[inaudible conversations] good morning. The committee will come to order. We are here today to discuss the outlook for the 2019 wildfire season. As we know, its underway, certainly underway in my state. I know its underway in washington state, california most certainly, and weve all received [inaudible] yeah. West virginia, youre okay right now. But if you look at that map, that red in the southwest is something to Pay Attention to as well. Excuse me. Last week the National Interagency fire center released its monthly wildland fire potential outlook for june through september, and despite relief from the oppressive Drought Conditions this past winter, analysts predict elevated wildfire activity in california, oregon and washington among other areas in the country. Some of the stage is set for fire activity similar to indescribable damage and the staggering loss of life that we saw last year in northern california. We watched in horror as the camp fire engulfed the town of paradise, killing 85 individuals, some of whom were trapped in vehicles on rural roads trying to escape the blaze. So were back again. Over the past week, weve seen an uptick in wildfires nationally. The oregon lake fires back in alaska continues to burn in the donnelly training area. This is a u. S. Army range, and in addition to the hazards of fighting the fire, our folks there are very carefully monitor thing and spot treating the fire as it moves across dod land that contains unexploded ordnance, so just yet another threat that is out there. I understand that the vast majority of our fires are lightning strike, and they predict a lot more lightning in this next week. This weekend in arizona smoke billowing from the mountain fire at the outskirts of phoenix suburbs prompted the closure of a popular weekend campground and marinas in the Tonto National forest. So arizona is seeing it, as senator mcsally knows. A fast moving brush fire in l. A. County triggered a panicked evacuation of hundreds of families from a crowded six flags amusement park. Some patrons reported that they were actually on the roller coaster rides, and ash began burning their eyes. North of sacramento more than 500 firefighters have been working in triple digit heat to tame the san fire. On saturday 22,000 people were left without power when transmission lineses outside the burn area were intentionally deenergized as a precaution. But, you know, this is the new normal out there if we want to try e and deal with some of in the fire threat, what were going to do is turn off the power. Weve seen time and time again how something simple like a small spark on a breezy day can bring about devastating infernos. The mendocino complex fire, which was the largest fire in californias history, was started by a hammer hitting a metal stake. Weve all seen the news accounts of that recently. Every summer we see our home states erupt in flames, and more wildfires are occurring in the east and in the Central States while the fires in the west grow larger and certainly more severe. There are a number of reasons why our forests and our grasslands are increasingly susceptible to fire; a changing climate means drier and warmer weather, much of our nations forest landscapes are unhealthy and overstocked with excess fuel, and the proliferation of disease and insect outbreaks certainly like weve seen in alaska and elsewhere around the country, certainly colorado, that these leave behind large swaths of hazard trees that are ready to ignite like a matchstick out there. In alaska warmer winters have led to a population boom of spruce beetle across nearly one million acres in just a few years now. We have communities on the peninsula and now up in the matsu valley that are just scrambling to remove the dead and the dying trees from neighborhoods along the highways. Year in and year out these factors continue to compound, creating the perfect recipe for longer, costlier and more damaging fire seasons. In 2018 more than 8. 8 million acres burned across the curve, double the average the country, double the average in the 1990s. Haas year was almost the most expensive wildfire season on record, on record. The federal government spent more than 3. 1 billion more than 3. 1 billion in suppression costs. So this is not only a human catastrophe, but certainly a financial cost and increase that is beyond belief. Just a few years ago, back in 2015, we had more than phi million acres five million acres that burned in alaska alone. That was truly a catastrophic year for us. I suppose the good news for that, if you can see any good news in five million acres burned, is that very little in terms of Property Damage because of where these fires were located. But we certainly dont see that with these intense fires in the lower 48. So congress has started to respond by expanding the authorities that federal land managers can use for wildFire Prevention. Weve given the Forest Service greater latitude to partner with states, local governments and tribes to reduce hazards in the larger landscape. Weve streamlined the federal Environmental Review process to expedite projects aimed at restoring our forests to their natural fireadaptive state, and weve initiated a 2 billion increase in how we budget for wildfire suppression. And that change will take effect later this year at the start of fy2020. Without delay, were counting on the Forest Service and the interior department to utilize its full suite of resources for Fire Prevention and active Forest Management. And here in congress well continue to work on additional reforms to reduce the threat of wildfire. So today weve got the a good panel