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ways to improve wildfire research and coordination efforts. we'll hear from the washington state forester and a former santa fe, new mexico, fire chief. so we were waiting just a minute because the conference in caucus were meeting, but i think we will begin. since this is a hybrid, do we begin a countdown to begin it or do we just proceed? okay. so this hearing will come to order. without objection, the chair is is authorized to declare a recess at any time. before i deliver my opening

remarks, i wanted to note that today the committee is meeting both in person and virtually and i want to announce a couple of reminders to the members about the conduct of this hearing. first, members and staff who are attending in person and who are unvaccined against covid-19 need to stay masked throughout the hearing. unvaccinated members may remove their masks only during their questioning under the five-minute rule or of course unvaccinated persons can also attend remotely. members who are attending virtually should keep their video feed on as long as they are present in the hearing. members are responsible for their own microphones. please also keep your microphones muted unless you're speaking. finally, if members have documents they wish to submit for the record, please e-mail them to the committee clerk whose e-mail address was circulated prior to the hearing. i want to say good morning and

thank chairwoman johnson for agreeing to hold this hearing. she is in her district with the first lady of the united states today and i am honored to be able to chair this hearing on wildlife fire science. i think it's very clear in the 2021 fire season, we've already had that begin. it's on pace to be much worse than last year. already over 100,000 more acres of american wild land have burned than by this point in time in 2020. firefighters in my home state of california are currently battling at least six large wildfires throughout the state. as a californian, this is cause for alarm. in 2020 alone, the u.s. saw record wildfires burn 10 million acres of land, over 4 million of which were in california. in 2018, californian fires only

burned 2 million acres. the warmer and drier conditions created by climate change have increased extreme wildfire conditions with nine more days of high fire potential added every year since 2000. as a risk for catastrophic wildfire grows, so should our ability to forecast wildfires and to mitigate fire risk. today's hearing presents an opportunity to discuss the current state of wild land fire research and how we can use it to improve our understanding of conditions in the field. we'll also discuss gaps in the science and identify opportunities for further federal investment and coordination. federal programs like the u.s. drought monitor are instrumental in helping wild land managers prepare for fire season. this is one example of how enhanced coordination among science agencies with

operational managers can lead to actionable science. with dedicated authorities and investments in wildfire science, we can develop additional capabilities for realtime detection of fire and even deepen our understanding of wildfire fuels. i was proud to cosponsor wildfire research funding in the nsf for the future act. it was a great start to what we can do to strengthen wildfire research, but we must do more. it's not right for congress not to act to bolster our wildlife research. it's also dangerous. that's why i'm drafting legislation in this committee to improve the understanding, prediction and management of wild land fires through robust research initiatives. this bill will also enhance federal interagency collaboration and coordination to include science agencies and federal wild land fire response. i hope this bill will also lead

to our federal science agencies working closely with fire managers to ensure that wildfire science can be operationalized to mitigate wildfire risk. joining us are academic researchers who use information provided by agencies like noaa and nasa and the epa to build out america's wildfire research capacity. we look forward to hearing about them for opportunities for areas of further investment in wildfire science. i'd also like to extend a warm welcome to dr. clements who is a professor at san jose state university, located in my congressional district. dr. clements is the director of san jose state university's wildfire interdisciplinary research center, which is a leader in wildfire research.

i look forward to hearing his testimony about the importance of supporting interdisciplinary wildfire research. we're also fortunate to have with us today some of the bravest people facing the wildfire crisis, our first responders, forest managers and firefighters intimately understand which innovations best support on-the-ground needs. this hearing is a critical first step in creating a truly whole of government response to wildfire risk that connects research to operations. we're encouraged by the administration's emphasis on climate resilience and robust funding in the president's budget request for our science agencies to tackle extreme weather events. this leaves us ample room to work with appropriators to ensure funding levels in keeping with the magnitude of the wildfire challenges we face. i want to thank our witnesses for their time this morning. at this point, i would like to yield to the ranking member.

>> thank you. i'd like to thank chairwoman johnson and chairwoman lofgren. i'm sure many of my western colleagues would agree this is really not much of a true wildfire season anymore with fires occurring year round. last year brought haunting images of devastating wildfires across the west. this year, unfortunately, could be even wife is an important part of the ecosystem and often occurs naturally. many plant species rely on wildfire for their growth and regeneration processes and many

animal species look to recently-burned land for their habit. however, we fear droughts, hotter temperatures and poorly maintained federal lands are all contributing to greater frequency and intensity of wildfires across the country and around the world, which is problematic. additionally the increased number of people who live in the wild land urban interface, the area where residential neighborhoods meet wooded areas has created the need for a different allocation of resources. while wildfires represent a threat to wildlife and property, they also have devastating environmental impacts. this is an issue for all of us. resources spent combatting wildfire by our federal land management agencies are resources that could be spent on revenue-generating recreational activities and our diversion of attention away from other local emergency response needs.

several agencies within our committee's jurisdiction have a role in combatting wildfire, whether it's nasa or noaa's helping firefighters plot the best path to fight an ongoing fire. other agencies such as nsf and nest engage in research on different aspects of wildlife behavior and how we can better fireproof structures. we must be certain that all the work of these agencies is carried in and out a coordinated manner and effectively put into operation by agencies such as the forestry service and the department of the interior. i want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. i'm especially pleased to welcome george guiseler. he can speak to the impacts of wildfire in different parts of the country. i look forward to hearing his thoughts on where there are gaps in federal research, how we can improve coordination among federal agencies and what

actions we can take that would be the most beneficial to him and first responders. i know this is a busy period for him, especially given the record breaking temperatures most of the west faced this past week and i thank him for taking the time to share his extensive experience with the committee. with that, madam chair, thank you and i yield back. >> without objection, other members who wish may submit opening statements to the record. i'd like to introduce our witnesses, all of whom are participating remotely. our first witness today is dr. craig clements. dr. clements is a professor of meteorology at san jose state university and the director of the wildfire interdisciplinary research center. he leads research on fire, weather, extreme fire behavior, and conducting wild land fire

field experiments. dr. clements has over 20 years of experience in the meteorological field observations and teaches courses in wildfire science, mountain meteorology, climate change. our next witness is dr. jessica mccarty, the director of the geospatial analysis center. dr. mccarty has more than 15 years of experience in applications of geospatial and data science to quantify agriculture and food security and land cover land use change. she is the coauthor of more than 30 peer reviewed journal articles, 12 peer reviewed conference proceedings, three book chapters, four technical reports, four data citations and

one nasa technology transfer. our third witness, is mr. george guiseler who is a washington state forester and the deputy supervisor for wildfire and forest health, having previously served in oklahoma. he has almost 30 years of experience in wildfire and six years of experience in structural firefighting as a volunteer in idaho and new mexico. he's a member of the society of american foresters since 1987 and a certified forester. he joined the oklahoma forestry services in 2006. he served in a staff function to ordinate all forest management services provided by the agency. our fourth is chief eric

litsenberg from santa fe county, new mexico. he served the majority of his career in the city of santa fe fire department before returning to the county where his career began. through 25 years of service, he has also worked for new mexico state forestry and is part of multiple incident management teams and for many years owned santa fe wildfire, which provided resources for large scale incident management and response. as our witnesses should know, you'll each have five minutes for your spoken testimony. your entire written testimony will be included in the record of this hearing. when you have concluded your spoken testimony, we will begin with questions. there will be, i believe, a little clock on your virtual screen that will count down your five minutes. when your five minutes are up, we do ask that your sum up so we

can hear all the witnesses before votes are called. first, we will start with you, dr. clements. >> good morning, chairwoman johnson, ranking member lucas and members of the committee including congresswoman lofgren, who's chairing this hearing today. thank you for inviting me to provide testimony. my name is craig clement. i serve as director at san jose state university. i'm honored to appear before the house science space and technology committee for this hearing on the state and federal wildfire science, examining opportunities for further research and coordination. ly i will focus on the need for additional investment in wildfire science. i'd like to thank congresswoman lofgren. there is no doubt that wildfires are becoming larger and more

severe in western u.s. this is projected to continue due to a number of factors, including 100 years of fire exclusion that resulted in increased tree density and changes in fire conditions caused by climate change. our nation needs to increase investment in fire science to empower decisionmakers in addressing the complex challenges we face. while i won't address all research gaps, i will focus on a few key aspects i believe are important. fundamental mechanisms of wildfire spread are poorly understood especially in the context of extreme events. additionally, we don't have a good understanding of what role fire atmosphere interactions play on fire spread. nor do we have the appropriate observations to tackle these questions. there's a wide gap between the need to understand fire posterior and the current capabilities of fire observation systems. in terms of observational needs, we need to start treating fire

weather the same as we do other severe weather phenomena. we need the equivalent of hurricane hunters for wildfires so we can better see and sample the fire. additionally, we are missing the appropriate sensors for critical observations, specifically we need publicly available high spatial resolution these observaa snapshot once or twice a day, they need ingenuous over the entire event. these just can't be a snapshot, they need to be continuous over the smoke evaluate and expend observational data sets that include smoke and fire behavior are rare. the experiment which is a multiagency programit addresses these data gaps by capitalizing on high intensity fires and this should be a national priority.

which link the spread with the forecast. these are the only models to best predict how a fire can create its own weather. a community base is more it allows themse to use the model and improve the model and share with other users. this is in contrast to models kept in house that are not available for other agencies or institutions to use or contribute to. for example, the modelling group facilitated development of the firema atmosphere model. thisis has become core for castg systems used by many institutions and agencies around the world. further investment will improve our ability to better predict extreme future fire. in terms of driving the science forward and to moting innovation, direct funding to support research and development needs to be a priority.

a few federal agencies are already leading wildfire research efforts, but these are not well coordinated. the joint fire is sciences program hadad its budget reduce in half. restoring its budget and increasing it will benefit. federall investment should targt grant programs that academic institutions can apply for. the national science foundation could develop specific fundingu programs across the direct rats to fund research and research within the social sciences. and finally, and most importantly inn my opinion, is the need to establish a national and sustainable fire weather research program. to date there's never been a dedicated program that funds both basic and applied research and fire weather and this is critically needed. thank you.h >> thank you very much. we will now turn to our next witness, dr. mccarty, we're

pleased to hear from you. >> thank f you. thank you, chairwoman and ranking member and distinguished members of the committee. to discuss research and coordination for federal wildfire science. i'm dr. mccarty and i am the associate professor of geography at miami university of ohio. i have more than 15 years experience in applications and satellites. and related to missions including as a member of the 2019 noaa field campaign. during my testimony, i will highlight the relationship between climate change and wildfires, options to reduce fire risk, solutions for satellite-based text and federal collaboration. the opinions expressed in my opinion are my own and do not represent views of my university. climate change means warmer temperatures from the entire

u.s. witnessed in the entire intensity and drier field conditions of the western states. lit pat had change increases drought, leading to charge stands of dry and sometimes dead trees. this accelerates the likelihood of ofre u.s extreme fires, evenr eastern forests likee the 2016 great d smokey mountains fire nr tennessee that burned over 17,000 acres and killed 14 people during an exceptional drought. within the arctic regions of alaska, climate change will increase lightning activity, will trigger to more fire-prone grass lands and will dry out causing long-lasting underground fires that span multiple fire seasons. wildfires contribute to climate change by being a source of carbon die yox sietd andnd othe groan house gases. more frequent wildfires now and in the future can potentially lower our forest ability to kature car bob by rusing tensity ande tree size.

