U.S. Department of the Interior
Office of the Secretary

Bob Johns, 202/452-5127
Judy Kissinger, 202/205-1904


For Release: February 14, 1996

Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman today endorsed a joint federal wildland fire policy that will provide greater uniformity, help streamline and improve interagency coordination and communication, and reduce risks to both people and resources.

After the 1994 fire season, the Secretaries chartered a comprehensive, year-long study to give form, substance, direction and priority to the ideas and lessons learned by wildland fire managers over the past two decades.

Their 45-page report is a landmark document, turning what managers have learned in the field over the years into a cohesive, uniform federal policy. That policy directs managers to:

• Integrate wildland fire into land and resource management plans to protect, maintain, and enhance natural resources;

• Base fire management activities, including suppression action, on the values to be protected, cost, and land and resource management objectives;

• Articulate the roles and responsibilities of federal agencies in wildland/urban interface (where inhabited areas mix with undeveloped wildland);

• Ensure that federal policies are uniform and programs are implemented cooperatively and cohesively.

Although it will go into effect gradually, over a period of months, the Secretaries have already directed their land managers to assume the responsibility for the implementation of the principles, policies and recommendations of the Report.

"For years we splintered fire -- as good, bad, natural, prescribed, state, private and federal -- and each agency had a different response for each one. But wildand fire respects no boundaries or categories, and neither can we. Our new federal policy shows all land managers from every agency how to prepare for, respond to, and use wildland fire through one standard approach,"said Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who fought fires as a youth and during the summer of 1994.

Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman also gave the Report a top priority, "This interagency policy will encourage Federal Land Managers to exercise their full range of options in dealing with wildland fire, from allowing fire to function in its natural role to prompt suppression. While wildland fire can be a destructive force, it is also a vital part of nature that can be managed for positive purposes."

The report reinforces the commitment of the two Departments to personnel safety and management accountability. Protection of life remains the first priority. The second protection priority is property or natural and cultural resources, depending on the values to be protected.

The report also addresses one of the more complex fire management issues facing federal agencies: fire in the interface between wildlands and inhabited areas. The report spells out a clear operational role for the federal agencies as a partner in the wildland/urban interface to fight wildland fires, to reduce accumulations of flammable vegetation, to provide technical assistance to state and local governments, and to participate in cooperative education.

The new policy, contained in a report titled Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review, was prepared by the Agriculture Department's Forest Service and the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and National Biological Service. Other agencies participating in the development and implementation of this policy include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service.

Copies of the full Report may be obtained from the Office of External Affairs, National Interagency Fire Center, 3833 S. Development Ave., Boise, Idaho 83705-5354, or by calling 208-387-5150 or 208-387-5457. The report is also available on the Internet at: http://www.fs.fed.us/land/wdfire.htm.