions, officials prioritize the 
proposed projects, often according to a predetermined set of criteria, 
and fund the highest-priority projects. Many regions include projects 
that will protect human safety among the top priorities, but beyond 
this similarity, priorities differ from region to region. For instance, 
the Southwestern region places a higher priority on repairing and 
replacing infrastructure needed for forest management, because such 
infrastructure will not recover naturally. Reforestation in the 
Southwestern region is lower priority, according to agency officials, 
because over time, the trees will grow back naturally. Also, agency 
officials at one forest in the region told us that efforts to plant 
seedlings in the forest's dry climate tend to have high failure rates 
especially during periods of drought. On the other hand, the Northern 
region emphasizes restoration of natural resources, including 
reforestation. Northern region officials said that in their region, 
without active reforestation efforts, less desirable species of trees 
would become dominant in some locations, perpetuating an undesirable 
cycle of fires. In some regions, officials consider the forests' 
priorities as well. For example, many forests consider boundary-marking 
projects among their lowest priorities, but for forests where logging 
operations are conducted adjacent to or on Forest Service land, such 
projects are important to protect against trespass. While most regions 
follow similar processes from year to year, some regional officials 
told us that in years when their funding allocations were relatively 
low--enough to fund only one or two projects, for example--they did not 
use a formal procedure to solicit and fund project proposals because 
the amount of funding did not warrant such an effort. 

In addition to rehabilitation and restoration funds, some regions 
allocate portions of other funds to help forests pay for projects that 
are not funded with rehabilitation and restoration funds. For example, 
the Southwestern region uses 50 percent of its share of the 
reforestation trust fund to pay for needs after wildland fires in the 
region, and directs moneys from the roads and trails fund to eligible 
rehabilitation and restoration projects.[Footnote 8] Some agency 
officials said that these funds, distributed at the discretion of 
regional officials, can be particularly important for forests with 
smaller budgets that provide little flexibility to accommodate 
unpredictable expenses. 

When funding is not available from the region, forests use funds for 
programs such as watershed management, wildlife, and road construction 
to pay for related rehabilitation and restoration projects. The budget 
process for these funds begins up to 2 years in advance of when the 
funds are actually needed, so agency officials must plan ahead, and any 
rehabilitation and restoration projects funded through this process 
must compete with normal program needs for funding. Once the budget 
process is complete, there are ways to fund rehabilitation and 
restoration projects even if they were not in the original budget 
request. Sometimes funded projects are less costly than anticipated, 
and the resulting savings can be directed toward needed rehabilitation 
or restoration projects that were not in the budget. Alternatively, 
forest officials may determine that some unexpected postfire 
rehabilitation or restoration needs are higher priority than certain 
projects already in the budget, and direct the budgeted projects' funds 
to the rehabilitation or restoration work, deferring the work 
originally planned. 

Some Forest Service officials said they rely on sources of funding 
other than appropriations specifically designated for rehabilitation 
and restoration to pay for a significant portion of needed work. For 
example, in 2003, the first year after the Biscuit fire in Oregon, 
Forest Service officials told us they spent a total of about $7 million 
on rehabilitation and restoration work; about $2 million, or 29 
percent, of the total was rehabilitation and restoration funding, while 
the remaining 71 percent of funds came from other sources. To complete 
needed work, Forest Service officials said that in addition to 
appropriations specifically designated for rehabilitation and 
restoration, they use appropriations designated for activities such as 
watershed improvement, road maintenance and repair, and recreation 
management, as well as receipts from salvage timber sales and funding 
from other sources such as states and private parties. 

BLM Follows a Standard Process to Plan Rehabilitation Projects: 

BLM has a standard process to identify, plan and fund any needed 
postfire rehabilitation projects, guided by Department of the Interior 
policy and a draft BLM handbook. The handbook prescribes specific 
procedures, time frames, and rules for identifying, planning, and 
funding rehabilitation work. BLM's postfire recovery program, unlike 
the Forest Service's program, is limited to rehabilitation and does not 
include restoration. BLM pays for nearly all of its postfire 
rehabilitation work with rehabilitation funds within its wildland fire 
management appropriation, and funding for such work is available for 
only 3 years after a fire. According to Interior policy, any 
restoration needs remaining after this time are to be incorporated into 
ongoing programs of work in resource programs such as the wildlife, 
noxious weeds, and rangeland management programs. 

The first step in planning postfire rehabilitation work is for agency 
officials in the field to assess whether any rehabilitation work is 
needed. BLM headquarters officials encourage field officials to do this 
immediately after a fire, at the same time they are assessing the need 
for emergency stabilization projects. As with the Forest Service, BLM 
field officials typically assemble an interdisciplinary team of 
specialists to conduct an on-the-ground evaluation of the burned area 
and compare the condition of the burned land to prefire and desired 
conditions. Generally, agency officials told us they rely on historical 
knowledge to determine prefire conditions, and on resource management 
plans and other planning documents, as well as professional judgment, 
to determine desired conditions. 

In addition to its resource management plans, many BLM field offices 
have preapproved plans that outline the postfire work they would do if 
a wildland fire occurred on their lands. These plans, called Normal 
Fire Rehabilitation Plans, are prepared for a specified management area 
in advance of any fires, and describe typical projects that would be 
implemented under normal conditions after a fire. The plans detail the 
criteria for selecting each type of project and for determining when 
such projects are not needed, and provide guidance for developing a 
site-specific rehabilitation plan following a wildland fire. The 
handbook recommends that field offices develop Normal Fire 
Rehabilitation Plans to facilitate more efficient and timely approval 
of emergency stabilization and rehabilitation plans. 

In many cases, agency officials said they decide that no active 
rehabilitation activities are needed. For example, BLM officials told 
us that almost 10 million acres of land burned in Alaska between 2000 
and 2004, but that little or no rehabilitation was needed because, for 
example, the lands were adapted to wildland fire. In other cases, 
agency officials said no rehabilitation was needed because the fire had 
no negative impacts and the site could recover naturally. When lands 
are adapted to wildland fire or a fire has no negative impacts, there 
may be enough plants remaining that the site can recover naturally as 
long as it is protected from further disturbances, according to the 
officials. 

In cases where rehabilitation work is needed, the BLM handbook requires 
agency officials to identify and estimate costs for all rehabilitation 
projects needed during the 3 years following the fire, and document 
these elements in a plan. The plan is required, among other things, to 
describe each project, how it is compatible with approved land-use 
plans, and how it is related to damage or changes caused by the 
wildland fire. In addition, the plans must include a provision for 
monitoring the projects to determine whether they meet their 
objectives.[Footnote 9] Besides requirements about the plan, the 
handbook provides guidance about which activities meet the definition 
of postfire rehabilitation and qualify for rehabilitation funds. This 
guidance is particularly important, according to agency officials, 
because BLM only recently separated its emergency stabilization program 
and funding from its rehabilitation program. In addition, field staff 
work with BLM state rehabilitation coordinators to clarify any 
questions they have while preparing rehabilitation plans. The plans 
must be completed before the end of the fiscal year during which the 
fire occurred, which, in some locations, means that agency officials 
typically have 1 to 3 months to complete their plans. Also, like the 
Forest Service, BLM must ensure that it meets the requirements of 
relevant laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the 
Endangered Species Act, among others. 

Once rehabilitation plans are complete, field officials submit them to 
agency officials in state offices and headquarters for approval. These 
officials review the plans to ensure that all proposed projects meet 
eligibility requirements for rehabilitation funding, and to assess the 
cost-effectiveness of the proposed projects. For projects that do not 
meet the eligibility requirements or are judged to be too costly, state 
and headquarters officials return the plan to field officials for 
revisions and resubmission. In addition, reviewing officials may return 
a plan if projects seem inappropriate or imprudent for other reasons-- 
for example if officials believe a proposed seeding technique will be 
ineffective for the context in which it is proposed. 

