Fire and Fuels

This is from E&E News here.

Below is an excerpt:

Increased home building on private lots near public forestland could push firefighting costs to levels that nearly consume the Forest Service’s annual $5.5 billion budget, but there is still time to avoid such a disastrous scenario, a new report says.

The report, released today by Bozeman, Mont.-based Headwaters Economics, used 2010 Census Bureau data to determine that more than 19,000 square miles of private land near public forests across the West consists of undeveloped but highly sought-after parcels.

If only half these lands within the so-called wildland-urban interface (WUI) were developed, federal firefighting costs could balloon to as much as $4.3 billion, or most of the Forest Service’s annual budget.

Oregon, with more than 5,100 square miles of undeveloped land in the WUI, is most at risk, followed by California (3,800 square miles) and Washington (3,200 square miles), according to the report.

“Our analysis shows that costs for firefighting in the West could grow tremendously in the coming years,” said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics. “The combination of longer, warmer and drier fire seasons — together with more and more nearby homes — will result in much higher expenses for taxpayers along with more difficult and dangerous fire seasons for firefighters.”

Rasker said a key goal of the report is to urge federal policymakers to take steps to shift the responsibility for protecting these homes to the local counties and municipalities that permitted the development.

Among the solutions proposed by Headwaters Economics is mapping areas that are at “high probability” of wildfires and developing financial incentives for local governments to redirect development away from them. Another solution is to eliminate the mortgage interest tax deduction for homeowners who build new homes within the WUI.

“The fundamental challenge is that those who permit and build homes on fire-prone lands — county commissioners, developers and homeowners — do not bear their proportional cost of defending these homes from wildfires,” he said. “We would see a much different pattern of development in the West if the federal government shifted the financial responsibility of defending homes to local governments and those who build homes on fire-prone lands.”

The report by the nonprofit research group comes on the heels of a 2012 wildfire season that ranks among the most expensive in Forest Service history. The Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General has reported that protecting private property from forest fires accounts for at least half of all firefighting costs.

A Forest Service spokesman in Washington, D.C., did not respond to requests to comment for this story.

But the report drew some sharp criticism from Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics in Eugene, Ore.

“I doubt that wildfire risk will ever be a driving policy consideration when it comes to local land-use decisions. It never has been. So I’m skeptical it ever will be,” Stahl said.

The reason, he said, is that the risk to homes from wildfires is simply not that great.

“Why isn’t the insurance industry requiring higher [insurance] premiums when building in fire plains as it does when building in flood plains? The answer is that, actuarially speaking, the risk isn’t that high,” he said. “The risk of losing a house to fire is much higher associated with ignition sources from inside the house, such as a poorly installed wood stove, bad wiring. The risk is much, much higher from those traditional home immolation sources.”

The focus, he said, should remain on insuring that homes built in the WUI are built correctly to withstand fires and that homeowners are required to clear bushes and other nearby vegetation that can spread a wildfire.

In Oregon, for example, he said the state has laws in place requiring homeowners to reduce brush and to take over fuel-reduction treatments or risk having to pay the bill for the state to suppress a fire, thus shifting the financial burden to “irresponsible” landowners.

He said concern about development in the WUI is “a surrogate issue” that’s “being used by those who oppose private land-sprawl.” He added, “Trying to use federal firefighting policy as the fulcrum or lever to change the way Montana or anywhere else does its local land-use policy is very much an uphill battle.”

Still, some states are beginning to take the issue seriously.

In Colorado, for example, where Headwaters Economics calculates there is more than 1,400 square miles of undeveloped land in the WUI, Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) recently signed an executive order creating a task force composed of state forest and firefighting experts, county and city representatives, insurance providers and homebuilders to study what should be done about growing populations near public forestland, among other issues (Greenwire, Jan. 31).

Note from Sharon: Andy was darn articulate on this, IMHO. I would only add that linking Hickenlooper’s task force and “reducing growing populations” is a bit of a stretch. But don’t take my word for it, here it is from the State horse’s mouth.

Also, the Colorado Roadless workers had many interesting discussions with different groups and university folk about mapping WUI. Let’s just say there are many different ways, which could conceivably yield different answers.

Again, this seems like a question of trade-offs. If our population is increasing, people have to build somewhere. If you live in dry areas, then wildfire is a risk. Sometimes I wish when people did studies saying “don’t do that, it’s bad” they would also say “do this instead, it’s better.”

This headline reminds me of the past weekend’s Research Reveals that Elk Eat All Year.

Nevertheless, thought I should post this article… I am looking for the link to the research study. Note: journalists out there- please put the links in your stories.

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt, but the whole piece is of interest.

The researchers spent years exhaustively measuring the contrasting recovery of two stretches of forest, both on Stermer Ridge at the headwaters of the Little Colorado River. They estimated the surviving trees, the amount of wood on the ground, stream flows, soil absorption, the total mass of grass and shrubs and the number of elk, deer, squirrels, rabbits and other animals.

