Federal Fire Management: Limited Progress in Restarting the Prescribed Fire Program

Abstract

Because of the severity of fires in 1988 on federal wildlands, you asked us to evaluate the federal government's fire management program. During that season, severe wildland fires burned many parts of the western United States. The most publicized of these fires occurred in and around Yellowstone National Park, where fires started by lightning early in the fire season were allowed to burn, under a policy permitting 'prescribed natural fires.' When several of the fires later became wildfires, burning out of control, a public controversy ensued. This prompted the government to suspend the prescribed fire program and the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to establish the Fire Management Policy Review Team to study federal policies on fire management in national parks and wildernesses.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 05, 1990
Accession Number
ADA269806

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agriculture
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • California
  • Directives
  • Ecosystems
  • Environment
  • Fire Protection
  • Fire Suppression
  • Firefighters
  • Governments
  • House Of Representatives
  • National Parks
  • Natural Resources
  • Rocky Mountains
  • United States
  • Wilderness
  • Wildlife

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Educational Psychology
  • Fire Suppression Systems Design.
  • Wetland-Land-Environmental Management.