House Agriculture, Forestry & Economic Development Committee
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Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
0:00
...prior to our committee meeting at 10 a.m., so make sure that you're aware of that. Hope to have perfect attendance then. You'll see one other thing, working on subcommittee assignments, and so I hope to announce those here in the near future. We'll keep you posted on that. And the other thing is we're working on a dinner for the AGRA committee, and we'll certainly keep you guys posted at date, time,
and location for that in the next week or two. As you can see from the agenda that you have in front of you, we only have two bills presently that have been referred to our committee, and both are on the deferred calendar. And so we really don't have any active business to tend to today. But I have asked that Joe Fox, the director of the Arkansas Forestry Commission, would come and give a presentation to our committee about the duties and responsibilities of the Forestry Commission
and what they're doing for the people of Arkansas. And so, Joe, if you would come forward and make your presentation, and then at the end we'll open
Speaker 7
1:27
you chairman can everybody hear me if i stand up i'd prefer to stand up and do a powerpoint presentation
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
1:37
the way we'll go. Joe, very quickly before you get started, I was just reminded, Parks and Tourism actually wants to take a photograph of the committee, and so immediately following
Speaker 12
1:54
Mr. Fox's report, we will take that photograph. So, Mr. Fox,
Speaker 9
2:01
you may proceed. Thank you. It's a great honor to
Speaker 7
2:07
be before you today representing a commission that's been here
Speaker 9
2:11
since 1931 that I'm very proud to stand in front of at least and kind of stay out of the way of some great, dedicated, trained employees and tell you a little bit about what we do and maybe get an idea of how we think and what it is we protect. so we're the arkansas forestry commission part of the department of agriculture we have a stated
mission and currently we're going through a planning cycle uh to plan a five-year strategy for the agency and we're revisiting our mission statement and the draft that we have going right now is a little different from this and it refers to our mission as being first protect the forest And those who use it from wildland fire and other natural disasters while doing forest resource health conservation and stewardship.
But this is the kind of thing we do. And I want to present, it's about a minute and a half video. And if we could turn the lights down, it would help with just a little bit. I don't know where they are, sorry. and then there's a little audio so I hope it picks it up this is near Gurdon at Wheeling Springs Highway 51 a fire in August jumping the state highway is captured by the forester
Speaker 17
4:11
about a hundred foot flame links, it's in
Speaker 22
4:17
a twenty-year-old pine plantation from the south moving north, it's three o'clock in the afternoon.
It's shot with an iPhone. The tire line sticks in the fall.
Speaker 30
4:52
the tire poles. Wow. Yeah, Crenshaw, y'all need to really back off. That's down in Clark County.
Speaker 9
5:12
Let's see. Oops. The case of fire was the same day. We normally have 2% or less lightning fires in any given year or any given month, any given time frame. In July and August, we had 42% lightning fires.
Lightning fires don't start beside houses or beside roads or where we expect fires to start because most fires are human set, either accidentally or on purpose. And 42% means about 200 fires each month. And they start all over the place in the most inaccessible areas. The case of fire was really three fires that grew together. And for you to understand the Forestry Commission, we cannot do our job without partners.
Probably our first and foremost partner are rural fire departments, volunteer fire departments. We help organize them, we help train them, we help equip them through some state money and federal money. And we'll talk about that in a second. But there were, I think, nine or ten volunteer fire departments at CASA. There were seven state dozers at CASA. Same day as this other fire I just showed at Wheaton Springs, jumping the road.
The U.S. Forest Service had three dozers and a helicopter there. We had our seats, single engine air tanker contractors, two of them there, air attack, controlling all of the air maneuvers and talking to the IC, the incident commander, that is a state forestry commission employee who's commanding all of the resources on the ground. And we had Deltic Farm and Timber, Deltic Timber Company tractors.