Approval of rehabilitation plans is only the first step; the proposed 
projects must still be selected for funding. Funding for rehabilitation 
projects is allocated 1 year at a time, in a departmentwide process in 
which BLM's projects must compete with projects from the other Interior 
agencies. At the start of each fiscal year, a team representing all of 
Interior's land management agencies meets to allocate the department's 
rehabilitation funding. So far, Interior has been able to fund all 
needed projects that meet eligibility requirements, according to BLM 
officials. As a result, agency officials told us they pay for nearly 
all rehabilitation projects with rehabilitation funds. In the future, 
if there are more funding requests than available funding, the 
interagency team plans to assess the projects against a set of 
prioritization criteria and fund only the highest-priority categories 
of projects. The criteria, not yet finalized by the interagency team, 
may include factors such as whether the proposed project incorporates 
partners and addresses resource objectives. 

Once projects are funded for a given year, BLM officials in the field 
begin implementing them. At the end of each of the first 2 years 
covered by the plan, officials must complete an accomplishment report 
recording the projects completed during the year and their costs, as 
well as a monitoring summary for the completed projects reporting 
whether they were successful and whether additional projects are 
needed. For any remaining work, officials must submit a funding 
request. After the final year, BLM requires officials to submit a 
closeout report to headquarters detailing the projects completed, their 
cost, whether they were successful, and any lessons learned. 

Forest Service Lacks Data on Rehabilitation and Restoration Work; BLM 
Lacks Data on Restoration Work: 

With available information, neither the agencies nor we could reliably 
determine how much needed rehabilitation and restoration work has been 
completed for Forest Service and BLM fires that occurred between 2000 
and 2004. The Forest Service does not know how much rehabilitation and 
restoration work has been completed because it does not maintain 
comprehensive data on such work. The agency only tracks rehabilitation 
and restoration work accomplished using appropriations specifically 
designated for such activities under the wildland fire management 
account, and does not collect data on such work paid for with other 
funds. BLM officials reported completing most needed rehabilitation 
work for fires between 2000 and 2004, but said they do not know how 
much restoration work is needed or completed because they do not track 
data on postfire restoration. We could not independently verify all of 
BLM's rehabilitation data because these data are commingled with the 
agency's emergency stabilization data for fires before 2004. Because 
the Forest Service had no national data and we could not verify BLM's 
data, we administered a survey to officials from both agencies to 
obtain information about how much rehabilitation and restoration work 
has been completed. However, we determined that the information 
provided in the survey was not sufficiently reliable to report because 
when we assessed a sample of responses, we found that in a significant 
number of cases, supporting documents were either unavailable or they 
did not substantiate the answers provided in the survey. 

Forest Service Lacks Data to Know Whether High-Priority Needs Are Being 
Addressed: 

Forest Service officials acknowledged that they could not tell us what 
portion of the agency's nationwide rehabilitation and restoration needs 
have been addressed because they do not track such information on a 
national level. Field staff are only required to report accomplishment 
information for rehabilitation and restoration projects funded 
specifically with rehabilitation and restoration moneys, even though 
much of this work is funded through other agency programs. They are not 
required to report information about how much rehabilitation and 
restoration work is needed, although staff in some regions do so; they 
also are not required to report information about rehabilitation and 
restoration work completed using other funds. Consequently, there is no 
centralized source of information about all rehabilitation and 
restoration needs and accomplishments nationwide. According to a 
headquarters official, the Forest Service does not require forest 
officials to collect data on rehabilitation and restoration work 
because the agency does not manage such work under a single program; 
instead, the work cuts across multiple programs. Furthermore, the 
official said the Forest Service does not maintain data on needed work 
because agency officials do not expect there to be sufficient funding 
to pay for all of it. 

Because the Forest Service does not have comprehensive data on 
rehabilitation and restoration needs and accomplishments nationwide, we 
administered a survey to agency officials in the field to collect this 
information, but determined that the information provided in the survey 
was not sufficiently reliable to report. The survey asked for 
qualitative information about rehabilitation and restoration needs and 
accomplishments for a random sample of fires that occurred between 2000 
and 2004 and burned over 500 acres. After administering the survey, we 
requested supporting documents to validate a sample of responses. 
However, we found that a significant portion of the responses were not 
adequately supported. For example, in some cases, respondents 
mistakenly reported information about emergency stabilization projects 
rather than rehabilitation and restoration projects. In other cases, no 
documentation was provided to support survey responses, or the 
information in the documents contradicted the survey responses. 
Consequently, we determined that the data provided in the survey could 
not be reliably reported. 

An interregional group of Forest Service officials reached a similar 
conclusion about the agency's rehabilitation and restoration data when 
it attempted to collect and report related information.[Footnote 10] 
The group--tasked with developing an agencywide strategy for postfire 
recovery in 2004--found that they could not identify the agency's total 
rehabilitation and restoration needs and accomplishments because the 
agency did not maintain consistent, reliable data about such needs. The 
group noted that the Forest Service has a fire management database with 
the capacity to track rehabilitation and restoration needs and 
accomplishments, and that headquarters officials originally used the 
system to determine priorities and funding allocations[Footnote 11]. 
However, they said that field staff rarely enter data into the system 
because headquarters officials no longer use it this way, now that they 
delegated the task of prioritizing and funding projects to the regions. 
Some regions have developed their own systems to track regionwide data, 
but because the systems are not consistent, the data cannot accurately 
be combined or compared across regions. The interregional group 
recommended that if agencywide consistency is needed for data on 
rehabilitation and restoration, the Forest Service should consider 
identifying the minimum data necessary and modifying existing or 
emerging systems to incorporate such information. 

In our visits to seven national forests and telephone interviews with 
officials from all of the Forest Service regions, agency officials 
reported that varied amounts of rehabilitation and restoration work 
have been completed. For some fires, agency officials said they had 
completed all or almost all needed rehabilitation and restoration work, 
while for others, they told us that a significant amount of work 
remains to be done. For example, agency officials reported that almost 
all of the needed rehabilitation and restoration work is complete for 
the Diamond Point fire, which burned nearly 150,000 acres in the 
Payette National Forest in Idaho during the summer of 2000. According 
to one official, the only work that has not been completed for that 
fire is work that will not be needed until 15 or 20 years after the 
fire, such as clearing hiking trails when dead trees fall in the 
future. Similarly, agency officials reported completing all or almost 
all needed rehabilitation and restoration work for the 3,000-acre Thorn 
fire in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in 2000, and the 18,000- 
acre Fridley fire in the Gallatin National Forest in 2001, among 
others. In contrast, agency officials reported that a significant 
portion of needed rehabilitation and restoration work remains for the 
Bitterroot fires of 2000, which burned about 300,000 acres, as well as 
for the Bullock and Aspen fires of 2002 and 2003, which burned a total 
of about 115,000 acres in the Coronado National Forest. For the 2002 
Red Waffle fire, which burned about 5,000 acres in the Custer National 
Forest, agency officials told us that almost none of the needed work 
had been completed. These examples suggest that, for at least some 
fires, a significant portion of needed rehabilitation and restoration 
work has not been completed. However, without comprehensive data, 
neither we nor agency decision makers know how common this situation is 
across the nation. 

