Fire and Fuels

Larimer County wildfires burned homes, buildings valued at $55 million

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Here’s a link to a Denver Post story.
Below is an excerpt.

While the losses to homeowners are immediate and huge, the effect on the county’s tax base won’t be felt until 2014, Larimer County Assessor Steve Miller said.

Tax collections in 2012 were based on assessments conducted in 2010. The county will be reassessed this year to establish tax collections for 2014. In the meantime, tax bills for 2013 will reflect the fact that homes and adjacent structures burned.

“Say a home was there for five months and gone for the other seven,” Miller said, “we’ll prorate that amount.”

The recovery of lost tax collections will be slow, even if people do decide to return to the burn zone, Miller said.

Unlike the Waldo Canyon fire, which was concentrated in a Colorado Springs neighborhood, rural areas rebuild slowly. He cited the 2002 Hayman fire, which charred 137,760 acres in the mountains southwest of Denver and burned 132 homes.

“A lot of (the Hayman fire) area has still not come back to what it was beforehand, and that was what, 10 years now?” he said.

Another factor that influences how quickly an area recovers economically from a fire is what kind of structures were lost. The Waldo Canyon fire, which ripped through 347 homes in the Mountain Shadows neighborhood, occurred in an area with higher real estate values than rural Larimer County. The value of those lost homes is estimated at $110 million.

“What burned here was some vacant land and some residential,” Miller said. “The Waldo Canyon fire, that burned up some very expensive real estate, whereas we had more moderate and older structures.”

Feds on Track for Record in BAER Spending?

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Here’s the link and below is an excerpt.

Nearly $25 million has already been spent to prepare for the immediate aftermath of this year’s wildfires, putting the U.S. Forest Service on track for another possible record year of spending on burned-area recovery efforts.

The formula for recovery is just as complicated as the factors — drought, decades of fire suppression and climate change — giving rise to more severe fires in the West, experts say.

“With the kinds of intensity we’ve seen on some of the recent fires, there is, for all practical purposes, permanent impairment of the ecosystem,” said Wally Covington, director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University.

He pointed specifically to last year’s Las Conchas Fire near Los Alamos, which burned through hundreds of square miles of tinder dry forest, destroyed dozens of homes and threatened one of the nation’s premier government laboratories.

Flooding from the Las Conchas burn scar still remains a concern.

On Wednesday night, a wall of water rushed down Santa Clara Canyon, washing away months of restoration work done by Santa Clara Pueblo and government contractors.

“Our prayers are that it does not get any worse than what it is,” Pueblo Gov. Walter Dasheno said.

In the canyon, post-fire flooding has moved car-sized boulders and toppled trees as if they were toothpicks.

“Until you’re on the ground and you see it, you can’t gauge how much stress it’s placing on our families,” Dasheno said, explaining that the pueblo sits at the mouth of the canyon.

Sherman was aware of the flooding near Santa Clara, but said there have been no reports of major flood damage related to the recent string of fires in New Mexico and Colorado.

Aside from those two states, Sherman said burned-area response specialists are working in Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Contracts are being finalized for seeding and mulching, roads and trails are being stabilized, culverts are being prepped for higher flows of water and warning signs are going up.

On the massive Whitewater-Baldy Fire in southwestern New Mexico, seeding started Thursday on more than 26,000 acres and straw mulch will be spread over another 16,000 acres.

WSJ: U.S. to Seek Claw Back of Closed Montana Biomass Plant’s Funds

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Justin Scheck of the Wall Street Journal has the full story. Snips are below:

The U.S. Treasury Department plans to demand back more than $5 million it granted a Montana power plant that later filed for bankruptcy, in what would be a rare foray by the government into the courts to claw back job-creation funds distributed under the 2009 economic-stimulus package….

The Treasury paid Thompson River $6.5 million in 2010 from a piece of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act known as Section 1603 that reimbursed developers of renewable energy with cash payments equivalent to 30% of their projects’ costs. The program has given out more than $11 billion, the Treasury Department says….

The grant to Thompson River, majority-owned by a Minnesota private-equity firm, was to convert a coal-fired plant to burn wood, which is considered a “renewable” power source. But since receiving the money, the plant never operated either as a coal- or wood-burning plant, according to Montana regulators, and has produced neither power nor new jobs. It is now mothballed. It is not known how many new jobs the firm promised to create, or how many currently are employed at the plant….