research and mitigated future risk should note that mitigating any wildfire risk means reducing emissions anden preventing furtr warming since we can't prevent lightning strikes and as we work to limit warming, our remaining options are to reduce human ignitions and modify fuels. human-caused ignitions account for 84% of all wildfires. in a warmer and more flammable future, we must act to reduce arson, accidental fires and spread of open burning and research in those areas will assist in those actions. wildfire risk can be lowered through fuels reduction. this is mostt effectively done via prescribed burning and working with indigenous fire practitioners to return cultural burning too the land. the tolerance for smoke will dictate when and if a prescribed fire occurs. and research into those reactions is needed. the choice is ours.

do weto tolerate a few hours of smoke or do we wait until we're forced to evacuate. space bornut detections rely on 375 meter to 1 kilometer resolution orbiting satellites. a higher resolution like the 30 meter is only overhead every 16 days. but the pixel sizes are about the size of the baseball diamond. they have pixels so think 3 by 3. but they capture images every 5 to 15 minutes. and prove wildland fire te text and research needs kboined higher spatial sensors. it gets us closer to such a system but the first is planned for the early 2030s. we need 2 this now.

being able to see new fire ignitions and fire spread every 15 minutes within baseball diamond-sized grids would be a gamen changer for science. for fireov management and incidt command and for public education and engagement including improved warning systems. fpz would be remissed that the joint firela science program, is aor solutions oriented federal research collaboration that provides scientific funding for practical results but it also funds and manages the fire science, change networks. these 15 exchanges provide the most relevant and current wildland fire science to federal,ss tribal, state, local and private stakeholders across all 50 states. currently the funding for and future of the jfsp and the regional fexchanges is in question.cc we should not reinvent the wheel when a functioning and successful mechanism that collaborates with non-federal partners at all levels already exist. y thank you for giving me the opportunity to it have before

you today. i look forward to answering your questions.e wi >> thank you very much. we'll turn to our next witness, mr. geissler, we're account look forward to hearing from you. > good morning, chairwoman a ranking member and distinguished members of the committee. my name is george geissler, state forester and deputy forest health for the washington department of natural resources. i'm past president of of the national association of state foresters, chair of the fire committee and a member of the leadershipip council. i appreciate the opportunity to speakfo with you today as the committee examines opportunities for further research and coordination related to wildland fire science. agencies such as dnr contribute a significant forgs of the suppression effort in terms of resources, personnel capacity and funds. each year state and local

agencies respond to the majority roughly 80% of all wildfires across all jurisdictions. in state foresters work closely witham conservation districts, partners across the u.s. toot deliver forestry programs and wildfire protection on a national scale. w we appreciate theer work of thi committee to address this important issue and in the interest of time, i will highlight the following recommendations for improving research and development efforts focused on supporting wildland fire management. first, please support research. in the -- whoever is unmuted, please mute. >> response efforts to make accessible to the general public.er tallahassee clear need for realtime wildfire monitoring at the operational level to inform response. as an example, the national hurricane centers many models as

dpie dance for tracking for hurricanes. forecast models very tremendously and structure, similar tools would combine a collection of wildfire models in realtime to provide an advantage for wildland fire and better inform the public. second, please support the evelopment of fire stimulation models that incorporate the built environment as a fuel. currently,rm wildfire models st at the built environment to better duststorm future threats to communities. trees andlo grasses burn very differently. support enablement for all suppression resources in realtime. wildfire management and suppression operations yut lite communicationac networks to tra resources, we need to develop a standardized system for accountability and tracking of resources and develop a schedule for integration of the system

into the interagency environment. we need to improve the capacity for parti earlyru detection and assessment of wildfires in rural areas. often times in my own state of washington, wildfires can go undefected for days and rely on citizens to report wildfires in a typical 911 calls. high performance cameras would greatly improve e assessment an attacking wildfires early and it's's the key to reduing fatalities and injuries and loss of natural resource and lowering our fire fighting costs. it's smoke modelsingng from fir managers and local and regional public health officials. there are opportunities to lerge resources to better understand the public health impacts of smoke on people including the

firefighters. with many wildfires occurring, there are more materials and chemicals in a homes and street that burn and produce a toxic environment. o with ask you to provide research opportunities to inform the next generation of national state and local codes and standards for addressing issues president bush it should include the wildfire losses. o we ask to develop warning scale for wildfires that conveys the magnitude or potential magnitude of of current developing and projected wildfire events. this scale much like the enhanced scale for tornadoes would help convey the threat to the public and be used to improve evacuations. opportunity tohe appear before the committee. on behalf of the department of natural resources and the national association of state

foresters, improvements in awe plied research and technologies that support wildfire management will enhancet our collective abilities and safely respond to wildfire and protect our natural resources. i look forward to answering your questions. thank you. >> thank you very much. now for our final witness, we would be pleased to hear from you. >> good morning, chairwoman and ranking member as well as committee.the i am recently retired fire chief from san ta fate countyin fire department. i appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the state of fire science and the future. wildland fires are an all-year threat. statistics continue to rise. thison year probably looks to b

the worse on record. local firemu departments are on the front lines. we help communities recover and address threats that often follow such as flooding, debris flows and landslides. federal research agencies like nasa, noaa, and nsf provide tools to prevent and fight future wileland fires. they provide research and tools such as fire weather predictions, satellite a imager predictive fire analysis research and building codes, bothse studies of major catastrophics fires and their afterage. greater federal research into satellites and climatee technology canan revolutionize response. as we adapt. new

a host of new tools. most importantly, we can develop an sbe gralted picture. it will save lives and property in the face ofro a growing wildland fire problem. as federal research is focused on the national fire problem, i'd like to highlight emerging research and technology for them to consider.e re >> satellite sensing systems can provide an integrated early warning system and better picture of the incident. low density areas and also remote sensing can be used to provide information about fuels and droughts. fire happen maing can be used these map cans guide hazardous fuels and projects. they also can provide realtime and interactive maps to assist during a fire. remote sensing data can be used to provide predictive analytics.

this can be used to identify at-risk areas and focus on mitigation efforts. uas provides several capabilities. they can hover over to track progress, infrared cameras can be used to identify hot spots and provide a wealth of realtime data to the firefighters in the field. the development of a firefighter location tracking system would be a game changer. the creation of a practical firefighter tracking tool could improve firefighter safety and reduce the number of deaths and injuries that occur each year. the they rmd the u.s. forest service, fema, noaa work with the wildland fire leadership council to develop a standard warning system for wildland fires. a warning system would hp managers and public act as a fire develops. this includes formatting to capture and report data

including post recovery efforts. effect i havive systems are the glue that link these together. we're still facing problems with coverage and inner operability. it will be crucial to take advantage of the new tools under development. i would like to highlight the role in focusing on bulding out a public safety broadband network. these capabilities offer potential, but they must be integrated before incidents occur. so the federal agent us is should work with the the forest service and department of of interior, but they should also work with state, and local partners. there are opportunities. and to have these discussions. in addition, they should work with non-governmental organizations. our organization of at-risk communities can provide prepared efforts like the program. the fire academy and media

organizations can partner with the federal researchers to get information and technology to the practicings. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you for your testimony. and to all the witnesses for your testimony. at this point, we will give minutes of the committee an opportunity to ask questions of our witnesses. and i will begin with myself. my constituents and the constituents of many of us on this committee have been deal ing with severe wildland in recent years.n the wildland fires has grown from a season to all year round. we had fires in california in

the winter. the wildland fires but they also impact urban areas. a littlee town not in the middl of a forest and the fire came in and destroyed 5% of the housing in that suburb community. the shopping center has burned down. to other areas of the district that was burned. and and the entire town was also destroyed. so obviously, we have important steps to take. i'm interested in how we can

enhance collaboration and coordination across the federal governmentnt along with the operational stakeholders on the front lines. so as academic researchers who ely on federal data and resources, where should the federal investment in wildfire science be most urgently directed. >> i think funding these programsms a across these agencies, we need to fex on research. so we can get better information in tropical storms of better tools. and so having new tools will allow us to build what we need in terms of sensor systems because we're lacking the sensor systems and also the fact that we need more platforms.

an investment in at slight development would be reallyy beneficial to the entire wildfire science community. >> anything to add on that? > we develop the tools that communicate them with the public in an effective way and we also integrate their input. i think a lot of time when we think about wildfire risk we forget that people are the main cause of fires. and the more that we are transparent and open with the they will betterwe understandtt the risk and potentiallyt act as good citizs to reduce that risk in the future. and that includes public health research as mentioned by the other witnesses. >> are therere opportunities fo federall investment or directio that could have positive impacts in the short-term and how long do we think it will take for the long-term investments to have

realized impacts? >> for satellite development, these things take awhile. surveys are a a decade long for reason.. it's the funding and the priority thatal limits the advancement of these systems and implementation. and i agree with federal investment inn the wildland fir leadership council would also be need so it can interact with the incident command and the commanders on the field. and other agencies. that'sm, a short-term high risk high reward investment that could be donee quickly within a off seasonat in the next fire season. >> anything to add on that? >> i think one thing that could happen quickly is if restoring the science program budget wougd allow researchers to engage

quickly. the program funds things faster than a lot of federal agencies. the tombing is really quick. and so that could be one way to jump startr a lot of research quickly. >> i don't have much time left in my five minutes, but do you have anything to add to what's been said already?? >> thank you. there's one statement i would like too make. i totally agree with the comments of my colleagues here on the panel. i would like to emphasize the application of that science. there's atw lot of really good work that will require a little bit of funding and increased collaboration between state, local and federal agencies. and we canon get this technolog to the ground, to the firefighters where it's going to make a mdifference. so that that interaction and collaboration is something we should foster and support as much as possible. >> thank you.