Furthermore, while we found that a substantial portion of needed work 
remains undone for some fires, it is unclear whether more should be 
done at this point because the Forest Service has no clear time frames 
for completing such work. Some Forest Service officials told us that, 
although they had not yet completed all of the rehabilitation and 
restoration work they believed was needed, they were not concerned 
because they planned to complete the work over the course of 5 or 10 
years after the fire. Few of the agency officials we interviewed 
reported adverse effects that had already resulted from not completing 
projects. However, some officials expressed concern about future 
effects, such as compromised water quality and loss of forest habitat, 
that could result if needs were left unmet over the long term. 

Given constrained budgets and competing priorities, a headquarters 
official explained that the Forest Service does not expect forests to 
complete every needed rehabilitation and restoration project; instead, 
forests are expected to complete the high-priority projects. However, 
agency officials do not know whether they have addressed the highest 
priority projects nationwide, because they do not track this 
information, either. In our interviews with officials in the field, we 
found that regions have addressed their priorities to varying degrees 
from year to year and region to region. For example, in 2004, the 
Intermountain region was able to fund the top 14 of its 20 priority 
categories, while the Southwestern region was only able to fund the top 
2 of its 9 priority categories using rehabilitation and restoration 
funds.[Footnote 12] As a result, the Southwestern region identified 
about $5.2 million in unfunded needs that year, including about $2.3 
million in high-priority needs, according to an agency official. 
However, in fiscal year 2005, because the Southwestern region received 
about $7 million in rehabilitation and restoration funds--an increase 
of more than $6 million over the previous year--the region was able to 
address its backlog, agency officials told us. For fiscal year 2006, 
the region was allocated under $1 million and expects once again to 
only address projects in its top 1 or 2 priority categories, leaving 
what agency officials estimate to be millions of dollars in needs 
unfunded. While some regional officials tracked such information, 
others did not, and none of the regions routinely reported such 
information to headquarters. Consequently, Forest Service officials 
make management and funding decisions without knowing, on a national 
scale, whether the agency is keeping pace with its high-priority 
rehabilitation and restoration needs. 

BLM Officials Report Completing Most Rehabilitation Work, but Do Not 
Know Whether Restoration Needs Are Being Addressed: 

BLM officials told us that, according to agency data, most 
rehabilitation work needed for fires that occurred between 2000 and 
2004 has been completed. The agency requires field staff to report all 
rehabilitation needs to headquarters in rehabilitation plans and budget 
requests. BLM officials in each state office assemble and review the 
data on budget requests and allocations for all of the district and 
field offices within the state. Once rehabilitation work is funded, 
agency officials said there are only a few factors--such as unusual 
weather or other unanticipated events--that prevent the work from being 
completed. Consequently, agency officials infer that nearly all needed 
work that has been funded through fiscal year 2005 has been completed. 
In addition, BLM tracks nationwide data on the total number of acres 
that have been rehabilitated, and reviews the data for any anomalies, 
correcting errors when found. The agency reports this information to 
Congress each year in its budget request as well as in its annual 
report on public lands.[Footnote 13] Further, one agency official 
reported that BLM is currently revising its performance measures, and 
is planning to report the percentage and number of acres identified in 
rehabilitation plans as needing rehabilitation treatments that actually 
received the treatments. The agency has begun to informally collect 
these data in fiscal year 2006 to prepare for reporting the information 
in the future. 

While BLM collects data on nationwide rehabilitation needs and 
accomplishments, we could not independently verify the data because, 
for fires before 2004, the agency's rehabilitation and emergency 
stabilization data are commingled. In an effort to collect this 
information, we administered a survey to agency officials in the field. 
The survey we administered to BLM officials asked for qualitative 
information about rehabilitation needs and accomplishments for a random 
sample of BLM fires that occurred between 2000 and 2004 and burned over 
500 acres. However, like the Forest Service survey, when we compared a 
sample of responses to supporting documents, we found that a 
significant portion of responses were not adequately supported. 
Specifically, we found that respondents sometimes reported information 
about emergency stabilization work rather than rehabilitation work. 
While we recognize that this could be a result of the relatively recent 
separation between the two programs in 2004, we determined that the 
data provided in the survey were not reliable. 

In our visits to three BLM field locations and interviews with BLM 
officials from four state offices, agency officials consistently 
reported completing all or almost all rehabilitation work that was 
needed for fires that occurred between 2000 and 2004. For example, in 
Idaho, BLM officials told us that all of the agency's rehabilitation 
work identified as needed in the state during this time period has been 
funded, and that nearly all of the funded work has been completed. 
Several officials told us that the only incomplete work is that needed 
beyond the first 3 years after a fire, which is defined as restoration 
work. Agency officials in Oregon, Utah, and Nevada also reported 
completing nearly all needed rehabilitation work, with few exceptions-
-such as work that was hindered by uncontrollable events like weather, 
or work needed beyond 3 years after a fire. 

Although BLM keeps close track of its postfire rehabilitation needs and 
accomplishments nationwide, and reports completing most of this work, 
the agency's rehabilitation program does not fund or track any 
restoration work--that is, work needed more than 3 years after a fire. 
Instead, Interior policy calls for any restoration needs to be 
addressed by other agency programs, such as the wildlife, noxious weed, 
or rangeland management programs. However, BLM officials we talked with 
did not know whether these other programs were addressing postfire 
restoration needs. Several BLM officials indicated that continued 
monitoring beyond the 3-year period is important in some cases to 
determine the effectiveness of projects that have been completed. One 
BLM analysis of postfire projects from 1999 to 2003 concluded that time 
and funding limits on monitoring prevented field officials from 
determining the success or failure of some projects. In some cases for 
which projects were known to be only partially successful, agency 
officials said that if they could identify and address the issue right 
away--for example, by seeding native plants so that invasive species 
could not expand--they could avoid losing their original investment. 

Forest Service and BLM Officials Cite Different Challenges to 
Rehabilitating and Restoring Their Lands: 

Forest Service and BLM officials reported different challenges to their 
efforts to rehabilitate or restore their lands after fires. Forest 
Service officials cited a lack of funding, transfers of funding for 
fire suppression, and erratic funding levels from year to year as 
hindering their rehabilitation and restoration efforts. In addition, 
some Forest Service officials told us that controversy around certain 
types of postfire activities, market forces, and insufficient workforce 
made it difficult to address needed rehabilitation and restoration 
work. For BLM, headquarters and field officials told us that while they 
have completed most of their projects, they face challenges in 
achieving long-term success with some projects. Many of BLM's seeding 
and planting projects fail or are only partially successful when new 
plants do not become established because of drought, soil conditions, 
or planting techniques, for example. To address this issue, BLM 
officials said they are now monitoring rehabilitation treatments more 
comprehensively to learn why treatments are effective or not, and have 
begun developing standard monitoring protocols, a database to track 
project information and success rates, and a Web-based information- 
sharing network that will allow staff to share lessons learned. 

Forest Service Reports Funding and Other Issues Hinder Its 
Rehabilitation and Restoration Efforts: 

According to Forest Service officials, various factors related to 
funding hindered their postfire rehabilitation and restoration efforts. 
Specifically, agency officials reported that a lack of dedicated funds, 
the transfer of funds to pay for fire suppression, and the low priority 
of one project compared with others competing for the same funds 
prevented completion of some projects. Regarding the lack of dedicated 
funds, several officials we interviewed cited the downward trend in 
funding for postfire rehabilitation and restoration, and commented that 
funding for other programs had not increased to compensate. According 
to a regional official, in 2004, forests in the Northern region 
identified about $46 million in rehabilitation and restoration needs 
attributable to the previous year's fires, but the region had only 
about $3 million in rehabilitation and restoration funds to allocate to 
the forests. Officials in several regions told us that, although their 
projects had been approved for rehabilitation and restoration funding, 
much of the funding was transferred to pay for fire 
suppression.[Footnote 14] For example, after 307,000 acres burned in 
the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana, forest officials identified 
and received funding for about $30 million in rehabilitation and 
restoration work in 2002. However, according to these officials, later 
that year most of the funding--about $26 million--was transferred to 
pay for fire suppression elsewhere. Consequently, the forest did not 
have enough funding to pay for all of the work, and as of March 2006, 
much of it still had not been done. According to agency officials, the 
situation was made worse because they had made assurances to the 
public, which expected the Forest Service to complete the work they 
planned. 