Thompson River was an old coal-fired power plant on which a new ownership group, led by Wayzata, spent more than $20 million to bring into compliance with emissions rules and burn “clean coal,” said people familiar with the project. After finishing the work, said a person involved in the project, Wayzata announced that the plant would burn only wood—making it eligible for the Recovery Act money as long as the plant was technologically capable of producing power. But its owners found they couldn’t operate the plant profitably by just burning wood, said three people with knowledge of the project….

UPDATE: The Missoulian’s new columnist, George Ochenski, also takes a look at the Thompson River Biomass Debacle in today’s paper:

“It’s not hard to recall the fiasco of the University of Montana’s recent biomass proposal, which ignored both economics and environmental impacts while being endlessly promoted by the university, Sen. Jon Tester and his handful of industry and environmental collaborators.  It is equally important to remember that the Thompson River venture was initially sold to the public as a wood-burning plant, but quickly morphed into a super-polluting coal-burner once the economics of wood chips kicked in. Could that happen elsewhere? You bet it could.”

Black sludge coats Poudre River after High Park Fire- Denver Post

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From this piece in the Denver Post:
Here’s a video.

Excerpt below.

“The ash will be disappearing soon, but erosion along the river will continue — through summer 2013. We’ll see lower erosion rates by 2014,” said MacDonald, who specializes in watershed science.

It could take three years for relief in the harder-hit spur canyons, engineers told Solley. Rebuilding should wait, they said.

While the ash in the river is not harmful to rafters or even swimmers, except for its power to obscure potentially dangerous debris, the fish have much more serious problems.

The 2002 Hayman fire caused the loss of 70 percent of adult fish in the the South Platte River, said Colorado Parks and Wildife aquatic biologist Ken Kehmeier . The South Platte still hasn’t responded well to efforts to repopulate the fish, he said.

“We still hear complaints from anglers on the South Platte. The Poudre fire will be that bad or worse,” Kehmeier said, partly because there are no large reservoirs filtering out heavy sediments to the benefit of the river downstream.

“We know we’re losing fish now, but the impacts could last more than 10 years,” Kehmeier said. “It’s a devastating thing. It’s a lengthy recovery process, and we will be continually working for years to bring the fishery back.”

One of the early efforts to save fish was made during the fire, when officials evacuated 100,000 small fish over two days from the Watson Lake Rearing Unit in Bellvue. The fish left the hatchery in a semi truck outfitted with seven 500-gallon tanks. Some were released in Horsetooth, Carter and Flatiron reservoirs. Others went to Chatfield State Park’s hatchery, Kehmeier said.

Now as storm runoff from burned areas hits the river, some sediment and ash is carried along and some settles, dropping into the small spaces between river rocks and gravel, smothering insects and other invertebrates that are food for fish.

The river’s pH changes, Kehmeier said. Ash makes it more basic. Yet in some parts of the river researchers are seeing the water become more acidic, possibly because of decomposing pine needles. The shifts in pH are one more stress on fish.

Note from Sharon: I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t have fires, which are “natural” and we couldn’t stop ’em if we tried. My point is that we ought to be clear-eyed about their costs and benefits when we manage them, which we will always do, as long as there are people in the woods and people using the water from the woods. I wonder if seeing them through the “timber wars” lens keeps us from seeing clearly.

Fuel Treatments : Both/And not Either/Or :The Waldo Canyon Experience

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An aerial photo, Thursday June 28, 2012, of the Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs shows the destructive path of the fire in Mountain Shadows Subdivision area. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

It’s interesting that some have portrayed treating 100 feet from homes “all that’s needed” to protect homes from fires. Some have even claimed that “the science” supports that, hence fuel treatments further than 100 feet are unnecessary. Clearly either “the science” people selected to promote their views is not complete (did not address the right question, or from the right disciplinary perspectives to be predictive in this case), or not reflective of conditions in nature. If different things work (as seems to be lived experience) at different times, in different situations, why not use all the tools in the toolbox?

Here’s the link:
Below is the excerpt:

COLORADO SPRINGS — For a decade, the Colorado Springs Fire Department has worked aggressively to protect more than 36,000 vulnerable homes from wildfire in the foothills of Pikes Peak.

