Transcripts For CSPAN3 Forest 20240705

Of government, provided by these Television Companies and more, including cox. Squatting in a diner is even harder. Homework can just be homework. Cox connects to compete. A Public Service along with the other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Mandy moore is the chief of the service discussing management and wildfire was little and see and resiliency. It is responsible for managing more than 190 million acres of National Forest. Could have good morning. Good afternoon and welcome to the public land summit on wildfire resiliency. My name is todd and im the chair of the committee. Todays summit will be bringing together those from federal agencies to discuss how we can improve cooperative efforts and how to best communicate threats and opportunities to residents and visitors. Investments in recent years, congress has given Agencies Authority and investments. To support and make landscapes more fireproof. We are honored to have randy moore as our first speaker. He will discuss how his agency is working with local communities. Lessons learned from the 2018 and ways to improve treatments by building. Please welcome chief randy moore. [applause] randy now i can hear it. Good afternoon. Thank you all for being here and more importantly, thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a conversation with you all about some of the things that we are going through. When i think of collaboration, your close collaboration with the agency will continue to be central in making our forests healthy. All of us here have a tremendous responsibility to communities that have been affected by the wildfire disease, drought, and some of those activities that have created catastrophic wildfires. I want to start by talking about the wildfire crisis strategy. You are at the county level. You play a Critical Role in how we treat the communities that we serve. To work to reduce the strategy landscape is our top priority in the agency. Through this strategy, we will be doing this in the right places, at the right time, at the right scale. You have witnessed already. We have taken traditionally the money that began, that we tried to treat a lot of different areas, and we do treat a lot of areas, but the level and skill of treatment that we provide does not match the level and skill of the fires that are taking place on the landscape. This wildfire crisis strategy allows us to scale up, if you will, treatments in a way that will have a positive impact on the landscape. I had as i was looking i am hoping that we have the opportunity for some q a, to billing talk about those things that are important because i have enough paperwork that i could talk for the next two hours and im not sure i would be on port on point. I want to say a few words and then wait for our turn to open it up, to see how i could be most useful to you in the room. Elected officials, you have a duty to the constituents that elected you as the chief. And i have a duty to you and how you are trying to work to help protect the communities that you serve. There are a couple things that happened. It is really great. When i look at the production inflation act, we have opportunities we have not had in history of the Forest Service. It really looks at getting trees back in the ground in areas that have been affected by disease. This is going into our second year. The first year, we had to get organized, and in doing so, we sent money out to begin to start that work. We had to develop a baseline. If you look at where we have been, we have lost employees. We will not go back, but we want to hire 4000 and leverage the other 4000 through working with others to create health and resiliency in the landscapes. Some of you may be experiencing what we are in the agent. We hired 3300 employees and it was really good. We lost 2500 through attrition. What we gained was 800 new people to add to the capacity that we had. There is an amount of time where you need to be training people as well. The other thing a lot of the people that we hired, a High Percentage of them have left the agency, and we do not know if that is the new labor pool, but we are experiencing a 45 reduction. We do not know if covid in the workforce. That is a conversation that i would like to have with you all, but we are managing through that. Nevertheless, we have been successful with this first year, and i think we are set up to be even more successful. You all know that the secretary, i accompanied him in arizona and we made the announcement of 10 landscapes. We have added another 20 landscapes that we will be focusing on. This is the area that is highly likely. The fire sheds are about our scientists are telling us that if we are able to treat between 20 to 40 of fire shed, we would have a positive outcome we are moving in that direction and we have positioned ourselves to send out a billion dollars this year, looking at project work. We have a collaborative restoration project. We also have additional joint chiefs projects looking at trying to Work Together across to do restoration work as well. As we move into this next year, hopefully you will begin to see a lot of work that is taking place on the ground. We have about a billion dollars to look at how we bring new innovations, particularly in small, rural communities. Rather than looking at those facilities going out of business, how do we bring a new innovations and new Job Opportunities so that we keep people in these communities that we all live and work in. That is another piece that we are very positive and hopeful about. We are getting ready to send out proposals to the tune of about 41 grant proposals. You would like to hear from the counties on what kind of things they might be interested in for innovations. I will tell you quickly and then i will move onto the next person to jump in. We are excited about new opportunities that we see taking place. As billy there are a number of facilities across the country. Through that innovation, about 1600 buildings have been built, are being built or are in the design phase to be built using certain materials that have been serving as kindling for fires across the west, in particular. The other piece, we have seen a lot of positive things and what is exciting about this is when we began to observe, there is also opportunities to combine that with other opportunities, in terms of carbon credit and applying it in other types of lands across the country. Those are some of the things that we are excited about. We are looking at this to occur for the next 10 years. As long as the bipartisan infrastructure, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act moneys. We are off to a good start. I met with a group this morning. They have been able to leverage the money that we have divided by a tune of 71, a great return. We are excited about what the future holds and we are looking for more opportunities. With that, i will turn it back to you. Question and answer for the chief of her here. I want to touch on your employee issue. What we have seen in our area is the requirement that you have to have resume diversification of working in different spot. It has worked against the local people that one to put down in this area. You have to be able to work up to the ranks. That is randy that is the way that we have built. You will see that we have been promoting more people to stay in place. In the past, in order to move up , you have to go to a new location. We have recognized that and we are no longer requiring Different Levels of experience. We do not turn that away. In fact, you will see people staying in place and people being promoted in place without having to move and uproot their families. It is no secret. A part of that pattern was that people moved around. It is no longer true and it is not desirable or wanted anymore. I know that from my own experience in the agency. My very first job was in north dakota. The plus is that i got to meet people that i never would have met otherwise. I gained an appreciation for different cultures and a different way of doing business and existing. Those are some of the values that we still have in the agency when you are able to move around. It is not necessary anymore that if a person is that is something that we have stopped doing. People are being promoted and do not feel like they have to approve their families. Rosemary, gateway tell Yosemite National park. Thank you for the projects. I worked with the Forest Service Sierra National forest. Because of the joint chiefs project in our area, you saved the community in 2018 with the ferguson fire, and i think again last year. Thank you very much for that. Im sure you know that they are embracing the recognition process with considerable enthusiasm. I think it is essential that they take responsibility. My question is for those like jersey dale and about four other communities in my district, they are surrounded and my question is, is the Forest Service looking at how we can Work Together around those communities . If so, how do i access that . Randy thank you for raising the question. We have been working diligently to protect communities. My answer is that the only way to move forward is to collaborate with the counties moving forward. If you do not feel like you have an opportunity to work with personnel, we are saying is the only way to move forward. Hopefully i will try to come up with all these great ideas and we want to have a little bit of a different approach. Lets sit down together and decide what needs to happen. How can we throw our resources together to make it happen . . A question on the right. We appreciate the efforts Going Forward with these critical areas that need to be cleaned up. It is going to be a long road. My question relates to after the fire. We had another one in 20 that ran into the 2013 fire. They need some help to start with. The point of the question is, there is so much in those watersheds from those fires that is critical. We will we have talked to several members. What is the plan for this . There has to be some carbon coming off of that. There is no way it will sit there for years before it can be printable. Is there any kind of strategy after the fires . Randy i am glad that you brought it up. I am very familiar with the situation in colorado. Here again, the short answer is that colorado no longer has an industry to speak of. A part of that, there are a lot of different reasons. There is just nothing there. I believe the west slope is where you have the closest facility. We are trying to create opportunities to start some type of industry there. You do have a lot of dying material in