Prescribed Fire Review Finds Gaps in Key Areas as U.S. Forest Service Looks to Improve Safety

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico – Two years later the US Forest Service provoked In what would become the largest and most destructive wildfire in recorded New Mexico history, independent investigators say there are gaps that need to be addressed for the agency to be successful in using prescribed fire as a tool to reduce risk amid changes climate.

The Government Accountability Office investigation was requested by US congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández after communities in your district have been devastated in 2022 by the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon fire.

The congresswoman wanted to know what factors the Forest Service had identified as contributing to the escape from prescribed fires over the past decade and whether the agency was following through with promised reforms after pausing and reviewing the prescribed recording program.

The report made public on Monday that there were 43 documented escapes between 2012 and 2021 across 50,000 prescribed fire designs. This included fires in national forests in more than a dozen states, from the California-Nevada border to Utah, New Mexico, Idaho, North Carolina and Arkansas.

With the U.S. Forest Service and other land management agencies turning to federal infrastructure and inflation-reducing funding to increase the number of prescribed burn operations over the next 10 years, Leger Fernández said it is more important than never guarantee that they do it safely.

The congresswoman has been visiting northern New Mexico in recent days, enjoying how things have gotten greener with the summer rains. But forests are still tinderboxes, she said.

“We need to take care of our forest, but we need to do it responsibly,” she told the Associated Press. “When you play with fire, there is no room for error.”

The Forest Service sets about 4,500 prescribed fires each year, reducing fuels on about 1.3 million acres. It is part of a multi-billion dollar cleanup of forests choked with dead trees and undergrowth.

There have been mixed results as federal land managers have fallen behind on some projects and ignored some high-risk communities to work in less threatened communities, according to a 2023 AP Review of data, public records and congressional testimony.

However, the Forest Service said in response to GAO that it is making progress and generally agrees with the findings made public Monday. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore wrote that his agency will create and implement a corrective action plan to address the gaps.

Moore also noted that 2023 marked a record year for hazardous fuels treatments on forest lands and that his agency was on track to provide more training to form teams that can specialize in prescribed burning operations.

“The agency is using every tool available to reduce wildfire risk at a pace and scale that will make a difference within our current means,” Moore wrote.

GAO reviewed volumes of documents over several months, interviewed forestry officials, and made site visits over several months. The investigation found that the Forest Service took steps to implement several immediate changes recommended following the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon fire. This included developing a national strategy to mobilize resources for prescribed fire projects.

There were dozens of other actions that the agency identified as part of its 2022 review, but the GAO concluded that “important gaps remain” as the Forest Service has not determined the extent to which it will implement the remaining actions, including how or when.

GAO recommends that the Forest Service develop a plan to implement the reforms, set goals, establish a way to measure progress, and ensure that it has sufficient resources dedicated to the day-to-day management of the reform effort. It also highlighted that the Forest Service, in agency documents, has acknowledged that the reforms will require major changes in practices and culture.

Leger Fernández said he expects change to come quickly because wildfires are becoming more costly and more dangerous.

“They are killer fires now. They move too fast and people can’t get out of the way fast enough,” she said. “And I think this kind of massive emergency that they represent will lead to more rapid changes than you would normally see in a large federal bureaucracy.”