>> i will emphasize what the panel just said about integration. there are places where this integration is already happenin effectively. data is ience and created, it will bebe importanto get this to the boots on the ground and the practitioners. and the leadership council and the national interagency fire y. center, that integration is happening already. so small investments can be leveraged significantly. >> thank you very much. my time is expired. i would like tolu recognize the ranking member mr. lucas. >> thank you, madame chair. i think we have worked together long enough i can call you george. you mentioned your testimony about listing several areas about how f the committee could fill gaps. and thea chairwoman very appropriately. could youou expand thinking abo the committee's perspective prioritizing those where particularly george if you had

the ability to give us guidance howfo would you prioritize one, two, three, four, if you don't mind.. >> i would be glad to. thank you. and you can call me george any time. >> thank you. >> the priorities when we're looking at it,, i am very aware of a lot of the satellite technology and sosm the early work that's been going on. we areim working closely with t severe storms lab doing early detection and notification modelling. i know that while there's long-term implications and t development of the resource currently there's a lot of opportunity just to get that on the ground right now working with local agencies.ha the other. piece that i would really like to emphasize is the firefighter and resource tracking.s this is a safety issue. there are a number of different systems that are out there right now andwe to be able to monitor

and track our resources in rattlect timen suing that we ar putting them in the best places possible,en suring that we're utiliinge them effectively and monitoring them to ensure they are safe and that we are tracking and knowing they are safe. that's critical for us.al it's a standardization process and an implementation process that really needs to occur. the last one, though, is very much a i know there's a lot of work here, but it is something that i wouldok sink my money in if i i had to. and that's the discussion around realtime smoke modelling. and continuing the decision around that. smoke is the greatest public health issue related to wildland fire. andte knowing what that implicationsof are, worksing wi the public to improve health i

think is just part of that mission. and the cdc and epa along with several other regional smoke agencies are doing some amazing work. to kind of foster that evencas: further would be a tremendous asset to us all.erth >> you know my district from the northeast corner off the state o the southwest corner, the northwest half of oklahoma, and weather forecasting issst criti to my farmers because it's decisions about when to plant, apply fertilizer, harvest, utilize prescribed burns to help maintain our lands. one of the ways that my neighbors and my spouse use in decision making is using the system that provides up to the minute weather data. how did you utilize the data when you were state forester of oklahoma?at s and along with that while you're thinking about it, do you believe such a system should be emulated in oh states to help

benefit and prevent and fight large-scale wildfires? >> the system that oklahoma has is such a unique resource for firefighters. we can watch in almost realtime weather pattern changes, wind changes, i remember my fire chief w counting down a wind sht to people in the field telling them when it was going to occur, and he hit it within a minute. because we were watching it on a screen. when i worked in other parts of the country,al especially in places likegt here in washingto state, we struggle because there's soo many microclimates and not enough monitors. to be able to do that, to be able to talk to folks in realtime and do the prediction that folks that have all of that data like the system provides was justov unbelievably valuabl to us in that environment. especiallype an environment tha

the typey of fuels oklahoma ha is a rapidly changing fire scenario. they are very quick and you have to know the wind very effectively to do it. in other parts of the country when i get out, i do sometimes wax nostalgia and having something across the united states would be amazing. and i think any fire manager thatan works in oklahoma is alws thrilled by the app that we can easily download on our phones and do all that. it's an excellent l tool. i agree. >> absolutely. the ability to protect both citizens' lives and their property, i know there's been manyny occasions as you have alluded to when fire lines and members have been moved in a hurry because they couldn't survive wra they were. an amazing system. thank you, george. i yield back.gniz >> thank you very much. the gentle lady from oregon is

now recognized. >> thank you so much. and thank you to chier johnson andd ranking member lucas for holding this it hearing. but thank you to our witnesses for bringing your expertise. kiea i represent northwest oregon. the pacific northwest faced a record breaking heat wave with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees for multiple days. it was 115 degrees at home yesterday. these dangerous temperatures combined with thin snow pack and below average precipitation are raising alarms about our upcoming wildfire season. in fact, we have already seen a 6,200-acre fire on the tribes of warm springs reservation in central oregon. fortunately, it's been mostly contained, but we have become familiar with wildfires in recent yoorz. over labor day weekend last year,it powerful winds and dry conditions resulted in across dented wildfires the state. approximately a million. a acre burned..

livesua were lost, homes and communities wereab destroyed. hazy skies and smokey conditions made the air quality in portland comparable to some of the most polluted places on the planet. thank you for highlighting the health hazards of smoke. they are on the front lines and wildfires are another example of the need for comprehensive and bold climate action. i want to ask you, you said we need to treat wildfires like other natural disasters and severe weather threats. this your testimony you noted the deficiencies in understanding how they create their own weather and can affect spread. d et improving our understanding of firet weather help to mitigate to respond to wildfires and how can congress better direct agencies to conduct this important research? >> thank you. so the fire weather knowledge gap is really a problem because we justen don't put those

resources to fire weather like i mentioned thinking a about the hurricane hunters. we don't have those resources for fire. now we have suppression resourcesoo at a very rate. we can instrument suppression aircraft with tools with the science tools. it wouldn't be that hard. we could get all the information in realtime. so harnessing the current platforms that are surrounding fires is really important. and i think what we're missing is that when we go to active wildfires in california with doppler radar, the only team to do that. there are no observations. it's not like there are storm chasers. we're the small team and get a little bit of information here and there. we need to change that cob september and make it a

priority. where we're supporting these big fires. in addition, i think we can support funding could be directed tory noaa to support t meteorologists. they are tasked with forecasting high resolution using models, but they don't't have the observations on the fire. some of these fires are so remote that we don't have the observations. >> i want to get in another question. thank you so much. i want toy ask the chief. last year ion joined colleagueses on the committee for the plan to reach net zero emissions.si the plan represents the first significant legislative proposal to addressst the need for clima resill jens investments inclouding investing in wildfire riskri mapping systems from

federal agencies and partners. in your testimony you noted the importance of risk mapping and realtime interactive maps. what are the implications of the expansion of the wildland interface without high resolution mapping and how could better maps including data better inform planning and response decisions? >> thank you for that question. that is key to what we do. getting good data and putting it to those in the community working onn the team that's doig prevention and mitigation and trying to make our communities safer. as we have seen hotter and drier conditions, the risk has expanded. in my testimony, one of the keys to me and my profession and my representationnd as a responders that that data becomes available as realtime is possible. to those on the ground doing the

work. there's application inved prevention and mitigation and predektive analysis and incident commandai and realtime situatiol awareness. >> thank you so pomuch. my time is expired. i yield back. >> thank you very much. mr. posy is now recognized. >> the proceedings of the national academy of of science issued a report entitled human presencee diminishes in drivin fire arectivity across the unit states. this report is significant because it found that climate wases significantly less importt where humans were more prevalent suggesting that human influence would exceed the fire activity i would ask to submit this report. >> without objection.

>> is thank you so much. based on your experience to prevent fires, should our limited resources be focused more on specifically on what and how we are building in fire zones rather than the broader topic of climate change. i would appreciate your response. >> thank you, congressman. i appreciate that. actually when we talk about fire and fire prevention, one of the earlier panelists mentioned the greatest numbers of fires are caused by humans. whether it be a spark or campfire, we use the old smokey beartt message of only you. with development in urban areas, we're getting more people so you have more opportunities for fires to occur. it's not w that they are not trying to prevent it, but it's greater opportunities. in my own statete of washington

the west side while it has forests with longer durations between fires, that's where our bigger populations are. so at the same time, if it you look at ourct forests and resiliency,wi climate has had a that also. so combining with both challenges, that's why a lot of what you see happening right now is an emphasis on working healthier forests, greater resiliency in the forestsr and making more fire adapted. so for lme, it's a two-prong approach. there's the long-term that we have to get our fuel situation unders control. we have to be able to keep our landscapes resill yebt, whether it's a forest or a range land. but at the psalm time, there's an education process and a prevention process which we have to get people to be aware of what they are doing, be able to

prevent the fires and in our planning efforts, e as people me in the beautiful areas, we have to get them better prepared for the interactions and the fires that will come. >> can you hear us? >> i cannot hear you anymore. i cannot hear the congressman. >> how about this? this better? >> that's better, sir. thank you.ertter >> i'm asking if you would be kind enough to explain why we fwheeded to include our communities where we have built homes,at roads, businesses and schools in the fire simulation models. fpz. >> easily because as we see the roads and the homes being put into these. areas, our models currently just look at it as a

layer of fuel. we look atin it as trees and grasses. homes and cbusinesses, all of these things change the fire behavior, kang the way that fire acts on the landscape. having that information, knowing how the reaction of the fire is going to be when it hits these communities is something that will better inform our firefighters and make them work safer and be able to suppress the fires a lot easier. >> thank you. i. see my time is about to expire. i yield back. >> thank you very much. >> the ranking member, obviously, this is a hugely important issue for us in california. if i think about why i left the state of california from the back countries ufs going up to hiking in the nevadas. a lot of the places are now

scarred by it. andd i'm going to ask a series f questions. i would ask the witnesses to keep answers short so i can get through a number of these. i want to make sure i understand on the seasonsing side of this, i have heard a numb of the witnesses talk about how we just haven'tt allocated the resource necessary. i don't think it's a technology issue. i thinkll we have infrared sensg devices. we have the ability to put satellites in space so they are constantly monitoring. we have dronesu capabilities so wantre to make sure i understan. it's a resource allocation issue. andd maybe that's an accurate sense. >> yeah, we can use cal fire as an example.

they have adopted the latest science iner software package available. it allows to track resources, firefighters and puts the fire prediction model in there. so it's the state of the science and it's actually been very successful. so that information gets some fire guard data so they can map it. but they aren't reallyea applie to the community. it'st' resource issue. they have a new system and it's for the whole state and it's a really good model that should be used nationally. > i think that's something w can work on. a question for you. one area i have worked on is we have allocated resources to better forestry management. for yours we would do fire guard where we would take the resources and we would send them to fightwe the fires.