When the fire everyone feared roared into the city last month, those efforts failed to save nearly 350 houses in one neighborhood — but succeeded spectacularly in another.

In Cedar Heights, a hillside neighborhood that the fire approached from three directions, many homes were rated as “extreme” risks in a wildfire, the worst possible rating. Yet not one house burned, thanks to a forest-thinning mitigation project that stopped the fire a half-mile away.

“We had one community that was threatened … and didn’t lose
anything,” Fire Marshal Brett Lacey said, “and then we had one that in one afternoon got creamed.”

In the Mountain Shadows neighborhood, 71 of the houses destroyed by the Waldo Canyon fire were rated “high” or “very high” fire risks by the city fire marshal’s office.

Most had been built in dangerous terrain and had little defensible space around them. At least 20 also had wood roofs or siding, which posed a huge problem because the shingles flew off and spread fire to other houses.

But the fire marshal’s house-by-house risk map also shows many Mountain Shadows homeowners were just unlucky. More than 270 houses rated as moderate risks were destroyed when the Waldo Canyon fire roared down a ridge, incinerating entire streets.
The victims included Dick and Francine Hansen, who had led neighborhood efforts to reduce wildfire risks in Mountain Shadows and labored to make their own home more defensible.

The fire left nothing but the brick archway entrance to their house standing.

“When a fireball came downhill at 65 miles an hour, blew open the garage doors, engulfed the house and burned it down in seven or eight minutes — they said there wasn’t a thing we could have done to save it,” Dick Hansen said.

Excerpts from Judge Malloy’s Decision on Colt Summit

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Guest post by Megan Birzell, The Wilderness Society.

A little more than a month after a leading opponent of the Colt-Summit forest restoration project on the Seeley Lake Ranger District publicly compared Forest Service employees and mill workers to Nazis – and the diverse group of Montanans working to promote forest restoration and much-needed jobs to Nazi sympathizers – Federal District Court Judge Donald Molloy has issued a decision that utterly dismantles the critics’ claims that Colt-Summit is harmful to fish and wildlife including bull trout, lynx and grizzly bears.

The Colt-Summit project, developed by the Forest Service in collaboration with the Lolo Restoration Committee of the Montana Forest Restoration Committee and funded, in part, through the Southwestern Crown of the Continent Collaborative (www.swcrown.org) is a proposal that will decommission 28 miles of roads, thin and burn 2,038 acres of forest suffering from a century of fire suppression, and re-route four miles of road away from a bull trout spawning stream. These activities will improve lynx, grizzly bear, and bull trout habitat, reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, and help restore more natural fire regimes to the area.

The project was appealed and then challenged in court last year by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and a few other groups. The initial appeal of the project included 152 allegations, all of which were rejected. The subsequent lawsuit included 12 allegations, 11 of which were rejected by Judge Molloy in his 46-page decision issued on July 11. The one claim that was upheld by Judge Molloy will likely result in the Forest Service preparing a brief supplement to their extensive analysis, seeking public comment and then moving forward with the project.

Following months of inflammatory rhetoric, name-calling and inaccurate statements by opponents of collaborative forest restoration and the Colt-Summit project, a review of Judge Molloy’s decision is timely, relevant, and highly instructive. Excerpts from that ruling (attached) include the following.

On the National Forest Management Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act:

“The plaintiffs suggest that the Forest Service’s analysis for the Colt summit Project violates NFMA, NEPA and ESA in several respects. By and large, though, the analysis is adequate and meets the requirements of the various acts.”

On lynx, streams and wetlands:

“The plaintiffs argue that the Project violates three Forest Service Standards—two related to lynx and one related to streamside and wetland buffers. The record shows the Project violates none of the lynx or streamside and wetland standards.”

On lynx and snowshoe hare:

“[The Forest Service] noted in addition that the Project will actually improve snowshoe hare and lynx habitat. The plaintiffs do not point to any contrary evidence. There is no record evidence that the Project will ‘reduce snowshoe hare habitat.’”

On Forest Service rules regarding vegetation management:

“The plaintiffs fail to meet their burden of proof…They have not shown the Forest Service made a ‘clear error of judgment…’”

On concerns regarding lynx habitat connectivity:

“

None of these arguments is viable in my view. The Forest Service did consider how the Project would impact lynx travel.”