colorado, particularly around the i75. So how do we begin to take advantage to create a new opportunity and some of these areas where you no longer have facilities there in that part of the country . We want to be a part of that and we want you to be a part of that. How do we Work Together to stimulate business to operate . One of the things that we have heard. We will probably talk about this in a little bit. We have lost a lot of facilities. How do we start something new . Without getting made of the old . We need those facilities in place, and we also need to improve the number of those facilities that we currently have in place. When we look at new products, that would is as strong as steel. Looking at that technology, as we move into a new era and opportunity that we have, we are open to suggestions. We look at opportunities and we are open to grant businesses to study that and have startups. We have invested about 200 million so far. We have another 800 million that we are looking at investing in those opportunities. I bring this up because you know more about what the opportunities are in your communities than we do. I want you to take this and challenge us to work with you to create new Job Opportunities. We have a question in front. Thank you, chief. I want to thank you. I think we finally have hope again with a lot of trying to reestablish a biomass and being able to use absolutely everything. In that case, thank you. The Forest Service has been a great partner to work with, and we have a great relationship. It is exciting to hear. That is exactly where our mindset is as well. I wanted to bring up one other topic. We have gone through and set ambitious standards. It is a huge amount, a huge opportunity and one challenge i am looking at, the Greenhouse Gas inventories is trying to make an environmental argument for these projects, according to emissions data. There is not an accepted scientific formula that when we go in, we leave a healthier forest. We can bring that back and say not only did this create jobs and make people safer, but also, be are able to reduce the risk of fire that is one of the highest amount of emissions. That land will be more productive. We lack the ability to do that, even though there is all kinds of data out there. One final bit is that we had a report come out that one year of fire eliminated most 20 years of carbon emission that the state has undergone. I think it is something that we are talking about, but we could use your leadership so that we can tell policymakers. Randy well said. That seems more like a statement than a question. We do want to be a part of that. I think that is where certain parts of the country are leaning , and we want to lean in that direction with you. One of the things that we are beginning to see is that there are a number of things that the communities are experiencing that are really negative. Insurance companies are dropping Insurance Coverage. Can you imagine how devastating that would be to not be able to have insurance . In california, we are trying to work with a number of partners, including the Insurance Industry to save. If you are removing Insurance Coverage from people who live in a fiery fire danger area, are you willing to reassure them, if they are willing to reduce the hazards associated with that fire said, so that homeowners can begin to have hope that they are insured again. There is nothing more frightening to than to live in an area like that and not have Insurance Coverage. With our approach, just looking at how to bring the community together, we are looking at creating a little bit of stability in some of these communities that are at risk for these wildfires. We want to be your partners. Its particularly challenging because we have no land on the far service has the lab. Have you considered ways where you can and hands your existing housing, add more density to the areas we do have . As you brought up earlier on the military model, one thing we dont have enough of our barracks on those particular areas so consider having that and we can keep these people in our communities and have Career Growth there. We certainly can. We are in kind of a Pilot Project in colorado on the white river where we are trying to work out some Creative Solutions to have Affordable Housing. That includes barracks and includes places for employees and others to live at an affordable rate. I think its for 50 years, thats the pilot so if there is an investment, thats enough time to recoup the investments. We are piloting that and trying to look at what other opportunities we can get like that. If you have some ideas as well about how we can do that, we are all years. It is a significant problem for not only our employees but also yours as well to live in these communities in Affordable Housing or have a landbased to have homes. We want to be Good Neighbors and we want to be a good partner with you and we want to invite you to help us be strategic help be our thinking partners. Together, we will get much further than we will separately like weve been doing for so long. Weve got a question to your right way in the back. Thanks for being here area we want to thank your field officers who helped us in the dixie and fish Lake National forest. I will try to turn it into a question like jeopardy. [laughter] we have very few private industries left that are willing to take the wood out of the forest and sounds like you want to get it out, but that you hold onto it like its meat in a lions mouth and therefore, no industry can shoot up so we are trying to get, for example, in beaver, utah, i talked to the owners of one of the few little mills left, fish lake lumber, but they cannot at the Forest Service to just give them the wood. They will process it and turn it into laminates or turn it into mulch or whatever but its almost like you want to give it up so you dont have to do the work and private industry is willing to do the work for you, but you wont let them go get the wood even in an environmentally sensitive way. There is the question. Would you help us with that . That would be awesome. Its easy for me to say yes but i dont know the specifics. Or the particulars about the areas you are referring to. I want to be clear about this we want to work with you. We have the best opportunity we have had in the last 117 years. We dont have all the answers nor do we want to if you have an opportunity there, lets sit down and talk about what that opportunity is and what will be required to implement that opportunity. Like the sign says, we are open for business so lets look at some opportunities and projects and see if they are doable. We do want to make this thing work because we know weve got a tough situation out there on the landscape area we have said we want to clear restore 20 million federal acres but another 30 million private, tribal and other lands. Thats a lot of work that we are trying to commit to and we want to be smart and strategic and the challenge, no matter where we go, there are places we didnt go that will feel left out. In terms of priorities and how we choose these and what is the criteria for these priorities, thats where we can use some help. No matter where we go or how we get there, there will be some that is left. We know that and believe me, most of us that work for the Forest Service, we live in the same communities your supervisors are in. We raise our families there so we have a connection there. We do want to try and make things better. Its our livelihoods as well. I think thats the last question we will take today. I have to remind every day that we are being recorded for cspan. I thought maybe that was appropriate to tell you. The panel knew but you didnt know. [laughter] thank you chief, for your hard work to reduce the impact of wildfires in our communities. Thank you. [applause] the United States department of interior has also received substantial new investments from congress to reduce wildfire threats on federal lands from mechanical thinning and control earns in the removal of invasive species. The department of Interior Office of wildfire directive will discuss how governmental partners and private stakeholders can work with Agency Personnel to target investments to landscapes and at the greatest risk of catastrophic fire. Please welcome director jeff ruppert. [applause] thanks, very much appreciate it. I cant help it come i have to take the opportunity to share with you all that i grew up in a little farm town growing soybeans north of kansas city which means i grew up in kansas city in the 70s and 80s when following the chiefs was a difficult thing to do. For someone like me, i appreciate where the chief nation is now. Thanks much. The department of the interior of office of wildfire, what i represent is a cross between four Land Management bureaus, bureau of Land Management, National Park service, u. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Life system and the bureau of indian affairs. Nearly all of the operational capacity interior and the wildfire management programs sits in those Land Management bureaus and thats important for all of you at that local level. That means where we have that connection and where we are working to address all of the topics that now talk about some of the high level accomplishments and the work we have going on in those areas. All of that coordination really exists within those Land Management bureaus at the local level like with phil unit managers and park superintendents, important relationships for the interior. I will talk a little bit about what we have accomplished. There was a real focus and infrastructure because it really has been substantial Additional Support for interior for the wild wildfire management program. What is the future look like for interior over the next four years of infrastructure implementation . Im really interested to hear from you all whats working and what isnt working and what do we need to know in the interior to focus on for us to realize the change that we really want to make with this Additional Support thats coming in through infrastructure. It has been a little over a year since infrastructure was passed. It is described by many, myself included, as an historic investment. It is a substantial increase in support for interior and wildfire management programs. It is helping to drive expanded delivery as well as there are a lot of requirements that are helping us drive that change management. And how we are doing business around wildlife and fire both before during and after a fire. Over the past year, we really have laid the groundwork to implement that additional investment and it allocated nearly two