funded by these television companies and more, and including buckeye proodband. broadband. broadband. buckeye broadband supports c-span along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. up next on c-span3, a house science committee on ways to improve wildlife research and coordination efforts. we will hear from a washington state forester and new mexico state fire chief.

>> we can hear you, sir. thank you. >> so, we were waiting a minute, because the conference and caucus were meeting, but i think that we will begin since this is a hybrid, so we begin a countdown to begin it or proceed? okay. this hearing will come to order and without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. and before i deliver my opening remarks, i wanted to note that the committee today 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 are attending in person, and unvaccinated against covid-19 need to stay masked throughout the hearing, an unvaccinated

members may remove their hearing under the 5 minute rule, and unvaccinated members can attend virtually. those virtually must keep the video feed on as long as they are present, and those present are responsible for your own microphone, and keep them muted unless you are speaking, and finally, if the members have documents to submit to the i wanted to say good morning, and thank chairwoman johnson for agreeing to hold the 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 and fire science and i think that it is very clear that in the 2021 fire season, we have

already that begin. it is on pace to be a record year, and firefighters in my home state of california are currently battling six large wildfires in the state. as a californian, this is a cause for alarm. in 2020 alone, the u.s. saw record wildfires burning 10 million acres of land, and 4 million in california. in 2018, california fires only burned 2 million acres are increasing restricted fire potential added every year since 2000. and as a risk of the wildfires grow, so should the ability of

mitigating fire risk. today's hearing represents the research, and how to use it to improve the stacy -- the federal coordination. and they are instrumental in helping the wildlife managers to prepare for worsening wildlife seasons. this is one example of how the coordination of science agencies with operational managers can lead to actionable science. with dedicated authorities and investments in wildfire science we can develop additional capabilities of wildfire detection, and deepening our understanding of the wildfire fuels. i was proud to sponsor the amendment with my colleague mr.

pearlmutter in the nsf to strengthen wildfire research. it is not right for congress not to act to bolster the wildlife research, but it is dangerous. that is why i am drafting legislation to better understand and predict wildlife and fire responses. i hope this bill will also lead to our fire science agencies working closely with the fire managers to make sure that wildfire risk is managed. we are happy to have academic researchers using information used by agencies like noaa and

others to look to them for areas of further investment in wildfire science. i'd also like to extend a warm welcome to dr. yes, san jose university, in my district, and he is the director of san jose university's wildfire interdisciplinary center which is a leader in wildfire research. i look forward to herring his testimony about the importance of supporting the interdisciplinary wildfire research. and this is so crazy, because it is better needing to be

understood and requiring a better whole response for research and operations. we are encouraged by the administration's assistance for resilience and the president's budget request for the science agencies to tackle extreme weather events which leaves us ample room to work with the appropriate levels in keeping with the magnitude of the wildfires management. and so this morning i would like to thank the witnesses, and yield to the ranking member for any comments he would like to make. >> i would like to thank the chairwoman for calling this hearing, and chairwoman lofgren for presiding. i am sure that many of my west

west -- many of my colleagues including congresswoman westgren would agree that many of the figures are ahead of last year's figures. it is easy to include that this year's wildfire statistics need to be -- and this year's wildfires rely on the regrowth and regeneration processes, and many of to animals look to the habitat to be burned. lengthy seasons, and poor wildfire management are leading to more wildfires in the country and around the world which is problematic. and additionally the number of people who are living in the wild last and ur ben and the

-- urban areas has led to a need of more resources. it has led to materials led into the watershed, and we think of the west as the biggest area for wildfires, but it is a issue for all of us. these resources would be spend on rec recommendations from noa meteorologists who are helping the scientists spotting the best path of the ongoing fires, and these engage in research of the best wildlife behavior and how

the weather proof the structures. we have to make sure that all of the agencies are effected in a coordinated manner, and the department of interior, and i want to thank the witnesses for appearing before us today, and i am pleased to help george guiseler who is the washington state forester, and he was the previously the state forester of oklahoma, and i am looking forward to hearing the thoughts of gaps in federal research, and how to improve federal agencies and what actions we could take which is the most beneficial to him, and all of the onground federal responders. i know it is the busy period for him, and the record-breaking temperatures for him this week and i thank him for sharing the expensive experience with the committee. and with that, madam chair, i want to thank you, and i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back,

and without objection, other members who wish may submit opening statements to the record. i'd now like to introduce the witnesses all of whom are participating remotely. our first witness today is dr. craig clements. he is a professor of meteorology at san jose state university and the wildfire disciplinary center, and he leads wildlife center and behavior and wildlife center interactions and conducting wildfire land experiments, and he has over 20 years experience in the meteorological field observance, and teaches courses in wildlife, weather, meteorology, and climate change and weather instrumentation. and next is jessica mccarthy who

is the director of the geological center, and as of this year, associate professor of geology. she has years of experience to quantify agriculture, and food student, and land use change. she is the coauthor and author of more than 20 peer-reviewed articles and 12 peer-reviewed conference proceedingssh and three book chapters and four data citations, and ones that is a technology transfer. our third witness as mentioned by the ranking member is mr. george guysler who is the washington state forester, and deputy for wildfire and research in oklahoma, and he has

experience in fire management and research, and six years of experience in structural firefightering in idaho and new mexico. he is a member of the society of american foresters since 1987, and a certified forester, and he joined the forestry services in 1986. before being named as a forester director, he served as a chief forester. and also fire chief who has retired in new mexico. he served the majority of the career in the city of santa fe department completing his time in the city and was the city manager where his career began. in 25 years of service he worked for new mexico state forestry and part of the multiple

incident management team, and for years owned santa fe wildfire which provided resources for management and response. as the witnesses should know, you will each have five minutes for your spoken testimony. your entire written testimony will be included in the record of this hearing. when you have completed your spoken testimony we will begin with a little clock on your virtual screen that will count down your five minutes, and when your five minutes are up, we ask you the sum up so we may hear all of the witnesses. we start with you, mr. clemens. >> chair, and lieutenant lofgren

chairing the committee. i'm craig clemens and i serve as director of the wildfire research center at san jose university. i am honored to appear before the house, science and fire committee. i will focus on the fire science. i would like to thank congresswoman for her help in getting bills to the president. we have had 100 years of tree density and fuel condensation. and we have had fewer reason for fire detention, and your the core of our earth is zero.

and so while i will want to foe foefocus on a few gaps of poorly understood extreme events. we don't have a understanding of the fuel that is spreading these wildfires. there is a high gap of the resolution data to understand the fire data and the capabilities of the fire assistance. in terms of the fire observational needs, we need to start treating fire weather as we do other fire weather phenomena, and we don't have to do that with the equivalent of the hurricane and fire hunters to see and observe the fires. we specifically need publicly

available high temple observations from space and aircraft. these observations can not be a snapshot one or two. come -- comprehensive fire events are rare, and we have a program that addresses these fires and the gaps in these fires and that should be a priority. in addition to the fire behavior, investment is needed in operational and community-based models which link the fire spread for the spread of fires. a better model is needed to improve the model and share it with other users. this is going to be kept within

one house, institution or other happen that is not to be used by others. the model that is called the wharf s-model. further investment in the framework will improve our ability to predict extreme future fire. in terms of driving the science forward and promoting innovation, and a few federal agencies are leading the fire research efforts but they are not well coordinated. one is the sciences budget, and it has had the budget slashed in half. federal investment should target competitive grant programs for academic institutions to apply for. for example the national science

foundation could develop science funding programs across the directorates and also we need to fund a sustainable dedicated program for basic and applied research for fire weather. and this is critically needed. >> thank you. dr. clemens, we will turn to the next witness, dr. mccarthy. >> thank you. thank you, chairman lofgren, and distinguished members of the committee. i appreciate this opportunity to appear today in research and to testify about this subject. i am jessica mccarty and i have

15 years of experience on satellite and calcifiers and emissions, including the noah field campaign. during my testimony i will highlight the system, solutions and monitoring and the collaboration for science results, and the views are my own and not that of the university. and as pointed out, it is for the entire u.s., and dryer field conditions in the u.s. fire change leads to drought, and leading to large stands of dry and sometimes dead trees which leads to the likelihood of trees like the great smoky mountain fires that burned 18,000 acres and killed 14 people in an exceptional

drought. and within the arctic regions in alaska, lightning increased and and also causing underground fires that lead to underground fire, and also greenhouse gases and more intense fires now and in the future can potentially forest's ability to capture carbon by reducing forest density and tree size. research into mitigating future wildfire risk should note that mitigating any wildfire risk means reducing can boar emissions. since we cannot prevent lightning strikes, and as we work to limit warming our remaining options are to reduce human caused emissions and modify fuels. human caused ignitions in the western u.s. account for 84% of

all wildfires. in a warmer and more flammable future we must act to reduce arson, accidental fires and the spread of open burning from agricultural fields. and research in those areas will assist in those actions. wildfire risk can be lowered through fuels reduction. this is most effectively done via prescribed burning as well as working with indigenous fire practitioners to return cultural burning to the land. a community's tolerance for spoke will often dictate when or if a prescribed fire occurs, and social science research into those community reactions is needed. the choice is ours. do we tolerate a few hours of smoke or do we wait until we are forced to evacuate. space born fire detections often rely on 375 meter to 1 clom -- a higher resolution sensor like the 30 meter landset is only overhead every 16 days but the

pixel sizes are about the size of a baseball diamond. have 0.5 to 2 kilometers pixels, 3 by 3 city blocks to 11 by 11 city blocks, pu they capture images every 5 to 15 minutes. and improved research needs to combine higher spatial resolution sensors. noaa's geo xo gets us closer to such system but the first launch is planned for the early 2030s. we need this now. being able to see fire spread every 15 minutes within baseball diamond sized grids would be a game changer for science, for fire management and incident command and for public education and engagement including improved warning systems. finally, i would be remiss not to mention as well the joint fire science program, the jfsp is a solution's oriented federal research collaboration that provides scientific funding for