got a good panel to discuss the outlook for the wildfire season. We have from the state of chris maish, testifying on behalf of the National Association of state foresters. Hes been before the committee before, and we welcome you back, chris. Mr. Wade crowfoot is going to discuss the wildfire crisis that is facing the state of california. Representing the department of the interior is jeff rupert, the director of the office of wildland fire. And we have Shawna Lagarza who is the director of fire and aviation management for the u. S. Forest service. She is a longtime Civil Servant of the Forest Service with over 30 years of experience. She was once a hot shot superintendent, began fighting forest fires working her way through college as a young woman. We all know and weve had opportunity here in the committee to discuss the issue of Workplace Safety for women in the Forest Service, particularly those working on fire crews has been a priority for this committee, so i will look forward to your unique perspective on this issue as well as were discussing the issues relating to wildland fires. With that, i will turn to senator manchin for his comments, and then well turn to panel. Amen, chairman. And i want to thank you for holding this hearing and all of you for appearing today to try to help us find solutions that we all need. Before getting to my remarks, id also like to thank a moment to thank all of our take a moment to thank all of our First Responders and firefighters who risk their lives every time they go out to protect us, bravely serving our country day in and day out. They work long, grueling hours, i think you all know that, and in a dangerous job for not much in compensation. We are grateful to them. So, madam chairman, i think the wildfires we have seen the past few years and the aftermath that they leave shows why this is such an important topic for us to discuss, and im eager to learn more from the witnesses today. As Ranking Member from the eastern state, ive listened to my Western State colleagues and continue to learn more about the issues impacting their states. And wildfire has been a repeated topic of discussion. Despite the slow start to this years fire season, i understand wildfires are increasing in intensity, size and frequency. Theyre burning longer, they are harder to control than they were just a few years ago, and no and one of the major reasons for these worsened fires is the change we have going on in climate. Just a couple weeks ago i joined chairman murkowski, senator cantwell, senator barrasso, senator whitehouse to see fisthand the effects Climate Change is having on the arctic and Innovative Solutions aimed at increasing natural resilience through technology. It was truly unbelievable to witness the rapid changes occurring, but as we know with the committees work on other issues, the changes are being felt right here at home, especially during fire season. I believe the time for sensationalism is over and for seeking Climate Solutions. It seems like so many buzz wods gets people words gets people or fired up. Why cant we have Climate Solutions . Because we all know we have to do something. Thatll bring people together. Scientists have shown that the warmer and drier weather has been causing wildfires to burn hotter, faster and for longer periods. In fact, recent studies show the average fire season is now 78 days longer than it was in 1970. Experts are also saying that as Global Temperatures continue to rise, the wildfires that we all experience in the United States will continue to worsen. Research has shown the global temperature increase of one degree fahrenheit will result in 35 more acres burning in wildfires and doubling in our Fire Fighting costs. Obviously, the effects of Climate Change are only beginning, being made worse by our decadeslong history of suppressing all wildfires, even the good fires. And by the lack of Timber Harvesting in our forests, which is something, im sure, that were going to talk about today. Now communities across the country are being con fronted with increasingly dangerous blazes. Last year over 18,000 homes were lost to wilefires. Wildfires. That is 1 in every 7,000 houses in the United States. Think about that. 18,000. As we continue to have these important conversations about Carbon Emissions and increasing resilience in mitigation, wildfires will need to be part of these conversations. Im going to state it again because i think its worth repeating, i am seeking Climate Solutions that will bring people together. Fortunately, i believe that addressing wildfires is a bipartisan issue. Wildfires do not discriminate. They dont care whether youre republican or democrat, they dont care what household that is. If its in their way, theyre going to get it. They have affected both red and blue states equally. Everyone here supports giving our brave men and women the best tools available to do their jobs. I know the that senator cabotwell and senator gardner have shown great leadership to insure that our firefighters have access to state of the art technologies. I also want to take this opportunity to thank senator wyden for his leadership on his wildfire funding bill that was enacted last year, making an additional 2 billion available beginning next year to the agencies who fire fight. I was a cosponsor of the bill because of how important the bill is to my state of West Virginia also. Each year when the Forest Service ran short of funds, it would raid the accounts of the Eastern National forest. The National Forest in West Virginia in order to pay for Fire Fighting. And we understood that. In addition to not being fair, the