much million to increase wildlife and wildfire pay and expand the mitigation and resilience work we are doing in post recovery work. If you are close to wildfire, youre probably aware that there is a real focus on wildfire work reform. Infrastructure specifically directed us to increase federal wildfire fighter pay. We have done that over the past year, we have increased pay to all of our wildlife wildFire Fighters and we will provide that support under infrastructure. Infrastructure doesnt last forever so we are also very much working hard to strategically come up with a longterm strategy and a longterm approach for essentially that Additional Support to become permanent. Thats important because thats a fundamental part of how we think about addressing the challenge that is already been talked about and that is the real challenge around recruiting and retaining wildlife and wildFire Fighters. We are experiencing in a federal level but across the whole country. We think, based on what we hear from Fire Fighters that this compensation issue is in an wharton issue. The other thing we are doing on our infrastructure is we are looking at how we classify wild and firefighters. Its been a contention in the agency for years and that wild and Firefighters Want to be recognized as professional wild and firefighters and the way our position classification framework has been for many years, we call them wild and firefighters but when they look at their Position Description and responsibility, thats not what they are called we have been working jointly with usda Forest Service as well as office of personnel across the federal government and have established a new wild and firefighter, professional series and that we are in the process of implementing that so that wild and firefighters have that professional title as well as we are addressing sort of all of the qualifications and establishing clear lines of Career Development so when someone comes in and enters the workforce as an entrylevel firefighter, they have a clear path to becoming a senior manager and see a full career in front of them. From everything we hear from wild and firefighters, this is an important change we are making. Importantly, we are also jointly working with usda. We are developing a joint health and wellbeing program that really focuses providing Mental Health support and taking steps to reduce exposure to line of duty hazards. Our next big step in an effort to develop this joint program which expands upon a lot of the support we currently provide will be this coming april when we hold a summit where we will bring Mental Health experts and wild and firefighters together to start to really lay out an evidencebased expansion of health and wellness expanded program. We are excited about the expansion of this program and real excited about this next step in april. I am convinced that these efforts will help the department to better respond to what many people call the new normal for wild and fire, this trend weve been on, catastrophic mega fire and all the impacts that come along with it. We feel this is a critically important piece because Everything Else i will talk about and highlight, none of it is possible without a good, solid wild and firefighter workforce so making these workforce reforms and changes is to clean written. We are working on more than just workforce reform. With support from the infrastructure law over this past year, we completed over 2 million acres of fuel reduction so thats prefire Risk Reduction. Thats good prevention work across the country. As we move into 23 now, we are expecting to increase that fuel work by another 800,000 acres. So we are on a good solid trajectory of increasing the amount of Risk Reduction work occurring across the country. Weve gotten a really good start on it in the first half of this year. We feel like we are on a confident trajectory there. I will say that its not about treating acres, its about bringing a priority focus on where you were treating acres, how you are partnering to treat acres at that broader scale, the landscape scale, the watershed scale in developing shared strategies to reduce that risk, working at the county level or local communities or other federal partners and tribes so that its not just about what is our plan on a particular interior administered piece of land but what is that shared strategy to reduce risk at a scale that makes a difference. When you look at mega fires, the really rare, very infrequent 500 thousand acre fire, much less a million acre fire, we see that every year multiple times. Its no big deal for us to deploy Incident Management Teams to five hundred thousand acre plus buyers. Its a horrible trajectory so that Risk Reduction and prevention has to be on an equivalent scale and that makes it multijurisdictional. We have no misconception that the secret Silver Bullet to making that work is all about local communities all about working with local interests interested parties to develop the shared strategies we have also similarly expanded our work and that recovery rehab space as well. Last year, we completed more than 360,000 acres of postfire emergency stabilization and burned area rehabilitation so thats all post Fire Recovery work and i will say the same thing that i said about prefire and the Risk Reduction work, we are working very hard to expand the multijurisdictional coordination to deliver post fire. In that prefire Risk Reduction space, we have been on a trajectory and we talked a lot about multijurisdictional coordination to address Risk Reduction and weve been talking about that seriously for a number of years now the post fire, at least from my perspective, that priority focus on post fire coordination is a little more recent. I am really excited about the laser focus that i think is becoming apparent now about how do we more effectively coordinate multijurisdictional and cross programmatically in the post fire space. When you look at a broad range of recovery programs that are out there, theres a lot of opportunity for us to improve that post fire coordination and there is a good solid focus on that now. I dont know that was necessarily the case a few years ago so i think we have at least got the right focus in place now. Now we just need to make progress and make really good use of the investments and all the expectations that go along with that to get more effective coordination in place. There is good supportive infrastructure as well. Im looking at improvements to Wildfire Response capability so things focused on firefighter and Public Safety and things like radio interoperability, satellite the texan Technology Satellite detection technology. We have always had a pretty open sort of partner focused, coordination and culture in many ways but infrastructure is really doubled down on that. Looking at these technology advancements, we are working with organizations like noaah with satellite detection capability on board and the department of defense and nasa, it is an expanding partnership and coordination which is clearly going to be impactful in this capability space. Again, infrastructure is playing a huge role in helping to be a catalyst that increases the expectation for all of us that we will work through these change management challenges. I think i will jump down to the and and hopefully leave some time to hear whats working. I will take that for sure but more importantly, whats not working and what kind of focus do we need to bring. To more effectively deliver on all of this. Im just going to reemphasize crystalclear recognition of the importance of working with local communities, with counties and local governments and private landowners to realize those shared opportunities to reduce risk before a fire, better respond to fire and more effectively recover after a fire which really just sets you up to essentially be prepared for the next buyer so it really is that full cycle. I will stop there and hopefully there is questions or feedback. Q a is my mike honda . Before we take q a i would like to take about a 15 minute break. Just kidding. [laughter] you should have seen the look on his face. Right here. Thank you for being here today. This is not a negative comment but you mention multijurisdictional approaches and lot of resources. Forest behavior is out of control. I am from telluride county colorado which is first county west of Colorado Springs which is half auras and lots of smaller pieces. I think the speakers before have highlighted the challenges. There are jurisdictional questions, there are folks that i talked to that look in me and say i hear you but its public and thats all i want. With all this money and all this focus multijurisdictional, have you given thoughts to enforcement and education . After Labor Day Weekend last year anna blm property in our county, we had over 54 smoldering fires left on blm and they were discovered by 70 or 80yearolds and they realize you cannot stop that behavior but if we can educate, i havent heard a lot of that i think its an unfair burden on this. On us. Thanks for the feedback, very much appreciated. With the increasing focus in the increasing guidance and increasing encouragement, whatever qualifier fits in that that character of trying to facilitate more coordination that multijurisdictional scale, there are excellent examples of that around the country and as ive traveled around and visited places, i am recognizing that some of those model multijurisdictional efforts that are in place might still be the exception as opposed to the rule and as part of the effort here is how to make that the general rule. Specifically, enforcement, a lot of complexity there and you probably understand that at her than i do, quite frankly. It certainly resonates with me that the enforcement piece is an important one and a challenging one and the same kind of route treatment, retention challenges we talk about in fire and other sectors is also present in Law Enforcement but not necessarily the kind of direct budget relationship between a wild and fire program in reeses and lawn oarsmen. Within the Land Management agencies, we have lots of opportunities to bring real integrated approaches to how we address those integrated challenges. I dont know that ive got a magic answer of what we need to do, but i can assure you that the direction we are going and certainly the expectation that everyone in interior, folks across the Land Management agencies are dealing with these problems understand how we Work Together and how we address those real complicated challenges. We are all expected to be a part of that. Question upfront here . You must be farther up the food chain