practical results, but the jfsp also funds and manages the fire science exchange networks. these exchanges provide the most relevant and current wild land fire science to federal, tribal, state, local, and private stakeholders across all 50 states. currently the funding for and future of the jfsp and the regional exchanges is in question. we should not reinvent the while when a functioning and successful federal mechanism that collaborates with non-federal partners at all levels already exists. thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify before you today and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you very much. we'll turn to our next witness, mr. geisler. we're looking forward to hearing from you. >> good morning chairwoman and ranking member lucas. and distinguished members of the

committee. fire and forest health for the washington department of national resources. i'm past president of the national association of state foresters, chair of nasf's wildland fire committee and a member of the wildlife fire leadership council. i appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today as the committee examines opportunities for further research in coordination related to wildland fire science. state forestry agencies such as dnr contribute a significant portion of the overall wildland fire suppression effort nationally 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. and they work closely with mayors local and county governments, tribal across the u.s. to deliver wildfire protection on a national scale. we appreciate the work of this committee to address this important issue and in the interests of time i will

highlight the following recommendations for improving research and development efforts focused on supporting wildland fire management. first, please support research and development on wildland fire -- in the -- >> whoever is unmuted, please mute. >> would benefit wildland fire response efforts and made accessible to the general public. services now but there is a clear need for realtime wildfire modeling at the operational level, as an example, the national hurricane center use many models as guidance in the preparation of official track and intensity forecasts for hurricanes. forecast models vary tremendously in structure and complexity, similar to those with combined a collection or ensemble of wildfire models in realtime to provide an advantage for wildland fire operations and better inform the public. second, please support the development of fire simulation models that incorporate the

built environment as a fuel. currently wildfire models encompass the wild lands and stop at the built environment to better determine future threats to communities. trees and grasses burn very differently from homes and our businesses. please support research and development that enables remote tracking of all active wildfires resources in realtime. wildfire management suppression operations utilize a patchwork of communication networks to track resources. we need to develop a standardized system and develop an implementation schedule into the interagency environment. wildfires particularly in rural areas. oftentimes in many areas including my own state of washington, wildfires can go undetected for days, and we now rely more and more on citizens to report wildfires through typical 911 calls. more access to satellite technology and high performance

infrared cameras will greatly improve assessment, and attacking wildfires early when they're small is the key to reducing fatalities, injuries, loss of natural resource, property damage, and lowering our firefighting costs. also, we ask you prioritize the development of realtime smoke modeling and decision score tools for wildland fire managers in local and regional public health officials. there are opportunities to leverage the resources of the epa and centers for disease control to better understand the public health impacts of smoke on people including our firefighters. with many wildfires occurring, there are more materials and chemicals in homes and in streets that burn and produce a very toxic environment. we ask you provide research opportunities that will help inform the development and implementation of the next generation of national, state, and local codes and standards for addressing issues and catastrophic wildfire risk. this research should utilize the best available science and

conclude the past wildfire losses. and finally, we ask you to develop a standard of warning scale for wildfires that actually conveys the magnitude or potential magnitude of current developing and projected wildfire events. this scale much like the enhanced fujita scale for tornados or the richter scale for earthquake would help convey the magnitude of the threat to the public and could be used to improve evacuations and emergency preparations. thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. on behalf of washington's department of natural resources and the national association of state foresters, improvements in applied research and development technologies that support wildfire management will greatly enhance our collective ability to safely respond to wildfire and better protect our communities and treasured natural resources. i look forward to answering your questions. thank you. >> thank you very much, and now for our final witness, chief litzenberg, we'd be pleased to

hear from you. >> good morning, chairwoman johnson, chairwoman lofgren, and ranking member lucas. i am recently retired fire chief from santa fe county fire department. i serve as chair of the wildland fire committee of the international association of fire chiefs. i appreciate the opportunity today to discuss the state of federal wildland fire science in the future. wild land fires are now an all year threat to every state, and as my previous panelists, as well as members of the committee have stated the statistics continue to rise. this year probably looks to be the worst on record. local fire departments are on the front lines. we prepare our communities for fires and are often the first to respond. we help evacuate communities when the fire is over. we e help the community recover, and address threats that often follow. while federal agencies like the u.s. forest service and fema play the most visible role in

responding to wildlife fires, federal research agencies provide tools to help prevent and fight future wildland fires. they currently provide researching tools such as fire weather predictions, satellite imagery, predictive fire analysis, research and building codes, community fire prevention. fire analysis, and studies of major catastrophic fires and their aftermath. greater federal research into satellites technology can revolutionize preparedness and response. as we adapt to new technology like unmanned aircraft systems, we can provide the commander on scene with a host of new tools. we can develop an integrated picture. this will allow us to effectively save lives and property in the face of a growing wildland fire problem. as federal researchers focus on the national wildland fire problem, i'd like to highlight emering fields of research. ground based airborne and satellite remote sensing systems

can provide an integrated early warning system and better picture of the incident. satellites can identify fires in low density areas near critical infrastructure. also remote sensing can be used to provide information about fuels and droughts. fire mapping can be used to prevent and mitigate wildland fires. these maps can guide hazardous fuels and other mitigation projects. they also can provide realtime and interactive maps to assist instant commanders during a fire. this information can be used to identify at risk areas and focus community preparedness and mitigation efforts. uas provides several capabilities. they can hover over a fire to check its 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 isd recommends that the u.s. forest service fema and nist to develop a standard warning system for wildland fires. much like the richter scale for earthquakes a standardized warning system would help emergency managers and the public act as the fire develops. federal agencies should develop a standardized data collection system. this includes uniform formatting and methodology to capture and report wildland fire data incluing information about mitigation, prevention and post-recovery efforts. effective communication systems are the glue that link all of these opportunities together. unfortunately, we're still facing problems with coverage and interoperability. it will be crucial to address this problem to take advantage of the new tools under development. i would like to highlight first net's role in focusing on building out a nationwide public safety broadband network.

these capabilities offer potential, but they must be integrated effectively before incidents occur and on scenes. the federal agency should work with the forest service and the department of interior, but they should also work with state, tribal, territorial and local partners. there are opportunities to have these discussions. in addition they should work with non-governmental organizations such as the ifc. prioritization of at risk communities can divide community preparedness efforts like the ifc's ready, set, go program. in addition the national fire academy, ifc and other educational and media organizations can partner with the federal researchers to get information and technology. the wildlife fire problem is a national challenge. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. >> thank you very much for your testimony and to all the witnesses for your testimony. at this point, we will give

members of the committee an opportunity to ask questions of our witnesses for about five minutes, and i will begin with myself. you know, my constituents, and the constituents of many of us on this committee have been dealing with severe wildland or mega fires in recent years, and in fact, the wildland fires has grown from a season to really all year round. we had fires in california in the winter, and you know, in a way, i think about, yes, they're wildland fires, but they also impact urban areas. i'll never forget visiting santa rosa in 2017, a little town not in the middle of a forest, and the fire came in and destroyed 5% of the housing in that suburban community going to a suburb and all the houses are

gone. the shopping center is burned down. going, you know, with representative thompson who represents that area, other areas of his district that just was burned, and the fire in paradise, 2018, doug la mof represents that area. the fire swept through 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 government along with, you know, the operational stakeholders on the front lines. so dr. clemens and dr. mccarty, as dynamic researchers who rely on federal data and resources, where should the federal investment in wildfire science be most urgently directed?

first you, dr. clemens. >> thank you. so i think that funding these programs across all the agencies, particularly i think what we really need to focus on is research focus, so we can get better information in terms 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 those sensor systems and also the fact that we need more platforms. like was stated earlier was the fact that we need better satellite technology. so i think an investment in a lot of satellite development would be really beneficial to the entire wildfire science community. >> dr. mccarty, do you have anything to add on that? >> i would just add that we also need to think about as we develop these tools that we communicate them with the public in an effective way and we also integrate their input. i think a lot of times when we

think about wildfire risk and reducing wildfire risk, we forget that people are the main cause of fires still, and the more that we are transparent and open with the public, the better they will understand the risk and potentially ask as good citizens to reduce that risk in the future. and that includes social science research, public health research as was mentioned by some of the other witnesses. thank you. >> are there opportunities for federal investment or direction that could have positive impacts in the short-term, and how long do we think it will take for the longer term investments to have realized impacts? dr. mccarty and then dr. clements. >> so for satellite development, these things take a while. nasa's survey are a decade long for a reason, but oftentimes it's the funding and the priority that limits the advancement of these systems and

implementation, and i agree also with federal investments in the wildland fire leadership council would also be needed so that it can interact with the incident command and the commanders on the field and nif see as well as other agencies. and that's a short-term, you know, high risk, high reward investment that could be done quickly within an off-season to see if that implements better in the next fire season. >> dr. clements, anything to add on that? >> i think one thing that could happen quickly is restoring the joint fire program budget. that program funds things faster than a lot of federal agencies, the timing between proposal submission and project start is really quick, and so that could be one way to just jump start a lot of research quickly. >> dr. -- mr. geissler and chief litzenburg, do you have anything to add what's been said already? >> thank you.