i know we have tried to address the issue of fire brrowing. i suspect we could do more on the forestry management side to mitigate some of these forest fires. is that correct? >ac yes, sir. the issue was helped tremendously by legislation that occurred a couple years atago. really thend emphasis right now needs to be to take those dollars and really force them on to the ground and making sure that they are being put into the highest priority areas that we have. a lot of times when we're doing forest crmanagement, i call the random acts of conservation. a lot of it is kind of spread across the landscape andwo prioritizing the funds, making sure they get to the ground is something we should all emphasize and work harder on. >> great.io we were automobile to pass that legislationin in a bipartisan w. this is another area where we

could work together as democrata and republicans to make sure we're actively managing to mitigate the fires. let me ask you a asquestion.hi four or five years ago, we happen to be in washington, d.c. visiting. and just they starred talking about the stresses that we're putting on our firefighters and since then i have talked to a number of i represent a suburban community, buter a lot of our firefighters rotate up to supplement cal fire and help with these fires. so they are almost constantly working duringll fire season. and we put together a piece of legislation called the heroes act a few years ago, which is passedin out of the house and ts congress. really identifying and trying to address the pressures and stress that are leading to firefightert suicide, ptsd, et cetera. if you could just quickly comment on the stresses that the

men and women are under both urban and suburban and also the folks in the forestry service. >> i really appreciate that question. stresses on our workforce at any level, private sector is significant'. they are full range from behavioral stressors all the way through physical stresses. the more that you ask of there workforce, the longer you ask them to is serve in terms of hours in a day or weeks and months in a year, and the more exposures you give them to smoke and human suffering the greatest stressorsto they have. we are only just beginning to discover the effects these stresses have onra our response force. they are significant. >> and we pass that legislation out of the house in a bipartisan way, the senate takes it. thank you. i yield back. >> thank youra. ms. kim of california is now recognized. >> thank tntnyou, chairwoman an

ranking member for holdsing this it hearing. i want to thank the witness for being with us with today too. wildfires in my district and the rest of california, where we are from, we seem to be more every year. and with 85% of california in extremee drought, the problem o longer wildfires is by the dryness of the landscape and the comfort period. and adding insult to injury, the wildfire smoke negatively affects ourn air quality. and i will begin working a bipartisan manner to better coordinate our federal efforts in predicting wildfires and cutting-edge solutions to detect fires as soon as they start. itr represent california's 39th district whether o we have t

devastating effects of wildfires not only in my communities, but across the state of omcaliforni. so how can we ensure coordination between federal, statere and local communities t share available information and tools to better respond to wildfires. >> thank you for that question. i appreciate it. the one thing that i emphasize is you should be proud of the national system that we do have currently. the interaction that we have between federal, t state and lol agencies is something that other countries come to try to duplicate. but there's always room for improvement. getting to common operatingbein systems,te being able to share data, being automobile to share and communicate effectively is really some of of the items that if we can address those, it's critical. a lotff of times it's just the difference between two computer systems or literally the lungs

that linkings we get that prevent some of the sharing. it sounds kind of basic at the need, but the willingness and to do it is this. a lot of times it is just making sure that the connections are made whether it be introducing two people literally just doing that all the way to making sure that our systems link together and operate effectively. the system that was just described that caldo fire had i absolutely amazing. it's in test and it's been doing some great work. part of the basis of that is its ability tona start communicatin across jurisdictional authorities. that's what we're all looking for. that ability to share all the resources that weere currently have. >> it's designing the next federation of the split, so i have any of your colleagues with

these detection abilities. whatic advice would you give th future more effective in wildfire detection and prevention. >> i will say that i'm unaware of any of my colleagues have work directly over satellites. i will tell you that in my past life.le and ici know the interaction between the national weather service and state agenies is very strong. and we utilize a lot of that technology and that there have been conversations a about how effectively those can be used at the noaa level also. butut unaware. it's a huge opportunity for us all.ge o >> you're familiar with the high resolution model?

>> have you had input and what further research f and developmt is needed to make existing models more effective? >> a lot of input has been really coordinated through the leadership council where we do have all of the partners at the table. so youaf not only have state foresters, but you also have mayors and other members of the various levels of government really having those discussions so it's a really powerful forum to kind of discuss the needs and where we go forward. so going into the future, we're really looking to try to enforce that and try to get more of the outreach. there's a very recent memo even between cdc and epa discussing wildfire smoke and actually being able to address all the research andf coordination that was there. all of that wasli actually made

possible through the interactions that we have had. so it sounds like i'm a broken record related to potentially solving a lot of these problems, but there's basic funding, but also the social science of communication and the effectively making sure that we share resources across the table. >> thank yyou. i see my time is up so i yield back. >> thank you. ms. stevens is now recognized. s. >> thank you, chairwoman and thank you to our witnesses for your incredible written and spokenpa testimony. your written testimonies in particular were quited inspiri really enjoyed reading them. in michigan, during this it month alone, the national weather service issued multiple fire warnings throughout the state, andou in particular last

year we saw fire outbreaks in northern michigan. in your testimony, you focused on programs that are aimed at fireir weather research and wildfire prediction. could you tell me more about the climates smart investment in research that are needed for better for us to better understandd the influencs of wildfire on weather and vice versa? >>s yeah, thank you for the question. i think one focus what i mentioned earlier would be the atmosphere of modelling tool. it's the only toollthitself thay allows the atmosphere to drive the fire and the fire itself to drive theer atmosphere. and that's where we get our most dangerous fires. f we had had big plumes and can't predict where that fire i is gog to go. so investmentedli by our modelss critical. like i mentioned earlier, it's

used in the national model. they have already adopted it. nationalth center for research also building on that model. these are the tools that we need to invest in. in addition, it also predicts resolution.yy highon soso you can tell a community wt the smoke concentration is going to be in an hour or the next day. so that's where i would focus of investment. >> do you haveny e recommendati or anyny examples that you knowf you how the federal government is working across agencies. >> so in terms of national, we have the w national fire danger rating system. it allows us understand what the fire risk b is. that goes across the nation. that's's a forest service produ. but it needs to be more higher resolution in terms of forecasting certain areas. for fire behavior research, it's

agency specific. we don't have a fire behavior presystem at a national level. >>th you're muted. >> another major priority for many off us including myself on this committee has been the effort to strengthen our pipeline to ensure we have trained scientists and engineers who are red duh to help address the 21st centuryrt challenges tt are before us. and dr. mccarthy, are there skills from the fire management side of this work that you believe would benefit the stem workforce orr relate to activities with stem workforce training? and how would you recommend those skills to be transferred. >> sure' i'll begin with that. i'm not from ohio. i'm from eastern kentucky. and i'm married to a man from

michigan. my daughter was born in the u.p., so i know about forest firee regimes. but i i started a as an undergr working for the daniel boone national forest and learned a lot oft, technical skills. as a first generation student, that was really important for me as a pipeline into graduate school to have that applied workforce on fire risk modelling. of and that was one of the reason i was able to get a graduate assistantship from a small school is because i had worked on these types of on the ground management, stem skills and come computing and data science. soi didn't come from a prestigious institution, though it is great. so thatt helped me in that pipeline. so ink do think that throughout

holistically the community, this is a good way to getet anyone fm anywhere, whether they are a woman or a man, non-binary torks getll 5 involved. because we are welcome. this is a problem. across all 50 states. and solutions. so i would just say that and turn it over. >> real quick. so as a state, we created a new wildfire b sciences minor. that will allow us to bring students from a duh verse background into our filed to give tool sets to take to the business major, psychology major, they will be aware of the problem. in addition to fire weather training thattror is very criti for meteorologists to have. which is something we're also doing and is a need around the nation. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> the gentle>> lady's time is expired. we'll turn now to mr. fooen stra. >> thank you,esyo chairwoman an

ranking member and all our witnesses for your testimony and sharing your extensive research and your experience with us. this question is for mr. geissler. in 2020 iowa experienced 126 wildfiremo incidents that burne almost 2,200 acres. these fires can jump from burning grass lands to agricultural fields reeking devastation for farmers. what is the current state of understanding as to how a forest or grass-based wildfire interacts with spreads across agricultural land? what research questions remain to be answered in this domain? >> thank you, congressman, for that question. there'swo a lot of work that is actually a ongoing relative to e interaction between agricultural crop lands and wildland fire. for most fire managers, we actually utilize a lot of crop lands because at certain times,

they are thed most irrigated spots on the planet. and we are able to use them in forest fire control. but as you know and others on the committee know, at various stages of the crop cycle, you're going to have conditions where crops can be damaged. or that the fuels remaining on the ground can carry a wildfire. so basically, a lot of the types of fuels that we're seeing on the ground do fit within some of our existing models. they need to be fine tuned somewhat as far as the local conditions t in a lot of the lol agencies do some of that work just to correlate the types of agricultural crops they are seeing relativeob to the fuel models that we have. but there isth probably some ongoing work that could happen there. and especially where it comes into cropou protection going

forward. >> thank you. i have seen that a lotur c with corn crop in the fall and soybeans when we're ready to harvest and a spark is the off by a combine and we have a lot of dvastation. i have one other question. iowa is home to numerous lakes and rivers important for recreation, economic activities for my constituents. when discussing wildfires, we commonly focus on the damage and destruction due to the flames and vegetation and to the man-made ainfrastructures. however, i would like to ask what consequences can high intensity and high-heat wildfires have on water sheds and what additional rrge do we need to better understand these impacts? >> actually, i'm glad you brought that up. post fire recovery is something that many of us in the leadership council are really looking to how do we do a better

job of that. if you look at resources that are available, forest service does have burn area responsen unitss that can evaluate and lok to those areas to determine what are going to be the impacts, how do we recover, more specifically revolves around impacts to water quality as well asta vegetation recovery. the resources available at the state and local level are very limited. and in fact, in most cases, a lot of that does not get done. but whenn you have the effects f a catastrophic wildfire or one that removes a significant portion of the vegetation, that's going to have an impact on water quality downstream. and so the idea of what we need to do, how we address is being discussed right now. i know that the national sciences groups are actually coordinating through usgs and others. weaver trying to come to a better way to effectively

address these issues following some ofrk these fires. it does not matter if you're working in a mountainous terrain where people think it's more significant or visible, but on all aspects of water sheds, if you have these kind ofg fi dama fires, you can impact water quality. >> yeah, i really appreciate that information. we see that in iowa iowa quite where you have the buffer strip gets burned away and you have significant erosion. information. we see that in iowa quite a bit where you have this there's really not a lot to stop that until the spring when the grass or vegetation grows back. it's alwayso a concern for me. i thank you for the responses and thank you to all of the testimony of each one of you and i yield my time back. >> thank you. >> thank you. ms.nk stansbury is now recogniz. >> thank you, madam chairwoman. thank you so much forto holding this important hearing this morning.ch i also want to thank especially

chief litzenberg for being here this morning from santa fe county from my home state in new mexico. thank you for your service and to all of our local state, county,ct federal and tribal firefighters, thank you for your workrk on the front lines protecting our kmunlts. i also want to thank you for sharing your expertise this morning. so i thinknk it goes without saying that addressing wildfires is not only a matter of protecting our p public safety d thee ecological well being of or forests and communities, but in new mexico it's alsote a matterf national security because a significant number of our forest lands also abut on our national laboratories and our federal military installations as well but it's also the single largest threat to water and drought resilience in new mexico and much of thee west as well. as well as our future climate adaptation and economic security and as was noted by chief litzenberg's testimonyng we're

