The Biscuit Fire in southwestern Oregon was one of the largest and most costly in recent history, burning over 499,000 acres and costing over 150 million dollars in suppression efforts. This study uses prefire resource information in conjunction with postfire burn severity to generate statistically reliable prefire resource estimates for the land within the Biscuit Fire perimeter. Resource parameters such timber volume, down woody material, area by forest type, and understory cover compared between burn severity classes.

In 2002, the Biscuit Fire burned almost 500,000 acres of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southwestern Oregon. In its wake, the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project (Project) is one of the largest, most complex postfire recovery projects undertaken by the Forest Service. Considerable controversy exists over the Project and its salvage sales to harvest dead trees. GAO was asked to determine (1) how the Project compares with the Forest Service's general approach to postfire recovery, (2) the status of the Project's salvage sales and how the reported financial and economic results of the sales compare with initial estimates, (3) the status of other Project activities, and (4) the extent of reported improper logging and the agency's response. To answer these objectives, GAO reviewed Project environmental analysis documents, plans, and activity reports and interviewed agency officials.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

The Wildfire Reader presents, in an affordable paperback edition, the essays included in Wildfire, offering a concise overview of fire landscapes and the past century of forest policy that has affected them.