“A more fundamental problem with the plaintiffs first argument is that the Project does not appear to be in a linkage area. The plaintiffs rely on a large-scale map from the Northern Rockies Lynx Management FEIS to show that the Project is within a linkage area…The map does not lend itself to a precise determination of where the linkage areas are located. As the Service explained, it is only a beginning point and is subject to refinement with additional data.”

“The most recent data from Dr. Squires’ research—which was relied on in the EA—show that lynx are not using the Project Area as a travel corridor…The most recent research shows…there are no linkage areas in the Project Area.”

“The plaintiffs second argument—that the Service applied the standard incorrectly, is also lacking.”

On wetlands and streamside buffer issues:

“Here, the plaintiffs argue that the Forest Service shrank buffers in the Project Area without first conducting the requisite analysis. They also claim that the Service plans to log timber directly within wetlands, in violation of the INFISH standards. The allegations are incorrect.”

“The plaintiffs similarly object that the Project violates INFISH because the record has no site-specific ‘analysis, data, or rationale for shrinking the INFISH buffers.’ Their argument is futile because the Forest Service explained why it shrank the buffers.”

“There is no showing how the Project, as amended in the EA Addendum, violates the INFISH standards for wetlands.”

“The plaintiffs assert the Forest Service plans to cut trees and conduct prescribed burns directly within wetlands…Yet, the plaintiffs claim, the Forest Service did not consider the Project’s impact on wetlands in the FONSI. They write that the FONSI ‘neglects to mention wetlands at all.’ A closer reading of the FONSI shows: ‘The modified proposed action will not impact…wetlands…’ As set forth in its briefs, the Service is not going to conduct any cutting or burning in wetlands. Furthermore, buffers will be created around the wetlands.”

On the Endangered Species Act, lynx, and grizzlies:

“The plaintiffs next insist the Forest Service violated Section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act by inadequately analyzing the Project’s effects on lynx and grizzlies and by failing to include the Summit Salvage Project Area in its analysis. This concern also misses the mark.”

“Here the plaintiffs reason the Forest Service failed to comply with ESA Sec. 7(a)(2) because it did not analyze whether the Colt-Summit Project would adversely modify lynx critical habitat The assertion is belied by the record. The Forest Service went beyond its obligations under ESA Sec. 7(a)(2) in drafting both a biological assessment that addresses lynx and lynx critical habitat and in engaging in informal consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service.”

“Both the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service found that the Project ‘is not likely to adversely affect’ lynx or lynx critical habitat.”

“The plaintiffs question at length the proposition that the Forest Service can use Forest Plan standards—such as the lynx standards—as a surrogate for the requirements under ESA Sec. 7(a)(2). While interesting, the thesis misses the point.”

“Neither the Forest Service nor the Fish and Wildlife Service ignored the effects that the Project might have on lynx or lynx critical habitat. There has been no showing of convincing argument or evidence that the agencies’ analysis is flawed.”

“The Forest Service did not explain why it included the Summit Salvage area from its analysis. But it did not have to. It does not need to explain why it excludes every imaginable area subject to possible analysis. It only needs to explain why it selected the units of analysis that it chose. In this case it did so with respect to both lynx and grizzlies.”

“The plaintiffs argue, only in passing, that the Project will have the potential to adversely affect grizzly bears. They make no specific argument as to how the Forest Service’s analysis about grizzlies somehow violates ESA Sec. 7(a)(2). Instead, they make sparse, blanket allegations that grizzly bears will be harmed. The record is binding and it shows the Forest Service’s analysis of grizzly bear impact does not violate ESA Sec. 7(a)(2).”

“The plaintiffs argue that the Forest Service did not adequately consider the impact of the Project on lynx critical habitat or the lynxes’ use of the Project Area as a corridor for travel between the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountains…the Forest Service did, in fact, discuss the impacts that the Project would have on lynx crucial habitat. The Service offered a long discussion of the impacts but it concluded that the Project will not have any significant impacts…The plaintiffs do not offer any reasoned explanation for why the Forest Service’s analysis is inadequate and they have not explained how the project would have a ‘significant effect’ on the lynx critical habitat.”

“Critical habitat aside, the plaintiffs maintain that lynx use the Project Area as a travel corridor and that the Forest Service did not consider the impacts that the Project would have on that corridor….The Forest Service, however, argues that the Project Area is not a corridor for lynx travel and that there is therefore no need to consider how the Project will impact lynx travel. The Forest Service has the better argument.”

“The Forest Service relies on GPS tracking data from Dr. Squires which shows detailed information about how lynx use the area. Dr. Squires’ data tends to show that lynx do not use the Project Area as a corridor to travel between the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountains. What the data tends to show is that lynx cross Highway 83 south of the Project Area. This means the Project Area is probably not an ‘ecologically critical area’ based on its use by the lynx as a linkage corridor. Moreover, the Forest Service explained in the EA why the Project would not have any impact on corridors or linkages for grizzly bears, gray wolves, and lynx.”

“As discussed above, the Service adequately considered the impacts on lynx, lynx habitat and grizzlies.”

On the National Environmental Policy Act:

“The plaintiffs next argue the Forest Service violated in several respects…all but one of these arguments fail.”

“Here, the plaintiffs claim that the Forest Service predetermined that the EA would result in a FONSI…In this case, there was no predetermination to issue a FONSI.”

On bull trout:

“As to bull trout, the only part of the project that will have an impact is culvert removal and decommissioning of Road 646. Both the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service recognize that the culvert removal and road decommissioning will have a short-term impact on bull trout. But, in its Biological Opinion, the Fish and Wildlife Service explained that those actions will ‘reduce long-term sediment delivery by 77 percent’ and ‘improve access to spawning and rearing habitat and thermal refugia.’ As a result, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined the actions will help ‘restore’ the Upper Clearwater sub-watershed. The plaintiffs have apparently abandoned their argument regarding bull trout as they did not offer any response to the Forest Service’s discussion of bull trout and the Biological Opinion in their reply brief.”

“For all the reasons stated, the Forest Service adequately considered the Project’s impacts on listed species and critical habitat.”

Opinion on Colt Summit Published

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Here are the actual acreages and treatments from the Colt Summit documentation.

Judge Molloy’s opinion on Colt Summit link here.

Article in Missoulian here.

Here’s an excerpt:

“The plaintiffs in this case insist the Forest Service’s cumulative effects analysis for lynx is inadequate. On this point they are correct. On remand the Forest Service must prepare a supplemental (environmental assessment) that adequately addresses the cumulative effects for lynx, and if necessary after that review, an (environmental impact statement).”

The project was heralded earlier this year as the model for a new kind of collaborative forest management, where lumber mills and conservation groups work in concert with the U.S. Forest Service on tasks everyone agrees are needed.

Colt-Summit’s backers included Pyramid Mountain Lumber, the Wilderness Society, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and two retired chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service.

Molloy’s decision blocked the 2,000 acres of logging and 17 miles of roadwork, but Megan Birzell of the Wilderness Society, a supporter of the plan, told the Missoulian last month that the judge’s finding was not a major setback because of his concurrent finding that the project passed muster under the Endangered Species Act.

“The judge said it won’t have an impact on lynx, but the Forest Service needs to beef up their analysis to better document that,” she said.

The plaintiffs argued that the project area serves as a corridor for lynx that move between the Bob Marshall Wilderness and the Mission Mountains. Molloy said this does not appear to be the case.

The Forest Service relies on GPS tracking data that show lynx do not use the project area as a corridor to travel between the Bob Marshall and Mission Mountains, he wrote, but instead cross Highway 83 south of the project.

“This means the project area is probably not an ‘ecologically critical area’ based on its use by the lynx as a linkage corridor,” according to his opinion.

The Forest Service now must prepare a supplemental environmental assessment, and is enjoined from implementing the Colt Summit project while the assessment is pending.


Note from Sharon: I’m going to take a look at the decision because it should be interesting exactly what kind of more cumulative impacts the judge is looking for.

This article says there are 2,000 acres of “logging”; again I have posted above the table that shows the acres. 1200 are “understory slashing with underburning”. Now it’s true I’m not from Montana but usually, where I’m from, “understory” is not merchantable, hence not “logging” as defined in the dictionary. Commercial thinning (selective logging) seems to be on about 600 acres.

One piece of evidence that this is confusing is that the reporter said:

The National Environmental Policy Act has been a regular stumbling block for Forest Service timber projects. It requires a variety of scientific reviews to ensure a project doesn’t hurt the environment.