than me. Commissioner leland pollock, garfield county, utah and you look familiar because it looks like you been interior with interior for a while. The years fly by. I will jump into something you can do to help us and a lot of us in this room share this same issue and problem. Juniper is a noxious weed, believe me nothing grows under it. I dont know why the tree hovers like it is nobody else likes it. We are having a very difficult time on the Grand Staircase National Monument because its blm land and is not a monument, its a rangeland. We need your help to get the restrictions off of areas like that and across the west so we can start getting rid of this noxious weed, its really like a shrub. Will you help us with that . Yes, and thank you. I dont know that a month goes by when the notion of compliance and deficiencies and how we better deliver on that planning and compliance issues that thats not a major focus. Whether its congressional hearings, internal workshops and strategies, i hear you and thanks. Yeah, i think i will certainly reinforce it and forever and forever its worth, theres not a lack of engagement were awareness, its trying to figure out what are the steps we can take to really start to address this. I will take the opportunity to hit on the earlier team, the this is a closed captioning test. This is a closed captioning test. This is a closed captioning test. This is a closed captioning test. This is a closed captioning test. Risk reduction. Stakeholders, working together, in place. One of the reasons that is is when you have the Broad Spectrum of folks that are interested in these issues and topics at that local community level, sitting at the same table, talking about the same solutions, it helps with some of the legal challenge side a lot of these kind of efforts. Its not the only solution, but certainly trying to get as many folks at that local level together to talk about real strategic rest reduction together. At least in some parts where ive seen efforts in place, it seems to help. Its not the only solution, but it seems to help. I want to go back to the previous question. Sorry he couldnt stay with you through the whole session, he had a prior commitment, and what i want to speak to is about the question of Law Enforcement. There is no provision, per se, around Law Enforcement. There is a provision around collaborating, communities could get your question around, education. We will explore this as one of the first times weve heard the particular comment. I will definitely take that back and explore and see what opportunities it might have there. Thank, you brian. We have a question to the right. Thank you, mister, im khalid roberts from jackson county, oregon, i know it spoken in the past. As far as catastrophic wildfire, i cannot let it go without a comment, first of all, we received great coordination with our federal agencies in our county. Less than 100 acres burned in the last fire season. Huge success story, they do full suppression initial attack when its our state declare fire season. It is successful. We have an overarching 30 year old fire policy that allows prescribed fire no matter what the time of year, season or ground conditions. In the west, it has been horribly devastating. So hopefully itll take a look at it. Ive got packets for any of you that wanted with recommendations, with a resolution, with our nato resolution to amend that policy. So hopefully itll take a look at it and i appreciate the time and for your attention on this. Thanks for the feedback, i wont leave without grabbing your packet. Thank you. Question right in front. Middle of the room. Robert lee, rose by county, southeastern montana, you talk about mitigation, in the south end of our county we have a lot of cool, a lot of coal seams, we have been having problems with coal seam fires. Those cool seems get rue burned, they burn underground for years. And then eventually they drop in, they sort of fire when you least expect it. And it seems like if the coal federal coal, if they can, minute if its not moderate will then its not federal coal. It ends up on the counties. We have four counties and two tribes that Work Together to try to mitigated. We have flown it, we have identified the issues in health and mitigating. We have a small fire here a couple years ago, it burned 175,000 acres. It was caused by a coal seam. We are working, on it but we can show you some federal help to help mitigate these areas, its a very Rough Country and very difficult and almost impossible to stop. Yes, thanks for that, you know, in terms of fire surfaces that get going, that i understand, in terms of coal seam fires. I can honestly say ive got a whole lot of inner cider experience with the potential solutions there, but thanks for that. We have time for one more question right here. To your left. Jack, i get county, utah. Thank you for the collaborative approach in the work you do to pull things together that way. One of the questions ive got, and it may be kind of a paradigm shift as i hear you speak, the infrastructure, i hear you speaking of infrastructure within your agencies. What about the idea that our watersheds our infrastructure and those monies can be applied whether it is prefire mitigation efforts, or whether they fit the rules of the rule to be able to look at things that way, so that we have those diverse landscapes, whether its getting into the things that commissioner pollack was talking about with the p. J. Efforts, or any other thing. Especially as it relates to being able to get past lucia just nature. Some of our ngos, as we get this work done, and my thinking waits outside the box . No, i dont think, so and i glossed over a couple of my bullets there to lead time. But you are one of infrastructure and probably a bit lazy with how i use infrastructure. Infrastructure law, bipartisan infrastructure law, it provided this dramatic expended rips support for us. Year one, a lot of our implementation, there is whole workforce piece, set that aside a little bit, our implementation focused on prefire rescreen action. PostFire Recovery and rehabilitation. A lot of that year one effort was really built on the project portfolios that and the planning that we had in place as we were carrying work forward. With some of the workforce focus, Additional Support we have seen, like in our annual we expansion of our capacity. We are now having some success in that regard, which is setting us up to really start to expand out our Risk Reduction work in the direction that you are talking about. For example, one of the things that we are looking at right now, a process of moving a proposal forward, is looking at watersheds, watershed Risk Reduction, looking at how we can most effectively really have that solid collaboration in partnership not just on the land that we are administering, but also on adjacent lands and lands that are in need of attention that have that benefit of reducing the overall risks. I very much see not being relevant and us working really hard to try to move in that direction. So we can have a more effective impact in that broader scale. The water should scale. We thank you, director rupert. Lets give him a hand, and applause, we appreciate his efforts to improve the health landscapes and watersheds. The Forest Products industry plays a Critical Role in maintaining healthy federal forests, reducing fire, wildfire threats and for protecting watersheds. Bill to randy moore bill imbergamo, executive director of the resource supports healthy lands and local economies. Well also highlighting the creation of the recently developed coalition of inter governmental partners. Industry groups and conservation lists work with federal land agencies on the implementation of federal funds. Please welcome bill ember go bill imbergamo. Hi there. I know two things for sure, two things only, it is 3 30 pm, when i went to the coffee station theyll head decaf. So i will do everything i can to keep you awake. Im just being realistic. Thanks for having me here, i appreciate the opportunity. My name is bill imbergamo im with the federal force resource coalition. I represent sawmills, loggers, trackers, ive got the salt River Project in arizona as a member of mine. A couple county governments. Im scattered around. I have National Wild turkey federation, but mostly i have family run sawmills in other Forest Companies that depend on Forest Service and blm timber for all or some of their fiber supplies. There is a lot of assumptions when i get in front of a group, people understand why having a Forest Products industry would be good, in case you dont know that, one of the biggest problems we have with wildfires is forest overstocking. Brush is a problem. Chaparral is a problem, grass is a problem. Homes being built into brush, grass and chaparral is a problem. Forest fires are a problem and a big driver of that problem is overly dense forested we. This tends to generate hot, fastmoving wildfires, can become wind driven, can turn into wildfires that blew out into the chaparral and the communities. You get things like the fires we had in colorado and the santa rosa fire a couple years ago where you had wildfire. The fuel tapes houses. And the point, i would like to make strongly, is we cant protect those communities if we are only working where you can see the houses. We need to be protecting watersheds, we need to protect wildlife habitat, we need to work away from the community so that fires dont burn into the communities with that kind of velocity. So the chief, mr. Rupert, you discussed a lot of these things. I want to provide a little bit more context. The infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act are important, but there has been other good things that have happened in the last several years. Things that several previous chiefs and blm directors have asked for. The farm bills of 2014 in 2018 created permanent stewardship contracting authority. Its an important method of getting work done, it doesnt actually change how you do things, it just changes the contracting method and able to see the trade good for services. So eggs being a Good Neighbor authority to all 50. States its been a Pilot Project, its kind of funny, there were two authorities on the books simultaneously. I was never quite sure the Forest Service was using. And it created the insect and disease categorical exclusion and expanded the purposes of that in 2018, to include hazardous fuel reduction. Then we had the 2018 if you go back and look when some of the earlier years of the 20 teens here, we had chiefs get up in front of congress and say, far borrowing is our problem, we need to fix fireable rolling. It took me longer than it shouldve but it happened in 2018, we also got a partial fix to the cottonwood issue. And if youre not familiar with cottonwood, i will give you a 32nd summary of, it it is enabled environmental litigators to get injunctions against Forest Service management to force them to go back and consult the forest plan, even if the model or service had no concerns about the project. And of, the words the project didnt trigger, take, jeopardy when endangered species, but they made them go back and look at the plant, some of the plans are old enough to vote, some were written when i graduated high school, im not gonna say when that was, so weve got a partial cottonwood fix, and when he didnt get the fire borrowing fix, and then the green american outdoors act. It provides mandatory funding. It doesnt go through the annual charade, the exercise of spending bills. So there is mandatory money for Forest Service roads, trails and infrastructure. Not enough and not for all of it, but theres mandatory money there. Obviously the idea and Inflation Reduction Act, only for a Service Friends callng the bill. Wel that was me guys. But now it is this. Ida was a lot of money. There is 1. 