Now, in the previous post here I was critical of what I thought was the Administration’s focus on climate change as the source of wildfires.. only to find out that perhaps it was the New York Times’ spin and not entirely the Administration at all! So let’s compare coverage in the Denver Post and the NY Times…
Here’s the story today from the Post.. more useful details, no climate change ..
The Obama administration wants to fundamentally shift how it pays for firefighting in the United States — something Western lawmakers and governors have been agitating to change for years.
The proposal, which doesn’t increase overall spending and is part of President Barack Obama’s budget this year, essentially allows for separate funds to fight fires so the federal government doesn’t have to take money away from prevention.
Amid a number of the most destructive wildfire seasons ever recorded, the Obama administration has been cribbing cash to fight fires from the same pot used for suppression and prevention.
In a classic robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scenario, the departments of Agriculture and Interior had to transfer $463 million in 2012 and $636 million in 2013 to fight fires. Those dollars came from programs that removed brush, managed forests and grasslands, and focused on forest health.
“We can’t keep putting our thumb in the dike,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper, following a White House meeting on the issue. “At some point, we’ve got to make the kind of investments that begin to solve the problem.”
Under the proposal unveiled Monday, the costs to fight severe wildfires — those that require emergency response or are near urban areas — would be funded through a new “wildfire suppression cap adjustment.” This funding mechanism removes firefighting cash from regular discretionary budget caps, thus protecting prevention funds.
This budget cap adjustment would be used only to fund the most severe 1 percent of catastrophic fires, and Congress would need to fund costs for the other 99 percent of fires before the cap funds become available.
In an interview, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the previous funding method “a vicious cycle.”
“It would also allow us to do a better job to work on the 70,000 communities who are now … surrounded by forest,” he said. “They want the benefit of beautiful scenery. This would give us the resources to better prepare those communities.”
Wildfire destruction has become a worsening problem. Six of the most destructive fire seasons in the past 50 years have been since 2000.
Hickenlooper said White House officials on Monday brought Western governors to the Situation Room to view drought, rain and water table conditions nationwide. White House officials said one-third of American families live within the wildland-urban interface.
“It was very sobering,” Hickenlooper said.
In November, El Paso County Commissioner Sallie Clark told a Senate panel her community needed the federal government’s help to clear dead, dangerous brush adjacent to urban neighborhoods.
On Capitol Hill, where the president’s plan would need approval, bipartisan bills are pending in both the House and the Senate that support the new funding scheme. Both Democratic Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet support the Senate plan.
“This strategy will ensure we fight today’s fires without undermining efforts to get ahead of tomorrow’s blazes,” Udall said in a statement.
Bennet, who held a hearing last fall on the issue, agreed. “Today’s announcement addresses this issue by promoting a smarter, more sensible approach to dealing with wildfires that will save us money in the future,” he said in a statement.
It’s fascinating to me how stories are reported in different regional and national newspapers. And what newspapers are more likely to “blink out.”
Anyway, here’s my question for this story…”one-third of families live within the wildland-urban interface.” That seems like a lot to me. Does anyone know where this figure came from?
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82321&src=twitter-iotd
Larry this is a great photo, but it sounded like 1/3 of people in the country…. maybe I read that wrong.
Larry’s NASA picture: Note the unscathed Cedar Heights subdivision within the perimeter of the Waldo Canyon fire. And here’s the rest of the story . . .:
The neighborhood has been a poster child for fire mitigation work, said Colorado Springs Mayor Steve Bach. A couple of years ago, when residents were warned about the potential for fire danger, they took action, he said.
Working with city officials, they staged a mock evacuation so they would be prepared to pack up and leave at a moment’s notice. The city also gave residents advice about the best ways to mitigate fire threats around their homes and they complied, Bach said. The city even hauled out the debris for free, he said.
“Thank goodness they prepared when they did,” Bach said. “If not, this would be an entirely different situation.”
And what about thinning/fuels reduction in the backcountry? Cedar Heights was smart enough not to rely upon that debunked strategy.
It depends on the site-specific conditions of said “backcountry”. Some people consider all lands beyond two tree lengths away from homes as “backcountry”. I’d guess that a very large percentage of wildfires that burn homes start in the “backcountry”. How many residents don’t want their “backcountry” views turned into a sea of snags?
Andy, I read your “rest of the story” but didn’t find any info on how Cedar Heights mitigated. I would guess they undoubtedly reduced fuels (thus producing the debris the city hauled off) but you don’t seem to think so. Care to back up your assertion that they “did not rely on fuels reduction”?
Dan, Sorry I didn’t have time when Andy first posted it to look up this previous work which seemed to indicate that the fuel treatments were helpful. And the folks in Colorado Springs have no “axe to grind” 😉 about timber harvesting.. so it’s hard to imagine why they would make this up.
