Massive Assaults on Wildfires Questioned; Preventive Protection of Homes Shown to Be More Effective, Far Less Expensive

A wall of fire barreled through the forest with a jet-engine roarnear Secesh Meadows last August, and local fire chief Cris Bent knewhis work was about to be tested.

Residents of the tiny mountain hamlet in central Idaho preparedfor the worst. Just a month earlier, a forest fire had burned 254homes near Lake Tahoe, and the 2007 fire season appeared ready toclaim its next community.

But as the raging East Zone Complex fire reached the cluster ofloosely spaced homes, the flames dropped to the ground, cracklingand smoldering. The fire crept right up to doorsteps. But withoutthe intense flames that spurred the blaze just moments before, nohomes burned -- a feat fire managers attributed largely to Bent'spush to clear flammable brush from around houses.

"We were well prepared," Bent said.

The town's ability to withstand a frontal assault by a majorwildfire demonstrates what fire behavior experts have been sayingfor more than a decade: Clearing brush and other flammables andrequiring fireproof roofs will protect houses even in an intensewildfire -- without risking firefighters' lives.

More provocatively, the research suggests that fighting fires onpublic lands to protect homes is ineffective and, in the long run,counterproductive.

It is also far more expensive.

This is the paradox of wildland fire management in America: Mostscientists and fire managers agree that fire is a healthy and neededpart of the forest, and that fighting these blazes serves only tobuild up fuels and boost the size and frequency of catastrophicfires.

But federal agencies keep attacking almost every wildfire, manydeep in the woods, and the rising costs of suppression divert moneyfrom protecting homes and communities -- which can be saved withthe right, often inexpensive, measures.

The result: Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on what mostexperts agree is the wrong approach. The lives of firefighters areput in danger on fires that don't need to be fought. And homes areleft vulnerable, their fate often decided by wind direction and theavailability of federal firefighters to protect private property.

Federal agencies still put out nearly every fire that starts. Outof about 80,000 blazes that start every year, an average of just 327are allowed to burn. Only about 430,000 acres of the 9.8 millionthat burned nationally last year were allowed to burn withoutsuppression, in what managers call "wildland fire use" blazes.

Fire suppression costs have ballooned, rising by a factor of morethan six in just a decade, to $1.86 billion last year. Meanwhile,funding to make private homes and communities safer has dropped bymore than 30 percent since 2001 -- to less than $80 million in2008 -- and more cuts are proposed for 2009.

And Congress may soon make it even easier for forest managers tospend tax dollars on fire suppression. Last month, an unlikely unionof House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho) supported a fund to cover costs of fighting catastrophicfires.

The fire in Secesh Meadows didn't surprise Jack Cohen, the U.S.Forest Service's top expert on how fires burn homes.

Most of the public and even many firefighters and fire managersthink the fire racing through the canopy of the forest -- theintense "crown fire" -- is the main threat to homes.

But the reality is that most crown fires lose their intensitywhen they reach the edge of a community. Trees are spread morethinly in residential areas, intersected by roads and driveways andlawns, so the fires tend to drop to the ground, where they burn withless intensity and are easier to manage than the blazing crownfires.

Cohen has studied dozens of fires across the nation since the1990s, and he sees the same behavior every time.

Most homes are ignited by flying embers, thrown as far as a mileand a half ahead of the crown fire. Or they catch fire when theground fire reaches brush and trees within 100 feet of thebuildings.

The homes themselves burn with high intensity -- and can sendoff their own embers to start new fires -- but often the treesaround the burned homes are left with their green canopies intact.

That tells Cohen that there is no "wall of fire" blazing througha community and consuming everything in its path.

Instead, he says, it shows the fires can be fought within thecommunities -- and that raging fires on public lands don't need tobe stopped in the wilderness to protect private property.

Cohen's research demonstrates that requiring forest homeowners tohave a fireproof roof, to clear gutters of pine needles, and to keepbushes and trees 100 feet from a home is far less expensive and moreeffective for protecting homes than fighting fires on public lands.

Cutting trees to thin the forest around communities -- thepreferred method of treating federal lands to reduce fire danger --reduces airborne embers that ignite many house fires. But thattactic is still more expensive and less effective than clearingdirectly around homes.

"We have the ability to be compatible with fire," Cohen said."But we mostly choose not to be. . . . Our expectations, desires andperceptions are inconsistent with the natural reality."