5 billion of it that wa for feel reduction, most of them some of them favor prescribed fire and it was 400 million for industry assistance and it was very poorly defined in terms of keeping other materials from federal lands. There are two categories to other 30s, categorical exclusion and, i assume folks know what that is. It just means you dont have to do additional nepa, the activity is presumed to not create a Significant Impact on the human environment. A new authority for emergency actions and Inflation Reduction Act provided by 1. 5 billion. When you combine that with the two bills. There was 800 million in the 2022 with the first cr from 2022. I apologize. And additional fuel reduction, hurricane recovery, Fire Recovery, 67 billion combined for Forest Service and d. O. I. For fuel reduction safety. Five in seven years. This is a significant amount of money. It was appropriated in complete ignorance to what the Forest Service and interior butter structures. Are they struggle with that a little bit. But its a substantial amount of money and my industry, where it exists, is there to help get more done on the ground. Now, again, i mentioned fuel overstocking. These are caveats. We are not the panacea, there are no civil bullets. Not all trees are fuel, not all fuels are trees, and not all timber harvest is fuel reduction work. Its, true theyre all kind of other timber harvest. Two and we create habitat in several types in the late states, appalachians, theres all kinds of areas where theres not a lot of young forests. We can do stuff with timber harvest. But these things are all trivial and i dont ev claim that what needs to happen is we need to harvest every eagleof the National Forest system. But there is value on the mp, e is no reason why the cant help pay additional treatments. It help reduce fuels on the acres that have the timber, and you can generate revenue to pay for other noncommercial activities. Prescribed fires, ilife habitats and permits. Is a stand of , i took this picture on friday on the prescott National Forest, this is arizona. I assure you is not a hotbed of the Forest Products industry. I did not drive around and visit two or three males. This project paid its way out of the woods. Its all downhill from the spot to a pallet mill just outside of phoenix. They get a gravity assistant makes their whole a little bit cheaper. The important thing to realize, again, in all of these funds, in all of these authorities, this did not open a single new acre of National Forest or blm plan to harvest. It wasnt already available. Did not wave a single forest plan environment. It did not waive any endangered species considerations. Its five miles away from a mexican nest. The little toured didnt show himself so i cannot end my bird list, and he can be my brother. In restrictions and iija, and other, irate i just want to note that none of those are absolute. There is large tree retention language, and it specifically cited language from the healthy Forest Restoration act, you must retain large trees to the extent that they create fire resilient landscapes. That is not an absolute prohibition on cutting commercialsized trees. There is a direction to focus on the wild land urban interface. All of us in this room have seen it so many times we dont know how strange it sounds to eye ciders. There is a wooing directive, but its not absolute. The two authorities, the emergency actions, theyre not restricted to the wildlife they are general authorities of the Forest Services and blm can use it across the landscape. Where are we . This data, i wanted to get the years that i had data for, and only goes up to 2021. They got iija money starting at the end of this fiscal year. Irate money didnt pass until last year. But i just want to note that we are off to a slow start. Last several years, quite frankly, on the Forest Service, removing the wrong direction. Commercial thinning is a really good way of doing just what i did. Generate revenue, pay for non commercial, worked pay for reforestation. These are numbered acres, commercially thin. As you can see, we are off 45 since 2018. Even while my industry was experiencing a momentary bout of profitability, we saw a commercial timber harvest decline on the national National Forest, when you look at the expedited authorities that the Forest Service was given, the fuel categorical explosion, they proved five of those in fiscal year 2021, covering fewer than 13,000 acres. That is extremely concerning. When you get down to this, a lot of the Environmental Community says, well you should only be tweeting right next to homes and protecting communities. Thats exactly with the 30th. For i sincerely feel that every nfs unit and probably most blm district around the country have some idea of a place where they could use a field break. For only five of them to be approved in the first fiscal year, i think there were seven more on the books, they were going to the process, as of november last year quite frankly that is not enough. This should be extraordinarily non controversial. Also, bluntly there is an over reliance on prescribed fire. There is an over promotion of prescribed fire. When you hear the Forest Service say that they prescribed burn or two acres of phil, treatment roughly 1 million acres of that is prescribed burning in Forest Service regions. Sub, coit is great stuff, it creates good turkey habitat, he needs all the help he can get, getting a turkey, and theres nothing wrong with it. But it is not helping address the fuel boating on forest lands in the west that are driving these large fires, large Fire Suppression cost and interest to communities. We also see back brands being used in suppression operations that are subsequently claimed or hazardous fuel reduction. I think there is a lot more scrutiny on this since the nbc news story about september of last year on this topic. My hope is that the focus doesnt go away on. That timber harvest, you know, acres are important. Mind members you cant run an acre across saw and make bored out of. It you need logs. When weve seen decline since, again, i believe this is 2019 dropping down to 2021. We saw a slight bump up in outputs in 2022 we, primarily driven by some salvage in california, but these have been in the areas where members are most dependent on Forest Service timber. Montana, north idaho, colorado, wyoming, south dakota, california, oregon and wash again. Region six is oregon and washington. 20 year low and fiscal outputs in 2022. The other bars of her 2021. This is a problem. Ive had five mills closed in the last two, years all of them have relied on the Forest Service for at least half of their timber supply. I had other members who are investing as fast as they could, as far away as they could freedom for service. Building new mills, upgrading old mills. We saw five, close to an oregon, one of, montana one and idaho, one in south dakota. That is a bad direction. So i guess what im here to say is, we really need to change our thinking. You know, it is pretty easy. This is a picture from the summer 2020. I hope its public domain. If that is my hometown, new york city, im actually from outside of new york city, i stumbled into forestry, dont ask. But you, know, that was the air quality in august of 2020. My nephew lives in. Connecticut he called me uncle bill, why is it so . Smoky my wife was driving to wilmington, north carolina, she had to slow down on i40 outside of wilmington because smoke from oregon and washington National Forest wildfires made it so thick you can see where you are going in north carolina. Structural risk ignition cannot be the metric for would what defined the community at risk. Portland, oregon, seattle, san francisco, eugene, they were never in danger, they were never in danger of burning down, but in the summers of 2020, and the summers of 2021, no one could go outside for three weeks, not unhealthy for sensitive groups, unhealthy for humans. So we need to think differently, we need to think about protecting the entire watershed, the entire community. This is the kind of stuff not just being set on fire. Being southern fire is bad, we have the change or definition of protection, and what is protected. You all know that a large portion of the National Forest is humanless and robust. We shou t go in there to look for additional timber harvest. But wn have species outside of thes areas, the protection strategies were based on scien tat was written in the 1990s. In the 1990s the assumption was that the list of species is up here, chris, flee links three flavors of spotted o, mexican california lion. All of these new done for us, this is the best habitat for them. This is the plymouth National Forest. This was habitat. This is the northern spotte owl. That one ive actually seen. And the Forest Service tried for six years to reduce fire. Danger and they were litigated and blocked at every turn. And the chips fire destroyed this entire watershed, there were 20 spotted owl protected Activity Centers. How protected do those look to you guys . Not very well protected. So this is something that is a change that has to take play for overtime as we have our recovery plan. I heard good news when i was in arizona last week, i heard that the Wildlife Service is basically told the Forest Service they will sign off to protect Activity Centers as they can get. They know that we are losing these things in these catastrophic fires. So, what is to be done . A lot of this was