Wildland Fire Management Overview

• On behalf of the Secretary of the Interior, the Office of Wildland Fire (OWF) oversees a WFM program spanning multiple bureaus, including Reclamation.
• Reclamation is subject to authorities and policies to provide for an integrated, coordinated, and comprehensive WFM Program under the Department of Interior’s Departmental Manual Part 620 on Wildland Fire Management (620 DM 1).
• Reclamation has approximately 6.5 million acres of land and water, a significant portion of which is considered burnable.
• Reclamation’s Wildland Fire Management (WFM) Program meets basic non-fire fighting responsibilities, working with minimal resources and varying levels of WFM Program maturity.
• It is Reclamation goal to minimize fire impacts to protect Reclamation’s infrastructure, assets, and lands; meet contractual obligations by protecting water and related resources, reservoir storage, and hydropower production from post fire impacts; all while keeping stakeholders, customers, managing partners, employees, public at large, and communities at-risk safe.
• WFM activities are implemented at a Regional, Area, and Field Office level with varying levels of coordination; Each Region has an established WFM Program Lead that administers the program at a region-wide level, with responsibility for engaging the area and field offices.
• WFM activities include, but are not limited to, fuels management, prescribed burning, emergency stabilization, post-fire rehabilitation (revegetation, debris/sediment removal).
• Reclamation seeks other Federal and non-Federal entities to respond to, suppress, and conduct other WFM activities on project lands. As a result, there are currently over 25 non-Federal partners comprised mostly of state, county, and city governments, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that assist in protecting Reclamation lands under agreement.
• Reclamation participates in multiple interagency committees for national WFM coordination and communication.
• Reclamation’s Science and Technology Program, Research and Development Office is involved in wildland fire research and continues to identify and solve science and research needs. Reclamation’s Wildland Fire Research Workshop was conducted in April 2021.
• Future engagement in limited incident response as Resource Advisors and interagency Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) teams may be an opportunity to further ensure Reclamation infrastructure, assets, and natural/cultural resources are protected and restored appropriately.