Cohen's conclusions are sound, said David Olson, a Boise NationalForest official who has more than 30 years of experience fightingand managing wildfires. But to rely solely on a tactic known in thewildfire management community as "firewise" preparation assumes thatevery homeowner in a fire-prone community will follow all of Cohen'sinstructions and not cut corners.

It is human nature, Olson said, to not prepare ahead of time.

"We will do nothing until a crisis occurs," he said.

One way to better protect homes and businesses and save federaldollars is to put more of the onus on the homeowner.

Local governments should enact planning and zoning rules thatrequire homes to be built with fire-resistant roofs and 100-footbuffer zones, Olson said.

"We need to prepare the subdivision before it's even built,"Olson said.

Officially, the responsibility for taking preventive steps lieswith local fire departments like Bent's and with homeownersthemselves.

But federal firefighters have made protecting homes on privateproperty one of their highest priorities, second only to keepingfirefighters and residents safe.

In 2004, $535 million of the federal agencies' $1 billionfirefighting budget went to protecting homes and property, accordingto a 2006 audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspectorgeneral.

The federal program, the inspector general said, "removesincentives for landowners . . . to take responsibility for their ownprotection and ensure their homes are constructed and landscaped inways that reduce wildfire risks."

"They're definitely going in the wrong direction by providingmore funds for suppression," said Alison Berry, research fellow forthe Property and Environment Research Center, a libertarian thinktank in Bozeman, Mont. "We should be focusing more on prevention andpreparedness."

Bent, the Secesh Meadows fire chief, said the federal policy goesagainst the traditional American view of personal responsibility.

"As homeowners I think we have an obligation to take care of ourplaces and ourselves," Bent said.

In 2006, he used a $60,000 federal grant to remove brush andtrees from around Secesh Meadows houses -- a firewise tactic. Hewas able to persuade only 37 percent of the residents to participatein the program, though some who declined already had cleared theirproperty. His effort, along with federal firefighters andvolunteers, was enough to save the town.

But firefighters had to devote extra effort -- meaningincreased danger and cost to taxpayers -- to protecting homes thathad not been prepared, Bent said.

"That really personally annoyed me a great deal," Bent said."We're risking the lives of young men and women to protect a homethe homeowner could have treated at their leisure."

Massive Assaults on Wildfires Questioned; Preventive Protection of Homes Shown to Be More Effective, Far Less Expensive

A wall of fire barreled through the forest with a jet-engine roarnear Secesh Meadows last August, and local fire chief Cris Bent knewhis work was about to be tested.

Residents of the tiny mountain hamlet in central Idaho preparedfor the worst. Just a month earlier, a forest fire had burned 254homes near Lake Tahoe, and the 2007 fire season appeared ready toclaim its next community.

But as the raging East Zone Complex fire reached the cluster ofloosely spaced homes, the flames dropped to the ground, cracklingand smoldering. The fire crept right up to doorsteps. But withoutthe intense flames that spurred the blaze just moments before, nohomes burned -- a feat fire managers attributed largely to Bent'spush to clear flammable brush from around houses.

"We were well prepared," Bent said.

The town's ability to withstand a frontal assault by a majorwildfire demonstrates what fire behavior experts have been sayingfor more than a decade: Clearing brush and other flammables andrequiring fireproof roofs will protect houses even in an intensewildfire -- without risking firefighters' lives.

More provocatively, the research suggests that fighting fires onpublic lands to protect homes is ineffective and, in the long run,counterproductive.

It is also far more expensive.

This is the paradox of wildland fire management in America: Mostscientists and fire managers agree that fire is a healthy and neededpart of the forest, and that fighting these blazes serves only tobuild up fuels and boost the size and frequency of catastrophicfires.

But federal agencies keep attacking almost every wildfire, manydeep in the woods, and the rising costs of suppression divert moneyfrom protecting homes and communities -- which can be saved withthe right, often inexpensive, measures.

The result: Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on what mostexperts agree is the wrong approach. The lives of firefighters areput in danger on fires that don't need to be fought. And homes areleft vulnerable, their fate often decided by wind direction and theavailability of federal firefighters to protect private property.

Federal agencies still put out nearly every fire that starts. Outof about 80,000 blazes that start every year, an average of just 327are allowed to burn. Only about 430,000 acres of the 9.8 millionthat burned nationally last year were allowed to burn withoutsuppression, in what managers call "wildland fire use" blazes.