I think they had two tractors there. So it was 12 bulldozers, one helicopter, two seats. Oh, and I left out. The governor sent the National Guard Blackhawks. We had them that day, two Blackhawks, all on this fire. The fire lasted for three days. It was out of control for one day. We had a heck of a fire season, 21,000 acres this summer burned, and we were so lucky. Our KBDI this summer, which is the Keech-Byram Drought Index, which runs from 0 to 800,
for 10 weeks was in the 700s, was as high as Colorado. But luckily here, our normal weather patterns prevailed even in the drought, And in the evenings, the temperature would come down, the humidity would go up, and the winds would go down. And we were able to catch this fire, and that's all we can say. We caught it. We didn't put it out. Two structures were lost on this fire, by the way. We caught this fire, and it was out in three days.
But with a whole lot of work, the Forest Service put a 20-man hand crew on this fire the second day and the third day, mopping up and cleaning up unprecedented this summer for the U.S. Forest Service to come out on private lands and without them without volunteer fire departments without timber company help 21,000 acres easily could have been 121,000 acres easily and without the good Arkansas weather without those winds dying down and humidity coming up we would have been in trouble the date's wrong
just a year but on july 25th you know about the ola fire a similar scene with similar resources big fire going in five different directions at one time coming in a deltick seven-year-old pine plantation hundred foot flame links just incredible this picture is from highway 10 just incredible but the partnerships were also incredible what everybody did it's it's amazing What our folks did, and I'm brand new and I'm not a trained firefighter,
we have trained, dedicated firefighters that during this summer season, some work 28 days straight and in some cases 30 hours straight. And by the way, that's not safe. So you'll hear about that again too. So our summer season, it was the second worst June ever. And about the 7th, August, the 3rd, July, we had a tough summer. And it was earlier. The fire season was earlier than normal.
Our basic unit of protection is a bulldozer with a fire plow or a blade. And we have 104 units scattered all over the state, 19
Speaker 18
10:08
of which are 15 years old or older. This year, we had 2,148 fires, over 34,000 acres, and we saved
Speaker 9
10:18
2,200-plus structures. Now, maybe a third of those are folks' homes.
Others are outbuildings, barns, and such. And last year, 2011 was even bigger. We had a bigger spring season in 2011, but I don't think we had as scary a season in 2011 as we did this past year. But our real guys are our firefighters. This is Walter Jones from Star City in full personal protective equipment, the Nomex. 100 degrees or worse, wearing that kind of suit is tough, tough work.
And usually a burn crew is the dozer operator and one guy to trail him. It's tough. Maybe half or a little bit more, 60% of our dozers have environmental cabs. We also have the single-engine air tankers. They are great in protecting structures and people. The best story I have was at Clarksville on Highway 103, a trailer fire, a house trailer fire, got out into the woods and started running toward a daycare center.
We were able to catch that, but we sent the seats. We didn't have enough dozers, and the county sent a motor grader operator, but he didn't have a radio. By the way, communications are essential. He didn't have a radio. And so the motor grader operator was plowing the fastest. Like I said, he made the best line in the quickest time anybody ever saw, except he got out a little bit too far, and the fire jumped him and was closing in on him, and we couldn't talk to him. The air attack, the twin-engine plane that's directing everything, saw it.
And he sent a seat, and the only way we could get that guy's attention was to drop right on top of it. And when he got hit by the water, he said, and he backed out and everything was okay. The seats are essential, and there are many times when there's a burn over or somebody's caught at a structure, the seats can protect them. They're a great, great tool. And with the Blackhawks, we had the Blackhawks for a few days, two different times. Together, that's what they did, and we estimate saved property,
and we're talking structures, not just timber, $18 million. And you parlay that to the 2,244 structures for the whole year and conservatively you get close to $100 million of property, not counting timber, that we saved. Structures. Well, we do a whole lot of other things. Firewise is a federal program that's passed through us. We have two people who are employed to deliver Firewise.
It's just how to defend your home and your community before the fire comes. This happens to be, I believe, in Stone County. There's a plantation on three sides of this house. It burned to a crisp, but because they had cleared a defensible space, and you can see the brown needles didn't touch a thing on that house, the seats came here as well. Our rural fire protection program, I'm almost the proudest of that of anything, and I can't say that because it's not exactly true.