In other cases, agency officials told us they were not able to complete 
some rehabilitation and restoration projects because they were lower 
priority than other needed work on the forest. For example, after a 
wildland fire at the Custer National Forest in Montana, officials told 
us that they needed to thin the forest to reduce the risk of a future 
fire causing severe damage. However, this fuels reduction project, 
located far from any communities, was not selected for funding at the 
regional level, and it was not funded by the forest because the 
forest's budget could only accommodate the highest-priority fuels 
reduction projects--where communities would be threatened if a wildland 
fire started. 

In addition, during our field visits, officials told us that erratic 
funding levels hindered their ability to address postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration needs. Specifically, agency officials 
said that the amount of rehabilitation and restoration funding 
headquarters allocated to the regions has fluctuated dramatically from 
year to year, making it difficult to plan budgets. For example, the 
Southwestern region received about $600,000 in fiscal year 2004, about 
$6.8 million in 2005, and about $900,000 in 2006. Based on 2004 funding 
levels, forests in the region did not expect to receive substantial 
funding in 2005. When about $6.8 million became available, however, 
some Southwestern forests could not spend all of the money before the 
end of the year because they had not hired additional seasonal staff, 
prepared contracting or planning documents, or otherwise established 
the necessary infrastructure to spend the funds and implement needed 
work. 

Agency officials reported that factors unrelated to funding also 
hindered their ability to address needed postfire rehabilitation and 
restoration work. Even if there were unlimited funding, some officials 
told us they would be limited by the size of their staff or other 
operational constraints, such as the length of their field season. For 
example, in 2005, the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest received about 
$2.4 million for needed rehabilitation and restoration after the Rodeo- 
Chediski fire. However, because of their limited staff and the time 
required to complete the contracting process, which they only initiated 
in February when they learned that they would receive the funding, 
forest officials said they were not able to spend all of the funds. 
Exacerbating the challenge, the Forest Service was implementing a new 
procurement system at the time, which officials said took additional 
time to learn. In other cases, agency officials anticipated workforce 
and operational limitations, and accounted for them by developing long- 
range plans with annual workloads that could be accommodated within 
such limitations. However, because these plans covered longer time 
periods, planned work was still incomplete several years after a fire. 
For example, at the Coronado National Forest in Arizona, officials 
planned to spread the needed work out over a period of 10 years or 
more, scheduling a feasible workload each year, given projected staff 
and infrastructure constraints. 

Forest Service officials also noted that controversy about postfire 
activities presented challenges. General dissonance about the role of 
natural recovery versus managed recovery, as well as disagreement about 
specific decisions, such as whether to use chemical herbicides and 
whether to harvest burned timber as part of restoration efforts, 
created challenges for agency officials and sometimes prevented 
projects from being completed. Forest managers use herbicides to, for 
example, control the spread of invasive weeds or eradicate vegetation 
that competes with young seedlings planted to reforest burned lands. 
Its use is controversial, however, because herbicides can be harmful to 
native vegetation, wildlife, water, and soils. Harvesting burned timber 
is also controversial. Supporters say that the timber should be 
harvested to capture its economic value and remove its potential to 
fuel future fires, while critics say the burned trees should be left 
for wildlife habitat and to avoid any impacts that could be caused by 
harvesting operations. 

Because of the controversy surrounding these issues, agency officials 
said they often invested more time and resources in developing 
defensible documents to support their decisions, which sometimes 
delayed project implementation. Also, appeals and litigation of such 
decisions sometimes caused projects to be delayed. For example, after a 
2001 wildland fire at the Tahoe National Forest in California, the 
Forest Service spent a year preparing a plan, finalized in 2002, that 
proposed harvesting and selling burned timber both outside and within a 
roadless area to help finance needed rehabilitation work. The agency 
began harvesting timber outside the roadless area and had virtually 
completed doing so by July 2004. However, in response to a lawsuit, a 
federal district court issued a preliminary injunction in August 2004, 
prohibiting the Forest Service from harvesting timber inside the 
roadless area. In February 2006, the agency settled the case, agreeing 
not to harvest timber in the roadless area. By that point--4-1/2 years 
after the fire--agency officials said that the value of the timber had 
declined to the point that it was no longer feasible to sell it. 

Faced with repeated decisions about harvesting burned timber, some 
Forest Service officials expressed concern that there is insufficient 
scientific evidence to support one action or another, and further noted 
that little research is being done to address the question. In a 2004 
report entitled "Strategy for Post-Fire Recovery," an interregional 
group of Forest Service officials noted that there is "very limited 
scientific information on long-term effects of uncharacteristically 
severe fires, the effectiveness of post-fire rehabilitation and 
restoration treatments, or the impacts of post-fire timber harvesting." 
Without such information, they concluded, "Policy choices are often 
based on ideology and emotion rather than objective scientific 
information."[Footnote 15] According to one Forest Service scientist, 
there is an urgent need for more information on salvage logging-- 
especially information about the effects of logging operations under 
various conditions and in different geographic locations because such 
effects vary widely depending on the type and extent of logging, site 
conditions, and climatic conditions. Moreover, such research is needed 
to improve the models used by agency decision makers to predict the 
potential impacts of proposed actions such as locations and rates of 
erosion because, currently, none of them account for the effects of 
salvage logging on the postfire environment. 

The 2002 Biscuit fire in Oregon, which has been a focal point for 
recent debates about harvesting burned timber, has also drawn attention 
to the role of scientific research. After the fire, a study was 
published stating that removing dead and dying trees from the Biscuit 
fire area would reduce the risk of recurring large-scale fires in the 
area.[Footnote 16] Forest Service officials decided to offer 12 sales 
of burned timber, as part of a larger recovery plan, one purpose of 
which was to reduce the risk of such fires. The sales were 
controversial and were the target of legal challenges, but the timber 
was ultimately harvested in 2004 and 2005. In 2006, a study was 
published concluding that salvage logging after the Biscuit fire may 
have been counterproductive to forest recovery goals in part because, 
during the logging operations, some seedlings were destroyed.[Footnote 
17] Release of the study spurred additional controversy and media 
attention. In response, the study's authors issued a statement saying 
that "the controversy over the topic of postfire logging is indicative 
of how little is known about its effects." In a congressional hearing 
on the topic, other scientists and researchers told members of Congress 
that there is not a lot of peer-reviewed science on this issue, and a 
sustained commitment to such research is needed. Several bills pending 
before Congress contain provisions for research, pilot projects, and 
monitoring, related to the effects of postfire harvest.[Footnote 18] 

In addition to controversy, Forest Service officials told us that 
factors related to market forces also hinder their efforts to harvest 
burned timber after fires. For example, sometimes the trees burned in 
wildland fires are too small to be of any commercial value. Other 
times, a long distance to the nearest timber mill or difficult access 
to the burned timber reduces the cost-effectiveness of a project for 
the timber purchaser, especially because burned timber loses value over 
time as it deteriorates. In some locations, the small number of nearby 
timber mills can limit competitive bidding. For example, at the 
Eldorado National Forest in California, the Forest Service offered 
burned timber for sale in 2005 but received no bids on most of the 
sales because the only timber company close enough to harvest the trees 
was already busy with timber from previous sales. Agency officials said 
they were concerned that if too much time passed, the timber would lose 
value and the sale would no longer be economically viable. In the fall 
of 2005, they lowered the price of the timber and completed the sales. 
While agency officials acknowledged that market forces had sometimes 
hindered their ability to sell burned timber, they said this had not 
always been the case, and it was difficult to predict whether or how 
such forces might affect a sale. 