Fire suppression costs have ballooned, rising by a factor of morethan six in just a decade, to $1.86 billion last year. Meanwhile,funding to make private homes and communities safer has dropped bymore than 30 percent since 2001 -- to less than $80 million in2008 -- and more cuts are proposed for 2009.

And Congress may soon make it even easier for forest managers tospend tax dollars on fire suppression. Last month, an unlikely unionof House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Bill Sali (R-Idaho) supported a fund to cover costs of fighting catastrophicfires.

The fire in Secesh Meadows didn't surprise Jack Cohen, the U.S.Forest Service's top expert on how fires burn homes.

Most of the public and even many firefighters and fire managersthink the fire racing through the canopy of the forest -- theintense "crown fire" -- is the main threat to homes.

But the reality is that most crown fires lose their intensitywhen they reach the edge of a community. Trees are spread morethinly in residential areas, intersected by roads and driveways andlawns, so the fires tend to drop to the ground, where they burn withless intensity and are easier to manage than the blazing crownfires.

Cohen has studied dozens of fires across the nation since the1990s, and he sees the same behavior every time.

Most homes are ignited by flying embers, thrown as far as a mileand a half ahead of the crown fire. Or they catch fire when theground fire reaches brush and trees within 100 feet of thebuildings.

The homes themselves burn with high intensity -- and can sendoff their own embers to start new fires -- but often the treesaround the burned homes are left with their green canopies intact.

That tells Cohen that there is no "wall of fire" blazing througha community and consuming everything in its path.

Instead, he says, it shows the fires can be fought within thecommunities -- and that raging fires on public lands don't need tobe stopped in the wilderness to protect private property.

Cohen's research demonstrates that requiring forest homeowners tohave a fireproof roof, to clear gutters of pine needles, and to keepbushes and trees 100 feet from a home is far less expensive and moreeffective for protecting homes than fighting fires on public lands.

Cutting trees to thin the forest around communities -- thepreferred method of treating federal lands to reduce fire danger --reduces airborne embers that ignite many house fires. But thattactic is still more expensive and less effective than clearingdirectly around homes.

"We have the ability to be compatible with fire," Cohen said."But we mostly choose not to be. . . . Our expectations, desires andperceptions are inconsistent with the natural reality."

Cohen's conclusions are sound, said David Olson, a Boise NationalForest official who has more than 30 years of experience fightingand managing wildfires. But to rely solely on a tactic known in thewildfire management community as "firewise" preparation assumes thatevery homeowner in a fire-prone community will follow all of Cohen'sinstructions and not cut corners.

It is human nature, Olson said, to not prepare ahead of time.

"We will do nothing until a crisis occurs," he said.

One way to better protect homes and businesses and save federaldollars is to put more of the onus on the homeowner.

Local governments should enact planning and zoning rules thatrequire homes to be built with fire-resistant roofs and 100-footbuffer zones, Olson said.

"We need to prepare the subdivision before it's even built,"Olson said.

Officially, the responsibility for taking preventive steps lieswith local fire departments like Bent's and with homeownersthemselves.

But federal firefighters have made protecting homes on privateproperty one of their highest priorities, second only to keepingfirefighters and residents safe.

In 2004, $535 million of the federal agencies' $1 billionfirefighting budget went to protecting homes and property, accordingto a 2006 audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inspectorgeneral.

The federal program, the inspector general said, "removesincentives for landowners . . . to take responsibility for their ownprotection and ensure their homes are constructed and landscaped inways that reduce wildfire risks."

"They're definitely going in the wrong direction by providingmore funds for suppression," said Alison Berry, research fellow forthe Property and Environment Research Center, a libertarian thinktank in Bozeman, Mont. "We should be focusing more on prevention andpreparedness."

Bent, the Secesh Meadows fire chief, said the federal policy goesagainst the traditional American view of personal responsibility.

"As homeowners I think we have an obligation to take care of ourplaces and ourselves," Bent said.

In 2006, he used a $60,000 federal grant to remove brush andtrees from around Secesh Meadows houses -- a firewise tactic. Hewas able to persuade only 37 percent of the residents to participatein the program, though some who declined already had cleared theirproperty. His effort, along with federal firefighters andvolunteers, was enough to save the town.

But firefighters had to devote extra effort -- meaningincreased danger and cost to taxpayers -- to protecting homes thathad not been prepared, Bent said.

"That really personally annoyed me a great deal," Bent said."We're risking the lives of young men and women to protect a homethe homeowner could have treated at their leisure."