I'm proud of this along with a lot of other things. But in Greenbrier, we produce equipment. We take in federal excess property at no cost to us or volunteer fire department and pass it through to the fire department or outfit it for the fire department. It could be and or. And then for the outfitting cost, which could be $10,000 to $15,000, They get a no interest loan that's a revolving fund that you give us to loan to volunteer fire departments.
Right now there's 2,439 trucks of various sizes and uses with volunteer fire departments, rural fire departments in Arkansas right now worth almost $100 million. We work very, very closely with rural fire departments. Our RIF last year we had five mechanics. We went down to three. been able to restore one since then we also repair our own equipment at the shop and outfit our own equipment it's a great operation a great program
these are the kind of trucks we we screened they call it but we claimed from DOD 103 freight liners last year this size and some of them went directly to the fire department some of them we outfitted so that Department of corrections could send out a couple of their guys inconspicuously this is the truck that had had the escape the the Tucker unit builds the tanks builds the tanks put it on the truck and paints the trucks for us for the volunteer fire
departments that's the very truck it was on a low boy so it's real high in the air but two guys hid in that tank and took a little vacation we do a lot of other things for private landowners in the state through federal programs and state money but we build fire lines we do prescribe fire we do a whole lot of programs at school the stock program shade trees on playgrounds program urban and community forestry there are a whole lot of things and these things in
my mind pay for and give us something wonderful to do with the 75% of our firefighters time. So our foresters and rangers are firefighters first, but most of their time is spent doing this kind of work. The background is Balkan Nursery. We're raising 11 million seedlings there. This is planting season right now and more than half of them are gone. We do more than half in hardwood. Six million hardwood, five million pine basically. We have forest
inventory analysis, more than 40 years of permanent inventory plots, about 5,000 plots scattered over the state. Urban and community forestry is becoming more and more and more important. The Fayetteville area, North Little Rock, Jonesboro, Little Rock, West Memphis are all part of the urban and community forestry program. It's going to become, there are such things as urban forests and I'm even learning about them BMPs water quality voluntary BMPs that the logging community follows are very important to Arkansas
water quality and many other things southern pine beetle watching for that watching for Kogan grass coming from Mississippi or Louisiana those kind of things we do often with federal help about 17% of our budget is federal we We also have three full-time law enforcement officers, and they work with other of our district rangers, about 11 LEOs we call them, law enforcement officers, and we help sheriffs and prosecutors in the county prosecute timber theft, timber or logging equipment vandalism
and dumping, illegal dumping. We also have the Poison Springs State Forest. the states have big state forests Florida has over 3 million acres of state forests we have 22,000 acres but it's a great place down in Washington Nevada counties and if anybody would like to go it's a demonstration forest we demonstrate a lot of different things and we've we've had it for now over 50 years and we're adding to it little by little it is an income source and we
use it as such but that's part of what we demonstrate the economic value of timber as well as many other values whether it's wildlife habitat or other things so i'm going to flash up our budget stuff and i'm not going to go over that i'd be glad to answer questions but that in a nutshell in whatever time i took mr chairman uh is what we do at the forest commission and we're we're proud to serve the state we're out there every day we do a lot of things besides forestry
work like search and rescue by clearing roads after snow and ice storms the Christmas storm we had several people in central Arkansas and west central Arkansas clearing roads there are many many many things that we do with our dozers sometimes we're there before the National Guard we walk the levees in the flood of 2011 for about 30 days questions thank you thank
Speaker 41
19:01
you director We will take some questions.
Speaker 43
19:05
Representative Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for that excellent presentation. There was one part in there that gives me a headache just thinking about it, about the difficulty of your task, and that deals with communications. When you were describing some of the issues you were dealing with in the fighting of the fires, and if you have the guard, you have a local law enforcement, you have the state police,
you have the folks on your blades, what is the status of your communication systems? How are those radios all interchanging with each other? And I guess if you can expound upon that. We got a
Speaker 9
19:51
federal grant about two years ago, and I've forgotten how much was in it, But in six figures, we're in the process using that grant to replace all our radios, handheld and mobile radios, which gives us a little better communications, but we're all the time working on repeaters.