there is one statement i'd like to make, and i totally agree with the comments of my colleagues here on the panel. i would like to emphasize the application of that science also. there's a lot of really good work that's ongoing that will require just a little bit of funding and maybe increase collaboration between state, local, and federal agencies, and we can get this technology to the ground, to the firefighters where it's going to make a difference. and so that interaction and collaboration i find is just something that we should foster and support as much as possible. >> thanks. >> and i will add that echo for all three analysts, and i'll emphasize what george geissler just said about integration. there are places where this integration is already happening effectively. and as science and data is created it will be important to get this to the boots on the ground practitioners, and the national interagency bio center, that integration is happening

already. so small investments can be leveraged significantly. >> thank you very much. my time is expired. i'd like to recognize the ranking member. mr. lucas. >> thank you, madame chair. george and i have worked together long enough i can call you george. you mentioned your testimony about listing several areas about how the committee could fill gaps and address shortfalls and the chairwoman very appropriately went down that. could you expand for a moment thinking about from the committee's perspective prioritizing those, where particularly george, if you had the ability to give us guidance, how would you prioritize one, two, three, four if you don't mind? >> no, i'd be glad to, thank you, representative lucas, and yes, you can call me george anytime. >> thank you. the priorities when we're looking at it, i am very aware of a lot of the satellite technology and some of the early work that's been going on. in fact, in my time with

oklahoma forest service we were working closely with the severe storms lab doing early detection and notification modeling, and i know that while there's long-term implications and development of the resource, currently there's a lot of opportunity just to get that on the ground right now working with local agencies. the other piece that i would really like to emphasize is the firefighter and resource tracking. this is a safety issue, and there are a number of different systems that are out there right now, and to be able to monitor and track our resources in realtime ensuring that we are putting them in the best places possible, ensuring that we're utilizing them effectively, and especially monitoring them to ensure that they are safe and that we are tracking and know that they're all going home, i think that that's just absolutely critical for us and we could make the changes that are necessary there. it's a standardization process and an implementation process

that really needs to occur. and the last one, though, for me is very much a i know that there's a lot of work here, but it is something that i would sink my money into if i had to, and that's the discussion around realtime smoke modeling, and continuing the decision space around that. smoke is probably the greatest public health issue related to wildland fire, and knowing what that implications are, being able to work with the public to improve public health and firefighter health, in fact, 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, and to kind of foster that even further would be a tremendous asset to us all. >> you know my district, george, literally from the northeast corner of the state to the southwest corner, the northwest half of oklahoma, and weather

forecasting is very critical to my farmers because it's decisions about when to plant, apply fertilizer, harvest, utilize prescribed burns to help maintain the health of our range lands and one of the ways that my neighbors and my spouse use -- engage in decision-making is using oklahoma's mez net system which provides up to the minute weather data. how did you utilize the data when you were state forester of oklahoma, and along with that, while you're thinking about it, do you believe that such a system should be emulated in other states to help benefit and prevent and fight large scale wildfires? >> the mez net system that oklahoma has is such a unique resource for firefighters, we have can watch in realtime whether patterns changes, wind changes. i remember counting down a wind shift to people in the field

telling when it was going to occur, and he was hitting it within a minute because we were watching it all on a screen. when i worked in other parts of the country, especially if you go to places like here in washington state we struggle because there's so many microclimates and not enough monitors but to be abled to that, to be able to tell to folks in realtime and do the prediction that folks that have all of had that data like the mesonet, what the mesonet system provides was just unbelievably valuable to us in that environment, especially in an environment that the type of fuels oklahoma has, it's a rapidly changing fire scenario. they're very quick, fine fuels 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 about mesonet, and having something to that effect across the united states would be amazing, and i think fire --

any fire manager that works in oklahoma is always thrilled by the app that we can easily download on our phones and do all of that, so it's an excellent tool. i agree. >> absolutely, the ability to protect both citizens' lives and their property. i know there have been many occasions that you've alluded to when volunteer fire lines members have been moved in a hurry because they couldn't survive where they were, an amazing system. with that, thank you, george, and i yield back, madame chair. >> thank you very much. the gentle lady from oregon is now recognized. >> thank you so much, chair lofgren and thank you to chair johnson and ranking member lucas for holding this hearing today, but especially thank you to our witnesses for bringing your expertise. i represent northwest oregon and this past weekend the pacific northwest faced a record breaking heat wave with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees for multiple days. in fact, it was 115 degrees at home yesterday.

these dangerous temperatures combined with a thin snow pack and below average precipitation are really raising alarms about our upcoming wildfire season. we have already seen a 6,200 acre fire on the confederated tribes of warm springs reservation in central oregon. fortunately it's been mostly contained, but oregonians have become all too familiar with wildfires in recent years. over labor day weekend just last year, rare powerful winds and very dry conditions resulted in unprecedented wildfires across the state. approximately a million acres burned. lives were lost. homes and communities were destroyed. hazy skies and smoky conditions made the air quality in portland comparable to some of the most polluted places on the planet. thank you, mr. geissler for highlighting the health hazards of smoke. our communities really on the front lines of the climate crisis and wildfires are yet another example of the need for comprehensive and bold climate action. i want to ask you, dr. clements.

you said you need to treat wildfires like other natural disasters and severe weather threats. and in your testimony, you noted the deficiencies in our understanding of how wildfires create their own weather and how fire atmospheric interactions can affect spread. how would improving our understanding of fire weather help to mitigate or respond to wildfires and how can congress better direct federal agencies to conduct this important research? >> thank you so yeah, the fire weather knowledge gap is really a problem because we just don't put those resources to fire weather like i mentioned thinking about the hurricane hunters. we don't have those resources for fire. now, we have suppression resources, tons of suppression resources. one thing we can do is we can instrument suppression aircraft with these tools, with the science tools. i've been advocating this for a while now, and it wouldn't be that hard. everything would be automated

and we could actually just 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 we can't -- you know, when we go -- so for example, my team, we go to active wildfires in california with doppler radar, we're the only team in the u.s. that can do that. there are no observations on active wildfires. there's not like they're storm chasers chasing fires. we're the small team and we get just a little bit of information here and there. we need to change that concept and make it more of a priority where we're actually supporting the incident m meteorologists. we could support -- funding could be directed to noaa for this type of infrastructure to support the incident meteorologists. they're tasked with forecasting very high resolution using models, but they don't have the observations on the fire, and

some of these fires are so remote that we don't have the observations. >> that's really helpful. i don't want to cut you off, but i want to try to get in another question. thank you so much. last year i joined my colleagues on the select committee on the climate crisis in releasing our bold science-based plan to reach net zero emissions no later than mid-century, and that negative thereafter. the plan represents the first significant legislative proposal to address the need for climate resilience investments including investing in wildfire risk mapping systems that integrate relevant data from federal agencies, states 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 urban interface without high resolution mapping, and how could better maps, including parcel level data better inform planning and response decisions? >> thank you for that question, con woman.

congresswoman. that is the key to what we do. getting good data and putting it in a way that's usable not only to our responders but to those in the community who are working on the team that's doing prevention, doing mitigation, trying to make our community safer. and as we have seen hot or drier conditions, the risk areas have expanded. i will say that in my testimony as well, one of the keys to me and my profession and my representation as a responder, is that that data becomes available as realtime as possible to those that are on the ground doing the work. so there's application in both prevention and mitigation and prictive analysis and incident command and realtime situational awareness. >> thank you so much. my time is expired. i yield back. thank you, madame chair. >> thank you very much, mr. posey is now recognized. >> thank you, madame chair. i really appreciate you having a hearing on all this.

mr. geissler the proceeding of the national academy of science issued a report entitled human presence diminishes the importance of climate in driving fire activity across the united states. this report is significant because it found that climate was significantly less important where humans were more prevalent suggesting that human influences override or even exceed the effect of climate change from fire activity, and madame chair had asked unanimous consent to submit this report for the record. >> without objection. >> thank you so much. based on your experience to prevent fires, should our limited resources be focused more or specifically on what and how we are building in fire zones rather than the broader topic of climate change. mr. geissler appreciate your response. >> thank you, congressman.

i appreciate that. actually, when we talk about fair and fire prevention one of the earlier panelists mentioned the greatest numbers of fires are caused by humans, whether it be a spark or a campfire, we use the old smokey bear message of only you. bottom line, though is with development in wild and urban areas is we're getting more people so you have more opportunities for fires to occur. it's not that they're not trying to prevent it, but it's just greater opportunities. in fact, in my own state of washington, the west side while it does have forests that typically have a longer duration between fires because of the fuel types, that's where our biggest population is, and we are seeing significant fires there. but at the same time, if you look at our forests and our forest resiliency, climate has had an impact on that also, and so combining with both

challenges, that's why a lot of what you see happening right now is an emphasis on working towards healthier forests, greater resiliency in those forests and making them more fire adapted. so for me, it's really a two-prong approach. there is the long-term of we have to get our fuel situation under control. we have to be able to keep our landscapes resilient whether it's a forest or a range land, but at the same time there's an education process and a prevention process, which we have to get people to be aware of what they're doing, be able to prevent those fires, and then in our planning efforts as people move into these beautiful areas, we have to get those areas better prepared for the interactions of the fires that will inevitaby come. and i lost sound. >> can you hear us?

>> i cannot hear you anymore. i cannot hear the congressman. >> how about this, is this better? >> that's better, sir. thank you. >> i'm asking if you'd be kind enough to explain why we need to include our built communities, those where we have built homes, roads, businesses and schools, in fire simulation models. >> easily because as we see the roads and the homes being put into these areas, our models currently just look at it as a continuous layer of fuels. basically we look at it as trees and grasses. homes and businesses, structures, all of these things change the fire behavior, change the way that fire acts on the landscape. having that information, knowing how the reaction of the fire is going to be or the actual behavior 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 eeasier. >> thank you, mr. geissler, madame chair i see my time is about to expire. i yield back, thank you. >> thank you very much. mr. berra of california is now recognized. >> thank you, madame chairwoman and 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 hiking in the back country as a boy scout when i was growing up to, you know, hiking the sierra nevadas and the feather river, et cetera, camping out there, a lot of those places are now scarred by forest fire. i'm going to ask a series of questions, and i'd ask the witnesses to keep their answers short so i can get through a number of these. i want to make sure i understand, you know, on the sensing side of this, you know, i've heard a number of the witnesses talk about how we just haven't allocated the satellite

resources necessary because i don't think it's a technology issue. i think that we have infrared sensing devices. we have the ability to put satellites in space so they're constantly monitoring the areas 24/7. we have drone capabilities that could surveil, you know, these areas. so i want to make sure i understand it's not a technology issue. it's a resource allocation issue, if i get that correct, and maybe mr. clements is that an accurate sense? >> yeah, so let's -- we can use cal fire as an example. cal fire has adopted the latest science and software package available, and it allows us to track resources, firefighters, it puts the fire prediction model in there and so it's the state of the science and it's actually been very successful. so that information gets some satellite fire guard data so they can map it, but those data

