Wildfires across the West push spending past $1B: AP story

I found the rolodex factor on this story to be interesting.
Below are some excerpts:

More than 40 uncontained, active and large wildfires dot the western U.S. from Arizona to Washington state and Alaska, taxing national firefighting resources and helping to push spending past $1 billion for the year.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise has raised the national wildfire preparedness level to the highest tier for the first time in five years.

The center lists two central Idaho wildfires as the country’s top priorities, helping provide crews and resources for the Beaver Creek Fire, which forced the evacuation of 1,250 homes in the resort area of Ketchum and Sun Valley and has cost nearly $12 million so far.

First we have Steve Gage.. good choice:

Forty-eight fires remain uncontained around the country, the White House said, and about 17,800 people have been dispatched to fight them.

Steve Gage, assistant director of operations for the fire center, said officials can’t fill all the requests they receive for crews and equipment.

As fire season progresses, Gage said, the center moves crews around to where the greatest assets like houses are threatened, and tries to have crews positioned to catch new fires when they are small.

Then they quote other fire spokespeople (good) and go back to Steve.

Nationally, federal agencies have spent more than $1 billion so far this year, about half last year’s total of $1.9 billion, according to the fire center. There have been 33,000 fires that have burned more than 5,300 square miles—an area nearly the size of Connecticut.

Whether costs top the 10-year average of $1.4 billion or the $1.9 billion spent in 2012 and 2006 will depend on the rest of the wildfire season, which traditionally gets very active in Southern California as late as October, Gage said

Now we go to.. Norm Christiansen (?). Who knew that Duke was such a center of knowledge on western fires?

“Certainly drought in some areas has contributed to the number and intensity of fire events,” he said in an email. “But many of the fires have been in highly populated, wilderness-urban interface areas such as Colorado Springs, Sun Valley, Idaho, and the west slope of the Sierra Nevada. That adds greatly to costs since so many more resources are required to protect built structures.”

As a Coloradan, I would have to say that while the Black Forest 14200 fire this year got much press, a lot more acres were burned in the West Fork complex 109,000 as of July 16 (couldn’t find a total). Of course, Waldo Canyon was last year. I’m suspicioning that Christiansen’s view was gleaned from the press, perhaps, which tends to focus on fires burning in communities (not that there weren’t communities around the West Fork Complex) and not reviewing figures at NIFC. But West Fork is not highly populated. Then you get into what is “many of the fires”.. but as in my Golden example, if you’re really in the WUI, fires tend to get attacked strongly by local forces and may not end up as large fires.

Next rolodex pick..

Jason Sibold, assistant professor of biogeography at Colorado State University, said since the 1990s, the climate has been changing, producing hotter, drier and longer summers in the West. That combined with more people building vacation homes in the woods pushes up costs.

“The societal demand to try to control and fight these fires is escalating at the same pace as the climate’s warming,” he said.

Here’s a link..he seems to be a fire history professor and is in the school of anthropology, but not necessarily an expert on suppression or suppression costs.

And oddly, the homes in the Black Forest are not “vacation homes” and neither are most front- range WUI homes. AS we can tell by listening to folks on the blog, it’s a complex situation as to fire costs and once again we get the narrative of “people building homes” and “climate change.”

We don’t get the narrative of “old trees that are beetle bait” or “fire suppression has led to high fuel loadings” and “it is just a matter of time regardless of weather or climate”…

Or even, “communities that do good fire planning cost less to protect”. Where does the narrative “climate plus building (vacation homes?) in the WUI” come from, and why does it keep recurring in the press to the exclusion of other factors?

22 thoughts on “Wildfires across the West push spending past $1B: AP story”

  1. Sharon

    As to your question: “Where does the narrative “climate plus building (vacation homes?) in the WUI” come from, and why does it keep recurring in the press to the exclusion of other factors?”

    –> I know of no scientific study to answer your question so I will offer my opinion which is at least as valuable as the opinion of those who will disagree:

    – Consider that the press is very uninformed in the ecosystem principles of nature, forestry or fire.

    – Consider that the professional environmentalist’s job is to stay employed by providing lots of their information to anyone who will listen in order to get publicity and donations.

    – Consider that the professional environmentalist must do anything possible to discredit those who disagree with them in order to insure that the public will pay attention to them instead of others.

    – Consider that the professional environmental activist must constantly stir things up and create newsworthy controversy and panic level urgency in order to keep the dollars coming in.

    – Consider that the public likes their current viewsheds at their favorite downtime and recreational places and does not want any changes made to them unless it benefits them.

    – Consider that the general public has no clue as to the dynamics of nature and thinks that those special places in nature can be frozen in time.

    – Consider that sound forest management and the supporting science and a properly informed public would put a serious dent in the mantras of the professional environmentalist.