We're figuring out how to communicate with Adam. Adam is a great partner that I left out and should not have. But we've got to talk to our airplanes. We've got to talk
Speaker 43
20:22
to the Blackhawks. Well, can you do that? If you have a guy on the ground now, can
Speaker 9
20:28
they talk directly to the Blackhawk to guide them into position? But like Deltic Timber does not have radios that will do our frequency. So the Deltic guy with the radios following our guy around wherever he goes. And so there's problems like that. But we work constantly on communications because somebody can get hurt if you can't talk to them.
Speaker 48
20:47
So are you saying you feel good about where you are
Speaker 17
20:51
right now? How shall I say? I would give us a C+. I feel that good
Speaker 9
20:58
about it, but we always need to be improving, and we are. We're working on it constantly. Well, I
Speaker 43
21:04
appreciate your attention to that, because I do think that, not only for the landowners, but for your crew, that's a vital issue to make sure they all know what's going on and how
Speaker 11
21:15
to protect themselves. In that vein, we went before the peer committee this morning,
Speaker 9
21:19
And there are two federal grants that we're using to upgrade our iPhones so we can download maps real time while the fire is going on and do satellite communications instead of repeater communications. It's got software in it. But there's stuff for communications, I apologize for the word stuff, going all the time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
21:47
For the new members, I'm going to sing your praises for just a moment.
Your agency has been the model for agencies stretching a dollar in this state and getting the most out of every dollar. And as the representative from Greenbrier, not only have I had the opportunity to be on the fire line because we had several wildfires in the county, but I've also been able to see firsthand the things you do for our folks statewide because of your office there where we're at. And I'm hoping that this committee will have the opportunity during the interim to come visit the operations up there and get a better first look at the operations up there
and all you do for the state. The two questions that I have kind of relates to your budget there. This last year we had some budget hiccups. We'll just put it that way. Thank you. But how is your agency recovering from that? Are we pretty well back in line where we need to be? I know we're still a few positions short, but I'm wondering if you could just speak to us about your goals as far as trying to get those positions, where your shortages are at, and so forth.
Speaker 7
23:03
Thank you. For the staffing we have today and the
Speaker 9
23:09
equipment we have today, We're in pretty good shape with the exception of replacing bulldozers on a timely basis and the trucks that carry them. With that exception, we're okay. The problem with it is we don't have an information officer anywhere in the agency. We don't have a media relations person at all. That's huge. We also have those people that have to work 28 days straight or 30 hours straight.
They don't have let out people. And coming from a sawmill background, you had to have let out people in each position to give folks a rest. And it's dangerous. So there's 13 positions in here that would become our let out people scattered around the state that give us just enough where somebody can get a rest when we've got those 26 fires on one day. The seats have been paid by the governor, two different governors now for eight years, out of the general improvement funds.
Now, it's supposed to be an emergency, and it's obvious. So the governor asked us to put it in our regular budget. So that's part of what's in here, and I think rightly so. But overall, at our level today, we're okay on money. I can't complain. But we need some, there's some things we need over and above where we are today.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
24:31
Do you all look at seasonal health, quote-unquote, because obviously your fires are typically going to be worse in the summer. Do
Speaker 9
24:38
you all, have you explored that? We do, and the problem with that is you've got to have trained people.
So typically, and we did, and it was in the newspaper, but we bring in retired employees or usually people who are trained and have the experience in fighting fire and running people at a fire, commanding people at a fire, commanding resources. You can't take somebody off the street for extra help for temporary employment in fighting a fire. They've got to have some training. And then the final question
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
25:11
I have is because we had such a bad fire season,
what kind of prescribed burns do you all do to try to get ahead of this so
that way maybe this next summer we don't have quite
Speaker 9
25:26
as many wildfires? I'm a big proponent of prescribed fire. I come from the Nature Conservancy to the state government, And it's a great tool, ecological tool, but also a great tool for wildfire. It's the best thing you can do to prevent wildfire is to do a prescribed fire first. There's a great program the federal government runs through the Forest Service called Stevens Grants.