#Watershed A suffered a high-intensity crown fire, which means the flames jumped from one treetop to the next — rather than burning along the ground. The fire killed about 55 percent of the trees immediately — and about 75 percent of the survivors within a year or two. The patch of ground ended up bereft of trees, with even the fire-adapted gambol oaks mostly dying off along with the ponderosas and junipers.

#On the adjacent Watershed B, a road served as a firebreak that halted the crown fire next door. Instead, the fire there burned along the saplings, shrubs and downed wood on the ground. It consumed 5 percent of the trees immediately, with a total of about 15 percent dying from the effects of the fire in the next two years.

#The study demonstrated the dramatic effects of such high-intensity fires.

#For instance, the searing heat of the crown fire fused the soil in Watershed A, sharply reducing the rate at which the ground could absorb water — making it “hydrophobic.” Two-thirds of Watershed A had strongly hydrophobic soil and one third has moderately water repellent soil.

#By contrast, in Watershed B only one-third of the soil was strongly and 15 percent moderately hydrophobic.

#The combination of the loss of the trees and the changes in the soil produced dramatic changes for the next three years whenever it rained.

#For instance, a storm on Watershed A produced a stream flow that was 2,230 times what would have flowed into that same stream with the same amount of rainfall before the storm, according to estimates. By contrast, the storm increased stream flows in Watershed B by about 50 percent compared to pre-fire levels.

#In the fall of 2002, the severely burned area lost about 28 tons of topsoil per acre to erosion, compared to about 17 tons per acre in the moderately burned area. In the spring of 2004, the severely burned area lost 35 tons of topsoil per acre compared to about 20 tons in the moderately burned area. A stable area in a normal year will lose almost no topsoil to erosion.

#The figures offer a sobering cautionary note for Rim Country, whose water future now depends on the Blue Ridge Reservoir, which sits in a small, wet, thickly forested watershed. Payson officials have urged the U.S. Forest Service to make thinning the watershed of the Blue Ridge Reservoir a high priority, for fear a crown fire could cause a dramatic increase in erosion — which would reduce the life of the deep, narrow reservoir.

#The study found that plants, grass and shrubs returned to both areas quickly — with the severely burned area actually producing more grass and shrubs initially than the lightly burned area. That’s probably because in the lightly burned area most of the trees survived and continued to shade the ground and compete for water with the ground cover.

#Elk actually used the severely burned area more than the lightly burned area initially, probably reflecting the initial, denser growth of grass. Mule deer returned quickly to both areas, but in smaller numbers.

#On the other hand, many of the smaller animals like rabbits remained all but absent in the severely burned area — along with pine tree dependent species like Abert’s Squirrels.

#Fewer birds also returned to the severely burned area, probably because they no longer had the diverse habitat offered by the tree canopy.

Yes, you heard some of these observations first by individuals on this blog. I would just comment that people can figure out how to plant trees and get them to grow back. About 40 years ago the Forest Service started a major effort to figure it out. The FS had reforestation experts hired, administrative studies of various cultural practices and nurseries to experiment with practices, investments in refrigerated trucks and tree coolers, etc. If we had a small amount of the bucks directed to downscaled modeling, I bet we could figure it out.

Here’s a link and below is an excerpt.

The amended burn order acknowledges “burning remains the least expensive and most effective method” for removing slash piles to reduce the risk of wildfire, but says the fires will be allowed only when there is a minimum of 4-6 inches of snow on the ground. The order also requires neighbors of potentially affected areas, local governments and the media to be notified.

Hickenlooper said experts tell him that prescribed burns to eliminate dense forest undergrowth are crucial for mitigation, but said the science behind them must be considered before prescribed burns beyond burning slash piles is brought back.

A second executive order created the 12-member Wildland and Prescribed Fire Advisory Committee to work with the director of the Division of Fire Prevention and Control to improve wildfire preparedness, response, suppression and management of prescribed fires.

The group’s tasks include “work to ensure continued safety and protection for residents on the wildland-urban interface, while promoting the health and longevity of our state’s natural forests through properly regulated pile burnings.”

With the third order, Hickenlooper created the 17-member Task Force on Wildfire Insurance and Forest Health to review issues related to coverage — including replacement costs of destroyed homes, accounting for personal property losses, relocation assistance and timeliness of insurance benefits.

The task force is also to look for ways insurance policies could provide incentives to landowners to promote forest health and reduce fire risks.

Note from Sharon: In our effort to see beyond partisan boundaries, I am going to start drawing attention to the party and location of politicians involved in our issues. Governor Hickenlooper is mostly a Metro-Elk kind of guy but being Governor has made him more aware of Colorado’s rural areas. He is a D. I don’t know if it’s him, or the nature of Colorado, but task forces seem like ways to approach bipartisan or nonpartisan solutions. It seems to me (hypothesis) that wildfires are a larger share of state business in the Interior West than the more urban and wetter Western Seaboard states, and so we might see some interesting policy solutions come from this part of the west.