    – Consider that even if the general public was properly informed on the environment and the dynamic nature of forest ecosystems, they would think it was just fine as long as it didn’t affect their favorite viewsheds and recreational areas. They would be fine as long as “their places” were excluded from sound forest management at least for their lifetime and the lifetimes of the next three generations of their heirs.

    – Consider that “Global Warming” / “Climate Change” is a very convenient place to hide when people question the failed “nature only” policies of the politicians who sold their votes to the professional environmentalists and to the voters influenced by the professional environmentalist activists.

    – Consider that both network tv news and newspapers are fighting for their lives.

    – Consider that bad news and negativity sells better than good news.

    What was your question again? 🙂

    Reply
  2. So Norm Christiansen is a “bad” choice because he works at Duke, a very well-respected university in North Carolina? Is it impossible for a PhD to have any relevant insights simply because he doesn’t live in the West? His publications indicate he’s studied a lot of different areas, including the West. What is wrong with his statement that “many” fires occur in WUI? He didn’t say “most.”

    http://fds.duke.edu/db/Nicholas/esp/faculty/normc

    Jason Sibold also focuses much of his research on disturbance ecology, fire history, human land use, and forest ecosystems of the American West, all pretty on-topic areas of study.

    http://biogeography.colostate.edu/

    Just how small a pool would be considered “good” choices?

    Would we be better off ignoring factors such as climate change and construction (vacation or not) in the WUI? Or only if an article also (or only) mentions beetles, fuel loads, and wildfire inevitability it has any merit?

    Reply
    • Agree. We need to be careful about correlating one’s geographic residence with their level of expertise in a different geography. In Virginia, much of our earlier fire history work was conducted by an ecologist at Texas A&M. And the researcher I’m working with in Virginia now spends half of her time studying soil charcoal in the Dominican Republic.

      Reply
      • OK, Marek you win… I knew Christiansen’s work.. and he is a great researcher and scholar but not whom I would have called on that question. Here’s a link to recent pubs.

        But Toddi Steelman who used to be at NC State (OK I did a post-doc there, so maybe I’m biased) and is now at Sasketchewan, I might have called based on her recent grants and topics of study.

        You can either know because you live it, read it in the paper, recreate in it, talk to your faculty members about it, talk to other folks in the community about it, breath it (cough cough, in the case of Missoula) or because you have studied it. I don’t think Christiansen fits either. Thanks for helping me clarify my thinking AND give a shout-out to the Wolfpack.

        Reply
    • Well, there’s nothing wrong with that.. it’s just content-free. many fires occur outside the WUI; that’s also true. Knowing a little about everything is not the same as knowing a lot about the topic…

      No “disturbance ecology” and “forest ecosystems” are not on the topic.

      The topic was “why does the FS need more money?” I am not a “fire suppression person” but here is a quick brainstormed list.

      So you would have to understand 1) what sources of increased costs come from management salaries, new safety gear, expensive airplanes, eating steaks etc.
      2) do suppression strategies to let more burn for resource reasons have an impact on costs, because they go out by themselves, or they become humongo fires or a little of each
      3) are fires worse to fight because trees are old and die -many having been established post European settlement and using forests for railroad ties or fuel-
      4) are fires worse to fight because fire suppression has led to more fuels and jungly areas to fight fire in?
      5) are there more ignitions due to people?
      6) are there more ignitions due to weather?
      7) do feds spend more because the local folks have decreased in capacity since the recession?
      8) what is the impact of having fewer people in the woods (loggers and FS personnel with shovels to get there early (remember ABC fires?).
      9) does closing roads make it more expensive for fire people to get places?

      None of these have to do with drought (which could be a factor in some places) but we really don’t know how that is related to projected climate change..
      http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/11/little-change-in-drought-over-60-years.html

      If we think that the drought is due to climate change or not, does it really matter in terms of what fire people need to do about it, in terms of costing the government less? And some studies I’ve read say that cc is going to happen in the near term whether we turn around energy soon or not. SO

      We are stuck with the situation we have including a possible trend of warming and drying. What should the fire people do about it? If we put a western moratorium on home building in some determined space, we would still have a big expensive problem with the homes and communities we already have. So there is a vast unexplored terrain of what we could do but immediately stopping climate change and moving people out who are there now do not seem to be very useful suggestions; the first is not physically possible and the second is not politically possible.

      That’s why I didn’t think those two were good to pick to interview and why I think others might have more useful information.
      Our own Andy actually looked at cost data and I’m sure he has ideas for why. I’d rather have heard from him.

      I would like to hear from people who are studying topics like 1-9.

      PS I am seeing a tendency in a variety of venues to go to academics for answers on all kinds of questions. But when the question is “how things work” growing trees, constructing gas wells, fighting fires, the possibility is that there is no one around who actually studies the “how.”