aren't really applied to the research community. but yes, the resources -- it's a resource issue. cal fire has already adopted it. it's very successful. they have a new system, it's for the whole state, and it's a really good model that should be used nationally. >> fantastic. i think that's something we as a committee could work on in a bipartisan way. a question for mr. geissler. one area i've worked on over the years is we have allocated resources to better forestry et cetera, but for years we would do this thing called fire borrowing where we would take those resources and then we'd actually send them to fight the fires. i know we've tried to invest the issue of fire borrowing. i suspect we could do more on the forestry management site to mitigate some of these forest fires. is that correct? >> yes, sir. the fire borrowing issue was actually helped tremendously by some legislation that occurred a couple of years ago, really the emphasis right now needs to be to take that -- those dollars

and really force them onto 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 management, i call them random acts of conservation where a lot of it is kind of spread across the landscape. in prioritizing the funds, making sure that they get to the ground is something that we should all emphasize and work harder on. >> okay. great, and again, we were able to pass that legislation in a bipartisan way, so i think this is another area where we could work together as democrats and republicans, you know, to really make sure we're actively managing our forests and mitigaing some of these fires. mr. litzenburg, four or five years ago i had two of my local fire chiefs who happened to be up in washington, d.c., visiting, and you know, serendipitously they started talking about the stresses that we're putting on our firefighters. since then i've talked to a

number of -- i represent a suburban urban community, but a lot of our firefighters rotate up into the hills to supplement cal fire and help. so they're almost constantly working during fire season and, you know, we put together a piece of legislation called the heroes act a few years ago, which was passed out of the house and this congress, really identifying and trying to address the pressures and stress that are leading to firefighter suicide, firefighter ptsd, et cetera. you know, if you could, you know, just quickly comment on the stresses that the men and women are under both urban and suburban, but also folks in the forestry service? >> congressman, i really appreciate that question. yeah, the stresses on our work forces at any level, all levels of government, private sector are significant, and they are full range from behavioral stressors all the way through physical stressors. the more that you ask from a work force that's already

strapped, the longer you ask them to serve in terms of hours in a day or in terms of weeks or months in a year, and the more exposures you give to smoke and human suffering, the greater stressors they have. we've already appreciated investments solutions, but we are really just beginning to discover the stress these have on our response force. >> we pass that legislation out of the house in a bipartisan way. let's hope the senate picks it up and sends it to the president's desk. thank you and with that, i'll yield back. >> thank you, ms. kim of california is now recognized. >> thank you, chair lofgren and ranking member lucas for holding this hearing. and i want to thank the witnesses for being with us today too. unfortunately wildfires in my district and the rest of california where congressman berra and i are from seem to be more prevalent every year, and with 85% of california in extreme drought the problem of

longer wildfire seasons has been exacerbated by the dryness of our landscape and the record breaking temperatures. and adding insult to injury, the wildfire smoke and ash affects our air quality and drinking water. i will begin working in a bipartisan manner to better coordinator our federal efforts in predicting wildfires and adopt cutting edge solutions to detect fires as soon as they start. mr. geissler, you know, i represent california's 39th district, where we have unfortunately seen the devastating effects of wildfires, not only in my community, but across the state of california. so how can we ensure coordination between federal, state, and local communities to share available information and tools to better predict and response to wildfires? >> thank you for that question, congresswoman. i appreciate it. the one thing that i will emphasize is that you really should be proud of the national

system that we do have currently. the interaction that we have between federal, state, and local agencies is something that actually other countries come to try to duplicate. but there's always room for improvement. getting to common operating systems, being able to share data, being table to share and communicate effectively is really some of the items that if we can address those, it is -- it's critical. a lot of times it's just the difference between two computer systems or literally the links that we might be able to get through broadband that prevent some of the sharing. and so it sounds kind of basic, the need, but the willingness and the ability to do it is there. 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 cal fire had is absolutely amazing, and it's in test and it has been doing some great work. part of the basis of that is its ability to start communicating across jurisdictional authorities. and that's what we're all looking for is that ability to effectively share all of these resources that we currently have. >> yeah, so noaa has the process of designing the next generation of satellites, so have any of your colleagues engaged with noaa in designing these satellites to -- wildfire detection ability? if not, what advice would you give to noaa to help make the futures -- more effective in buy wildfire detection and prevention? >> i will say i'm unaware if my colleagues have worked with noaa with satellites. i will tell you in my past life i was able to work with the

national severe storm labs in norman, oklahoma, and i know that the interaction between the national weather service and state agencies is very strong, and we utilize a lot of that satellite technology and that there have been conversations about how effectively those could be used at the noaa level also. i'm unaware of anybody that is speaking directly to them. i do agree it's a huge opportunity for us all. >> so you're familiar with the experimental high resolution smoke model, have you had input on that development of any of these models and in your opinion, what further research and development is needed to make existing models more effective? >> yeah, a lot of input has been really coordinated through the wildland fire leadership council where we do have all of the partners at the table. so you 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 of where we go forward. so going into the future we're really looking again to try to enforce that and try to get more of the outreach. there's a very recent memo even, in fact, between cdc and epa discussing wildfire smoke and actually being able to address all of the research and coordination that was there. and all of that was actually made possible through the interactions that we've had at that wildland fire leadership council. so again, it sounds like i'm a broken record related to potentially solving a lot of these problems, but there's basic funding we need for research, but then there's also just the social science of communication and then effectively making sure that we share resources across the table. >> thank you very much. i see my time is up, so i yield

back. >> thank you. ms. stevens is now recognized. >> thank you, chair lofgren for presiding over today's hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for your incredible written and spoken testimony. your written testimonies in particular were quite inspiring, and i really enjoyed reading them. in michigan during this month alone, the national weather service has issued multiple red flag fire warnings throughout the state, and in particular, last year we saw fire outbreaks in northern michigan, and dr. clements, in your testimony, you focused on programs that are aimed at fire weather research and wildfire prediction. could you tell me more about the types of climate smart investments and research that are needed for better -- for us to better understand that

influences of wildfire on weather and vice versa? >> yeah, thank you, council woman for the question. i think one focus that i mentioned earlier would be this couple fire atmosphere modeling tool because it's the only tool that actually allow the atmosphere to drive the fire and then the fire itself to drive the atmosphere, and that's where we get our most dangerous fires is when we have big plumes and you can't predict where that fire is going to go. so investment into high resolution couple fire atmosphere models is critical. and like i mentioned earlier, it's used in -- greece, it's their national model. they have already adopted it. national center for atmospheric research is also building on that model. these are the kind of tools that i think we really need to invest in. in addition, it also predicts smoke at very high resolution, and so you can tell a community what the smoke concentration's going to be in an hour, tomorrow or the next day. that's where i would really focus a lot of investment.

>> do you have recommendations or any examples that you know of of how the federal government is working across agencies to forecast or predict these fires and better inform and protect the public? >> well, yeah, so in terms of national, we have the national fire danger rating system, which allows us to understand what the fire risk is. and so that goes across the nation. that's a u.s. forest service product, but it needs to be a little bit more higher resolution in terms of forecasting certain areas. for fire behavior research, it's agency specific. we don't really have a fire behavior prediction system at a national level. >> you're muted. >> i muted myself, okay. and another major priority for many of us including myself on this committee has been the effort to strengthen our s.t.e.m. pipeline to ensure that

we have trained scientists and engineers who are ready to help address the 21st century challenges that are before us, and dr. mccarthy and dr. clements, are there skills from the fire management side of this work that you believe would benefit the s.t.e.m. work force or relate to activities with s.t.e.m. work force training, and how would you recommend those skills to be transferred? >> sure. i'll begin with that. so i'm not from ohio, i'm actually from eastern kentucky and funnily enough, i'm married to a man from michigan. my daughter was born in the u.p. so i know a lot of about appalachian eastern forest fire. i started as an undergrad working for the daniel boone national forest and learned a lot of technical skills, and as a first generation student, that was really important for me as a pipeline into graduate school at the university of maryland to have that applied work force

working on fire risk modeling within an eastern forest because of southern pine beetle infestation, that was one of the reasons that i was able to get a graduate assistantship from a small school in appalachia because i had worked on these on the ground management, skills, computing and data science. i didn't come from a very prestigious undergraduate institution, though it is great, and so that helped me in that pipeline. so i do think that throughout holistically the wildfire science community this is a good way to get anyone from anywhere, you know, whether they're, you know, a woman or a man, nonbinary to get 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 to dr. clements. >> real quick, so yeah, we

created a new wildfire sciences my mor, so that will allow us to bring students from a diverse background into our field to give them some tool sets that they can take to if they're a business major, if they're a psychology major, they'll be aware of the wildfire problem. in addition to fire weather training that is very critical for meteorologists to have, which is something that we're also doing and is a need around the nation. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> the gentle lady's time is expired, and we'll turn now to mr. feinstra. >> thank you, chairman lofgren and ranking member lucas and all our witnesses for your testimony and sharing your extensive research and experience with us. this question is for mr. geissler, in 2020, iowa experienced 126 wildfire incidents that burned almost 2,200 acres. these fires can jump from burning grasslands to agricultural fields wreaking financial devastation for our 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 is a lot of work that is actually ongoing relative to the interaction between agricultural croplands and wildland fire. for most wild line fire managers, we actually utilize a lot of agricultural croplands because at certain times, they are the 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 that are 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 to -- as far as the local conditions, and a lot of the local agencies do some of that work in house just to correlate the types of agricultural crops that they're currently seeing on the ground relative to the standard fuels models that we have. but there is probably some ongoing work that could happen there, and especially where it comes into crop protection going forward. >> thank you, and i've seen that a lot with our corn crop in the fall and soybeans when we're ready to harvest and a spark, you know, is set out by a combine or whatever and we have a lot of devastation. i have one other question for you. iowa's also home to numerous lakes and rivers, which are 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 infrastructures. however, i'd like to ask what consequences can high intensity and high heat wildfires have on watersheds and what additional research do we need to better understand these impacts? >> i'm actually very glad you brought that one up. post-fire recovery is something that a lot of us within the wildland fire leadership council and within the community are really looking to how do we better do a better job of this. right now if you look at resources that are available, the forest service does have burn area response units that can evaluate and look to those areas to determine what are going to be the impacts, how do we recover. more specifically, a lot of that revolves around impacts to water quality as well as 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 when you have the effects of a catastrophic wildfire or one that removes a significant portion of the vegetation, obviously that's going to have an impact on water quality downstream. and so the idea of what we need to do, how we address it, is all being discussed right now. i know that the national sciences groups are actually coordinating through usts and others. we're trying to come to a better way to effectively address these issues following some of these fires. it does not matter if you're working in a mountainous terrain where a lot of people think it is more significant or more visible, i should say. but on all aspects of watersheds if you have these kind of damaging fires, you can impact the water quality. >> yeah, i really appreciate that information. we see that in iowa quite a bit

