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Wildland Fire Management

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Issue Summary

Wildland fires help maintain healthy ecosystems, but also cause damage. The size and intensity of wildland fires are expected to increase in coming years.

Wildland fire plays an important ecological role in maintaining healthy ecosystems. However, wildland fires also burn millions of acres each year, cost billions of dollars, damage homes and critical natural resources, and result in deaths. The size and intensity of wildland fires have increased in recent decades, partly due to climate change, and many scientists and researchers expect fires to become larger and more severe in the future.

Five federal agencies are responsible for wildland fire management: USDA’s Forest Service and the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service. These agencies were appropriated about $4.2 billion in FY 2017 to manage wildland fires—either by suppressing them, allowing them to burn for natural resource benefits, or by reducing the vegetation that can fuel fires. And while not directly involved, FEMA also provides disaster assistance to those affected by some wildland fires.

Over the past decade, these agencies have made several changes to how they manage wildland fires. For instance, they collaborated with partners from multiple jurisdictions (i.e., tribal, state, and local governments; nongovernmental partners; and public stakeholders) to complete the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy in 2014. Agencies have also started to place greater emphasis on using wildland fires to help reduce vegetation (rather than seeking to suppress all fires)—a practice intended to improve the ecological health of forests and grasslands and to reduce the intensity of future wildland fires.

However, federal agencies still face challenges to effectively managing wildland fires. These include preparing for and responding to COVID-19 to ensure that agencies can continue to respond to wildfires, and modernizing aerial firefighting capacity.

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Wildland Fire Management
Recent Reports

Wildland Fire Management: Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional, Strategic Action is Needed to Capitalize on Those Steps

GAO-09-877
Published: Sep 09, 2009.
Publicly Released: Sep 09, 2009.

Wildland Fire Management: Agencies' Efforts to Assess Program Effectiveness and Modernize the Firefighting Aviation Fleet

GAO-16-217T
Published: Nov 17, 2015.
Publicly Released: Nov 17, 2015.

Wildland Fire Management: Agencies Have Made Several Key Changes but Could Benefit from More Information about Effectiveness

GAO-15-772
Published: Sep 16, 2015.
Publicly Released: Sep 16, 2015.

Wildland Fire Management: Improvements Needed in Information, Collaboration, and Planning to Enhance Federal Fire Aviation Program Success

GAO-13-684
Published: Aug 20, 2013.
Publicly Released: Aug 20, 2013.

Station Fire: Forest Service's Response Offers Potential Lessons for Future Wildland Fire Management

GAO-12-155
Published: Dec 16, 2011.
Publicly Released: Dec 16, 2011.

Wildland Fire Risk Reduction: Multiple Factors Affect Federal-Nonfederal Collaboration, but Action Could Be Taken to Better Measure Progress

GAO-17-357
Published: May 10, 2017.
Publicly Released: Jun 09, 2017.

Wildfire: Information on Forest Service Response, Key Concerns, and Effects of the Chetco Bar Fire

GAO-20-424
Published: Apr 29, 2020.
Publicly Released: May 29, 2020.

Wildland Fire: Federal Agencies' Efforts to Reduce Wildland Fuels and Lower Risk to Communities and Ecosystems

GAO-20-52
Published: Dec 19, 2019.
Publicly Released: Dec 19, 2019.

Wildfire Disasters: FEMA Could Take Additional Actions to Address Unique Response and Recovery Challenges

GAO-20-5
Published: Oct 09, 2019.
Publicly Released: Oct 09, 2019.

Disaster Resilience Framework: Principles for Analyzing Federal Efforts to Facilitate and Promote Resilience to Natural Disasters

GAO-20-100SP
Published: Oct 23, 2019.
Publicly Released: Oct 23, 2019.
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Multimedia
Podcasts
Wildland Fire Management and the Federal Fire Aviation Program
Transcript
GAO Watchblog
Blog Post

Gearing Up for Wildland Fire Season

Tuesday, June 24, 2014
With fires already burning in Southern California and the Southwest, the western United States is...
GAO Watchblog
Blog Post

Dry, Hot American Summer

Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Wildland fires are a natural part of a healthy ecosystem. By removing old or dead vegetation, they...
Natural Res 4 Trees
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Wildland Fire Knows No Boundaries…

Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Wildfires are a natural and inevitable part of many healthy ecosystems, but they also burn millions...

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