implied. Every National Forest in the west, this year, they should have at least one fuel break categorical exclusion. We should have won emergency actions authority on every National Forest in the west. We need to enact permanent cottonwood reform that addresses all four aspects of the cottonwood issue, and id be happy to dig into that more during q a. And, again as we, said over time, we need to start challenging the assumptions about what counts protected. How are we maintaining habitats for species . We have some species in the eastern u. S. That respond really really well to timber management. Theyre listed species. The currents were blur was taken off the endangered species list because they clearcut the ottawa National Forest and created the habitat that it needs. We thin in woodpecker have a, tuck all across the, region and we create habitat that the endangered species needs to thrive. So we need to start challenging those things. We need to acknowledge half the Forest Service, half the National Forest, wilderness. There is National Monuments, theres a lot of scenic river corridors, its hard to sort out where the overlap is. But its at least 50 of the acres. Were not talking about entering those. Acres were trying to work on other acres. , again the over promotion of prescribed fire, that is a graph that i showed you, it was thinned in 2016. Its been prescribed burned twice since then. I asked the Forest Service, folks is there any way you could have introduced prescribed fire into the stand without doing the commercial thin first and they said absolutely not. It wouldve looked like that picture of the chips fire. And then again we need to stop counting back burn operations as hazardous fuel reduction. When its being done during suppression ops, and we need to keep the industry that we have. Quite frankly, there is a lot of talk about creating new wood using industries in the last if theyre not colocated with an existing Forest Products facility, i am and its not just because i work for the existing ones, i would hope sunday would work for the future ones, the im putting somebody to sleep. You know, there is a problem with investment of scale. Again, capital wants to work in Wood Products in the Wood Products space, it can invest anywhere. Anywhere. And if you have the choice of investing where half or more of the timberland is owned by a federal agency that can be sued. Dragged into court, joined, threatened, or you can invest in alabama, where they have a 330day growing season, and an extraordinarily pro business attitude and 85 of the timberlands private, then youre going to invest. So we keep the installed capacity where it is, build new products, new demand around those facilities. The idea that we are going to launch new industry into some of these areas that either never had, it or lost 30 years ago, when we listed a spotted owl, it is challenging to put it mildly. Lastly, you know, i mentioned this summer of 2020. Its not just a problem because my family was impacted. You all live through this. We called it an emergency. Weve got congresss attention. Congress reacted to what happened in past these laws. Now, as we have gone into implementation, that sense of urgency that we had that summer, the sense of urgency you have whenever there is a wildfire, it is missing. We need to get it back and we need to get in front of mind, we all need to act in the wet months that we are in the same way we do when we think about it in july in august when the skies black and gray on the east coast. I will shut up and take questions. Someone has to ask a question. I am from new mexico, i represent los alamos county. I am from rio rebuy county. Prescribed burns have heard burned hundreds of thousands of acres across our state, i appreciate your comments about not overselling prescribed burns. Right now, in our legislature, we have a few bills being put forward to deny the Forest Service the right to do any prescribed burns during the spring. Its a very unpredictable time of the year for us in terms of winds. So not sure whats gonna happen with that legislation. The other issue is that we have traditional communities and tribal communities that are used to they used to clear the forest, that was part of something that they did, it was part of their heritage, and our culture, and they no longer are able to do that. New mexico listed it as an area where you have a male. We i dont know if i should ask, get people from those counties in touch with you or if there is something we can do to make it possible for those traditional communities to restart those activities in the forest. Yeah, its actually interesting. I only learned this in the last 18 months, apparently in the 1970s, you still have some california tribes who were doing their thing on the National Forest. They were going out and burning when it was appropriate to burn, and they know theyre doing. And the Forest Service was extraordinarily proud of stopping them. And, you know, the history of Fire Suppression is fascinating. I think we need to get folks to understand prescribed fire is a tool, but it is not a Silver Bullet. One area might work in new mexico, in particular, tribal force protection act. Tried to work better understanding around how to get prescribed fire onto the landscape. Through tribal force protection act agreement. That way you could lay out the parameters around when he, burned what you have to do first, and that kind of thing. That is my first initial suggestion. On the spring burns thing, we truly incredible thing to me about hermits peak fire was that it was 22 years to the week from the los alamos senator grande fire, literally just 22 years later somebody goes out and the tool they had was a drip torch. They were using 14 year old neva when, now, thats wrong, eight year old neva, and the thinnings, the mechanical treatments that have been, done were done six years prior. They were temporarily enjoined by an injunction out of the wild earth guardians case of new mexico. It was a trifecta. My membership, i had portions of them who say no, they should never burn another acre ever again. And i have others going you know, its an important tool, but when the agency screws up like that, quite, frankly and they do it at the same place that the park service to the 22 years before, theyre gonna get stuff like. That when the sarah grande happened in new mexico, forest trust said to me that Anyone Running around northern mexico in the drip torch is not a resource manager, they are arsonist. So when. Another question . Hello, my name is heidi. Im from Trinity County, california, at the north. We live right on the edge of the court fire a couple years ago that destroyed a good portion of the western side of redding, california. The monument fire, the national, fire we have fires every year for the last five years. Starting to lose track of . The ice meal to remember all the big. Fires when your wardrobe consists of fire tshirts, youre living the dream. Thats how i keep. Track its really funny. Conversations with, what fire was that before after . Yeah, so thats our world. But i belong to the prescribed burn association. It is a new type of organization springing up all over northern california, precisely to do prescribed burning, partnering with our tribes, and making this happen. We joke and say that we had the drip torch girls because a lot of the women burn intentionally for class get material and for Different Things that are used in regalia. You can look online if anybody wants to watch the youtube videos of women burning. Its kind of cool. But i want to encourage the idea of prescribed burn associations. They are neat. They are a unique way to get all the different local voices involved in prescribed burning. And it is springing up all over the northern part of california if you want to check into that. We do tremendous amount of prescribed burning in our county, the Trinity County Research Conservation district is the largest. They put more fire on the ground than anybody else. They are a great partner for us and i would just encourage you guys to win fires interesting in the fall, it smells really good in august, it smells horrifying. And its a unique thing. And its hard to recover from when its done incorrectly. And we are just hoping that the trump from your after your of fires can start going away and we are gonna do it through prescribed burning. It works for us where we are, i realize its not good for different places. Question over here. Thanks, lorraine kamala, from urban utah county, we have some some of us had to leave but a lot of concerns just like all of, you including in urban utah, our county and other counties do the flight control, so all of those runoffs coming off from the mountain, the melt from the snow pack, which youre this year we will have a snow pack again. We have not been getting. That and so when we do have moisture in the spring the grasses grow. Weve had serious fires in urban county, north of salt lake city. Ive been listening intently. I came here to learn from all of. You we have, again, the county has those flood channels to care for. It does overlap a little bit, or at least it is all really close with some of our cities and land that they have. The homes that back up to them. Some of those subdivisions have wooden roofs when that was popular back in the day. They also have landscape that is, what is the name of, it scrub oak. That is all incredibly dry. Because of the drought we have not been watering our yards. And so the concern for fire coming down from the mountain, and right through a flood channel into these neighborhoods with their scrub oak and their grasses that have ground, and the winds, we have people in farmington, utah, davis county, who let us know that they are sleeping with their windows open at night so they can smell the fire and get out fast enough. So im just gonna say, and addition to rural utah, you know, there is Forest Service land there, there is some cities, counties, theres the flood channels, its pretty serious stuff. We have been having meetings to try to figure out what we can do proactively. To me, its all about prevention. The best that we can. Thats what were trying to work. On trying to work at the grand some of that. Letting you know that its hitting urban utah as well. Yeah. For sure a lot of bigger towns are faced with this kind of challenge. You know, utah is another place at the Forest Products industry was never particularly large. And the one thing i will say on that point, yes, there should be federal help on the, stuff but, boy it a lot of the suffice on arizona, ive seen in colorado in montana, you get the subdivisions