      Reply
      • Sharon

        Here is my take:

        1) what sources of increased costs come from management salaries, new safety gear, expensive airplanes, eating steaks etc.
        –> No idea – Although I would bet that there are a lot more wildfire specialists in the USFS now than there were in ’64 when I worked on a local USFS fire crew in N. California.

        2) do suppression strategies to let more burn for resource reasons have an impact on costs, because they go out by themselves, or they become humongo fires or a little of each
        –> looking at this on the basis of statistical probabilities, it would make sense that the longer a fire burned the higher the probability would be that it would find more individual stands that were primed to turn the fire into a mega fire with catastrophic losses.

        3) are fires worse to fight because trees are old and die -many having been established post European settlement and using forests for railroad ties or fuel-
        –> Don’t think so as long as there aren’t a whole lot of ladder fuels.

        4) are fires worse to fight because fire suppression has led to more fuels and jungly areas to fight fire in?
        –> No on fire suppression. YES on fire suppression in conjunction with the cessation of appropriate harvesting practices all leading to overstocked stands

        5) are there more ignitions due to people?
        6) are there more ignitions due to weather?
        –> NO to both #5 and #6 based on the ignitions graph (the first graph at the top of this link) and as summarized in my first comment at https://ncfp.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/fighting-back-fire-from-the-denver-post/

        7) do feds spend more because the local folks have decreased in capacity since the recession?
        –> Possibly – There was a time when the USFS had the power to go to the nearest town and draft anyone that they wanted, put them in a truck, give them a shovel and put them to work on the fire line. Possibly, if only old men and women are left because the youngsters have moved out of Dodge because Dodge got shut down because local timber related employment was shut down by “nature only” and “old growth” forest policies.

        8) what is the impact of having fewer people in the woods (loggers and FS personnel with shovels to get there early (remember ABC fires?).
        –> Sure seems possible (see also #7). When everyone’s job depended on the timber they would seem to have had a vested interest in keeping it from burning.

        9) does closing roads make it more expensive for fire people to get places?
        –> YES – see also #10

        10) No roads in wilderness or road less areas.
        –> YES – If you have valuable assets that need protection you need to have access to them. The cost of house insurance goes up the further you get from a fire hydrant and the further you are from a fire station. I’ll bet you can’t even get house insurance if you don’t have a road to it.

        11) The shutting down of all fire towers and lookouts.
        –> Two towers could give us a bearing, we’d plot it on a map and we’d be on it as soon as we could drive there. Don’t know what the USFS does now so I can’t say whether or not it was better than what the USFS has now.

        Reply
        • Gil, I didn’t expect anyone to answer my questions, but if someone studied those things, that’s who I would call. I can’t believe someone isn’t studying it.. after all if costs of anything else went up, we wouldn’t simply assume that the reason was changes in the environment.

          Fire generally has tons of bucks in research and if no one is studying it, that would be very peculiar.

          Reply
  3. Scientists that use “wilderness” to describe regular Forest Service lands, open to active management, are suspect from the start. It also indicates political motives, IMHO. I think that the West Fork Complex situation was covered up, due to gross mismanagement. Again, one of those fires grew to only 150 acres in nine days but, was allowed to get really HUGE when someone saw an opportunity to burn up more dead trees.

    Reply
    • The term “wilderness” was common in the English language well before 1964, and was not preempted by the Wilderness Act. I tend to use the term (as apparently you do) to refer to designated wilderness areas, but most dictionaries don’t use it that way as a first choice, instead referring to something like “A large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation or forests.” I expect the professor was using the term in this more general sense, which is quite legitimate, and I don’t see a reason to infer “political motives” from that. The second half of your comment might be true, I don’t know.

      Reply
      • What is the history of the acronym “WUI,” and who outside of the federal government and federally-funded academia knows what this means? I live in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Where is my WUI, and what can I do about it? No one locally seems to know what I’m talking about, much less how (or why) to answer my questions.

        Reply
        • Good questions. I know different academics (at least in Colorado) have different ways of defining it and mapping it.

          Perhaps it’s more of a concept.. I used to spend quality time at Dorena outside of Cottage Grove.. it didn’t seem very flammable, so I’m not surprised.

          Sometimes they are spoken of in your CWPP here is a link to yours..
          http://www.lanecounty.org/departments/pw/lmd/landuse/pages/cwpptoc.aspx

          I picked a random Colorado CWPP and it has the WUI labelled on a map on the last page.
          http://csfs.colostate.edu/pages/documents/GlenHavenCWPP.pdf

          Reply
          • Yow! Now it is getting worse. Apparently some kind of CWPP committee has imposed a WUI on me as a result of several taxpayer funded committee meetings that didn’t include me, local representation, or any elected officials. Then when I try to upload their map, nothing shows. I can think of several other acronyms describing my thoughts on this boondoggle, but they probably aren’t worth printing or defining here. It reminds me of the old Country Joe McDonald song: “Ain’t no time to wonder why, WUI, we’re all gonna die.”