Here’s the link to the previous post.
Another previous, very relevant post about the Waldo Canyon fire is this one, from last March, in which a video from the USFS and NFPA of how Colorado Springs worked to create a Fire Resilient community, and their experience with the Waldo Canyon Fire was posted for everyone’s consideration.
The post and video only elicited one comment, from myself, the context of which is relevant to the current discussion, so I’ve posted part of it here:
Cedar Heights residents reduced fuels on their homes’ lots. No public land was involved in this fuel reduction. They also did other Firewise-sensible things, such as cleaning their gutters of pine needles and stacking wood away from the side of the house. The aerial photo really tells the whole story by itself. The fire came right up to the sub-division’s edge, went all around it, and the homes were spared. No surprise for anyone who has followed the literature on home losses during wildfires, e.g. Jack Cohen’s work. It is the fire ignition zone, within about 150 feet of a house, that determines whether homes burn from a flame front. It is the home’s roofing material that determines whether a home burns from wind-blown firebrands.
Interesting observations, Sharon! Two papers, two ways of approaching the story. FWIW, the White House seems to be pushing the climate angle. Here’s a WH press release:
For Immediate Release
February 24, 2014
Readout of the President’s Meeting with Western Governors
Today, President Obama met with a bipartisan group of western Governors to talk about a variety of issues facing their states, including the increasing frequency and severity of drought, wildfire, and other extreme weather events. The President reiterated the Administration’s commitment to aid preparedness for, response to, and recovery from these natural disasters. He also pledged to continue to provide support for the Governors as they work through the many complex issues related to water use and drought in their states. As part of that commitment, the President detailed a new approach he will propose in his upcoming budget that fundamentally changes how we fund wildfire suppression to provide for better certainty, safeguards, and effectiveness.
The President and his advisors discussed the latest science on how a changing climate is contributing to extreme weather and outlined the progress that’s been made on his Climate Action Plan, which includes strategies to work with states to strengthen community preparedness for extreme weather and other impacts of climate change. The President stated that he looks forward to continuing to work with all Governors to ensure that this conversation continues for the sake of their states and of future generations of Americans across the country.
Generally, it seems that most climate “hawks” support the idea of “free range” wildfires as a solution to our forest fire problems. I wonder if those same folks supported spending more money on wildfires, while raiding prevention budgets. I still think that some people place a big importance on how fires were started when judging if a wildfire is “good”, or “bad”.
Here’s a Wikipedia entry on populations of states.. this is people and not “families”.. but still I’m curious as to the definition of WUI that would lead to “1/3 of families.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
Sharon, see http://people.oregonstate.edu/~hammerr/articles/Radeloff_et_al_EA_2005.pdf
They estimated 38.5% of housing units across the US are located in WUI (2005 study).
Marek, thanks so much. Let’s take a look at the abstract:
What is interesting to me is that so much of it is in the NE, and yet so few major forest fires are there. It seems to me that since this is a discussion of federal fire suppression bucks (such as this one with regard to wildfire funding) adding places like CT, NY, NH VT and Maine- heavily populated- might give us the wrong idea. Not to speak of second homes.. do they count as 1/2 a family?
Here’s a paragraph on page 801:
We have had major fires near Denver and LA but not so much SF Seattle Dallas, DC NY and Boston.
As Ed says there are many ways of ascertaining what’s “in” WUI. It is likely that Ed’s were mapped as part of CWPPs.. not too many of those around DC. This study is based on density. I’ve heard there are other ways.
Sharon, if nationwide the WUI zones were mapped the way they were here in Kootenai County, Idaho then I can understand how so many folks are supposedly within the impact area. The WUI here is grossly inflated miles and miles up into the national forest, with no sense or reason that I can tell looking at the maps. So that is likely part of the explanation.
Ed, I don’t think the study used CWPP maps.. looked like they used housing density.
Oddly enough, the LA Times has no coverage at all about this. I’m guessing that they are having trouble deciding how to “spin” it to their agenda.
Right, the LA Times which will no longer publish “denialist” letters to the editor.
If the 1/3 figure is accurate it is probably an artifact of policy rather than de facto WUI and this may be explained by two things:
First, the sad extent of leap-frog development and sprawl in this country; and
Second, the grossly overbroad definition of the WUI used in many Community Wildfire Protection Plans. Pro-extraction county governments see fuel reduction as an excuse for commercial logging and or federal subsidies, so they often drew ridiculously broad WUI boundaries.
This undermines the main purpose of identifying the WUI which is to prioritize limited resources on effective treatment in the areas that need it most (the home ignition zone), instead of spreading resources thin across wide areas that can never be maintained over the long term.