in the mountains. I was shocked at the resistance that was conveyed to be by the local for Service Folks that they talk to the community, trying to tell them he need to, thin creek defensible space, we stopped the firewood directly against the house. All true. You need to be a pretty slow learned of a cabin in the woods in the west right now. And not be thinking about those issues. But for the Forest Service and the federal partners, my opinion is they need to focus on their side of the line. There are really competent state forestry agencies, there are competent fire county departments, yes, we need to Work Together on this stuff, but there is a lot of capacity to help land owners at the non federal level, and just being plant here, time is the only limited resource. Any minute for Service Person spends talking to a local community about what they ought to do is admit theyre not spending designing fuel treatments and putting them on the ground. Making it less likely that when the fire gets to that boundary that is not going 80 miles an hour, like a fire that burned into paradise, california. Just to pick one out of the hat. I think they are giving me the hook. All right, im done. [applause] thank you, bill, for your efforts to improve the Timber Academy and the benefit to our landscapes, and communities surrounding federal lands, i hope i pronounced your name correctly once today. Did it better than many chairman in congress. Our final presenter is cameron adams, senior policy associate for the wildfire resilience at the Nature Conservancy, he is here to discuss how the Nature Conservancy partnered with bipartisan Research Teams on a National Poll and focus groups on wildfire resilience in key communities throughout the United States. Cameron will inform us about the results of this Public Opinion research, including messaging recommendations to gauge the publics concern for wildfire and support of potential solutions. Please welcome cameron adams. My name is cameron great, thanks everyone for sticking it out to the bitter and with me. Im a senior policy associate for wildfire lands with dnc here at the, see our world office. Presenting to you today about recently commission Public Opinion Polling Research that we did our wildfires to gauge the public understanding and impressions of this issue to help guide our work a little bit more. I want to start by going through a research purpose, a little bit of the methodology that we use and we want to spend the bulk of the time talking through the data. Theyre ready for some charts to help show you what we learned about perceptions and concerns, the interests indifferent solutions that the public has around wildfire. Then we will wrap up looking at Key Takeaways which will include some best practices on public communication around this issue that we learn from this research. On purpose and methods, for those of you who may not be familiar with tncs work, we do a lot on wildfire and different dimensions. Practitioners on the, ground doing prescribed burns and state chapters representing do a lot of local and policy work at the local level. Then we have my team in d. C. Which focuses on federal policy, working with congress and the administration on wildfire resilience issues and one of the greatest examples is a roadmap for wildfire resilience policy solutions that will be publishing early next. Month weve been working on it for over a year, including 100 recommendations to the administration, congress, and sensible policies we get used to build resilience to wildfires right now. We have all this were going, on and we want to make sure that concurrent that work we have a good understanding of the Public Interest in this issue. And the interests in what we can do in terms of investments and actions. Ultimately draw conclusions from this type of Polling Research to help us justify greater action on wildfire resilience. Finetune our communications as we message on this issue. Im not a social scientist, or a poll list or, im just gonna talk a little bit through some of the methods we were lucky enough to work with a bipartisan laurie weigel, on this project who are Environmental Issues. Bipartisan parent, they come together to make sure that the sorts of polling projects dont have any political bias as we devise our questions and methods. This was a National Poll that we had gotten involved in with 2000 responded throughout the u. S. We make sure to over sample and pull perspectives from higher proportions of voters in the west to make sure we were capturing the critical opinion of folks most impacted by this issue. We took a multilateral approach, we had phone interviews, online interviews and really importantly, we did a number of focus groups. In colorado, tennessee, california, focus groups that begin to better understand the nuance of why we were seeing what we were seeing in the numbers and why we got the responses that we did from the statistical analysis. We also did Online Focus Group to tap into more rural voters throughout the west to make sure we capture that opinion. Moving right along into some of the results of what we learned. Starting highlevel, a question that we had put to folks when we were doing pulling Research Back in 2008, which is thinking about your own personal safety, to worry more or less about wildfire than he did five years ago . And you can see back in 2000, eight we had a plurality of respondents saying they actually were less than they did in the previous five. Years 24 said they worried more. Asked this question again last year when we did this research, the results flipped. We jumped up to 44 saying they were a clear increase. It surprised nobody in this room, the public is more aware and more concerned about this issue. Importantly, this is the national. Results if we look to save those responding from the west, these numbers, this is true for a lot of the data, it jumps up, 69 of western voters said they were worried more. We see this show up in a few different places. You know someone whos been affected personally by wildfires or wildfire smoke, we see modest numbers throughout most regions in the u. S. Of folks whove had personal connections. A clear surge in the west for obvious reasons. A lot of stuff going on here. I will break this down. He is the result where we asked for correspondents to decide whether or not each issue. How serious it was for their own community. And so what youre seeing here is percentages of respondents who said these issues were extremely serious or very serious in their community. Wildfire is at the top. This is a great one. Weve had a chance to ask their time to see that change through time. Pretty static through the early 2000s and a market jump this past year, 22 up from our highest Previous Year of voters who thought it was an extreme or serious problem. Clearly demonstrating that, from Environmental Issues, it surging in terms of concern for voters. Just put up a few other issues that we can pull on through time to contrast the results. Poorly planned growth and development that might affect the environment, really high level of overall concerns, 61 saying thats a serious problem. Not a lot has changed through time. Small decreases there. Demonstrating that wildfire surge, its the top tier Environmental Concern for folks. When we came in here to get a sense of where this issue stacks up against other issues beyond environmental ones, i put that same question, a list of issues, how serious is this problem . These are the percentages that said its extreme a very serious. While, fire 63 . These issues like inflation right now are very concerning to the respondents. Other issues like cost of housing, what you pay in taxes, just from the fall sampling, wildfires have all in the center. Its a Environmental Concern but its also competitive with the other issues that are costly be discussed with those concerns. Many voters im not gonna spend a ton of time talking about the political breakdown on this issu but of course we did have a sense from respondents itself reported their Party Affiliation and wanted to know if there was a differce if you look acro party and the level of concern. This is the same question for Senate Voters who think that wildfires are a serious problem. We see 74 of democrats versus 64 of republicans. Theres the 24 point gap that is important as were working on this. When you talk about the pollsters about, this theres pretty much no issue that doesnt show some sort of political signal in the data. So the question becomes less, is there that difference, and more, how big is the difference . To try to judge how politicized this issue is. Put wildfire up here in the middle, just to compare against some issues talking about government waste and inefficiencies. The amount you pay in taxes. Issues that have a huge spread between the two parties surpassing what we see in wildfires by quite a bit. Just to contextualize the difference and show that ultimately it isnt all that divisive of an issue. Still a majority for both parties that think its an extremely serious problem. So we are solution oriented and i mentioned a lot of policy work that my team is doing to make progress on this issue. We really wanted to try to test some of these ideas and get a sense from voters about what we should actually dabout this. Lets buzz through some of the results on that front. A lot of tax on the slide, but ill break it up. We put in the strongmen policy proposal for the respondents. Not a real scenario, just a general idea for potential action that says suppose federal agencies have proposed to work with state and local governments and nonprofits, american tribes to do more proactive wildfire resilience work. That work would involve cutting and removing hazardous vegetation, and then using controlled burning to restore beneficial fired the landscape. We said this work, hypothetically, would cost six billion dollars per year over the next ten years. And that those funds would be distributed throughout all levels of government. Folks could do work on their own land and their own jurisdiction. Broad policy proposal, a few specifics. We put that to the respondents and we first asked if they would support this type of general action on wildfire. We were really curious to see the overwhelming strong support. 