To address challenges related to the controversy over salvage logging 
and in recognition of the shortage of related scientific research 
available, the Forest Service has begun to conduct such research in the 
past several years--for example, through its wildland fire research and 
development program. In addition, the Joint Fire Science Program--a 
partnership of six federal agencies, including the Forest Service--has 
called for and funded some research proposals in this area. In its 
October 2005 announcement, the program specifically sought proposals 
from agency and university scientists "that evaluate the effects and 
effectiveness of postfire management activities, including but not 
limited to burned area emergency stabilization, rehabilitation, 
restoration treatments, and postfire removal of woody material (e.g., 
salvage logging, biomass utilization)." In May 2006, the program funded 
several studies in this area. For example, one Forest Service 
researcher received funding to study the effects of different salvage- 
logging techniques at a few sites and develop some guidelines for use 
by land managers. While we commend the Forest Service for taking these 
initial steps, it will require a long-term commitment to the issue to 
accumulate research that provides sufficient information about the 
effects of salvage logging under various conditions, including diverse 
geographic locations and ecosystem types, and different burn 
severities, logging techniques, soil conditions, species types, and 
other features. 

To address challenges related to funding, Forest Service officials said 
they changed the formula for allocating rehabilitation and restoration 
funds to regions in fiscal year 2006, so that funding levels would be 
more stable from year to year, but did not request additional 
rehabilitation and restoration funds from Congress because of competing 
program priorities. The new formula for allocating funds considers the 
amount of lands burned in each region over the previous 5 years, in 
contrast to the old formula, which considered only the lands burned 
during the prior year. This way, if acres burned in a region fluctuate 
dramatically from year to year, funding levels do not follow the 
erratic pattern. Also, the new system considers only severely burned 
acres rather than also considering the total number of acres burned in 
each region, as did the old formula. According to agency officials, 
severely burned lands are more likely to need rehabilitation or 
restoration than are lands burned at moderate or low severity. Finally, 
agency officials plan to exclude wilderness acres beginning in fiscal 
year 2007 because, in many cases, wilderness lands need little or no 
active rehabilitation or restoration projects because they are managed 
to recover naturally. Agency officials said they have not requested 
more rehabilitation and restoration funding from Congress because, 
given the current environment of constrained budgets, they did not 
expect an overall increase in the agency's budget and did not want to 
sacrifice other critical programs' budgets. Also, the officials 
explained that by receiving relatively more funding for other programs, 
they maintained more flexibility to determine how to spend the funds. 
This way, if postfire rehabilitation or restoration work was the 
highest-priority work for a forest, it could direct its regular program 
funds to pay for it. On the other hand, if the forest had other higher- 
priority work needs, such as rehabilitating lands after a hurricane or 
repairing roads to meet basic safety standards, it could fund these 
needs. 

BLM Cites Challenges to Ensuring Success of Completed Seeding and 
Planting Projects: 

Although BLM officials reported completing most of the agency's needed 
rehabilitation projects, some officials expressed concern that these 
completed projects were not always successful. BLM officials in several 
states told us that many of their seeding and planting projects did not 
successfully establish new vegetation because the seeds did not 
germinate, or germinated but later died. For example, after a 2002 
wildland fire in Idaho, BLM officials seeded about 4,400 acres of land, 
but 3 years later, most of the plants had not survived. Field office 
officials speculated that this was due to several factors, including 
drought, competition from invasive weeds such as cheatgrass, poor seed 
viability, and an insufficient number of seeds. In an initial attempt 
to understand the extent of its planting challenge, a BLM official 
reviewed rehabilitation monitoring reports submitted after fires 
occurring from 1999 through 2003, and found that a significant portion 
of the projects were described as failures or as only partially 
successful. BLM officials qualified these results, emphasizing that 
success is a subjective standard, and cited a need for improved 
standards and guidance for determining and reporting success of 
rehabilitation projects. Nevertheless, the officials acknowledged that 
the low success rate should be a cause for concern. 

According to BLM officials, a variety of factors can cause planting and 
seeding projects to fail or to be only partially successful. For 
example, BLM officials we interviewed frequently singled out lack of 
precipitation as a key factor causing projects to fail. In some BLM 
locations, agency officials told us that months can go by with little 
or no precipitation, and many species will not germinate without 
moisture. Also, there are technical factors that can influence a 
project's degree of success. Sometimes seeds do not grow when initially 
planted because they are not viable or the variety selected is not 
appropriate for the environment in which they are planted. Other times, 
it is because the seeds are damaged during application, or planted too 
late in the season or too deep in the soil. Alternatively, seeds may 
successfully germinate, but the seedlings later die because, for 
example, there are not enough available nutrients or moisture in the 
soil. The BLM official who reviewed recent rehabilitation-monitoring 
reports highlighted the poor success rates of sagebrush-planting 
projects that relied on aerial seeding, a technique to distribute seeds 
by aircraft (see fig. 3). For the aerial-seeding projects, agency 
officials estimated that more than half either failed or were only 
partially successful. Another study concluded that aerially seeding 
sagebrush following select Idaho fires was "not a reliable, effective 
seeding method," at least in the sites studied. Sagebrush shrubs were 
not established on 23 of the 35 projects in the study.[Footnote 19] 

Figure 3: A Helicopter Prepares to Aerially Seed a Burned Area after a 
2005 BLM Fire: 

[See PDF for image] 

Source: BLM. 

[End of figure] 

When postfire seeding or planting projects are not successful, invasive 
weeds can spread, crowding out native species, increasing fire 
frequency, and displacing wildlife habitat. This is because after a 
wildland fire burns in a forest or rangeland, an opening is left for 
plants to grow, and if land managers do not successfully establish 
plants in such an opening immediately, invasive species--which multiply 
rapidly and compete aggressively with other plants for nutrients, 
water, and sunlight--often fill the void. Once they have arrived, 
invasive plants are hard to eradicate. Some invasive plants, such as 
cheatgrass, have increased the frequency of wildland fires in western 
grasslands because they add to fuel loads, become dry early in the 
summer when wildland fires are most common, and can grow back after 
fires. In some locations where cheatgrass has invaded ecosystems that 
cannot handle frequent, intense fires, native plants and animals have 
been nearly eliminated. In other cases, failure of seeding or planting 
projects can directly result in a loss of wildlife habitat. For 
example, wildlife such as the sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, and mule 
deer are dependent on sagebrush for their survival, so when sagebrush 
projects fail, these animals lose their habitats. 

