The collaboration that is what iron to reduce risk to firefighters, communities, and resources and some of the emerging technologies that are changing the way that fires are managed. We are now well into the 2017 fire season. It is certainly a very active one. My friend from montana, i think, is going to share some of what is happening in his state this morning. I think it is appropriate to recognize the heroic acts of the men and women who fight these fires throughout the season. And to recognize the firefighter from montana. And to recognize the firefighter from montana. I will talk about it in my remarks but we lost a firefighter last night in montana. It is our second fatality in two weeks. Know that our hearts and our prayers are with the families but again, this speaks to the realities that we face with our wildfires and are fires around the country, that this is dangerous and unpredictable work. Our thoughts and our prayers are with those who are serving. As of august 1, nearly 39,000 fires have burned almost 5. 5 million acres of land. For comparison, this is an area about the size of the state of new hampshire. In alaska, we have a low fire year this year, 300 fires burning 600,000 acres. It is a lot of land but it is below normal for us, so we are certainly not complaining. Two years ago, in 2015, 5 million acres burned in alaska alone. From the state of alaska, they understand this all too well. 2016 was one of the worst years on record, burning over 10 million acres in total. This committee has spent a lot of time and a lot of good work working on legislation to address the consequences of wildfire. We will continue that work until we arrive at legislative solutions, hopefully sooner than later. What we need is a comprehensive solution that addresses wildfire budgeting and Forest Management. We need to tackle both of those at once. Because we know the wildfire problem is not just a budgeting problem but a management problem. Our Ranking Member senator cantwell along with senator wyden, senator rich gave us a government of solution, the Wildfire Response and Forest Management act. Our proposal included a fiscally responsible fix to permanently and the destructive practice. We require congress to provide resources to the agency upfront, enough to cover 100 of the annual cost of firefighting over the previous 10 years while allowing for a limited cap adjustment when we experience catastrophic years. Our proposal took steps to address the hurdles that stand in the way of incrementing the treatment needed to mitigate wildfire risks, increase firefighter safety, and make our forests more healthy and resilient. We would increase the use of technologies such as drones and gps trackers and fire risk mapping and make needed investments in Community Wildfire protection plans as well as fire watch programs. Our wildfire strategy needs to include all of these important pieces of the management puzzle and we know that other members on our Committee Also have ideas that need to be considered. Our hearing today is focused on oversight of wildFire Management programs and the use of technology. Our goal is a good bill that will fix these problems so the president will be able to sign this into law. We came up short in the last congress but as we will hear today, fires continuing to destroy our lands is a lot more that we could do. There is a lot more that we must do from budgeting, to new technologies, to better Management Practices to save them. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and particularly extend my appreciation to alaskas state forester. With that i will turn to Ranking Member cantwell. Thanks for holding this hearing. Before i begin i want to thank the over 12,000 million women who fight iris the 12th thousand men and women who fight fires in our country. Our thoughts and prayers are with those in montana who have lost lives and the firefighters who are continuing to battle the blazes. These firefighters have been working to save homes, communities and people and sure they are always there to answer the call. Their diligent work has saved many hundreds of residents already this year. The chair mentioned our efforts in the last congress to work diligently together in a bipartisan effort. I can assure all of my colleagues here that there was no stone unturned, no latenight not visited by sheet, myself, our staff, the leadership in the United States senate. And to make a down payment on what our fuel reduction strategies are for the future. We couldnt quite get there with our house colleagues so any of you who think that you can help us get them to Pay Attention in a more serious way, we would be grateful. We have come together on a bipartisan solution in the United States senate to and fire borrowing and make investments for the future and i certainly hope that we can get the intention get the attention to reinvigorate those efforts and pass it when we return later after the summer session. Today, we are here to talk about one of the additional tools we can give firefighters. As of today, 50 more acres have already burned this year and yesterday a forecast report was released that protected the weather was likely to experience above normal wildfires over the next month. That shouldnt surprise people since we know what has been trending the last few years. While in the state of washington we have some fires, the rest of the country is seeing even more impact. Todays hearing is about the tools that we can give to help decrease the risk of firefighting. I want to thank stephen king from being here from washington to talk about the innovative actions the city of wenatchee has been doing. We know all too well from the carlton complex and many other things that impact our state were over 100 million acres burned up in one afternoon, the threat, and how fast these fires can move. So we want to make sure that we are giving new tools to firefighters. If we are seeing a new normal, which i dont want to think that it is normal because this is very stressful for all of our communities, but if we are seeing a new increase because of the dry conditions and the abilities for fire to spread in so many more places more quickly, what can technology do to help us address this and make it safer for the future . A couple of approaches that my colleague senator gardner and i have been working on is to be making sure we are using new technology to help us deal with fires. That is, for the first time ever, wildfire mapping aircraft. The ability for aircraft to fly over these areas and also use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that would generate realtime mapping where the fires are burning, making gps locators to fire crews available, wildfire today refers to the combination of crew location and realtime fire maps as the holy grail of wildland firefighting. Because it improves the safety for our firefighters. This legislation would also increase and encourage federal agencies to take advantage of the tools we have at nasa in order to speed up the planning that goes into effect to prevent after the fire fact of flooding and erosion. These are important issues. I know as we look every year at noaas information working with the forest, we know where our hotspots are going to be. Not that other spots are not going to see an impact because you never know when fires will start but it gives us information about where to catch and put resources so they already available so they are readily available. We want to do better with realtime forecasting information. In washington, we have a gap in the central part of our state. We do not want to have a region less protected because they dont have accurate Weather Forecasting information. We want to build on the state of the technology and to make sure that every Community Knows when and when it should not be sending firefighters out given the Weather Forecast and the challenges we face. So i agree with the chair. We need to work efficiently, we need to work together, we need to get, as im sure we are going to hear about, the hasty response approach that has been used in the central part of washington. That is, to have everybody ready, given the outbreaks of fires in so many locations, to have a hasty response. We also need a hasty response to getting this legislation over the goal line with our house of representatives as well. Thank you for holding this important hearing and thank our witnesses for being here. Our thoughts and prayers are with those families impacted by those fire seasons. Thank you, senator cantwell. Know that my commitments remain to help address this in a way that is going to be more than the jerky way it has been handling, the borrowing that limits the ability of our agencies to do the work that we need to do. So having an approach that will yield in during policy, what we are looking for here. I am pleased to be able to local the panel this morning. We have good input and i appreciate the time that you will spend with us. We will be led off by victoria christiansen, the deputy chief for the state and private Forestry Service and the department of agriculture. Mr. Brian rice is the director for the office of wildfire in the department of the interior. I have mentioned my friend, the state forester for the Alaskan Department of Natural Resources, and he is also here this morning wearing another hat on behalf of the National Association of state foresters. We appreciate your leadership. Mr. Steve king is the Economic Development director of the city of one at she, washington. Of wenatchee washington. We also want to introduce dr. Miller. I of course want to thank both of you for an incredibly important hearing and as the ranking democrat on agriculture and forest tree, i want to work closely with you so we can resolve this so that when we go into the forestry title to focus on prevention and management, all the money isnt transferred over to fight fires. So thank you for that. We have tremendous expertise in mission in michigan and i want to introduce dr. Mary ellen miller who is a Research Engineer in ann arbor. Michigan tech, which is actually in the upper peninsula, way up where i was known not long ago, getting to know the place. She is a leader in Information Technology to solve security, infrastructure, and environmental problems. With the help of nasa, dr. Miller has used models and earth observations to predict erosion and run off after wildfires in colorado and california. Not all of her work is hightech. She also spends plenty of time out in the field with more lowtech tools like bucket gauges and a bucket hat. Thank you for being with us today, dr. Miller. We look forward to hearing your unique scientific insight and how water shows are impacted by wildfires. Thank you senator stabenow. To lead the plan aloft to lead the panel off, we welcome your comments. Members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss and collaborate on reducing wildfire risk. After the events of yesterday, the loss of one of our own, our hearts are heavy and we are sending our condolences to our whole community. It is a very important appropriate time for this discussion. My name is vickie christiansen, deputy chief of forestry for the usda Forest Service. My remarks will be framed by the National Cohesive wildFire Management strategy. A blueprint for building synergies to address the nations growing wildfire challenges. The three goals of the Cohesive Strategy are restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes, creating fire adapted communities and and effective risk space wildfire riskbased Wildfire Response. The commission is devoted to restoring and maintaining resilient landscapes across all jurisdictions. In the National Forest, we achieved 3 million acres of treatment last year. We worked across boundaries with our partners. In 2006, we provided Financial Support to carry out nearly 150,000 acres of treatment on nonfederal land. Since 2006, we have assessed more than 3000 of the steel treatments. When tested by wildfire, 90 of these treatments have shown to reduce the impacts of wildfire. In arizona, the field treatments associated with the White Mountain stewardship project dramatically slows the rate of spread of the wildfire to allow the firefighters to safely protect homes and properties. The Board Service collaborates with state and local partners to help prepare communities to withstand a wildfire. This is challenging because of the increasing of element in the wildland urban interface. We work to assist communities in developing Community Wildfire protection plans. These plans Bring Community members together to address Wildfire Response and community preparedness. As a Risk Assessment technology has developed, our capability to help Communities Reduce their risk to wildfire has really evolved. For example, you will hear more from mr. King about our Community Planning assistance for wildfire programs. Wildfire prevention is a critical element to working collaboratively across Land Ownership boundaries. Nationally, nearly nine out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans, including some of the most costly fires. If we prevent unwanted human caused fires, we can proactively use our resources to create resilient landscapes, improve our response and help communities be prepared. A longstanding example of federal and nonfederal collaboration is smokey bear. This campaign is administered by the Forest Service, the National Association of state foresters and the ad council. Smokey will be 73 next week and he is one of the worlds most recognizable characters. Our goal at the Forest Service is to work with partners to continuously improve our riskbased response to wildfires. No one agency has the capability or the Surge Capacity to respond to wildfires alone. So we have a collaborative approach in the u. S. It includes federal, state, tribal, city, county contracts and volunteer firefighters. We continue to work with our cooperators and industry on emerging technology to help respond to challenges of fire. The Board Service invests more than 34 million each year in wildland fire information and Technology Systems and we work closely with the department of the interior to develop an integrated approach and prioritize our investment to be able to update our legacy systems. The central platform is the enterprise portal. The portal provides uptodate wildland fire situational information to first responders, to fire managers, and the public. They are our research and development ranch. We continue to partner with nasa on new and emerging technologies. We also partner and dli takes the lead on interagency take ability on Unmanned Aircraft operations. Although our missions and priorities among our partners are diverse, we are united in a common vision and set of goals defined by the Cohesive Strategy. Established to collectively address our wildland fireedeeour responsibilities to the citizens of the u. S. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss wildfire risks and collaborations. We look forward to working with the committee on these important issues. Host thank you. Mr. Rice, welcome. Chairman murkowski, Ranking Member cantwell, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the department of the interiors wildfire program. First, i would like to start by saying we in this department are set by yesterdays news of the fatality in montana. The department of the interiors heartfelt condolences went out to family and friends and others affected by those situations. Overall, we are seeing the cumulative impacts of climate variability, drought, and Invasive Species that are creating a situation more susceptible to large and devastating wildfires. So far, we have seen outbreaks across the country and numerous geographic areas. It working through this, the National Cohesive strategy, which my partner alluded to, is the backbone of the National Wildfire management policy and is still in collaboration with federal, state, tribal, local, all of the partners and representatives determined by the federal government to actively involved partners in planning decisionmaking. Active management work is done collaboratively with our partners, or done directly on Department Lands through each of the bureaus within the department of the interior, the effective strategies for mitigating risk. In the department of the interiors resilience resilient landscapes initiative, partners at the local level on fuel management projects achieved fire resilience across multiple jurisdictions and broad landscapes. This year, the department supported an initiative that valued private landowners, tribal, space, local governments and other agencies that work handinhand with the department to safeguard the community. Together, we continue to plan and execute these activ