where all of a sudden you have, you know, the buffer strip gets burned away and all of a sudden you have significant erosion. there's really not a lot to stop that until the next spring until the grass grows back or vegetation grows back. it's always a concern for me. thank you for your responses and thank you to all the testimony of each one of you, and i yield my time back, thank you. >> thank you. ms. stansbury is now recognized. >> thank you, madame chairwoman and thank you so much for holding this important hearing this morning. i also want to thank especially chief litzenburg for being here this morning from santa fe county. thank you for your service and to all of our local, state, county, federal and tribal firefighters. thank you for your work on the front lines protecting our communities and i also want to thank you for sharing your expertise this morning. i think it impose without saying that addressing wildfires is not

only a matter of protecting our public safety and the ecological well-being of our forests and our communities, but in new mexico, it's also a matter of national security because a significant number of our forestlands 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 the west as well. as well as our future climate adaptation and economic security and as was noted by chief litzenburg's testimony, we're already spending billions of dollars a year at the federal and local and tribal levels to both suppress fire and fight fires across the west. one of the things that i wanted to talk a little bit about today is our forest science. so we focused a lot here today on remote sensings, fire weather, warning systems and hazards. but one of the most significant and important 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 where a lot of really exciting climate and forest management science is happening. so we're seeing a lot of really incredible partnerships between our tribes and pueblos. our local county officials, non-profit organizations like the nature conservancy, our national laboratories who are doing really exciting, complex modeling around forest dynamics, carbon sequestration, soil, and ways in which we can actually target our forest treatments. and in fact, one of the things that's most exciting about me about having chief litzenburg this morning is that he was intimately involved in these activities in what is called the santa fe fire shed program, which is a collaborative of all of these different programs. and so my question is actually for our chief. mr. litzenburg, i wonder if you

can talk a little bit about the santa fe fire shed efforts and share with us how the science was leveraged and partnerships were leveraged and how we might scale this exciting collaborative model across the west. >> i sure can, congresswoman, and again, very much appreciate that question because it is near and very dear to me. the santa fe, the greater santa fe fire coalition is a very successful collaboration. and it was built from the ground up. around the premise 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 that's much better than a single person or a single organization could have come up with. and in that coalition we have all levels of government. we have nonprofit. we have scientists. we have people from the labs, and we even have people who don't necessarily agree with what we're doing. and we had regular meetings to talk about how duowe make our

watersheds and forests health departmentier -- healthier and safer and how do we protect our communities and prevents large fires and those things that occur. we've talked about the smoke. we've talked about the post-fire debris. they've got huge destructive potential to not only primary effects but 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 think together and come up with solutions much like the santa fe fire coalition, i think replication of that across the west and the nation is much in order. thanks for asking that question. >> thank you, chief litzenburg, and i would really encourage my colleagues, i know many in the fire community are very familiar with these efforts in new mexico, but it's a really exciting model and the rio grande watershed efforts that are being put in to restoring our forests are really a model for the nation. and finally, i just want to say

that there's a coupled opportunities while we're talking about fire mitigation to talk about carbon sequestration. a recent study by the climate alliance in new mexico showed that reforestation of burned catastrophic fire areas has a huge potential to help capture carbon. so i really think that that's ab important part of the science that we need to be introducing into the conversation, and with that, madame chairwoman, i yield back. thank you so much. >> thank you very much. now the gentleman from california, mr. obernulte is recognized. >> thank you very much madame chairman ask all of our panelists. i represent a very fire prone and very rural section of the western united states, and so the prevention of these wildfires is of critical importance to the people that i represent and i know a lot of people in this room share 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 temporal resolution. and frankly i had no idea it was still this bad, to be talking about geospatial revolution of a kilometer and temporal resolution of only 1 or 2 frames per day is clearly not going 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 early warning when new wildfires start. that's what i'd like to ask some questions about. i probably could 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're talking about geo -- we're

talking about geostationary satellites mostly here, but you know, the state of the art in satellites now is low earth orbit satellites which might solve your spatial resolution problems also. is there some prospects that we could use some of the assets that we have to solve this problem? >> yes, 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 even had a small workshop around this a few years ago of data fusion, of thinking about how to, you know, intercorporate various polar orbiting satellites including low earth orbit and some of our commercial platforms as well as our open source geostationary to provide better temporal resolution. it's more complicated with spatial resolution because you just kind of have to accept the data as it is, how it was engineered. if it was engineered at 10

kilometers, it's 10 kilometers and you just have to take that location and then try to compare it to something that's 10 meters in resolution. we've also had in the last ten years and you know, much credit to nasa, usgs and noaa for their collaboration with the european space agency, with the indian space agency, with the japanese space agency in trying to improve some of our other collaborations so that we have open source access to their platforms and are developing, you know, kind of a cross pollination coordination, and to be 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 agriculture and food security. they need to meet biodiversity and forest management. they need to think about water quality as well as the atmosphere and the lipo'sphere

as well. the resolution will 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 xo 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 spring, its highest resolution will be half a kilometer. and so really, we need to think about, you know, setting an agenda where we want special resolution that is helpful both tactically and strategically for fire management. and i will return to you if you have further questions. >> thank you, i completely

agree. i'm horrified that we don't have access to higher resolution data than that, and as a scientist myself, i can tell you there's no way you can create meaningful prediction models based on that, and as you say, it would be very -- we've got all of these high speed aerial assets now for fighting the fires. it would be very helpful to be able to have realtime information about when the fire started and where, i'm hopeful that we in congress can help you to solve this problem and get access to this higher resolution data. then we can take the next step, work with the national science foundation and catalyze more research into this topic. i see my time has expired. i want to thank you to all of our panelists and i yield back, madame chair. >> thank you, dr. foster is recognized. >> thank you, madame chair. dr. clements in your testimony you stated your team has deployed to nearly 40 wildfires in california with specialized equipment including mobile doppler lidar and radar assets and these tools have provided a

lot of insights into the dynamic of plume dominated wildfires and how the fires and the atmosphere interact with each other on a large scale. you know, back in my district in illinois last week we had some tornados, and it was amazing when you looked at the data that was available in realtime for -- from lidar system and doppler radar that my wife and i basically, you know, came to -- 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. and so i was wondering, you know, i'm very interested in the technological developments in sensors, particularly cost reduction, that would help us have a much higher density with sensors on there. and so in regards to that, 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 not that expensive. it's about 600, $700,000. not including the truck and all that stuff. and that's probably a relatively low cost high resolution doppler radar. the lidars are even less expensive. they're about $350,000, and so you know, these aren't super expensive instruments, but to set up a network of those, it would be somewhat costly. now, the advantage of also the lidar is it allows us to look at vertical wind profiles, which is critical in wind storms and understanding the on set of critical winds or fire weather particularly in california with the power safety power shutoffs, so there's a need for those. just to get back to the surface weather station discussion, california has more surface weather stations than any other place on the planet because of the utilities. they've invested a lot into

meteorological data for their modeling. so i think we can get the costs down if we build more instruments, or we can use new engineering technologies to build these instruments better and cheaper. so there is a 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's a lot of things that we can do. >> i think one of the things we have to get better at as a nation is making high-tech stuff cheaper in large quantity, and i think you might be able to boot strap this if there was just an agreement that we're going to deploy hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of equipment like you deploy all over the country, and you might find the cost curve goes down pretty sharply. is there a consensus on the types of data points and the collection assets that you'd like? you mentioned ground based stations. you could mention drone swarms that come in over fires, maybe more investment in satellites or maybe more investment in just the inventories of all the

consumables that are on the ground. is there an agreement on what you'd really like or is that still something that's under discussion? >> well, i think in terms of the fire weather community, we're probably in agreement that we need more atmospheric observations, but then we also need to understand what the fire's doing at every instant. one technology that's coming out is small radars that are cheaper, that you can put on power poles or utility assets. so that way you can scan everything versus just the national radar network. smallerg more cost effective could be a really good asset in the future. small radars that are cheaper. you can put on power holds or utility assets. that way you can scan everything versus just the national radar network. using smaller radars that are getting more cost-effective can be a good asset in the future. >> could someone say a bit about the collaboration particularly with d.o.d.? i don't think i'm not giving

away any national security secrets to say look a lot for infrared flyers for various purposes. i was wondering, do you had a roadblock when you say you know we could give you information but then we don't want the bad guys to know we have this capability so we won't tell you? or is there really a pretty good collaboration in realtime when there's a certain serious fire hazard? >> i guess i can take that from my knowledge. i know there's a fire guard product that maps the fire in realtime for fire agencies. that data is not publicly available. the technology is there. increasing that collaboration could be useful. using that technology more public would be beneficial to the research community. >> that sounds like it could be a job for congress. the other possible collaboration might be insurance companies that they look at detailed fire modeling to come up with their insurance rates on a house by house --

level? are the big players in this? >> we are working with companies now as well as utilities. there are so much investment needed and a better understanding of the fire problem. insurance companies are definitely interested in the risk for sure. >> thank you my time is up and i yield back. >> thank you. mr. webster? >> thank you, chair. thank you for holding this meeting. chief, i had a question about you mentioned some items or fields a future focus in your report. things like remote sensing or fire mapping and things like that. which of those would be highest priority? >> congressman, thanks for the question. it is a tough one for me to

answer because in my view, all of these are somewhat related. so if you are asking for a priority, it is a difficult one. i can say the creation of a sense a network, i'd go back to the discussion i had a few moments ago about the coalition. part of the success of that is you are getting viewpoints whether it's social science or technology and data. more recreate a sensor that work that was gone based and up to the satellites that integrates and gives us realtime mapping, that to me is a huge priority. that falls into some of the other priorities, like putting the data in the single usable place where all governments are sharing data significantly. using that data to create situation awareness and you'll time from boots on the ground.