            Is this really important, or just one more political misdirection to keep us from seriously considering the real problems at hand?

            Really, are WUIs a real thing, and — if so — are they actually worth talking about? Or trying to map? Or fund? And, if so, why aren’t private businesses engaged in this abstraction?

            Reply
    • I don’t think that’s “political”.. trees are dead, you want a new stand to be established and they will probably burn anyway sooner or later, if later possibly taking their growing offspring with them on their trip to Tree Heaven.

      Reply
      • I’m just saying that there ARE cheaper and better options than to let forests burn, in the middle of a busy fire season, with no idea of how to contain it, when conditions inevitably change. We keep seeing this over, and over, and over again, with people spouting the mantra of “natural and beneficial”. The main problem fire folks see with “better options” is that burning conditions aren’t always “optimal”, meaning too wet to carry the fire. It’s not a bad thing if heli-torched Wilderness doesn’t burn really good. You can always try again, the next year! Using suppression resources in the fall, right before significant storms, doesn’t impact availability, as it does during the middle of summer. You don’t have the “moonscape effect” of complete combustion that you get with summer wildfires, too. Can anyone come up with any reasons why this idea wouldn’t work??!!

        Reply
        • I like the heli torched fires idea just prior to the storm season. Seems like torching blowdowns might also cut down on the number of acres lost to beetles.

          As to why it won’t work – It’s real simple, the “nature only” people would have a hissy fit. And if you burned two more acres than you said you were going to burn, they’d have your head.

          Most of this talk about how to deal with current policy isn’t going to go anywhere. We have to expose the foolishness of current policy and clearly demonstrate the need for sound forest management so as to change policy accordingly.

          Reply
  4. “Where does the narrative “climate plus building (vacation homes?) in the WUI” come from?”

    well, maybe it’s this…

    1) Climate: it’s been hotter and drier in recent years. Don’t take my word for it, check with NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/21may_drought/ Although, I guess one might ask, what makes them such experts on atmosphere and space, they don’t live up there… Anyway, some folks apparently think hotter temperatures and years of drought relate to wildfire, maybe others don’t think so. Doesn’t seem that outlandish to me.

    2) Homes in the forest: well, if they hadn’t been built where the fires are burning, then I don’t think we’d be talking about them… This seems too obvious, am I missing something? Maybe they aren’t all “vacation” homes per se, is that really so important?

    Are there other factors? Sure, undoubtedly. Get ’em out there, why waste time whining about the “uninformed general public” and “professional environmentalists” etc.? If we want a place at the forest planning table, then need to step up to the plate (sorry, mixed metaphor). Otherwise we just come across as a bunch of crabby old codgers yelling “hey you kids, get off my lawn!” fwiw, -Guy

    Reply
    • I guess one COULD say that they shouldn’t have built entire towns and cities in fire-prone areas. *smirk* Cities like Pasadena, Reno, Medford, Colorado Springs, San Bernardino, Flagstaff, Redding, Missoula, Boise and MANY others. *SMIRK*

      Reply
        • Gil: I think it would be much more productive — especially if we are trying to involve local residents in these discussions — if we call the WUI AND the TTNI total BS and try to go back to the English language to discuss these issues. Or pig latin. Something real people can understand, not just professional committee goers and ephemeral agency wonks.

          Reply
          • Part 2. Just to be clear (after re-reading what I had written) — I’m not calling YOU a professional committee goer or a policy wonk, I’m talking about the people that come up with these things in the first place and then begin forcing the rest of us to learn their secret codes. Might as well start speaking Latin like the priests did in the middle ages, or using metrics when talking to local landowners and residents — these “short hand” methods of communication are mostly elitist contrivances intended to keep discussions within a select group of individuals. No one else uses them or knows what they mean, for the most part. Kind of like when people claimed you needed to learn DOS in order to use a computer — I had to take three required hours for my forestry degree in 1990, even though I had been a mac user for nearly 10 years by that point! And by “we” I mean the people interested in or affected by federal policies — where most of this stuff is invented.

            Reply
    • “Anyway, some folks apparently think hotter temperatures and years of drought relate to wildfire,”

      –> All else being held constant, you are CORRECT, it is scientific fact. And until the temperatures regularly get above 100 degrees, the beetles will be worse also. Which is exactly why sound forest management (SFM) is even more important as we face climate change. SFM is required to increase a stand’s vigor by decreasing competition between trees for water and sunlight. There will still be beetles and fires but the total involved acreage will be significantly reduced.

      Reply

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