And so around within, I think, five miles of the borders of the federal national forest, We can burn across private lands, and the landowner gets that free. We get paid by the federal government to do that. It's a great program. I've forgotten the value, but normally it's $300,000 or $400,000 to the commission each year, something in that category. So that's the biggest place we do prescribed fire, but the EQIP program from NRCS works quite well,
And we do equip burns and other burns all over the state and are very proud. I wish we could do more and think as we go through this five-year planning cycle, maybe we'll have one or two traveling prescribed fire crews someday and go around the state and dedicate those folks for prescribed fire except in those times when it's extreme fire danger. All right. Okay. All
Speaker 56
26:48
right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Linderman
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
27:01
Thank you, Mr. Chairman I want to first echo what Representative Meeks said about what a good job y'all do From personal experience, we had a fire a few years ago I live out in the country that jumped the road on both sides of my house I have never seen a 100 foot fire stream But I've seen one that was 40 or 50 and it is unbelievable pretty scary yeah that's my wife but anyhow Representative Meeks got several of my questions
one that I do have a question when we have a fire like that does the does the Forestry Commission do y'all take command of that are y'all the one that is in charge like if National Guard and local volunteer fire departments Do those people know to come to y'all and y'all coordinate and command
Speaker 9
27:54
all the... So we have meetings throughout the state. We have eight districts in the state. And the district holds meetings and works with the OES, the Office of Emergency Services,
and each county judge's office and coordinates that before the fire season and talks about communications, what radio frequencies and all that. But on private land in Arkansas, we are in command. and on state land in Arkansas on fire, we're the incident commanders under any normal conditions. Okay. Thank you. And again, I want to commend you all on
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
28:26
the job very well done. Thank you. Any other questions?
Speaker 71
28:37
Representative Thompson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. One question, and I too commend you. all that smoke from the case of fire settled in the world. It was unbelievable. But do we have any folks that are hooked up with the Department of Correction that might be trained and where they could respond to these kind of situations and help you all? I don't know of them.
Speaker 9
29:12
we've never asked that question. So I really can't respond to that to know what to tell you. All
Speaker 76
29:27
right. Thanks, sir. Any other questions? Representative McCrary. I have two questions. First one for everybody, just explain to them, well, first, who are our commissioners and how are they determined? And talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 7
29:39
Okay, the Forestry Commission is made up of nine commissioners, each with a nine-year
Speaker 9
29:45
term. So in theory, at least, one new commissioner each year. There has to be four or one from each of the congressional districts. There has to be one that does not have any connection with forestry or the citizen member. And after that, it's wide open. And Alan Bedell from Hot Springs is our chairman this year.
Speaker 79
30:13
My second question is, and I know you're probably not ready to get into this, but under your
Speaker 80
30:20
special revenue is how much growth do you see that's going to happen in that? And what you're thinking, what are you
Speaker 9
30:30
going to bring to us? Sure. If you could tell me where pine salt timber is going, and I can tell you a little bit about how our finances are going to grow. Pine salt timber is down about 50% since 2008, and it has not recovered.
And that's the main product we grow at Poison Springs. Poison Springs provides about $700,000 to $800,000 to our budget each year in special revenue. Severance tax, which is basically paid by the manufacturers in the state on the raw materials they purchase, provides about 14% of what we're doing. It's coming back, and it's growing back to where it was. It's capped at a very odd number, $3.7-something million, and the next $500,000 goes to the School of Forestry at Monticello.
So basically, that's where we're capped at 3.7. This year, it looks like it might run 3.3 to 3.4 million. When it got really bad, it was around 2.7 million 2009, I believe. So there's a little bit of growth coming back from the doldrums of the housing slump. There's any given year, you can cut more timber or not at Poison Springs.
The federal monies that come through and get in special revenues and other I'll call it Looks like it's going to be down maybe five percent and just descending descending And they do a whole we get up The one dozer will replace this year is with a federal grant, so we depend on those federal monies and All of it together. It's it's probably a wash. I don't see much growth in special revenue there is a bill before you that maybe I shouldn't speak to or before the
legislature that that would help us with the forest land fire protection tax it calls for a
Speaker 33
32:39
nickel raise to a 15 cents tax is not that that
Speaker 76
32:44
is what the forest industry wants is that not correct they they want to
Speaker 33
32:50
pay that tax yes that's correct the constituents
Speaker 9
32:54
have back protect themselves they're better off That's right. And the raise is $2 on 40 acres. And its last was raised in 1993. But that's for y'all to decide. That would raise about $700,000 for us. Would be the same as about three bulldozer units.