also spending billions of dollarsri a year at the federal and a local and tribal letters suppress l and fight fires throughout the west. one of the things that i wanted to talkt a little bit about toy is our r forest science. so weg, focused a lot here toda on rain sensing, fire weather, warning systems and hazards, but one of the most significant and importantt ways that we can address and mitigate the catastrophic fires that are affecting the west is through forest management and this is especially true in new mexico wheree a lot of really exciting climate enforced management science is happening. we're seeing really incredible partnerships between our tribes and pueblos, our local county officials, nonprofitiz organizations like the nature conservancy, ourom national laboratories who are doing well exciting complex modeling around forest dynamics, carbon southwest operation, soil and

ways in which we can actually target our forest treatments. in fact, one of the things that's most exciting to me about having chief litzenberg here this morning is that he was intimately involved in these activities and what is called the santa fe fire shed program which is a collaborative of all of these different programs. so my question is actually for our chief, mr. litzenberg, i wonder if you can talk about the santa feev fire shed efforts an fair with us how the science and partnerships were lengd and how we might scale this exciting collaborative model across the west. >> i sure can, congresswoman. again, very much a appreciate tt question because g it is near a very dear to f me. the st. fay -- the greater santa faye fire w coalition is a successful collaboration and it was built from the ground up around the premise that if you bring the right people to the table, much like you have, i think, on this panel, who can

put their two cents into the mix you often get a product better than a single person or organization could have come up with. in that coalition we have all levels off government, we have nonprofit, we haveom scientists we have people from the labs and we evenre have people who don't necessarily agree with what we're doing. we had regular meetings to talk do we make our watershed and ourke forests healthier and safer and ultimately protect our communities, both foror recreation, for life safety and prevent the large fires and those things that we have talked about, the smoke, we've talked about the post-fire debris. they have huge destructive potential to not only primary effects buton secondary and tertiary effects. anything you can do to research and create data on those things that are modifiable and toss them into a room where smart minds can thinko together and come upon with solutions much le

the santa fe fireship coalition i think that is in order in muc of the nation. would encourage my colleagues because i know many in the fire community are familiar with these efforts ini new mexico but it's a really exciting model and the rio grande watershed efforts that are put into restoring our forests are reallye a model fo the nation. want to say that there is aon coupled opportunit while we are talking about fire mitigation to talk about carbon sequestration. a recentli study by the climate alliance in new mexico showed that reforestation of burned catastrophic fire areas has a hugege potential to help captur carbon.t so i really think that that's an important part of the science thatuc we need to be introducin into the conversation. with bthat, madam chairwoman, yield back. thank you so much. >> thank you very much. now the gentleman from california, mr. obernoite is

recognized. >> thank you madam chairman and thank you to all of our pammists. i represent a w fire prone and rural section of the western united states so the prevention of these wildfires is of critical importance to the people that i represent and i know a lot of the people in this room sharehe that concern. one of the things that i was struck by in the testimony from all four of our witnesses is the inadequacy of the current satellite data that we're getting both in terms of geo spatial resolution and in terms of t temper resolution. frankly,bo i had no idea that i was still this bad. to be talkki being geo spatial resolution of a kilometer and temple resolution of only one or two frames per day is clearly not going b to be adequate to generate the kind of wildfire models that we need to predict wildfire behavior and certainly is not going to be as useful as it could be to be able to give earlyd warning when new wildfirs

start. that's what i'dbo like to ask some questions about and i probably can pick any of the panelists, but dr. mccarty, i was struck by your testimony about this. can you talk a little bit about what the prospects are for improved satellite imaging if we have anything in the pipeline and in particular maybe talk about the fact that i know that, you know, we are talking about geostationary satellitess mostl here but the state of the art in satellites are low earth orbit satellites whichal might solve yourom spatial resolution probls also. is there some prospect that we could use some of thee assets that we have to solve this problem? >> nk hyes, and thank you, congressman, for that question. i do think that we have a lot of work going on at nasa, at noaa, i know nist had a small workshop around this a few years ago of data fusion, of thinking about how to, you know, incorporate

variouss polar orbiting satellites including low earth orbit and someas of our commercl platforms as well as our open sourcebe geostationary to provi better temporal resolution. it's morees complicate wd spati resolution because you just kind of have to accept the data as it is, how it was engineered. if it was engineered at ten kilometers it's ten kilometers and you just have to take that location and try to compare it to something that's ten meters in resolution. we've alsome had in the last te years and much credit to nasa, usga and noaa for their collaboration with the european space agency, with the indian spacee agency, with the japanes space agency and trying to improve some a of our other collaborations so that we have open sourcelo access to their platforms and c are developing, you poknow, kind of a cross-pollinationn coordination. and to beus fair sometimes our

satellite systems are developed because they are meeting the needs of the community and not just the fire community. often they need to meet the agriculture and foodnd security they need to meet bio diversity andhe forest management, they nd to think about water quality as well as the atmospheres and the lit is fears. sometimes what we need for fire will get maybe pushed to the end oril at least the resolution wi be downgraded a bit because there are these other components that also need to be captured in the same platform. and so i do think that noaa's geo exo which is in collaboration with nasa is one way to move forward. they did hold a workshop last summer with local state and federal level fire researchers and practitioners and management to get their input on that, but even that system, which was an rfp was issued and two

contractors were selected earlier this elspring, it's highestti resolution will be ha af kilometer. soan really we need to think abt settingha an agenda where we wa spatial resolution that is helpful both tactically and strategically for fire management. i will return to you if you have further questions. >> thank ti you. i completely agree. i'm t horrified that we don't he higher resolution data than that. as a scientist myself i can tell you that there's no way you can create meaningful prediction models based on that. as youet say it would be -- we have all of these high speed aerial assets for fighting the would be helpful to have realtime information about where the firesso started. i'mgr hopeful that we in congre can help you to solve this problem and get access to this resolution data because then we can as you say take the next step, work with the national science foundation and

catalyze more research into this topic. i seee my time has expired. i want to thank you to all of ouram panelists and i yield bac madam chair. >> thank you. dr. foster is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. dr. clements, in your testimony you stated your team has deployed to nearly 40 wildfires in california withes specialize mobile doppler, radar assets and that these tools have provided insights into the dynamic of plume dominated wildfires and how thent fires in the atmosphe interact with each other on a large scale. back in my district in illinois last week we had some tornadoes and it was amazing when you looked at the data that was available in realtime for -- from light ri system and dopple radar that my wife and i basically got into a safe area, turned on the tv and we could watch the tornado vortex as it moved across neighborhoods just south of my house.

so i was wondering i'm very interested in theic technologic developments in sensors, particularly cost reduction that would help usrs to have a much higher density with sensors on there. so in regards to that, you know, roughly the equipment that you deploy how much does it cost if you just had to buy another one of those? >> thank you for your question, congressman. so the radar is a special radar, it's a k band, it's custom-made, it's notot that expensive, it's about $600,000, $700,000, not including the truck and all that stuff. and that's probably a relatively low cost, high resolution doppler radar. the light rs are even less expensive, they are about $350,000. so, you know, these aren't super expensive heinstruments, but to set up a network of those it would be somewhat costly. now, the advantage of also the light r is it allows us to look

at a vertical bind profiles whi is critical and understanding the windsr particularly in california with the public safety shutoffs. so there is a need for those. just to get back to thehe surfa weather stationla discussion, california has more surface weather h stations than any oth place on the planet because of the utilities, they have invested a lot into meteorological data for their modeling. i think we can get the costs down if weo build more instrumentsst or we can use new engineering technologies to build these instrumentsis bette and cheaper. way to use it. in addition we also have the national radar network, the noaa radar network that we use for wildfire observations as well. so there is a lot of things that we can ttdo. >> i think one of the things they have to get better at as a nation is making high tech stuff cheaper in largeab quantity and think you might t be able to bo strap this if there was an agreement that we are going to know, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of equipment like you -- like you

deploy all over the country and you might find the cost curve goes down pretty sharply. is there aoi consensus on the types of data points and the collection assets that you'd like? you mentioned ground based stations. you can imagine drone swarms that come in over fires, maybe just more investment in satellites, or maybe more investment c in just the inventories of all the consumables that areem on the ground. is there an agreement on what you would really like or is that still something that's under discussion? >> well,he i think in terms of e fire weather w community we are probably ine agreement that we needd more atmospheric observations but then we also need to understand what the fire is doing at every instant. one technology that's coming out small radars that arech cheaper that you can put on power poles or utility assets so that way you can scan everything versus just the national radar network. so using smaller radars that are getting more cost effective could be a really good asset in

the future. >> could someone say a little bitra about the collaboration - the state of collaboration particularly with idod. i don't think i'm givingti away any national security secrets to say that we spend a lot of time lookingg for infrared flares fo various purposes. soou i was wondering do you hit road blockld where you say we could give i you information bu then wegu don't want the bad gu to know we have this capability so we won't tell you or is there really a pretty good collaboration in realtime when there isn a serious fire hazard? >> i guess i could take that from my knowledge. what i know ishe there is a fir guardt product that maps the fe in realtime for fire agencies, those data are not publicly available, but the technology is there. increasing that collaboration could be very useful orno using that technology in a more public framework would be beneficial to the research community. >> b okay.

that sounds like it could be a job for econgress. the other possible collaboration might be insurance companies. do they look at detailed fire modeling to comee up with their insurance rates on a house by house level? they big players in this? >> yeah, we are working with some insurance companies now as well as theh utilities. i anmean, there's so much investment needed in a better understanding of the firem. problem and so insurance companies are definitely interested in the risk for sure. >> okay. thank you. my time isup up and i yield bac > thank you. mr. webster is recognized. >> thank you, chair. thank you for holding this meeting. chief litzenberg, i had a question about you mentioned some items or fields of future focus in your report and things like remote sensing or fire mapping, thingss like that.

which of those would be the highest priority? >>ti congressman, thanks for th question. it is a toughof one for me to answer because in my view all of these are somewhat related and if you were asking for a priority it is a difficult one. i can say that the creation of a sensing network, i will go back to the discussion i had a few minutes ago about santa fe fireship coalition. part of the success of that is a lot of viewpoints. you're getting a a better view d viewpoints whether it's social science or technology and data. the more we can create a sensor network that is ground based and up to the satellites that integrates and gives us realtime forecasting mapping, that to me is a huge priority but that some of the s into

other priorities like putting that data in a single usable place where u all levels of government are sharing data significantly, using that data to create situational awareness in realtime for boots on the ground and ultimately a network of communication that links all of these properties together. again, ins summary it's hard fo me to prioritize because they work together but. that's probably how i would do so since you asked me to do so. >> thank you for that. last week we had the new nasa administrator senator nelson and he was here, we were talking about collaboration and how much is there and how it's working and so forth? he wasnt pretty confident that there was a lot of collaboration from at least nasa and the areas ofig hurricane tracking and firefighting, floods, so forth. my question would be this whole idea of remote sensing.

should there be or are there alreadyco ways where that information is being coordinated and communicated to local and state foresters in communities to improve prevention of -- and also maybe mitigation in the area of forest fires. do you know anything about that? >> congressman, i can give you my opinion from being somebody level.local i've always had the impression that that data exists and that it should be reachable and in places where there are good relationships it often is, but dependent on the caliber of those relationships. there are places nationally, we've referenced wildfire leadership council, national interagency fire center where

integration b is happening and think it's happening towell, bu it's not always getting down to the community level where decisions about prevention and mitigation can be made appropriately and that's potentially a huge place for future improvements. >> well, it's something we are going to have to work on. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. sherman of california is recognized. >> thank you. i want to thank the committee for having this hearing, i take it personally, having been evacuated from my home just a couple of years ago with the sattel ridge fire representing a district that goes right up against the city limits of los angeles. mr. geissler, in your written testimony you note that the buildup of hazardous fuels on many of our publicly managed lands are at historic levels and

you further note that past management activities have actually made our public lands even more vulnerable. how can research improve the maintenance issues so as to reduce the likelihood of fires like those we've seen in california? >> thank you, congressman, for that question. and, you know, as you said, our forests and landscapes are really at a point where their resiliency is questionable in many places. science and research has really been doing a lot of work relative to how we best turn the corner on these landscapes. there's always ongoing research related to fuels and what is on the ground. there is a lot of work within the fia, the forest inventory and analysis world where essentially we're learning more and more about what the conditions are, what the state of our forests is so that we can

better address the issue that's there. and i will say the forest inventory and analysis program through the forest service is one of those things that is kind of an unsung hero providing us a lotio of long-standing data and information related to how our forests and landscapes have time.d over so it's there. it's s ongoing below the surfac and it does not get a lot of notice from thosese of us that e outside of the community, but making sure that we have effective funding for forest inventory andst analysis and th programsat like the joint fire sciences program r that helps coordinate the research utilized in some of that data is really some of the critical needs. >> thank you. firefighters, emergency officials, dr. clements, you indicated how they and community leaders can struggle with disaster management, wildfire

season is increasingly becoming year-round, our tier are being asked to work impossible hours in hazardous conditions. dr. clements, how can we better use scientific modeling and the enormous amount of data that have been collected to better number of firefighting personnel that we will need? > so that's a difficult question. so what we can dost in the futu isis using some of these state the art fire prediction models to lookir at what we should expect. how big are these fires going to be given changes in wind, changes in temperature and fuels? so that could give us an idea of whatir resources and suppressio needs are going to be required in the future. so that's one way to use some of these newew models that are ver high resolution to look at what those needs could be in the future.

>> thank you. and i also want to take a minute to thank the appropriations subcommittee foror funding a project or recommending the funding of a project in my districtct to replace invasive d highlyna flammable shrubs with native and fire resistant shrubs right there in the area of the cessna and saddleridge fires we have suffered through in recent years. i thank you for your comments and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. dr. barrett is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. and ranking member lucas. for holding this hearing. you know, i always learned something in thisap committee a so i really appreciate the professionalism and the expertise of our witnesses and i thank them for being here today. i'm going tood continue on a

little bit with the conversation my colleague mr. webster was havingst and so my questions ar going to be to chief litzenberg as well as to mr. geissler but, chief, you mentioned in your testimony you highlighted that a collaboration among local fire departments with federal research and working with nsf, nist and nasa needs to further grow to improve the nation's wildfire response. and then you followed that with eight fieldsis of future focus this matter such as remote sensing, m fire mapping and oths and - so in that context then i want to extend my question to be how can we use these tools that you mentioned there to really increase the active force management and the implementation of fuel treatments because i think those have a real impact on being able

to prevent many of these wildfires. so with wec that, chief, if you would care to comment i would appreciate that. >> thanks to the question, congressman. and, yeah, i will give you my perspective again as a local responder. i think my perspective is maybe shared by responders and fire chiefs. i said itt s a few minutes ago i will say ite again, i do believe that there is a lot of data that's beingre created and lot of smart people, many of whom who are here today who are doing great things around fire science and often the missing link is how do i as a community responder, how do i as a fire chief get thatti data in a plac that's usable and then use it to dodo pry vengs and mitigation primarily. i lochb look at communities and we have the term fire death in communities but i often look at communities as an organism much

like a human and if you look at your body overr the years you'v counted ont' somebody to get da about you, whether i'm doing a brain scans if you have a headache, looking at your heart when you have chest pain, evaluating your blood and you get data points andta you have somebody who looks at those data points and gifts you a recommendation and what do you do about that and what do you do in terms of prevention to make sure that the ultimate effect is not catastrophic on your body? communities and ecosystems are no different and we're creating data points in my opinion what we really need is a place where that data is collected in one singlee place where everybody dumping everything that they're learning into a single place and then there's somebody or a committee or a group or an organization much like a doctor who is telling me asow a local community what do i do with that data? how can i make my forest healthier, how can i make my community safer and ultimately how can i provide public safety to those who want to live safely within the urban interface.

>> thank you. mr. geissler, would you care to add to that? >> yes, and chief litzenberg really hit the nail on the head. it's the availability and the utilization of all of this data that is being created and making sure that we have the ability to share it across the various jurisdictions. and it has happened in some places. i can give you an example within my own state where we utilize data from federal, state and local who we have come together and are sharing it across jurisdictional boundaries to develop a forest health strategy for our state. prioritizing all of the landscapes across all jurisdictions and that is in collaboration with the u.s. forest service, state agencies and locals and it ties back to our forest health management and then we also have used it on our wildfire strategy we are

building out. but it takes a lot of interagency discussions and it takes an environment where there's a shared mission on how we need to address or what the end goal should be. and that, again, much like eric said, is a lot of folks or organizations arent essentially working on o their own and discovering things and if that leads to sometimes reinventing wheels and to the point of getting it all to one location, gettingis the information on ho this can be used, collected, analyzed and then sent out and communicated is just absolutely critical. >> thank you very much. and i'm outd of time so i yield back, madam. chair. >> thank you very much. mr. buyer is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair, very

much. fascinating stuff and i'd like to start with dr. mccarty because the -- nasa's -- the space subcommittee of this committee held a hearingot a fe weeks ago on nasa climate science work. we heard an awful lot about the growing sensing -- to support nasa's earth science activities but primarily through data bots. but the hearing also identified questions about commercial data transparency, accessibility, licensece restrictions, that cod haveri implications for free an open access to federally funded earth science data. so what are yourr perspectives n the opportunities and challenges of commercial remote sensing data sets and wildfire data research? >> tes thank you for that quest congressman. commercial data is proprietary so when we -- and i, full disclosure who have access to those commercial data buys but they must be in the regions in

which the project that i competitively, you know, applied for has been selected. so if i, for instance, for fire xaq which was a partnership between noaa and nasa i was on the nasa side, i was able to look at commercial data sets and still am able to look at commercial data sets for regions and fires that we flew the d c8 but if i n wanted to expand tha to other states where we didn't fly, that would not necessarily be permitted. i wouldld need to go back and request and ask why. i would also say that the commercial data is of high quality, it's definitely an add on, it'sro one of those data fusionnc products we want to include. it requires a high level of computing and data science and coding skills to implement. our nasa and noaa earth observation products are often some of the bestft in the world they're plug and play in a lot of ways and our commercial data sets are not quite there, but that's notl, necessarily their

business model. so they haven't been given the rightpr incentive stick or carr to develop those products. they would be something that would fill in that gap if we want multiple daily inventory, but toer really get at some of e fire weather you need kind of like a weather system, a geostationary systemom where you're getting something every 15 minutes, half hour. >> let me ask a larger more existential question. it seems that fire science has changed an awful lot since i was a kid. smoky the bear, i was impress that had we heard the 78% or 48% are still human caused but back fires. then o later on i served a numb of years on the house national resources committee where some ofe my friends were like we ne to do much more forestry because we have to clear out all the trees and that way this he won't burn down. then you had our most recent president talking about raking the forestes in norway.

where exactlyly are -- and i kn climate change isow complicated all of this immensely and i know you have projects with prescribed fires, but is there a larger scientific sense of how best tot manage forests yet? with respect to fires. >> we e have, i would say, a coalescing convergence. there's always more science, you know, iss trust atingly like that, there's always more to know, however, what we have learned are o north america is fire adapted ecosystem, many of our natural areas are adapted to burn and so to function they must burn, the fire will come. steven pine, the fire story has shown time and time again. prescribed burning iss one of thosee forest management techniqueses like you were sayi there were no wafires, right? that's because there was active fire suppression. we are nowow in a fire death zo where we havef many of our wil line areas that aren't having

enough fires f so we need more prescribed burning and that's when we talk about indigenous burning, prescribed burning. we have some systems that burn so much close to our agricultural systems but some of our range line systems need to be burned vmore. so it becomes this very complex what i bike to call a patchwork quilt of whatea the ecosystem really looks likege and so management and science has to really view that complexity and that includes our fuel system, not just think of it as all grasses, having buildings and so on and so forth. back to you. >> madam chai -- chief litzenberg, do you have anything to add in the last 20 seconds? >> i think that was a solid answer and t i agree entirely. nothing significantha to add. >> iic look forward to the sciee continuing to t evolve. thank you very much.vo madam chair, i yield back. >> thank you. and the gentleman from texas, mr. weber, is recognized.

>> thank you, madam chair. this. will be for mr. clements o start with. the state with the most fires, is that data readily available? >> yeah, those data are nationally compiled. so it can be easily accessed generally. >> do i understand in your exchangee with bill foster i thoughtwa you said the data wast given. what data was that, do you remember that exchange? >> no. >> no? >> i don't think that was me. >> okay. and then g i will go to mr. geissler. do we have -- you had a daniel webster. do we have enough interagency interaction and is there somebody that tracks that and howw successful that's been? >> we have exceptional interagency cooperation at both the national, regional and state levels. we have a lot of discussions

among those state foresters, the emergencyon managers on how we n improve itt along with our federal partners at fema and the usda forest service and doi and others. theio collaboration revolves around the national interagency fire center in boise as well as wide land fire council and we really tryf to go through whats an ongoing continuous improvement kind of cycle with relation to that. all of the agreements that are in place, in fact, whether it be a master agreement between federal agencies and states or numerous state tol state or stae to local agreements all usually have some form of an assessment piece that's involved in it whereby we take a look at how it's working and try to improve on that. >> has there been a discussion about whether or not if you widen the rights of ways in some of these heavily forested areas that thatwo would reduce some o

the wildfires? >> those typically are occurring at the local and state level as we do our wildfire prevention planning. you know, there is a lot of work that even within your home state ofof texas with the community wildfire preparedness planning wherebyto you take and look at community and determine what would be theco best way to mitigate the risk to that community as well as mitigate the risk to the natural resources around it and those are all part of kind of a process that's utilized that we try to get done obviously before the fire gets accomplished. texas impact has an excellent program that they're utilizing in order to have those discussions and to your point, i mean, a lotd of it occurs all across the united states, across all c levels of government and within the local communities and evenlv private citizens, but a t

of it involves just giving a framework of how to get itli do and that's wheresc a lot of funding and research could be utilized just on the social sciences side of how we get this information better understood and accepted by o our public as well as funding on facilitation ander process in order to get these things done. if there is a place where we say we need to really accelerate on ate curve that is one place you can point to. >> what state would you say has the mostla wildfires? >> i think the last time we checked it was -- if youch lookt shear numbers it was california, butca to the point of dr. clements, all of that information is readily available through the national interagency firere center as we all report r fires up through the systems that are evolved. >> osright. follow up question to that is wouldd most of those fires have

been caused by utility companies? i think one of the questions i had we talked about insurance -- some of the testimony earlier about insurance companies were extremely interested, energy companies, power companies were extremely interested. would you agree that those -- not the insurance companies, but maybe the utility companies lines sparking together in high wind areas, for example, is that major cause of let's, for example, say california's fires? >> actually, the major cause is humans. we do sometimes very foolish thingss whether it be dragging chain, towing aes trailer or letting camp fires -- the smoky bear message that we talked aboutth earlier still applies i manyg cases and the causes that you're talking about, they do occur. you know, i'm not going to deny thatt we don't have equipment sparking with u utilities, but are working with the utilities trying to best figure out ways

to minimize that risk that's out there. if you ask for the purely what is the biggest cause that you and i essentially whether you look at the cost data. >> so are youmr saying this wor would be a really good place if it wasn't for the humans? >> well, we interact with our environment and change it all the time and i think us being better aware of what we can do to prevent that would be a much better place. sometimes we don't think about what we're doing and it takes just some simple awareness to really make us take that extra step. most people don't realize that they can. cause a spark mowing their lawn andan set a fire tha easily until it happens to them. really do want them to understand or wanthe everybody understand the risks that you're taking and how you can help us. >> i thank you. for that. i appreciate it. your indulgence. madam chair, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back.

jerry mcnerney is recognized. >> thank the chair. i want to thank the witnesses. this is really important to me, to my district, to people in the western part of the country. i won't be able to be as entertaining as mr. weber in my questions, but i willnk proceed anyway. dr. clements, thank you, again. and in your testimony you mentioned that we need more coupling of ecological conditions, atmospheric conditions and general fire behavior foror models to more accurately identify climate changesn impact on modern wildfire dynamics. can you elaborate a bit more on how federal science agencies can be helpful in promoting this type ofon research? >> thank you for your question, congressman. yeah. so a lot of this -- these couple firere models they are kind of they're becomingy operational, but they are not national and they are very high computing -- they takee a lot of high computing resources.

you need super computing resources to run thesein models. it's not that it can't be done but you need the resources. funding centers to do that or funding teams to run those modelsng operationally for regis would be. probably the best way to invest into getting these models operational. >> thank you. chief litzenberg, the federal science agencies have limited or no role in the federal -- with the federal agencies that coordinateme federal fire response.. how would you recommend federal science agencies be r better incorporated into federal wildfire response efforts. >> and, congressman, thanks for thatgr question. i believe that the best way to bee integrated is to use existg mechanisms because there are mechanisms that are used, that are used successfully and perhaps they could be improved in this avenue, but they are already there. the joint fire science program is onene that's taking good

science, putting it in a place that's usable to practitioners. the wild land fire leadership council and thegr national interagency fire center are also places whereis integration is occurring and all we really need to do is put a focus on new and existing research and how it can be used and applied towards emergingnk issues. >> thank you. dr.rt clements, again, in your testimony you talk about both the importance and difficulty of collecting routine meteorological data on wildfire incidents. do you think there is a role for federal science agencies to play in collecting more of this data? >> yes, i do. i think that we could, like i mentioned sbefore, instrument aircraft,na we could deploy mor resources right now the national weather service incident meteorologist programve which i like over 50 meteorologist that is go to active wildfires and other disasters around the country, this he deploy and they can request surface weather

stations but itri takes a whileo get thosese stations in place because they have to be driven out from a location and set up in the field. and so we could potentially have other types of technology, wind profilers, doppler radar networks that are higher resolution that could be either deployed rapidly like in a storm chasing manner or through teams that are already staebtd with the b incident command team or e fire incident. yeah, i think the federal government could actually play a big role. it's justt like hurricane hunters, we have those aircraft that sample those hurricanes to collect the meteorological data but wete don't have that for wildfire. it's the same type of information that we need to better model and predict what the fire is going to do and how the sats fear is playing a role in that firene sped. >> and data standardization would be helpful, too, i imagine. >> we have the standards in the data as rwell. particularly some of the remote sensing data because a lot of these images we could get from privat' vendors is saturated to

that means that you are not getting the accurate temperature, you are not really seeing what the fire is doing, you're seeing a blob on an image. having better data standards would be improvement for what we have currently. >> well, as co-chair of the house artificial intelligence caucus with my colleague mr. gonzalez, one of the areas i'm how ai can be s used in wildfire response. chief litzenberg, can you respond to that? >> i can do my best to respond to that as the nonscientist or the practitioner. anything that we can use to take existing information and create it o in a usable fashion for the of us who are actually doing the boots on the groundof practitior work to me is a bonus. ifwe that includes the use of a then ior say we're in. that's something that should be explored into the future. >> thank you. madam chair, i'm going to yield

back esnow. >> the gentleman yields back. mr.-- gonzalez is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair, and thank you to f our panel for beg with us today and sharing your perspectives. mr. geissler, i want to start with you and i want to talk about tree spatial patterning. i'd like to get your thoughts on this. new researchatat indicates that trees and spatial patterns are more fire resistant than those uniformly or evenly spaced. should we be encouraging more managersrs to adopt spatial reforestation or is more research and testing of this method required? >> thank you for the question. i'm not ash familiar with the latest research in this that has some out. i can tell you only from a fire manager's perspective that obviously changing the spatial relationship among stems or trees in a forest obviously changes fire behavior characteristics, but then along

the same lines i do know that in our southern states where we do a lot of culture related to plantation forestry those actually have created issues in the past because of the nature of the change in fuel spread. so i would have to do a little bit moret. research to give you solid answer on that and i'm willing to follow up with you on it. >> thank you. my next question is how can federal science agencies assist in these effortsea so i guess i will turn it back to you, maybe we just need nor research but i will let you answer. >> again, as this type of research comes out the modification of fuel profiles in general t whether it be through spatial changes between trees or the removal ladder fuels and percentagesre related to that, l of that stuff are items that foresters and natural resource

managers are looking at all the time not just from the standpoint of fire management but also from the standpoint of just pure forest health to other things such as insects and disease. so, a you know, obviously increasing and a improving the research availability is always important as well as i'm m goin toin always tie back to the makg that haveio research and information available to the practitioners on the ground and sometimes that requires more of a social scientist to come up with how to get that best across, but i agree that more work is needed. >> thanks. and then a somewhat related question perhaps, obviously the united states is the -- is not the only country dealing with wildfires. what learnings if any can we taked from how this is managedn

other parts of the world that we should be applying to how we deal with wildfires in the u.s. >> there's actually a continuous sharing along those lines also. even within my own state we partner withh our fellow firefighters in british columbia,, saskatchewan and others on the canadian side as we share resources across the border all the time. there's obviously discussion of the tools that we use be it from how we manage our firefighters' safety to the tactics we are utilizing.g. you've obviously or should have heard of where we bring firefighters in from other countries and even the forest service has gone to other countries like australia and all of those we have a sharingg environment. that is one of the foundational elements within the wild land firefighting community is to maintain that learning environment as we go and use

different tools and techniques andha there is the wildfire lessons learned center and others that actually helps to disseminate this information. so the experience of, again, getting the right people in the room with a shared experience that i believe eric spoke to earlier, you getet a lot of peoe in the room talking about the same thing and you can come up with some fairly amazing ideas and we have made changes to our systems anden tweaked our processes in order to get w betr just because of thefe experienc that we have had with our -- with our fellow firefighters from other countries. >> thank you.u. that's very helpful, i appreciate your testimony and responses and i will yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. casten is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair, and thank you to our witnesses. dr. clement, i'd like to start with you and one of the things that's always sort of struck me as theal hardest thing to deal with on climate change sews logically is there is all these nonlisten yartees and we do a

bad job of anticipation accelerating trends. obviously thatfi contributes to the increasing numbers and severity of wildfires that we've seen but if you look just at wildfire science as t you try t predict what's going to happen over the next five, ten years are there major nonlisten yarts either feedback loops making it worse or that might damp it with respect to wildfire science that we might think of on the anticipation that we are probably not anticipation those things pretty well, either? >> thank you for your question, congressman.as yeah, so in terms of climate change and feedback loops as we change -- as the environment getsat warmer we are going to change the fuel structures, we're going to change our landscapes so thatue that can impact maybe for the better at times different types of fuel structures so we could convert some after fire, we can convert forest to grass lands and that can lesson extreme fire, about

tu can make it more ignitable as well. there are feed backs,ou it'sk really my expertise so i could look into that a little bit more and get back to you. i thinke one thing that we need to considered in terms of clima change is that these trends,e u know, the predictions -- we have to look at attribution, you know, what's reallyan causing a these things. we know it's climate change, we know it's forest management, we know it's climate induced drought and weather, but we can still put more science into fine-tuning what those attributions are in terms of what's going to happen in the future. we could use high resolution modeling c in a different state could o we could use 2050 clima scenarios and model what fires are going to look like then, that's something we're planning to doing. that could be one way to diagnose it. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. dr. mccarty you had mentioned in your commentse we're seeing wildfires in places like the smoky mountains that we haven't thought abouto before.