BLM officials are aware of and concerned about the success rate of 
postfire planting and seeding projects. In an effort to learn more 
about and improve the effectiveness of these projects, BLM has taken 
several actions. Specifically, in fiscal year 2005, BLM began requiring 
field staff to monitor all rehabilitation projects for effectiveness, 
and document the assessment in a closeout report completed at the end 
of the third year of rehabilitation activities. In fiscal years 2004 
and 2005, monitoring work was funded through the emergency 
stabilization program under the wildland fire operations account. 
According to a BLM official, this was to ensure that funding would be 
available for monitoring. In fiscal year 2006, however, BLM began to 
use rehabilitation funds to pay for monitoring rehabilitation projects, 
in accordance with agency policy. In addition, in response to a 
previous GAO recommendation, BLM is working with the Forest Service and 
the United States Geological Survey to develop standard monitoring 
protocols, so that agencywide monitoring data will be comparable and 
can facilitate learning. With consistent monitoring protocols, agency 
officials expect to be able to isolate some of the common factors that 
cause seeding projects to fail under various conditions. For example, 
they hope to identify seed types and planting techniques that work best 
in arid climates, with certain types of soils, or in competition with 
particular invasive weeds. In response to another GAO recommendation, 
BLM, the Forest Service, and the United States Geological Survey are 
also working together to develop a data system that can serve as a 
repository of information and lessons learned through implementing and 
monitoring rehabilitation projects[Footnote 20]. The agencies have 
implemented a pilot to test the data system in Nevada, and they expect 
to begin development of the nationwide system in fiscal year 2008. 

Conclusions: 

Faced with millions of acres of burned federal lands, the Forest 
Service and BLM have a daunting task in identifying and addressing 
postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs. Given the enormity of 
the task and the scarcity of funding to address needed rehabilitation 
and restoration work, the Forest Service has chosen to give its regions 
and forests the discretion to decide what, if any, rehabilitation or 
restoration work is warranted, given competing priorities. While we 
agree that a degree of freedom is appropriate, so that the agency can 
accommodate diverse ecosystems and unique circumstances, the Forest 
Service must balance this freedom with its obligation to be accountable 
to the public and Congress. Without complete information on the 
magnitude of its rehabilitation and restoration needs relative to its 
capacity to address them, the Forest Service can neither make informed 
funding decisions nor show Congress and the public whether it is 
keeping pace with the most critical postfire work. Because the Forest 
Service already has a system to capture and report some data on 
rehabilitation and restoration accomplishments, expanding its use might 
be a straightforward way to provide a more complete picture of the 
agency's high-priority rehabilitation and restoration needs relative to 
its accomplishments. 

For its part, BLM has acknowledged that one limitation of its 
rehabilitation program is its 3-year time constraint, which precludes 
any subsequent restoration work from being implemented under the 
program. In some cases, the time constraint also limits the agency's 
ability to monitor rehabilitation projects long enough to ascertain 
whether they are successful, a critical shortfall given BLM's challenge 
with success rates. In recognition of this limitation, agency officials 
have said--and we agree--that the program could be improved by 
extending management and data-tracking efforts beyond the initial 3 
years to better understand whether long-term restoration needs are 
being addressed. 

With millions of acres of burned lands, the Forest Service and BLM face 
significant challenges in addressing rehabilitation and restoration 
needs. While there are no quick fixes for these challenges, there are 
some actions the agencies could take to smooth the way. BLM has already 
taken the first steps toward improving its understanding about how 
frequently its rehabilitation projects fail and why. The Forest Service 
could improve the foundation from which it makes decisions about 
postfire work that may be controversial, including postfire timber 
harvests, by conducting additional research in this area, so that such 
decisions can be informed by ample scientific evidence rather than the 
limited number of studies currently available. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To help Congress and the Forest Service make more informed funding 
decisions, and to help the Forest Service better address its high- 
priority postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs, we recommend 
that the Secretary of Agriculture direct the Forest Service to take the 
following two actions: 

* Track and report to Congress all high-priority rehabilitation and 
restoration work needed and accomplished, regardless of funding source. 

* Conduct additional research on the beneficial and harmful effects of 
postfire projects, including but not limited to, postfire timber 
harvests. 

To help ensure that long-term postfire restoration needs are addressed 
on BLM lands, we also recommend that the Secretary of the Interior 
direct BLM to address postfire restoration needs that persist more than 
3 years after a fire by establishing a procedure to transfer any 
incomplete work--including monitoring--from the rehabilitation program 
to other ongoing programs, and by tracking and reporting to Congress 
the status of all needed and completed postfire restoration work in 
those programs. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We received comments on a draft of this report from the Forest Service 
and Interior. The Forest Service, in comments provided via email, 
generally agreed with our findings and recommendations. With respect to 
our recommendation to conduct additional research on the effects of 
post-fire projects, the Forest Service noted that it will need to set 
priorities for this work. While we recognize that the Forest Service 
must balance competing priorities when allocating its resources, we 
continue to believe that such research warrants particular emphasis 
because of the heightened controversy surrounding some postfire 
projects, including postfire timber harvests, and the relative shortage 
of available scientific information in this area. The Forest Service 
also provided additional comments, which we have incorporated in this 
report where appropriate. Interior, in a written letter reproduced in 
appendix II, concurred with the report's findings and recommendations. 

As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents 
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the 
Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of the Interior, Chief of the 
Forest Service, and Director of BLM. We also will make copies available 
to others upon request. In addition, this report will be available at 
no charge on the GAO Web site at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have questions about this report, please contact 
me at (202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our 
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on 
the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to 
this report are listed in appendix III. 

Sincerely yours, 

Signed by: 

Robin M. Nazzaro: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology: 

The objectives of our study were to determine (1) how the Forest 
Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) identify and plan 
postfire rehabilitation and restoration activities; (2) how much needed 
rehabilitation and restoration work the agencies have completed for 
wildland fires that occurred between 2000 and 2004; and (3) the 
challenges the agencies face in addressing their needs, and any actions 
they are taking in response. 

Planning Rehabilitation and Restoration Activities: 

To learn how the Forest Service and BLM identify and plan postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration activities, we reviewed agency documents 
and interviewed officials in headquarters, regional and state offices, 
and local units. We collected and reviewed documents on policies, 
procedures, and practices relevant to rehabilitation and restoration 
activities in both agencies. These included interagency agreements, 
such as one establishing common definitions for rehabilitation and 
restoration, as well as departmental, agency headquarters, and regional 
or state guidance for nonemergency rehabilitation and restoration 
activities. We reviewed relevant portions of agency manuals and 
handbooks, documents detailing procedures for identifying needed 
postfire activities, as well as any documents describing prioritization 
and funding approval processes. For select fires, we reviewed 
environmental impact statements, needs assessments, rehabilitation 
plans, and other relevant planning documents. When we adjusted dollars 
for inflation, we used the gross domestic product (chained) price 
index, with 2001 as the base year. 

We also visited regions and states with large numbers of acres burned 
by wildland fire--excluding Alaska, where the agencies conducted little 
or no rehabilitation or restoration work after wildland fires. For the 
Forest Service, we visited the Northern, Pacific Northwest, Pacific 
Southwest, and Southwestern regions to interview officials that manage 
lands in Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, 
Oregon, Washington, and parts of Idaho. In each of the four regions, we 
visited one or two forests and interviewed forest-and district-level 
staff. In addition, we contacted officials in Forest Service 
headquarters and all of the agency's regions by telephone to discuss 
how the Forest Service identifies, plans, and funds postfire 
rehabilitation and restoration activities. For BLM, we visited Idaho 
and Oregon to interview officials in BLM's state and field offices 
there. We also contacted, by telephone, officials in BLM's headquarters 
and Utah and Nevada state offices to discuss how they identify and plan 
rehabilitation activities. 