and ultimately a network of communication that links all of these priorities together. it's hard for me to prioritize because they're working together. that's how i would do so since you asked me. >> thank you for that. last week, we had the new nasa administrator here, we were talking about collaboration and how much is there and how it's working. he was pretty confident there is a lot of collaboration from at least nasa and the areas of hurricane tracking and firefighting, floods, so forth. my question would be this whole idea of remote sensing are there -- should there be or are there already ways where that information is being coordinated and communicated to

local and state foresters in communities to improve prevention? and also maybe mitigation in the area forest fires. do you know anything about that? >> congressman, i can give you my opinion from being someone at a local level. i've always had the impression that data exists and it should be reachable and in places where there are good relationships. it often. is it's dependent on their relationships. nationally, we've referenced other councils, national agency fire center where integration is helping. it's happening well and thoroughly. it's not always getting down to the community level or decisions about prevention and mitigation could be made appropriately. potentially a huge place for

future improvement. >> something will 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 years ago with the ridge fire representing a district that goes right up against the city limits of los angeles. mr. george geissler, in your testimony you note the buildup of hazardous fuels on publicly manage labs are at historic levels. you further note past activities have made public lands more vulnerable. how can research improve the maintenance issues so as to

reduce the likelihood of fires like those we've seen the california? >> thank you, congressman for the question. as we said our forests and landscapes are at a point where their resiliency is questionable in many places. science and research has been doing a lot of work relative to how we best turn the corner on these landscapes. there's ongoing research related to fuels and what is on the ground. there is a lot of work within the force inventory and analysis world where essentially we are learning more and more about what the conditions are, with the state of our forests are so we can better address the issue that's there. i will say forest inventory and analysis programs through the forest service is one of those things that is kind of a unsung

hero providing us with a lot of long-standing data and information related to how our force landscapes have changed over time. it's their. it's ongoing below the surface and it does not get a lot of notice from those of us outside the community. making sure that we have effective funding for forest inventory and analysis and programs like the joint fire sciences program that helps coordinate the research some of that data. some of those critical means. >> thank you. firefighters, emergency officials, doctor clemons, you indicated how do you need leaders can struggle with disaster management, wildfire season is increasingly coming year-round. our firefighters are being asked to work impossible hours and hazardous conditions. doctor craig clements, how can

we better use scientific modeling and the data that we've neglected to better protect the number of firefighting personnel that we will need? >> think you for your question congressman. that's a difficult question. what we can do in the future using some of these state-of-the-art hypertension protection models to look at what we should expect how big are these fires going to be given through changes of wind changes in temperature and in fuels. that can give us an idea of what resources and suppression needs are going to be required in the future so that's one way to use some of these new models that are very high resolution to look at what those needs could be in the future. >> thank you. i want to take a minute to thank the appropriation subcommittee for finding a project and recommending the funding of a project in my district to replace invasive

and highly flammable shrubs with native and fire resistant shrubs right there in the area of the saddleridge fires that we've suffered through in recent years. i thank you for your comments and i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. doctor jim baird is recognized. >> thank you for holding this hearing. i really appreciate the professionalism and the expertise of our witnesses and i thank them for being here today. i'm going to continue on a little bit with the conversation my colleague mr. webster was having. my questions are going to be to the chief erik litzenberg as well as to mr. geissler.

chief, you mentioned in your testimony you highlighted collaboration among local fire departments with federal research and working with nsf, and i is tea, and nasa needs to further grow to improve the nation's wildfire response. you followed that with a field future focus on this matter such as remote sensing, fire mapping, and others. in that context i want to extend my question to be how can we use these tools you mentioned there to really increase the forest management and the implementation of fuel treatments? because i think those have a real impact on being able to prevent many of these wildfires. with that chief if you would care to comment i would appreciate that. thanks for the question

congressman and i'll give you my perspective as a local responder. i think my perspective is probably shared by many responders and fire chiefs. i said a few minutes ago and i will say it again. i do believe that there is a lot of data that's being created and a lot a very smart people many of whom appeared today who are doing great things around fire science. often the missing link is how do i as a community respond or fighting i.s. fire chief get that out in a place that's usable, and then use it to de-prevention and mitigation primarily? i often look at communities as an organism much like human and if you look at your body over the years you count on someone to get that about you whether it's brain scans, your heart

for chest pains, evaluating your blood. you get data points and then you have somebody who looks at those data points and gets to the recommendation. what do you do about it? what do you do? in terms of prevention's to make sure the ultimate effect is not catastrophic on your body? communities and ecosystems are no different and we are creating data points, in my opinion what we really need is a place for that data to collected in one single place where everybody is dumping everything they're learning into a single place and somebody or a committee or group or organization much like a doctor is telling me as a local community would i do 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 area? >> thank you. mr. geissler, would you carried out to that? >> yes, and chief litzenberg really hit the nail on the head, the availability availability and the utilization of all this

data that is being created and making sure that we have the ability to share it across various jurisdictions. and it has happened in some places. i can give you an example of 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 tragedy for our state. prioritizing all the landscapes across all jurisdictions. that is in collaboration with the u.s. state agencies and locals. it ties back to our forest health management and we also have used it on our wildfire strategy we are building out. it takes a lot of inner agency discussions and it takes an environment where there's a shared mission on how we need to address. and what's the end goal should

be. that again much like eric said is a lot of folks are organizations are essentially working on their own and discovering things. if that leads to reinventing wheels and to the point of getting it all to one location getting the information on how this can be used collectively analyzed and settle down and communicated is absolutely critical. >> thank you very much. i'm out of time. i yield back, madam chair. >> thank you very much. mr. don beyer is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair, very much. fascinating stuff and i'd like to start with doctor jessica mccarty. the space center subcommittee of this committee held a

hearing a few weeks ago on nasa climate science work and i heard a lot of the growing remote sensing [inaudible] to support nasa's earth science activities. primarily through data points. the hearing identified questions about commercial data transparency accessibility lessons restrictions that had implications [inaudible] science data. what are your perspectives on the obligation challenges of commercial remote sensing data sets and wildfire research? >> thank you for that question congressman. commercial data is proprietary so when we deny full disclosure have been [inaudible] who has access to this commercial data, but they must be in the regions in which the projects i have competitively applied for has been selected. if i, for instance, for fire acts which is a partnership between now and nasa, i was on the nasa side, i was able to

look at commercial data sets and look at regions through the smoke. if i wanted to expand that to states where we didn't, who were why that would not have been permitted, i would need to go back and request and ask why. i need to send a commercial data for high quality. it's an ad on and one of those data fusion products we want to include. it requires a high level of computing and data science and coating skills to implement our nasa and noaa observation products are often some of the best in the world. plug and play in a lot of ways and our commercial data sets are not quite there. that's not necessarily their business model. they haven't been given the right incentive stick or carrot to develop those products. they would be something that would fill in that gap if we want multiple daily imagery.

to get some of the fire with it you need kind of like a weather system where you are getting something every 15 minutes or half hour. >> all the time. let me ask a larger morris existential questions. it seems firesides as change a lot since i was a kid. smoky the bear suppressed we heard 78% or 80% are still human caused. back then no fires. later i served over years on the house national resources committee, where some of my friends were like we need to do much more forestry because we have to clear out all the trees, that way they want to break down. then you have raking before us. where exactly are we? i know climate change is complicated all of this. i know you have projects with prescribed fires. is there a larger scientific

sense of how best to manage force with respect to fires? >> we have i would say a coalescing convergence. there is always more science frustrating like that. there's always something to know. what we have learned our north america as a fire adapted to the system. many of our natural areas are adapted. to function they must burn. the fire will come. a fire historian has shown us time and time again. prescribed burning is one of those forest management techniques like you are saying. there were no fires. that's because there is active fire suppression. we are not in a fire deficit where we have many of our wildlife areas that aren't having enough fires. we need more burning. that's when we talk about. just prescribed burning. we have some systems that burn too much close to our agricultural systems. some of our range flying

systems need to be burned more. it becomes this very complex, would i'd like to call a patchwork quilt. of what the ecosystem looks like. management and science has to really view that complexity and that includes our fuel systems. not just grasses, but building, so on and so far. back to you. >> madam chair, chief litzenberg, if you have anything to add in the last 20 seconds? >> i think there is a solid answer and i would agree, nothing is significant. >> i look forward to the signs continue to evolve. thank you very much. i yield my chair. >> thank you. the gentleman from texas, mr. weber is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. four clements to start with, the state with the most fires, is that data readily available? >> yes.

