The Forest Service is overstating its wildfire prevention progress to Congress despite decades of warnings not to

NBC News found that throughout the country, the Forest Service has counted many of the same pieces of land toward its risk-reduction goals from two to six times, and, in a few cases, dozens of times. The agency has reported that it reduced “hazardous fuel” on roughly 40 million acres of land in the past 15 years, but that figure may be overstated by an estimated 21% nationally, according to the analysis of public Forest Service records. In California, it is overstated by approximately 30%.

The inflated figures provided to Congress deprive those making funding decisions of knowing the true scope of the challenge, experts say.