Amount of Needed Rehabilitation and Restoration Work That Has Been 
Completed: 

To determine how much needed rehabilitation and restoration work the 
Forest Service and BLM have completed, we collected available national, 
regional, state, and local data on project needs and accomplishments, 
interviewed Forest Service and BLM officials at all levels to ascertain 
their subjective assessments of the extent to which they had addressed 
postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs, and reviewed relevant 
agency reports. We also met with field staff to discuss proposed and 
completed projects for select fires and conducted detailed reviews of 
these needs and accomplishments using a structured data collection 
instrument. In addition, we conducted a Web-based survey of agency 
officials in the field, but after checking a sample of survey responses 
against supporting documents, we determined that the information 
provided in the survey was not sufficiently reliable to report. 

Survey Design: 

We selected a stratified random sample of 276 fires from the population 
of BLM and Forest Service fires that burned more than 500 acres and 
occurred between 2000 and 2004. The sample was stratified by agency and 
by year (2000-2002 and 2003-2004), so that results could be generalized 
for each stratum as well as in the aggregate. To identify the universe 
of these fires, we combined two separate lists of fires obtained from 
the Forest Service and BLM. We excluded fires that occurred in Alaska 
because Forest Service officials reported little, and BLM officials 
reported no, postfire rehabilitation activity in Alaska during this 
period. 

Our survey asked agency officials to provide qualitative information 
about needed projects, the portion of those projects completed, factors 
that hindered their ability to complete needed projects, and any 
effects associated with not completing projects. We surveyed Forest 
Service officials about both rehabilitation and restoration projects, 
but we surveyed BLM officials only about rehabilitation projects 
because BLM's postfire programs do not include restoration. Also, to 
account for BLM projects implemented before BLM separated its emergency 
stabilization projects from its rehabilitation projects in 2004, we 
requested that agency officials use the current interagency definitions 
of emergency stabilization and rehabilitation when providing 
information about all rehabilitation projects. 

To identify potential survey questions, we interviewed Forest Service 
and BLM officials at headquarters and in the field, and reviewed agency 
documents and other reports. We took several quality assurance steps to 
minimize nonsampling errors, which can be introduced, for example, when 
respondents do not understand questions or do not have the information 
required to answer questions. Social science survey specialists 
designed draft questionnaires, and we conducted six pretests with 
agency officials in the field. After each pretest, we conducted an 
interview to determine (1) the extent to which respondents interpreted 
questions and response categories consistently, (2) whether respondents 
had the necessary information to answer the questions, and (3) how long 
it took individuals to complete the survey. In addition, we asked 
headquarters officials with national responsibility for postfire work 
in each agency to review our draft questionnaires and provide comments. 
Based on the results of these pretests and comments, we made multiple 
revisions to the survey. 

To determine to whom to send our survey, we contacted forest 
supervisors or natural resources directors in the Forest Service, and 
state office rehabilitation coordinators in the BLM, and asked them to 
identify the field staff most knowledgeable about rehabilitation and 
restoration for each fire in our sample. In a few cases--where we 
lacked timely contact information or the person we initially contacted 
referred us to someone else--we asked agency field officials to forward 
the survey to the appropriate person. 

Survey Administration and Data Verification: 

We administered the survey via the internet for 8 weeks between 
November 21, 2005, and January 13, 2006, and at the close of our 
administration period, we had received a total of 256 responses for an 
overall response rate of 93 percent. After the survey, we checked the 
survey data and verified the data analysis programming. We also 
verified select responses for 10 percent of surveys that we randomly 
selected from those that had been completed. Specifically, we verified 
responses to questions about the proportion of projects completed for a 
particular fire and the funding sources used to pay for such projects 
by contacting respondents and requesting supporting documents--such as 
project plans, accomplishment reports, and contracts--to compare their 
survey responses with information in the documents. Our verification 
revealed that a significant portion of responses were not supported by 
the documentation we received. As shown in table 1, we found that in 6 
of the 26 cases, none of the responses we checked were fully supported; 
in another 6 cases, only some of the responses were supported; and in 
14 cases, all were supported. 

Table 1: Verification Results for Survey Responses about Project 
Completion and Funding: 

Forest Service fires; 
All responses supported: 5; 
Mix of supported, unsupported, and uncertain level of support for 
responses: 5; 
No responses supported: 3. 

BLM fires; 
All responses supported: 9; 
Mix of supported, unsupported, and uncertain level of support for 
responses: 1; 

No responses supported: 3. 

Total fires; 
All responses supported: 14; 
Mix of supported, unsupported, and uncertain level of support for 
responses: 6; 
No responses supported: 6. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of table] 

For example, sometimes responses were not supported because respondents 
had mistakenly reported information about emergency stabilization 
activities or funding, rather than rehabilitation and restoration 
activities or funding. Other times, respondents had either erroneously 
transferred the information from supporting documents to our survey, or 
had no documentation to support their answers. Overall, this outcome 
indicates that there is a degree of nonsampling error in our survey 
results that is not quantifiable, but which we determined is too great 
to ensure sufficient reliability. 

Challenges to Addressing Needs: 

To determine what challenges the Forest Service and BLM face in 
addressing postfire rehabilitation and restoration needs, and what 
actions, if any, they are taking in response, we relied on interviews 
with agency officials and agency documents. In our interviews with 
agency officials at all levels, we asked about challenges at the 
program level as well as the project level, and about actions the 
agencies are taking to address such challenges. During our visits to 
the field, we also observed rehabilitation or restoration project sites 
and discussed challenges officials faced in successfully completing 
those and other projects. We reviewed Forest Service and BLM reports 
describing agencywide challenges as well as select reports detailing 
challenges to addressing rehabilitation or restoration needs for a 
specific fire. To better understand some challenges agency officials 
reported, and some actions they are taking in response to challenges, 
we conducted additional interviews with agency research scientists, 
biologists, and ecologists, and reviewed relevant agency studies. 

We conducted our work from May 2005 through May 2006 in accordance with 
generally accepted government auditing standards. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of the Interior: 

Office Of The Secretary: 
Washington, D.C. 20240

Jun 22, 2006: 

Ms. Robin M. Nazzaro: 
Director, Natural Resources and Environment: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20548-0001: 

Dear Ms. Nazzaro: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government 
Accountability Office's (GAO) draft report Wildland Fire Rehabilitation 
and Restoration - Forest Service and BLM Could Benefit from Improved 
Information on Status of Needed Work (GAO-06-670). The following 
general and specific comments are provided. 

General Comments: 

We appreciate the GAO's understanding of the Bureau of Land 
Management's (BLM) multiple-use mission to manage 261 million acres of 
public land, including 55 million acres of forests and woodlands, and 
concur with the GAO's findings and recommendations, as they relate to 
the BLM. 

The GAO's recommendations reinforce the BLM's strategy of transferring 
any incomplete work, including monitoring, from the rehabilitation 
program to other ongoing resource management programs, such as range 
(and weed) management, monitoring, and restoration. 

Specific Comments: 

* Under current funding levels, the BLM's burned area rehabilitation 
needs are being met. Because restoration work is long term, it is 
assessed and funded separately. 

* The BLM will clearly identify post-fire rehabilitation work that has 
not been completed and restoration work needed in subsequent years. 
This information will be provided to the line manager responsible for 
ensuring that rehabilitation is completed and restoration needs are 
identified and ranked in priority order. 

* A performance measure for "Burned Area Rehabilitation" is being 
developed. 

* In response to the GAO's comment on page 8, the BLM hopes to improve 
the success of planting techniques by improving data gathering and 
monitoring to identify optimal planting methods. 