But as far as growth in special revenue, I don't see much. One of my goals is to grow the Poison Springs State Forest. That will be slow. And as we grow the acres of the forest, there should be more and more dollars coming from the forest. But that's, again, slow and gradual. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Meeks, do you have a
Speaker 79
33:33
follow-up question? I was going to ask about the timber tax.
Speaker 66
33:43
Representative Douglas Yes, thank you Mr. Chairman
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
33:46
Figure out how to work this stuff I was going to ask a little follow up on the timber tax How much of that is your revenue now And with the increase How much more would that generate for you
Speaker 33
34:05
To help protect the forest out here The 15 cents
Speaker 9
34:09
brings in 2.1 million dollars So that's a little more That's maybe 12% of our operating budget And it would bring $700,000 more, so it would grow to what's that 15, 16 percent of our
Speaker 89
34:22
total budget. Thank you. Representative Charlotte Douglas. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a question back to
Speaker 90
34:35
your communications. It looks like your communications is seamless between the Department of Emergency Management and the rural fire departments. Seamless
Speaker 9
34:43
is a little bit optimistic, but it's pretty good. We're doing our best. Yes, you can get on the
Speaker 91
34:50
right channels and the... Correct. But you don't have the communications with the private
Speaker 9
34:55
owners? In one case Deltic, another case with Weyerhaeuser or Green Bay Packaging we do, so it's kind of dependent on the companies. We generally sit down with the companies this time of the year before the fire season kicks in and talk about problems and what we can do. And it would not be...
Speaker 90
35:15
I mean they would be allowed to be on your frequency. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If
Speaker 9
35:20
they just had the... It's limitations on their radios. Okay. And we have some extra radios and on, you know, at a fire sometimes we can
pass out our radios temporarily to their dozer operators, but we don't always have those radios and we don't keep an extra supply for that purpose. So
Speaker 90
35:39
do you think it is something that you are looking at getting an extra supply or trying to get the
Speaker 33
35:49
that? I would rather have the landowners come up to speed is the
Speaker 9
35:54
correct way to do it. Just a little aside, and I apologize, but 15 years ago in South Arkansas there were
There are 74 private bulldozers and tractors that are no longer there because of ownership changes and what the companies have done. So we had about that. We had 50, 60 dozers in South Arkansas and private industry had 74. Now those 50 or 60 are still there but without the 74. Fox, thank you
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
36:29
for taking time to visit with us today.
We appreciate your report. We appreciate what the Forestry Commission is doing for the citizens of Arkansas, and so thank you again. We are going to now take, after we adjourn, we will take a picture here for the Parks and Tourism Department. Members, presently we have no bills for active discussion on Friday, But I would just advise that take a look at the website,
and certainly we'll make an announcement tomorrow if we are going to meet on Friday. But I don't want to necessarily meet if there's nothing to be taken up. I would like to continue as we have on our regular Wednesday meeting and bring in different agency directors to bring members up to speed with what these different agencies are doing for the people of Arkansas. So without objection, we will adjourn.
Agenda
PRESENTATION BY GUEST SPEAKER Joe FOX
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Speakers
Representative Matthew J. Shepherd
Unverified
Speaker 3
Speaker 5
Speaker 7
Speaker 9
Speaker 12
Speaker 17
Speaker 18
Speaker 22
Speaker 29
Speaker 30
Speaker 41
Speaker 43
Speaker 48
Speaker 11
Speaker 52
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 56
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
Speaker 71
Speaker 39
Speaker 76
Speaker 79
Speaker 80
Speaker 33
Speaker 66
Representative Dan M. Douglas
Unverified
Speaker 89
Speaker 90
Speaker 91
Speaker 94