82 said they were either strongly supported or somewhat support of the sort of design, only 13 were in opposition. That was great for us, the generic proposal alliance pretty closely with the type of work that were presenting a tnc to get down on the landscape. It was encouraging for us to see that level of support amongst the respondents. So we did a little bit of work to try to break it down and see, well, the level of support change across regions or Political Parties . Regionally, this is showing you all the regions on the left. This total support tabulation on the right, we found no regional signal. This is the first of many results that we found that suggest voters see this as a National Issue with collective responsibility and action. Even in regions where fire is not a pressing issue that we are focused on, still a high level of support for this type of action and investment. Then we also looked at Political Parties. This is a rare instance where we did not see a Strong Political bias. Self reported liberals, 89 supported this title work. Conservatives, 79 . So the ten point difference, ultimately, is still really Strong Majority support regardless of political affiliation. Another important data point for us. A lot going on, here i will break it down for you. Still talking about the same scenario that we put out. There is a lot in there, we are talking about control, burning removal of hazardous, fool billions of dollars an investment. Try to break it down and see if the support stain for each individual component of the policy. Thats what youre seeing. Here we have each of those components listed on the, left than the support again listed on the right. But we really found here is whether it is controlled burning, hazardous fuel removal, distributing federal funds to all levels of government to do this. Work extraordinarily high levels of support, higher levels of support for each individual policy component than we got for the overall policy proposal itself. Encouraging results, nothing that stood out as problematic to the response. Then we pulled out specifically here, in that scenario, we said it would be costing 5 to 6 billion dollars. We wanted to play without a little bit and test voters willingness to embrace that level of spending. We pulled this out and had 75 that felt that that was an appropriate amount. Weve done increased to 50 billion dollars. Tenfold increase per year for the next ten years to see on many respondents would support that. We still saw nine point drop, but 66 in favor of that level of spending to do this work. This is a place where the Qualitative Research and the focus groups helps a lot to try to pull out the reasoning behind this. We and what we really learned is most of the respondents think this work is not optional. The cost is kind of what the cost is. And if told this is gonna cost 50 billion dollars a year to do, they said, lets do it. There is also a lack of sticker shock, based on the sums of money that we talk about. And coming out of congress in recent bills, there was just a pretty strong agreement that we need to spend what it takes to do the work and to do it well. Through these focus, groups we also learned a little bit more about the robust support for hazardous fuel removal and control burning, which were not necessarily sure which level of education there was amongst the general public and wh the support was going to be or lack of support. There was strong support. We dug into it a little bit and we found a high level of education on these issues, and exactly what that work involves, voters, especially from the, west were pretty familiar with what controlled burning meant. Theyre also pretty familiar with the risks. So we did this Research Just a couple of months after the burn in new mexico which came up in the focus groups, largely we heard about the unfortunate situation. There was risk here. But its still an important tool in the tool belt that we need to consider using. So helpful contacts there. Another busy figure, but we really wanted to we laid outll this potential work we had an enormous amount of support to build weah for resilience. Look whos actually responsible for doing . It we gave a lis of potential actors who might bear responsibility to carry out the work. From a great deal of responsibility, down to no responsibility, where doe everyone fall . The first is the middle of the category of everyone. 81 of respondents say everyone has a responsibility. Again, getting at ts point, a lot of data, a feeling that its being collective we all need to support and help address. Voters in the west understand that this is taxpayer dollars that need to be sent, even if its an issue that doesnt affect them directly. All the actors above that category, Public Sector. And so everyone has a responsibility. But we need to look to our Public Sector to carry out this work. No big surprises. There same with the government coming up on top, interestingly, but not far behind is federal agencies and the federal government. Largely, from the focus groups, we heard that the sentiment of, what is government for if not this type of work . It is largescale, it is expensive, it crosses jurisdictional boundaries and its going to take a lot of effort and funding to get it done. This is a government issue and we need to do more for our Public Sector actors to actually get through this and do the work. One of the last ones in is section, we talked through all these possible policy proposals, we dug in a little bitnd we wanted to we dont have 50 billion dollars to do this. Where resources e finite. What if we had to priotize the resources and decide how this money is spentn which communities are highest priority for protection . We have a li of potential communities. Few examples where timber supplies are risk. We asked respondents to do a priority analysishere for support. There is a bit of a hierarchy there. You can see that on the rht. But largely what we learn from this is that voters didnt nt to pick winners and losers. We learned from th 50 billion dollar investment results that they have a willingnesso do what it takes to get the work done and they want to see communities at risk protected, regardless of the assets at risk. Again, communities have High Priorities all still strong majorities for protection. Interesting result there. Okay, just wrapping, up weve got some lessons, learned Key Takeaways, best practices. There is so much more than i couve fit into this powerpoint that we learn. So just trying to sum it up a little bit. Inresting one here, we were curious who the public trusts the most interms of learning d receiving information about wildfire. Who are the key list of potential options, folks who might be good messengers. We wanted voters to tell us if theyrust them a great deal or had suspicions of the actors as messengers . Mt importantly, we know from previous the firefighters are the most trusted on this issue, so much that they obscure the other options. We left the list off to get a sense of the next best messenger. Pa rangers, wildlife biogist are up there. Justimilar trusted subject matter experts. There, place the rest service. 77 total trust. When we tested the federal government at large as a messenger, horrible. Not a lot of trust there. Ranked very low. Did not come out well. For services and individual agency, very trted, respected, folks wa to hear from them on what work has been, done how its bee done best practices on this. A couple of dos and donts, here we have a lot of, these but just wanted to give some examples of how were thinking about messaging and what is the most compelling story as were rking on our advocacy. We want to make sure that we are building off of voters concerns for this rk to help us leverage greater action, greater investment and bring more resources and pport to wildfires zillions efforts. Voter are not nearly as ccerned about wildfire ske. There is not enou education abouthe Health Impacts of smoke amgst all voters. Hesee it as a symptom of the broader oblem. They are not as compelled by stories of alk about smoke mitigatio, they want to address the underlying problem of fire. Keep that in mind. It tested well on a connected fire to the impacts of Climate Change, like drought. There is a good understanding their, voters were pretty compelled by that sort of messaging. When we were making direct connections between Climate Change and fire, things started to break down a little bit. Climate change is still somewhat of a partisan issue. Not quite as compelling of a message and strategy compared to more of indirect connections via other issues like drought. Public really likes the term controlled burning. There is a sense that it is controlled. Right there in the name. It tested much better than prescribed burning. We use that term a lot, like in indigenous and cultural burning. They do not like the freeze wildfire. They find it confusing, which why are the fires resilient . I dont understand . We use this term in a policy focused crowd, its been my job title, e it is not is not compelling with the general public. So thats good for us to know. Lets see, as i mentioned, the last, lied faith state federal manament agencies are key messengers, but we dont want to discount the wildFire Fighters. Lt line, here a few key conclusions intakeaways. We know from this research that the majority of american vers continue to see the condition of american forest as worsening. Wildfires are top tier concerns for ameran voters, not only amongst Environmental Issues but in news issues like inflation, government waste. Theres a strong sense that government and Public Sector acor at all levels avthe biggest responsibility in bringing support to this issue and reducing the risk from severe fires. There is broad support for vast sums of money, in terms of annual investments, in fire Risk Reduction and actions for Land Managementlike control burning and hazardous fuel reductions. Thats it for me. I neglected to put my email on it. But you can follow up with any specific questions, i will take some now as well. Yes . Questions for cameron . You mentioned that state your name im anthony travel from napa county, weve had two fires in the next six years, this is a huge issue for the county. I wanted to share a couple observations and then ask a question. So i just got my supervisor job. I spent a lot of time campaigning last year. And wildfire was either the top or the second issue across the county. So yet, also smoke is a critical issue for our county as an agricultural community. For a, smoke gets into our grapes and ruins the crop. So we also have an understanding that it impacts folks working in the vineyard. So for our community, we would pull a little bit differently on that issue. I will be interested to see if that changes as we understand, as youre seeing the impacts of smoke. But the other piece that we ended up doing was running a measure to see if we could raise funds to do Vegetation Management and that failed. I think we care about it a lot,