Thank you again for your outstanding team that worked with the BLM on 
this assignment. If you have any questions, please contact Jack Hamby, 
Deputy Division Chief, Division of Rangeland Resources, on 202-452- 
7747, or Andrea Nygren, BLM Audit Liaison Officer, on 202-452-5153. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

R.M. "Johnnie" Burton: 
Director, Minerals Management Service: 
Exercising the delegated authority of the Assistant Secretary, Land and 
Minerals Management: 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Robin Nazzaro, (202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, David P. Bixler, Assistant 
Director; Carl Barden; Mark Braza; Sandy Davis; Christine Feehan; Rich 
Johnson; Alison O'Neill; Anthony Padilla; and Judy Pagano made key 
contributions to this report. 

FOOTNOTES 

[1] The Department of the Interior's federal land management agencies 
include the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Fish 
and Wildlife Service. 

[2] Years cited in this report refer to calendar years except where 
otherwise specified. 

[3] Dollar amounts are presented in nominal terms--unadjusted for 
inflation--unless otherwise noted. 

[4] The Forest Service uses appropriations from sources that include 
its national forest system, capital improvement and maintenance, and 
wildland fire management accounts, as well as the Knudsen-Vandenburg 
fund and the reforestation trust fund. GAO is exploring with the 
Department of Agriculture the availability of these appropriations for 
this purpose. 

[5] The Wilderness Act of 1964 defines wilderness as areas of 
undeveloped federal land retaining their primeval character, without 
permanent improvements or human habitation. The act provided that 
wilderness areas would be designated by Congress and directed federal 
agencies to protect and manage such lands to preserve their natural 
condition. The act generally prohibits road construction and the use of 
motorized equipment within wilderness areas. The Roadless Area 
Conservation Rule, issued by the Forest Service in 2001 and in effect 
during most of the period we reviewed, generally prohibited road 
building, timber cutting, and certain other activities in inventoried 
roadless areas, which are roadless areas identified in a series of 
analyses conducted prior to the 2001 rule. A new roadless rule, issued 
in 2005, does not include the same prohibitions as the earlier rule, 
but forest plans may still restrict activities in roadless areas. 

[6] Because the Forest Service's Alaska, Southern, and Eastern regions 
do very little, if any, postfire rehabilitation and restoration, they 
do not have formal processes for prioritizing and funding projects. 

[7] In the Northern region, rather than submitting project proposals, 
forests are directed to input project needs and funding requests into 
the National Fire Plan Operations and Reporting System, a national fire 
management database. Regional officials then query the database to 
assess total regional needs and select projects for funding. 

[8] In 1980, Congress created the reforestation trust fund by directing 
a portion of tariffs on imported wood products to provide dedicated 
funding for reforestation and related treatments. The roads and trails 
fund, established in 1913, authorizes use of a portion of Forest 
Service receipts (for example from the sale of timber and grazing 
permits, and the collection of recreation fees) for the construction 
and maintenance of roads and trails. 

[9] In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, monitoring of both emergency 
stabilization and rehabilitation projects was paid for through the 
emergency stabilization program, using fire suppression funds. In 
fiscal year 2006, BLM began to use rehabilitation funds to pay for 
monitoring rehabilitation projects. 

[10] U.S. Forest Service Interregional Ecosystem Management 
Coordination Group, "A Strategy for Post-Fire Recovery" (Dec. 3, 2004). 

[11] The National Fire Plan Operations and Reporting System is an 
interagency system designed to assist field personnel in managing and 
reporting accomplishments for work conducted under the National Fire 
Plan, including hazardous fuels, rehabilitation, and restoration 
activities. Planned and completed activities may be entered into the 
system with funding sources. 

[12] Because Forest Service regions independently developed 
prioritization criteria, the regions have different categories, as well 
as a different ordering of the categories, and they are not directly 
comparable. 

[13] Each year, BLM publishes a Public Lands Statistics report. In this 
report, BLM reports rehabilitation accomplishments combined with 
emergency stabilization accomplishments. 

[14] Although the Forest Service transferred funds from various 
programs to help pay for fire suppression in fiscal years 2002 and 
2003, agency officials said they did not need to do so in fiscal year 
2004 or 2005. Furthermore, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 
Fiscal Year 2005, Congress appropriated an additional $400 million to 
the Forest Service as a supplemental appropriation for urgent fire 
suppression needs--which can be carried over from one year to the next 
if unspent--to help address suppression needs in unusually costly years 
and avoid the need to transfer funds from other land management 
accounts. For more information, see GAO, Wildfire Suppression: Funding 
Transfers Cause Project Cancellations and Delays, Strained 
Relationships, and Management Disruptions, GAO-04-612 (Washington, 
D.C.: June 2, 2004). 

[15] U.S. Forest Service Interregional Ecosystem Management 
Coordination Group, "A Strategy for Post-Fire Recovery" (2004). 

[16] J. Sessions, R. Buckman, M. Newton, and J. Hamann, "The Biscuit 
Fire: Management Options for Forest Regeneration, Fire and Insect Risk 
Reduction and Timber Salvage" (unpublished report, College of Forestry, 
Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 2003). 

[17] D.C. Donato, J.B. Fontaine, J.L. Campbell, W.D. Robinson, J.B. 
Kauffman, and B.E. Law, "Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and 
Increases Fire Risk," Science, vol. 311 (2006). 

[18] For example, the Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act, H.R. 
4200, 109th Cong. (2005), and the National Forest Rehabilitation and 
Recovery Act, H.R. 3973, 109th Cong. (2005). 

[19] BLM Idaho State Office, ID Technical Bulletin No. 2004-01: 
Establishment of Aerially Seeded Big Sagebrush Following Southern Idaho 
Wildfires (August 2004). 

[20] GAO, Wildland Fires: Better Information Needed on Effectiveness of 
Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments, GAO-03-430 
(Washington, D.C.: Apr. 4, 2003). 

GAO's Mission: 

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of 
Congress, exists to support Congress in meeting its constitutional 
responsibilities and to help improve the performance and accountability 
of the federal government for the American people. GAO examines the use 
of public funds; evaluates federal programs and policies; and provides 
analyses, recommendations, and other assistance to help Congress make 
informed oversight, policy, and funding decisions. GAO's commitment to 
good government is reflected in its core values of accountability, 
integrity, and reliability. 

Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony: 

The fastest and easiest way to obtain copies of GAO documents at no 
cost is through the Internet. GAO's Web site ( www.gao.gov ) contains 
abstracts and full-text files of current reports and testimony and an 
expanding archive of older products. The Web site features a search 
engine to help you locate documents using key words and phrases. You 
can print these documents in their entirety, including charts and other 
graphics. 

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly released reports, testimony, and 
correspondence. GAO posts this list, known as "Today's Reports," on its 
Web site daily. The list contains links to the full-text document 
files. To have GAO e-mail this list to you every afternoon, go to 
www.gao.gov and select "Subscribe to e-mail alerts" under the "Order 
GAO Products" heading. 

Order by Mail or Phone: 

The first copy of each printed report is free. Additional copies are $2 
each. A check or money order should be made out to the Superintendent 
of Documents. GAO also accepts VISA and Mastercard. Orders for 100 or 
more copies mailed to a single address are discounted 25 percent. 
Orders should be sent to: 

U.S. Government Accountability Office 

441 G Street NW, Room LM 

Washington, D.C. 20548: 

To order by Phone: 

Voice: (202) 512-6000: 

TDD: (202) 512-2537: 

Fax: (202) 512-6061: 

To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs: 

Contact: 

Web site: www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm 

E-mail: fraudnet@gao.gov 

Automated answering system: (800) 424-5454 or (202) 512-7470: 

Public Affairs: 

Jeff Nelligan, managing director, 

NelliganJ@gao.gov 

(202) 512-4800 

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 

441 G Street NW, Room 7149 

Washington, D.C. 20548: