The Rocky Mountain Research Station released its Fourmile Canyon Fire report, requested by Senator Udall of Colorado. The Report confirms that:
1) A home’s fate depends upon fuel in its immediate surroundings and construction materials;
2) Fuel treatments, especially those that leave fine fuels untreated, are ineffective protection against wildfires that threaten homes, i.e., windy, dry conditions; and,
3) Fire suppression resources are easily overwhelmed precisely when Fire-Unwise homes need them the most.
The report took a special look at aerial attack, finding that the great preponderance of retardant was dropped after the fire had already stopped advancing.
Here’s a piece by Bob Berwyn on the report..
Also, my understanding is that the fuels treatments done were tiny and mostly directed at making access safe, so they did not really attempt larger scale fuels treatments in this area.
Here’s my take: across the 6,000 acres, there were 600 acres of “fuel treatments.” In some of these, surface fuels had not been treated, and in fact thinning without dealing with surface fuels made the situation worse than untreated. It sounds like it’s important to finish a fuels treatment project for it to be successful. It also sounds like you need to keep up the treatment of fine fuels, in terms of prescribed burning, for it to be successful through time. Yet that size of a prescribed burning program, so close to homes, might run into a fair amount of trouble both from air quality and from concerned neighbors.
The area of this fire is not too far from the area described in this piece from our blog on air quality and prescribed burning.
My summary would be:
1) document what you want to change in your fuel treatment (what kind of fuels) and why (defensible space for firefighters; strategic points; safe egress for homeowners).
2) Look at if you could do enough acres/ kind of treatment to really make a difference, depending on your answer to 1).
3) Finish the treatments including burning piles, as soon as you can.
4) Remember that treatments require maintenance through time.
For those who do not want to read the whole report, here is the part on fuel treatments:
The Report confirms that:
1) A home’s fate depends upon fuel in its immediate surroundings and construction materials;
2) Fuel treatments, especially those that leave fine fuels untreated, are ineffective protection against wildfires that threaten homes, i.e., windy, dry conditions; and,
3) Fire suppression resources are easily overwhelmed precisely when Fire-Unwise homes need them the most.
The report took a special look at aerial attack, finding that the great preponderance of retardant was dropped after the fire had already stopped advancing.
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Hey, isn’t this basically what forest activists have been saying for years? Here’s a copy of a Wildfire primer I put together back in 2004, highlighting much of the same stuff that was found in the Fourmile Canyon report. http://nativeforest.org/pdf/Fire_Primer_04_low_res.pdf
It is very typical for SW homeowners to not properly manage the fuels around their homes. In particular, shade from trees is very cherished and many landowners are unwilling to cut even a portion of the trees shading their yards. It is a similar idea that preservationists have regarding public lands. The picture above shows that there are few gaps in the forest surrounding those mansions.
However, forests and wildfires should be managed so that small wildfires don’t travel for miles, burning in untreated forests, arriving in the WUI with such force that the minimal submerchantable fuels treatments are overwhelmed with fire intensity and fire-generated winds. Couple this with the illegal Let-Burn policy (follow the law?!?!) that allows fires to burn for weeks, and you end up with the mega-fires that do so much destruction, including homes.
When firestorms send out spots fires far ahead of the fire front, tiny fuels treatments can be easily bypassed or burned through. The Mill Creek Incident in SW Utah is a perfect example of a fire allowed to burn for weeks, until the inevitable high winds send it out of containment, and into communities. There are no regulatory controls or public input on Let-Burn fires. When 100,000 acre wildfires are allowed, and even embraced, towns WILL be burned.
This report, in the summary, does not clearly state the obvious. Under these extreme conditions of wind and extremely low humidity with a dry cold front, there is virtually nothing that can be done to suppress wildfire. That is a fact that too many landowners and the politicians don’t seem to grasp.
Homeowners spend a million dollars on a beautiful home but too often will not spend a penny in prevention options that work. Such as fire-resistant foam or fire resistant siding and roofing. Not to mention building codes in such areas that could insist on better construction methods and materials. The report summary doesn’t delve into these factors.