COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A diverse group of forest experts, government regulators and industry stakeholders testified today at a Senate field hearing here that not nearly enough money and effort are being committed toward programs designed to prevent a repeat of the catastrophic wildfires that have scorched thousands of acres across Colorado this summer.

The threat of devastating blazes will only increase in Colorado and across the West over the coming decades, witnesses from the Forest Service, the state and the timber industry testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Today's hearing chaired by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) in Colorado Springs, where the Waldo Canyon fire that destroyed nearly 350 homes this summer now ranks as the most destructive in the state's history, is part of a broader effort by the Energy and Natural Resources panel to gather information and find solutions that could be applied to reduce the wildfire threat.

No place has been hit harder this summer than Colorado. In addition to the Waldo Canyon fire, which at its peak in late June forced the evacuation of more than 32,000 people, the High Park fire near Fort Collins, Colo., burned more than 250 homes, and a series of statewide wildfires killed six people, burned hundreds of thousands of acres and destroyed more than 600 homes.

"My heart goes out to everybody affected by these fires," Udall said during the hearing. But he added, "I'm focused on moving forward with solutions" to prevent future fires.

The experts at today's hearing told Udall that better federal funding is needed to implement forest health and mitigation strategies on an estimated 70 million acres of national forestland that the Forest Service has identified as at high risk for wildfires.

"The succinct answer is money," Jim Hubbard, the Forest Service's deputy chief for state and private forestry, told Udall at today's hearing.

Hubbard said the Forest Service has budgeted $496 million for fire suppression, but with wildfires still blazing in Montana, California and elsewhere, the agency estimates it will actually spend $1.4 billion this year to fight fires. The shortfall, he said, means money will be removed from forest health programs that remove dead trees and other vegetation that fuel fires.

"We've got 70 million acres" that need fire mitigation treatment, Hubbard said, "and we get to about 3 million acres a year, and it's real important we pick the right 3 million acres."

He said, "Treating these forests is cheaper than fighting the fires that bring the trees down."

But the problem is complicated by what Udall termed a "perfect storm" of wildfire-producing conditions, including a warming climate, ongoing drought and more development in the "wildland-urban interface."

Indeed, Hubbard said the volume and intensity of wildfires in the past decade have increased, adding that it is a trend "that we expect to be with us for some time."

And even in areas where thinning and other mitigation measures are adopted, they are not always successful in slowing the spread of wildfires.

A hot topic at today's hearing was a Forest Service report released last month that casts doubt on the effectiveness of common fire suppression strategies in controlling the Fourmile Canyon fire near Boulder, Colo., in 2010 that burned nearly 6,200 acres.

That review of the Fourmile Canyon fire and subsequent report, which was done at the request of Udall, found that about 600 acres burned in the fire had undergone "fuel treatment" strategies, including removing small trees and low-lying tree limbs. The Colorado State Forest Service conducted most of the fire-suppression work, according to the report.

"However, the fuel treatments had minimal impact in affecting how the fire burned or the damage it caused," according to the report. "After the initial day of intense burning and 4 additional days of relatively benign fire behavior, the Fourmile Canyon Fire had burned 6,181 acres and become one of the most damaging fires in Colorado's history."

The main culprit was strong winds that pushed the fire across thousands of acres on the first day of the blaze. But another major problem was that the trees and branches that were cut down as part of the fire treatments were left in stacks on the ground, helping to fuel the fire, according to the report.

As a result, "No evidence was found that the progression of the Fourmile Canyon Fire was altered by the presence of fuel treatments," according to the report.

Mike King, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said piling trees and branches that have been cut down as part of tree-thinning efforts represents a "significant threat" because the debris fuels the fires.

One solution is to work with the timber industry to create economic incentives to take dead or cut trees to sawmills for profit, or to use the biomass as an alternative fuel, said Nancy Fishering, vice president of the Colorado Timber Industry Association in Montrose, Colo.

King said federal, state and local government agencies need to partner with the industry to advance forest thinning and other initiatives to reduce wildfire risks.

If not, King said, "We in the public sector don't have the resources to tackle this."