GAO - Government Accountability Office
09/25/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 09/25/2025 07:22
Forest Service: Next Steps Are Uncertain for Improving Communications for Wildland Firefighters and Tracking Their Locations
What GAO Found
Federal wildland firefighters, the majority of whom work for the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, are critical to protecting lives, property, and natural resources from wildfire. Not only is firefighting inherently risky, but wildland firefighters often work in remote, mountainous terrain that can make it difficult to know their location in relation to the fire or communicate important safety information.
The Forest Service's communications capabilities among wildland firefighters are mostly based on voice communications over radios, which limits sharing important safety information, such as a fire's intensity and rate of spread, according to agency officials. Forest Service officials said that during fires, they can track and map the locations of aircraft, as well as the agency's fire vehicles when they are in areas with cellular coverage. However, the agency cannot track and map the locations of most of its firefighters on foot during wildfires.
The Forest Service has taken various steps toward improving its communications, tracking, and mapping capabilities for wildland firefighters in recent years. However, Forest Service officials said that loss of staff led the agency to postpone, pause, or reduce the scope of some efforts planned or underway as of July 2025.
In addition, Forest Service officials identified several challenges the agency has faced in its improvement efforts. Such challenges range from continuously evolving, expensive technologies to having too few staff with the required mix of technological and firefighting expertise.
In facing these challenges, Forest Service officials said the agency does not have a comprehensive strategic plan for improving the agency's capabilities for two-way communications, tracking, and mapping for wildland firefighters. The officials said it has been difficult to dedicate staff time to such strategic planning amid increasingly intense and long fire seasons. In September 2025, the agency said it had made efforts to improve communications and tracking capabilities a priority for funding and staffing going forward. Developing a comprehensive strategic plan that includes the key components identified in GAO's prior work, shown in the table below, could better position the Forest Service to improve these capabilities. For example:
- Defining the goals and objectives for its efforts and the activities and milestones for achieving them could help ensure the Forest Service, Congress, and others understand what the agency aims to achieve and the steps needed to do so.
- Identifying the expected costs and expertise needed to implement the plan could help the agency and others determine whether it is directing the resources necessary to achieve its goals.
- Identifying external factors that could affect the agency's ability to achieve its goals could help the Forest Service mitigate those factors and increase the likelihood of meeting its goals.
Key Components of Comprehensive Strategic Plans for Programs
|
Key component |
Definition |
|---|---|
|
Mission statement |
A comprehensive statement that summarizes the main purposes of the strategy. |
|
Problem definition, scope, and methodology |
Identification of the issues to be addressed by the strategy, the scope of its coverage, the process by which it was developed, and key considerations and assumptions used in the development of the plan. |
|
Goals and objectives |
Identification of goals and objectives to be achieved by the strategy, activities, or actions to achieve them, as well as milestones and performance measures. |
|
Activities, milestones, and performance measures |
Identification of the steps to be taken to achieve the goals and objectives, as well as milestones and performance measures to gauge results. |
|
Resources and investments |
Identification of costs to execute the plan and the sources and types of resources and investments, including skills and technology, human capital, and other resources required to meet the goals and objectives. |
|
Organizational roles, responsibilities, and coordination |
Development of roles and responsibilities in managing and overseeing the implementation of the strategy and the establishment of mechanisms for multiple stakeholders to coordinate their efforts throughout implementation and make necessary adjustments to the strategy based on performance. |
|
Key external factors |
Identification of key factors external to the organization and beyond its control that could significantly affect the achievement of the long-term goals contained in the strategy. These external factors can include economic, demographic, social, technological, or environmental factors, as well as conditions that would affect the ability of the agency to achieve the results desired. |
Source: GAO-24-105975. | GAO-25-107905
Why GAO Did This Study
Real-time, two-way communications among wildland firefighters and fire managers are critical for firefighter safety. Firefighting conditions can change quickly, and knowing firefighters' exact positions in relation to a fire allows fire managers and firefighters to more quickly identify dangerous situations. GAO was asked to review the Forest Service's use of technologies and equipment critical for protecting wildland firefighters. This report examines the Forest Service's capabilities for communications among firefighters and tracking and mapping their locations, the agency's next steps for improving those capabilities, and related challenges the agency has identified. GAO reviewed documents from the Forest Service and others and interviewed and reviewed written responses from Forest Service officials.
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