that data nationally compiled. it can be easily accessed, generally. >> did i understand in your exchange with bill foster that i thought you said the data wasn't given? but data was that, do you remember that exchange? >> no. >> okay. i'll go to mr. geissler, do we have, we had a discussion with daniel webster, do we have enough inner agency interaction? is somebody that tracks that and how successful that's been? >> we have exceptional interagency cooperation at both the national regional and state levels. we have a lot of discussions among the state foresters the emergency managers on how we can improve a lot with our federal partners. the collaboration where it

revolves around the fire center in boise as well as leadership council. we try to go through what is ongoing continuous improvement with relation to that. all of the agreements that are in place in fact, whether it be agreement to tween federal agencies and states or numerous state to state or a state to local agreements, all usually have some form an assessment piece that's involved in it whereby we take a look at how it's working and try to -- >> has there been a discussion about whether or not if you widen the rides of ways in these heavily forested areas if that would reduce wildfires? >> those typically are occurring at a local and state level as we do our wildfire prevention planning. there's a lot of work within

your own state of texas with community wildfire preparedness planning whereby you take a look at a community and determine what would be the best way to mitigate the risk to that community as well as mitigate the risks and natural resources around it. those are all part of a process that's utilized. we try to get done before the fire gets accomplished. texas impact has an excellent program they are utilizing in order to have those discussions. to your point, a lot of it occurs all across the united states, across all levels of government and within the local communities and even private citizens. but a lot of it involves getting the framework of how to get it done. that's where a lot of funding and research could be utilized just on the social sciences site of how we get this information better understood

and accepted by our public as well as funding on facilitation and processes in order to get these things done. if there is a place where we say we need to really accelerate on it, that is one place you could point to. >> what state would you say has the most wildfires? >> [laughs] the last time we checked, if you look at numbers, it was california. to the point of dr. clements, all of that information is readily available through the national fire center as we all report our fires up through the systems that are involved caused. >> a follow-up question is would most of those fires have been caused by utility companies? one of the questions i had we talked about interest -- some testing about insurance companies were interested, energy companies or power

companies were interested. would you agree that those maybe 11 companies sparking together in highland areas for example, is that probably the major cause of california's fires for example? >> the major cause is humans. we do sometimes very foolish things whether it be dragging a chain on the ground towing a trailer or lighting campfires. smoky very message we talked about earlier still applies in many cases. the causes you are talking about they do occur. i'm not going to deny we don't have equipment sparking with utilities but we are working with the utilities trying to best figure out ways to minimize that risk that's out there. if you ask purely what is the biggest cause? it's you and i essentially when you look at the cost data.

>> are you saying this role to be a good place it wasn't for the humans? >> [laughs] well, we interact with our diamond and change it all the time. i think us being better where a lot we could do to prevent that would be a much better place. ilysometimes we don't think abot what we are doing and it takes simple awareness to really make a statement. most people don't realize they can cause a spark on their lawn and set a fire to that easily until it happens to them. we do want them to understand, i want everybody to understand the risk you are taking and how you can help us. >> i thank you for that. appreciate your indulgence. madam chair, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. jerry mcnerney is recognized. >> this is important to me, my district, two people in the western part of the country. i won't be as entertaining as

mr. weber and my questions but i will proceed anyway. doctor clements thank you again. you mentioned we need more coupling of ecological conditions atmosphere conditions and general fire behavior for models to more accurately identify climate change impact on modern wildfire dynamics. can you elaborate a bit more on how federal science agencies could be helpful in promoting this type of research? >> thank you for your question, congressman. a lot of this these models are becoming operational. they aren't national. they are very high computing. they take a lot of high computing resources. he needs to run these models. it's not that they can't be done but you need the resources. funding centers that day that or funding teams to run those models operationally for

regions would be probably the best way to invest into getting those models operational. >> thank you. chief litzenberg, the federal science agencies have limited or no role in the federal with the federal agencies that coordinate federal fire response. how would you recommend federal science agencies be better incorporated in the federal fire wildfire response efforts? >> congressman, thanks for the question. i believe the best way to be integrated is to use existing mechanisms. there are mechanisms that are used successfully. they could be improved in this avenue but they're already here. the joined fire science program is one taking science putting it in a place that's useful to protect practitioners, the leadership council and the national agency fire center are also places where integrations are recurring.

all we need to do is put focus on new and existing research and how it can be used and applied towards merging issues. >> thank you. doctor clements, in your testimony you talked about the importance and difficulty of collecting routine meteorological data on wildfires. do you think that's a role for federal science agencies to play in current collecting more of this data? >> i do. i think like i mentioned before for aircraft we could deploy more resources right now. national weather service meteorologist program which is over 50 meteorologist that go to active wildfires and other disasters around the country. they deploy and they can request service weather stations. it takes a while to get those stations in place because they have to be driven out for set up in the field. we could potentially have other types of technology, wind

profilers, radar networks that are in higher resolution that could be deployed rapidly like in a storm chasing manner or through teams that are already established, the incident command team or fire incident. the federal government can actually play a big role. it's like hurricane hunters. we have those aircraft that go sample those hurricanes to collect data but we don't have that for wildfires. it's the same type of information we need to better protect with the fires going to do and how the atmosphere is playing a role on that fire spread. >> data standardization would be helpful, i imagine? >> yes. we have the standards and data as well. particularly some of the remote sensing data because a lot of these images you can get from private vendors are saturated. it means you aren't getting the accurate temperature. you're not seen with the fire is doing, you are seeing a blob on an image. having better data standards would be an improvement for what we have currently.

>> as co-chair of the house, artificial intelligence conference with my colleague mr. gonzales, one of the areas i'm interested in is how ai can be used in wildfire response. chief litzenberg, can you respond to that? >> i can do my best to respond to that as the non-scientist working practitioner side. anything we can use with existing information and create it in a usable fashion for those of us who are actually doing the boots on the ground pretty practitioner work to me is a bonus. if that includes the use of ai, then i say we are in. that's something that should be explored in the future. >> thank you. madam chair, i will yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. gonzales is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. thank you to our panel for being with us today and sharing your perspectives. mr. geissler, i want to start with you.

i want to talk about trey spatial patterning. i'd like to get your thoughts on this. new research indicates that trees and special patterns are more fire resistant than those uniformly or evenly spaced. should we be encouraging more managers to adopt spatial reforestation, or more research and testing of this method required? >> thank you for the question. i'm not as familiar with the latest research in this. i can tell you from a fire managers perspective that obviously changing the special relationship among stems or trees in a forest obviously changes fire behavior characteristics. along the same lines, i do know in our southern states where we do a lot of intensive related to plantation forestry, those actually have created issues

over the past because of the nature of the change and fuel spread. i would have to do more research to give you a solid answer on that. i'm willing to follow up, if you want. >> great. thank you. my next question was how can federal science agencies assist in these efforts? ? i guess i turn it back to you. maybe we just need more research on it. i will let you answer. >> you know, and again, this type of research comes out. the lot of modifications to fuel profiles and general whether it be through spatial changes between trees or the removal of ladder fuels and percentages related to that, all 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 pure forest health and resilience east of things like insects and disease. obviously increasing and

improving the research availability is always important as well as i'm going to always climb back to making research and information available to the practitioners on the ground. sometimes that it requires more of a social scientist to come up with how to get that best across. i agree more work is needed. >> thank you. untry dealinin a somewhat relat, perhaps, obviously united states is not the only country dealers wildfires. there's been a high profile across the globe. what can we take from how this is managed in other parts of the world that we should be applying to how we deal with wildfires in the u.s.? >> there's a continuous sharing along those lines also within

my own state. we partnered with our fellow firefighters in british columbia saskatchewan and others on the canadian side as we share resources across the border all the time and there's obviously a discussion for tools we use, everything from how we manage our firefighter safety to tactics eli's. you should've heard of where we bring firefighters in from other countries, even the forest service has gone to other countries like australia and through all of those we have a shearing environment. that's one of the foundational elements with in the committee to maintain a learning environment as we go and use different techniques. it helps to disseminate the information. the experience of getting the right people in the room with a

shared experience that i believe eric spoke to earlier. you can come up with fairly amazing ideas. we have made changes to our system and to our processes to get better because of the experiences we've had with our fellow firefighters from other countries. >> thank you. that's helpful. i appreciate your responses. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. casten is recognized. >> thank you madam chair, and to our witnesses. doctor clements, i'd like to start with you and one of the things that struck me is the hardest thing to deal with on climate change sociologically is there's -- we do a bad job of anticipating accelerating trends. obviously that contributes to the increasing numbers and severity of wildfires that we've seen. if you look at wildfire science

as you try to project what's going to happen over the next 5:10 years are there major irregularly through feedback making it worse or that might dampen with respect to wildfire signs that we should be thinking of on the expectation that we aren't anticipating those things will either? >> thank you for the question, congressman. in terms of climate change and feedback. as we change, as the environment gets warmer, we will change the fuel structures. we are going to change the landscape that can impact for the better at times different types of fuel structures. so we can convert forests to grasslands. that could lessen the extreme fire but make it more ignitable as well. there are feedback's. it's not really my expertise. i could look into that more and get back to you. one thing we need to consider in terms of climate change is

these trends the predictions are we have to look at attribution, what's causing all these things. we know it's climate drought and weather. we know we can put more science into fine-tuning but those attributions are in terms of what's going to happen in the future. we can use high resolution modeling like 2050 fire scenarios. it could be one way to kind of diagnose. >> sorry to interrupt but i need two more questions. doctor mccarty you mentioned your comments about worsening wildfires in places like the smoky mountains we haven't thought about with these trends. are the areas or types of fires that you think are going to be more likely in the future that we need to be thinking about preparing for? >> thank you for the question, congressman. the eastern forest used to be called the asbestos forest by

many professional foresters. they said they wouldn't burn. that's not true. we will expect as it becomes hotter and drier in the southeast, that fire risk will increase. this is a wild plan urban question, yet places like asheville, knoxville, tennessee, even parts of west virginia and pennsylvania have people move. and we will see more fire risk. the other thing to think about is there is a port in 2019 in terms of burned area total anchors burned, the state with the most wildfires was alaska. alaska is a state we need to have on our mind as wildfire scientists. in the future, we will see more arctic fires. we will see more fires. that's accelerating. in fact we will see more of our

carbon soils burn and burned through the winter. that's a continuation of fire instances. it's a different type of fire management. i think the alaska forest service and the alaskan fire service is a professional and outstanding group. they are trying to research the science to figure out how to work these new challenges. thank you. >> last question with a time i have left is for anyone who feels comfortable and seeing this. it's beyond this committee. on the federal board of governors in january said the scientific out bids for climate change is unequivocal, but the magnitude of climate related financial risks are highly uncertain. among those are wildfires. she noted more than 70% of the losses from natural disasters are uninsured. and warned of the potential to create abruptly pricing events.

