Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated the federal government's fire management program for wilderness areas, focusing on: (1) the benefits of allowing some fires to burn in controlled situations; (2) progress and constraints in implementing a revamped prescribed fire program; and (3) the need to monitor the program's implementation.
GAO found that: (1) a joint Department of the Interior and Agriculture (USDA) fire management policy review team reaffirmed that fire was beneficial and necessary to wildlands; (2) attempts to eliminate fires from land where it had been a historic component of the environment could result in unnatural ecological changes and increased risks created by the accumulation of fuels on the forest floor; (3) Interior and USDA approved a national interagency preparedness plan in April 1990; (4) some regional preparedness plans were inconsistent with the national interagency preparedness plan, and the review team has approved only two of the eight regional interagency preparedness plans; (5) fire and wilderness managers' implementation of the revamped fire program was limited because federal fire management agencies were slow to approve fire management plans; (6) funds available to manage a prescribed fire program fell short of the amount managers said they needed; (7) some fire and wilderness field office managers continued to subscribe to the philosophy of suppressing all fires; and (8) neither the National Park Service (NPS) nor the Forest Service monitored resource requirements for fully implementing the program.