with thesey trends are there areas or types of fires that you think are going to be more likely in the future that we need to be thinking about and preparing for? >> sure. thank you for that question, congressman. in fact, the eastern forest used to be called the asbestos forest by many professional foresters because they said that they wouldn't burn but that is, in fact, noter actually -- that wa true, it's just they have a longer fire return interval. we will expect the southeast becomes hotter and drier, particularly in our upland areas that fire risk will increase and this is a wui question, we have had people move into places like asheville, knoxville, tennessee, even parts of west virginia and, you know, pennsylvania. so we're going to see more fire risk. the other thing is to think about nifsi reported that in 201 just ins terms of burned area, total acres burned the state with the most wildfire is alaska. so alaska is a state we need to have on our minds as wild land

fire scientists because in the future we will see more arctic fires, we will see more borial fires. those fire regimes are accelerating. we will see moree of our organi carbon soils burn and then burn through the winter and reignite in the spring. that's just a continuation of firere seasons and that is a very -- a different type of fire management and i do think the alaskan forest service and alaskan fire t consortium is a very professional and outstanding group and they are trying through research and science to figure out. how to work these new challenges in the future. thank you. >>ofou so last question with th little time i have left is for any of you who feel comfortable answering this and it's a little beyond this committee. a man on the fed gourd of borchers said the scientific evidence is uneek voe cabell but the financial risks are highly

uncertain. she noted more than 70% of the losses from natural disasters areat uninsured and warrant of e potential to create abrupt repricing kievents. i spent a lot of time on the financial services committee thinkingst about how our financl system is at stress from this and of course we have had conversations if you were an investor in pg&e you may feel that directly from the wildfire damage. as you think about where there are big exposures to private capital from wildfires, and any major concerns and i realize this is more of a financial a scientific question, butyb you can't separe the two, they are all linked. anybody want to comment on that? >> i will just say that maybe perhaps the thing we should think about is a lot of americans their capital much of their money is wrapped upst in home ownership and property ownership and innd many of our western states and in our eastern states and midwestern states is they become more fire prone then suddenly the

likelihood that you lose your home ors it becomes uninsurable increases andt that is just a huge loss to private capital and you can only imagine what that wouldd do to our economy and gd and health ofct our population. so that is something that's hard to predict and hard to imagine intoto the future but is a dire financial loss. >> thank you. i'm out of time and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. kildee is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. i really appreciate you recognizing me and i do appreciate the chair holder this important hearing. thanks to the witnesses for your testimony. o i come from michigan, in fact, the northern part of my district is home to the huron forest which is 737 plus acres over 70 miles. it's named after a native-american tribe that's local to our region. the forest landscape is highly

prone to seasonal fires, it's dominated by jack pines. jack pine needles are highly flammable, those seasonal fires are actually part of the lifecycle of thes forest. pinecones from those jack pines containing seeds only open as a result of the fire. and the kurt land -- a great little song board only breeds in those young jack pines. so as a result of logging in the forest the habitat was at one point nearly completely destroyed, that little bird was almost completely extinct. 50 years later due to prescribed burns and the protections put in placeer by the endangered speci act the warbler was successfully removed from the endangered species list. now each year literally thousands of tourists come to that part of rural michigan to

see the curtland warbler. it's ale really important placef what makes that place so great, interesting and attractive. people that come from all over the country just tod see that rare bird. so in the forest we have to have these prescribed burns to wildfires, control but this year asla part of a prescribed burn an uncontrolled forest fire broke outs. and burd about 5,000 acres of that forest land. climate change has contributed to thesele fires due to climate change thehe forests are drier, the air is less humid, winds are stronger and morebu sustained a it makes it hard to control these controlled burns, these prescribed sburns. soe thankfully no people or structures were damaged but this is the kind of threat we would face. i'm curious and i guess i would ask the panelists perhaps mr. geissler l and chief litzenberg

for this huron forest that i represent or other forests across the country that do use prescribed burns toch maintain forest health as climate change increases the t intensity of weather whattr do we need to be doing, what do you suggest that we do to ensure that we avoid a controlled burn, prescribed burn like this getting out of control like the one we saw in the huron forest. go ahead. go ahead, mr. geissler, do you want to start and then maybe the chief with comment? >> thank you. what i was going to let you know is that thehe idea of the jack pines situation a lot of that revolves around the potential need for replacement fires even to truly manage that landscape which we don't do because of the risk when you have prescribed burns. and that's why a lot of what you're seeing in the type of work that'sg being done is on a

more cyclical basis and maintaining the trees at different ustages. but one piece that i wanted to make sure that everyone stood is when a prescribed burn is planned, a plan is actually developed and what it does is it not only is the objectives of how the burn will be occurring andus what the end result needsy be, but it's usually very specific on humidity, wind direction, wind speedhi and others. i think thatur a lot of it, lik you said. planning and follow the plan exactly and planning. and that we follow the plan exactly. and then if there are issues, even if they're minor, learn fromut those. in addition tom, a lot of research that we've talkedi abt throughout thiswe hearing helpso feed those plans in the knowledge if we have to develop them. so again, i want to bring up how a prescribed burn can be done and the need for additional research and information. >> thank you. chief, do you have thoughts on

this?is >> yeah. thank you. i'll say it briefly. what you just described is the social o phenomenon we call fir adaptation. it does have an effect in our ecologies as llwell. of years ago we decided we had to suppress everything and all of a sudden we had a bigger issue than in theth past. now we realize, we have to control theet fuels, control th risks and it's healthier for forests. the more we can get information about the fuels and the more we get information about weather to use for our planning, the better our planning will be. i'll say one last thing which is, luckily our organizations havere evolved as well. and the science that our organizations and the tactics that they're using to manage these forests are also getting better. so continuing to invest in those organizations and our work forces can't be overstated. >> thank you very much. madam chair, thank you for the extra time.

>> gentleman yields back. >> thank you, madam chair. iat appreciate it. thank you for this very interesting and informative hearing. the recent extreme heat is concerning for many reasons, not the least which is the safety and health of the communities. but it is deeply troubling that such a mix of limiteder water, dry lands and unusuallyhi high temperatures ts early in the summer. i'm not saying anything you don't already know. the terrible fires we sawast summer the with the economic devastation highlight our climate related disasters. the u.s. has a number of earth observing satellite based platforms that provide useful data for wild land fire science.

but we also rely on assets from european and other international partners. dr. m mccarty, i'm interested t know, to what extent are our european and international partnerw data coordinated with the united states data, how can wert further utilize available international data? >> thank yout for that question. say, as i'm not at nasa headquarters, some of this i can't speak to. i will try togh apply back in writing. there are high level interactions between nasa hq and of coursecl other international space agencies. our researchers on the ground including places like the u.s. forest l geo spatial technology and application center in salt lake city tried on utilize sentinel products, sentinel 2, which is kind of higher spatial

resolution and higher temper resolution. and some of our radar date, that a ten meter resolution are now being implemented to try to look at firelu monitoring, fire protection but better mapping fuels,e including things like where peat lands are, fuel might conditions. andd f the research community, these products are being developed and being put forward to some of our federal level operational centers, and of course, the more we can do that, the better the data for our agencies and our firefighters on the - ground. >> can you go into developing the stand darng fire warning

similar to the richter scale for earthquakes? i'mgh particularly interested i how it would be helpful for firefighters. >> i sure can. thank you for the question. so much like the hurricane windd scale, we can develop a scale for forecasting the threat of oil land fire. this type of system would require coordination with the u.s. forest service and pretty much everybody across the board. it would provide a standardized warning system to let communities and responders know what type of resources would likely be required, respond to a fire,, what action should be taken, such as sheltering in placeha or evacuating. a lot of the catastrophic issues we've seen during fires are in the movement ofof people. and obviously, for all of us, that is number one value. the more we can communicate with people what to expect, the

better our response system will be. >> thank you so much. there's great promise. there dr. mccarty, did you want to comment on that? if not i'll yield my time. >> i think this is a great idea. our fire warning system is often hard to interpret. it looks like a rainbow speedometer. essentially. and welo would need that. and there is a lot of social science and public health researchch including built environment research that could be donear that will help implemt such a warning system so it does community the right thing to ground so that's not causing problems for firefighters. >> thank you very much. ii yield back. >> thank you. >> asmr the last questioner, i want to follow up on miss wild's

questions. to dr. mccarty and chief litzenberg, we were talking about satellites and coordinating with thehe europea and others, obviously, the canadians. what steps have been taken? up that noaa is a number of years away from really having satellites to monitor these fires. can we monitor them with some of our military assets? our intelligence assets? andd i'm saying we sometimes in colorado, t obviously, we've ha big fires last year and we had to call in the national guard to assist our firefighters. can we call in some of our space assets?rt have either of you heard about that?r. >> yes. the projectda i know about as fe guard, i would like to defer to dr. clements. i have not needed to work with

that inn my lab so i know about it. would you like to comment on that? >> well, thank you. i haven't actually been able to work the data because it is not available for the research community. i've seen examples of it so that's all i know. when we do deploy to wildfires, we know it is there. wedge the fire behavior analysts arebe getting access to it so i is available but i have not been able to work those data points. >> chief - litzenberg, have you had any experience using our other assets besides that we might have available through the military or the intelligence community? >> o congressman, i have not personally had a lot of experience witha that. but i'll add to what dr. clements just said. a lot of what is available when it is available is when large instant management teams are in place. and unfortunately, the vast majority of incidents across the nation, a large instant

management team is not put into place. it is managed by local responders, whether they're from local governmente or from the state or from the forest service. so the more we can get that information thatal is usable to all, theer better we will be. i have notet personally had tha experience. >> t okay. let me ask this question. so to any of the panelists, last year, one of our firefighters called the east troublesome fire which is the second largest we've had ever, the thing that was most disturbing about it, it was growing at about 4,000, 5,000ac acres a day. then in one day, it grew by 120,000 acres and we lost some lives and it was up in a very, it was part of the rocky mountain national park near grand inlake. how can we use science to predict when there is going to

be anmc explosion like that in terms of fighting wildfires? >> my quick answer is in addition to these fire weather models that he mentioned, we actually do need better, higher resolution. not justin fuels mapping but fus condition down to the hour. this could be used by incident command andnd then that would tl us where would we likely sees these times of explosive forest fires. andho again, he's mentioned working in british columbia. they had a similar situation in 2017,pr and the canadian forest service is working toward a similar process so i would defer to the otherpe panelist. >> mr. geissler, could you follow up on that and explain your experience? >> yeah. was said, there are a number of monitoring systems that are looking at fuels and other predictive data in order to give

usuc that heads up. whatat representative lucas tald about has fuels data in real-time. is as a part of it. so we were able to look at the moisture content and fuel typing and all of these sites across the entire state at any given moment. so what it does, it allows the fire manager to anticipate. just this past year, we had a wind event which took us from a slow fire season to our historic fire season in a matter of a couple of days. and a lot of that really came down to, we knew that the wind event was going to occur. but beingin able, while the win event was ongoing, to have that ongoing realization of changes would have been anotherer assistance. so n n there are various system placena that allow this predictn to go but they don't have the coverage to really give a

national or regional picture. they're highly isolated at this point. >> thank you. my time is expired. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. and i believe we have no additional members available to askit questions. so beforee, we bring this heari to a close, i want to thank the witnesses for the time they spent with us today. expertise, their testimony. it has been enormously helpful to us as we think about what further steps we should take here in the science committee. the record will remain open for two weeks for additional statements from members or any additional questions c the committe may ask of the witnesses, and we do ask witnesses if we have questions, ifif you could please answer th, if possible, within that two-week period that we would bi enormously grateful. so at this point, the witnesses are excused with our thanks and this hearingte is now adjourned.

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