i spent a lot of time on the committee thinking about how our financial system isn't stress from this and we had conversations about if he were an investor you may feel that directly from the wildfire damage. as you think about where there are big exposures to private capital from wildfires, any major concerns, and i realize it's more of a financial question then a scientific question, but you can't separate the two. they are all linked. does anybody want to comment on that? >> i will say maybe perhaps i think we should think about a lot of americans, their capital much of their money is wrapped up in home ownership and property ownership and many of our western states, our eastern states, and most midwestern states become fire prone then suddenly the likelihood that you lose your home or it becomes an insurable increases. that is just a huge loss. you can only imagine what that would do to our economy and gdp and health of our population.

that's something that's hard to predict and hard to imagine into the future but is a direct financial loss. >> thank you. i'm out of time. i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. kildee is recognized. >> thank you, madam chair. i really appreciate you recognizing me. i appreciate the chair holding this important hearing. thanks to the witnesses for your testimony. i come from michigan. in fact, the northern part of my district is home to the heron forest with 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 pine needles, they are highly flammable. seasonal fires are actually part of a life cycle of the

forest. pine cones from those jack planes containing seeds only open as a result of a fire. a great songbird only braids in those young jack pines. as a result of logging in the forest, where the habitat at one point nearly completely destroyed, not bird was almost completely extinct. 50 years later, due to prescribed burns and the protections put in place by the endangered species act, the criminal warbler was successfully removed from the endangered species list. now, each year, literally thousands of tourists come through that part of rural michigan to see the warbler. it's not just a little bird, it's a really important part of what makes that play so great. so interesting. so attractive. to the people who come from all

over the country just to see that rare bird. so, in the forest, we have to have these prescribed birds to maintain and control wildfires. this, year part of a prescribed burn, 112 forest fires broke out and burned 5000 acres of that forest land. climate change has contributed to these fires due to climate change, the forests are dryer, the air is less humid. winds are stronger and more sustained it makes it harder to control these controlled burns, these prescribed burns. thankfully, no people or structures were damaged. this is the kind of threat we face. i am just curious, and i guess i would ask panelists, perhaps mr. geissler and chief litzenberg for this heron forest that i represent, other force across the country that use prescribe earns to maintain forest health, as climate change increases the intensity of whether, what do we need to be doing, what do you suggest

we do so we can maintain control of these sorts of fires and ensure we have more prescribed burns from getting out of control? >> yes -- >> go ahead, mr. geyser, do want to start? >> sure, thank you and actual i was going to let you know is that the idea of jack pines situational of it revolves around the potential need for replacement fires to truly manage the landscape which we do not do because of the risk when you have prescribed burns. that's why lot of what you are seeing, the type of work being done, is on a more cyclical basis to maintaining the trees at different stages. when peacetime wanted to make sure that everyone understood is that a prescribe burn is planned. a plan is actually developed.

but it does is not only gives the objectives of how the burn will occur, what's the end result needs to be, but it is usually very specific on humidity, went direction, wind speed and others. i think that a lot of it like you said is making sure we do good planning. and that we follow the plan exactly. and then if there are issues, even if they are minor, learn from those. in addition to it a lot of the research we've talked about throughout this hearing, helps to feed those plans, the knowledge we have to develop them. again i wanted to bring up how a prescribed burn can be done. >> thank you, chief, your thoughts on this? >> yes, thank you congressman. i will keep brief. what you described as a social phenomena fire adaptation. it does have an effect. hundreds of years ago we

decided we need to suppress everything. all of a sudden we had a bigger issue than we had in the past. now we are realizing you have to control these risks. it is healthier for forests. the more that we can get information about fuels, the more that we can get information about whether to use for our planning, the better the planning will be. i will say one lasting. luckily our organizations have evolved as well. the science our organizations, the tactics they are using diminishing forests, are also getting better. continuing to invest in those organizations, the workforces can't be overstated. >> i thank you very much. madam chair, i think you for the extra time. yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. miss wild is recognized. >> thank you madam chair. i appreciate it. thank you for this very interesting and informative hearing. the recent extreme heat in the

pacific northwest is obviously concerning for many reasons. not the least of which is the safety and health of the communities. but it's deeply troubling that we are seeing such a mix of-limited water, dry lanes and unusually high temperatures this early in the summer. i'm not saying anything you don't already know. the terrible fires we saw last summer across the western states and the lingering environmental and economic devastation highlights the importance of our scientific enterprise in informing us about climate risk and climate related disasters. the u.s. has a number of earth observing satellite-based platforms that provide useful data for a wild land fire science. but we also rely on assets from european and other international partners. doctor mccarthy, i'm interested to know, to what extent are relevant european and

international partner that it coordinated with the united states data and how can we further utilize available international data? >> thank you for that question. i will say as i'm not at nasa headquarters, some of it i cannot speak to. i will try to reply back in writing. there are high level interactions between nasa hq and, of course, isa and other international space agency's. our researchers on the ground, including places like the u.s. forest special technology and application center in salt lake city, tried to utilize sentinel products, which is higher spatial resolution, it's overhead every three to five days. and some of our synthetic data, a ten meter resolution from isa, it's not being implemented to try to look at both fire

monitoring, fire detection and mapping, better mapping a fuels, including things like repeat lens ours, soil moisture and fuel moisture condition. so in the research community if these products are being developed and are being put forward to some of our federal level operational centers. of course the more we can do that, the process, debater the data is for our agencies, for our firefighters on the ground. >> thank you. chief litzenberg, can you go into more detail about the proposal to develop a standard warning fires scale similar to the richer scale for earthquakes? i'm particularly interested in how it will be beneficial for firefighters, and of course the public as well. >> i sure can.

thank you for the question. much like with the hurricane winds get, we can develop an for forecasting a threat of wild land fire. this type of warning system would require coordination between now, u.s. for service, u.s. department of interior and local officials. pretty much everybody across the board. it would provide a standardized warning system to let communities and responders know what type of resources might be required. responding to a fire, when actually should be taken. such as sheltering in place or evacuating. a lot of the catastrophic issues we've seen during fires are in the movement of people. obviously that is, for all of us, the number one value. the more that we can communicate with people, to what to expect, the better the response will be. >> to get so much. i think there is great promise there. doctor mccarty, did you want to comment on that at all? if not i will yield. >> i think that is a great

idea. in fact you can compare our foreign warning systems to some international colleagues, often our system is seen as hard to interpret because it looks like a rainbow speedometer essentially. and we would need that. there's a lot of social science, public health research including built environment research that could be done and hope implement such a winning system so it does communicate the right thing to people on the ground. so that isn't causing problems for fires. >> thank you very much. with that, madam chair, i yield back. >> thank you very much. shields back, mr. perlmutter is recognized. >> as a last question or, i want to follow up on miss wilds questions. to dr. mccarty and chief litzenberg. we were talking about satellite coordinating with europeans and others, obviously the canadians.

what steps have been taken? you said that noah is in numbers of years away from actually having satellites to monitor these fires. but can we monitor them with some of our military assets, or intelligence assets? i'm saying we sometimes in colorado, obviously, had a big fires last year. we had to call in the national guard to assist our firefighters. can we call in some of our space assets? have either of you heard about that? >> yes, the project i know about, i will defer to the doctor because i haven't worked on that. i know about it, but clements, would you like to comment on that? >> thank you, i haven't actually been able to work with the data because it's not available for the research community. i have seen examples of it.

and so that is really all i know. i think when we deployed to wildfires we know it's there. we know that the fans are getting analyst access to that. it's available. but i've not been able to really work with it. >> chief litzenberg? have you had any experience using some of our other assets besides -- that we might have available to the military or intelligence community? >> congressman, i have not personally had experience with that. i will add to what doctor clements just said. a lot of what is available when it's available is when large instant management teams are in place. unfortunately the vast majority of incidents across the nation, a large incident management team is not put into place. it is managed by local responders. weather from local government or from the state. or from the forest service. the more that we can get that information that is usable to

all, the better we will be. i'm not personally had that experience. >> okay, let me ask this question. so doctor mccarty, or any of the panelists, last year, one of our fires called the troublesome fire, the second largest we've had ever. the thing that was most disturbing about it was growing at about four or 5000 acres a day. and then in one day grew by 120,000 acres. ewe lost some lives. and it was in a part of rocky mountain national park, near the grand lake. i mean how can we use science to predict when there's going to be an explosion like that in terms of fighting wildfires? >> michael cancer to that is in addition to the fire weather models that dr. clements

mentioned, we actually do need better higher resolution, not just mapping but fuel condition. down to the hour. this could be used by incident command and that would tell us where we would likely see these type of explosive forest fires. again, mr. geissler as mentioned british columbia, that is similar situation in 2017. and the canadian forest service is looking towards a similar process. i will defer to the other panelists. >> mister geissler, could you follow up on that? could you explain your experience? >> yes, actually, as was said there are a number of monitoring systems that are looking at a fuels and other predictive data in order to give us that heads up. represent lucas has talked about it, there is fueled data in realtime as a part of it. we were able to actually look

at the moisture content and fuel typing, all the sites across the entire state at any given moment. so what it does is it allows the fire manager to anticipate. just this past year we had a wind event that took us from a slow fire season to a historic fire season in a matter of a couple of days. and a lot of that really came down to we knew the wind event was going to occur but a wild wind event was going on, we had that realization of change, it would've been a another assistance. there are various systems that are in place to allow prediction to go. but they just don't have the coverage to really give it on a national original picture. they are highly isolated at this point. >> thank you, my time has expired. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. and i believe we have no additional members available to

ask questions. before we bring this hearing to a close, i want to thank the witnesses for the time they spent with us today. their expertise, their testimony, it's 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 the committee may ask of the witnesses. we do ask witnesses, if we have questions, could you please answer them if possible within that two week period? it would be a normal sly appreciated. at this point to witnesses are excused with our thanks and this hearing is now adjourned.