fire borrowing practice was terribly disruptive to the proper management of these forests. And it directly harmed the surrounding communities that depend on our National Forests. So the fire borrowing legislation was a great start, but there is more work to be done. We need to be looking at new, Innovative Solutions because these are very complex problems without simple answers. So i look forward to hearing from the witnesses about the approach we are taking this year so that our country does not have to repeat the devastation we experienced just last year. Thank you, madam chairman, and thank you to our witnesses, and i look forward to this hearing. Thank you, senator manchin. I appreciate you raising the issue surrounding our trip to arctic. Wildfires in the arctic. We will not resolve that one today but it does speak to what we see in different parts of the world because the winters arene cold enough they kill the beatles that destroy the trees. We see increased drought even without trees we have fires we can recognize that. When i took away from the trip that we had and it was the most amazing trip will we had only read and studied about but to see up close and personal is moving. The nations that are represented they have more than just twoparty systems like wee do all the parties and all the countries not one allows the discussion of Climate Change to be a political divide they all agreed because they are existence depends on something being done and we can all agree it needs to be done d so thank you madame chairman. Introduced each of you to in order that folks know the value that you bring to the discussion the enforcers and the interior to the individual states we welcome you to the committee so the moment your comment about five minutes and as part of the record for having me here today. So to speak about the fire year look out and our agency with the National Regional and state so as you know, already it is wetter than normal conditions across the South Central america and on the west coast but its starting to dry out right now. We are showing increased risk even sending firefighters toe canada. And all those will dry out and with that to be continue to be prepared over the past several years so how do we continue to be prepared so as you know, those comments of the environment that is your topography but that fuel loading there isnt a lot we can do it topography and we have seen the abnormal weather events. So what can we do with weather and topography . We know we have 80 million acres 44 million homes and that urban wildlife interface so when we look on work on that eventually reduce exposure tour firefighters to get in there and attack the fires so theres less fuel laid loading. 86 percent of the fires are human caused. That means 86 percent could be prevented. We have more on the east coast and the westee coast a larger percent are the smaller fires on the east coast we have to workirir together and those with those logistics and communication all across the country we should be very proud we have one of the best assistance fire response we go to other countries to hear about their stories to talk about the system we have intr america. And those to push out those authorities in the 2018 on the bis bill and recently the dingo lacked. In two weeks we have our first ever Animation Technology spending a couple days in boise idaho overwhelming response for accountability and safety across America Program at the local level down at the District Office there is continuous preseason looking at those authorities and those agreements that we have when fire will come into that area so we have pre preparedness plans looking at that on the bis bill for looking at those communities at risk but that pilot study that we hope to look for with those areas that the last thing i like to stay to improve the state of the nations forest work on that Work Environment in the Forest Service. We believe do you inspect your integrity no discrimination at any level we are working on somee initiatives that we know we have to do more to help that situation that concludes my statement. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning to discuss the 2019 wildfire outlook of the program speaking to you last year at this time i said the year ahead would be a challenging one. 2018 could not have been much more than that. That has been a trend the fire season in reality is a fire year facing large are costly more wildfires. We ended 2018 with the destruction of an entire california. E losing billions of dollars of economic losses. It is hard to imagine a repeat of this experience but this is the potential reality. Its difficult to sit here before you to say a challenging year is ahead of us because of the wildfires are more consistently more construct destructive and if we are lucky this will just be challenging so far we see fire activity across the Pacific Northwest that increased potential is expected in july the increased potential is expected to develop inn, washington, idaho along the canadian border, expecting to last through september. Most of hawaii experiencing higher than normal and the rest of the country will see potential through most of the summer. Doesnt mean there is no risk of wildfire and other areashe but it is a normal risk in other areas. While yet we have to see the cost the canadian neighbors are experiencing right now in alberta, we can expect to see them soon. We are vigilant with our readiness and effective with our response and preparedere for 2019. What is dependent on the collaborative work with the executive order to reduce wildfire risk with Fire Management