This isn’t really clear that NEPA “allows” the project to hurt the environment; ESA here is the statute that protects the environment. NEPA requires documentation that you have considered the impacts; it’s a procedural statute. That’s what’s confusing, yet illuminating, about this decision (it seems to be saying, “you have made the case you’re not in violations of any environmental statutes but you haven’t documented as much as NEPA requires”).

It could be that the plaintiffs are hoping that the FS will provide additional documentation so that they can make the case that there is really an ESA violation. Because it seems like it raises the question “is this about not following ESA, or about making people do more documentation, and to what end?”

Good News about Firefighter Health Benefits

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I’ve noticed many stories about this but here’s a link to one and an excerpt below. It’s nice when we can see the world getting better..

In the meantime, Obama has instructed the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Interior Department and the Agriculture Department — parent agency of the Forest Service — to “ensure temporary federal firefighters who are bravely battling fires have access to the health insurance they deserve,” the official said.

The official added that the president acted after the issue was brought to his attention following his trip late last month to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Obama toured damage caused by that state’s most destructive wildfire on record.

The so-called Waldo Canyon, which broke out June 23, killed two people and gutted nearly 350 homes and forced the evacuation of some 35,000 people. Ranked as one of worst conflagrations to date during the 2012 wildfire season nationwide, it was finally declared 100 percent contained late Tuesday.

At that time, the White House said that more than 8,800 firefighters were at work against dozens of wild-land blazes burning across the country, most of them in the West.

Some 15,000 firefighters are on the federal government payroll, but 8,000 of them are classified as temporary, seasonal employees and thus ineligible for federal benefits such as health insurance, according to Rachel LaBruyere, an organizer of the petition drive on the nonpartisan social action website Change.org.

“It’s a huge deal, and there’s going to be a lot of really, really happy firefighters out there tonight,” said John Lauer, 27, seasonal member of a “hot-shot” crew from Custer, South Dakota, who initiated the petition drive seeking health benefits. “I’m sure they’re all very thankful for what the president’s done.”

Spruce, Spruce Beetle, Fire and Goshawk

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Dead trees dot Skyline Drive in the Manti-LaSal National Forest.
Ray Boren, for the Deseret Morning News

Terry Seyden sent this piece from the Salt Lake Tribune.

Here’s an excerpt:

Last month’s Lost Lake Fire, blackening thousands of acres near Teasdale, shows the need to step up forest treatments, Chappell believes.

“We just had a fire down here that should’ve opened a few eyes about logging and thinning.”

Utah Environmental Congress Program Director Kevin Mueller said leaving the trees alone won’t invite an unnatural fire. The spruce forest naturally burns at long intervals — once every 300 years — so the last century’s fire-suppression efforts that get blamed for creating dangerously thick forests haven’t had any effect on these areas. They grew thick naturally.

“We strongly believe the Forest Service shouldn’t be logging old-growth spruce,” he said, “partly because so much of the spruce has been hit by the spruce beetle.”

If trees are dead from spruce beetle, are they still good habitat? And if not, how can a test for the forest’s projects be :

The groups say goshawks need 6,000 acres to roam, and at least a third of that must be dense old-growth spruce that keeps out less-agile predators that compete with them. Where 68 pairs of the birds roamed Dixie when the Forest Service wrote its 1982 forest plan, only 30 remained last decade. As long as that’s the case, they say, the Forest Service can’t mess with habitat.

If they really need 2000 acres of dense spruce and that spruce is dying from spruce beetle it sounds like there is a problem that keeping the forest from doing treatments through litigation is not going to solve.

Hoping someone on the blog understands more about this than I and can explain.

Wildfire Economics: Contributed by Bob Zybach

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The Pacific Crest Trail, Mount Jefferson Wilderness Area, 2004. In addition to being unsightly and dangerous due to the threat of falling limbs, trees and reburning, much of this trail segment has been closed or difficult to traverse since the 2003 B&B Fire Complex. (Photo: B. Zybach).

Thanks to Bob for these links.

Here is the website version, first published on USFS Wildfire Lessons Learned website in Fall, 2009.

Here is the longer (“more academic”) version, linked to the 2009 publication and also presented to — and discussed with — the Oregon Board of Forestry during their September 7, 2011 Board Meeting in Lakeview, Oregon.

Here is the temporarily halted (again) website, based on these articles.