Communities and Wildfire

Abstract

Communities in the wildland/urban interface are susceptible to devastating wildfires.  This paper discusses the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA), the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI), the National Fire Plan (NFP), and Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP”s), and whether they help communities better prepare for a catastrophic wildfire event.  Complete fire proofing is not possible, but minimizing loss to life and property are when you become aware of the danger.      

Introduction

Wildland fire is a natural hazard that affects millions of people around the globe every year.  Wildland fires also play a key role in forest and range ecosystems, but over the past century, efforts have been directed at fire suppression.  Active fire suppression has removed frequent low severity fires as a natural part of the ecosystem.  Native American history is rich with stories about fire and how it came to the people.  Fire was used daily by Native Americans to clear land, see when an enemy was approaching and for hunting and gathering activities.  Even the migration of bison had, in some part, been affected by Native Americans who were using wildland fire to open grazing areas.1  The removal of these frequent low severity fires has led to a buildup of fuels so that wildfires become large and destructive.2

Wildfire has tremendous power to threaten people and their homes.  We just recently saw an example of this last summer when the I-90 complex fires raced toward the town of Alberton.  Major loss of life and property is a real issue when catastrophic wildfires occur.  Each new fire season demonstrates the alarming trend of increased risk to life and property from wildland/urban interface fires.  As more and more people continue to build homes and communities in these areas, the threat catastrophic wildfires pose will grow larger.  Communities need to be aware of all resources available to them, as well as understand that the risk is real.

In western Montana alone, over half of all fires are naturally occurring and caused by lightning.   In the record setting fire season of 2000, a total of 8,422,237 acres were burned.  Of that, 4,826,643 were burned by lightning.3 In August 2000, following this devastating fire season, the National Fire Plan was developed. 

Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI)

In August 2002, President Bush introduced the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) with the intent to reduce the risks that catastrophic wildfires pose to life, property and the environment.  The Healthy Forests Initiative states, “Enhanced measures are needed to restore forest and rangeland health to reduce the risk of these catastrophic wildfires”.  The Initiative implements core components of the National Fire Plan in establishing a framework to protect communities and the environment through local collaboration on thinning, prescribed burning and forest restoration. 

Fire needs three elements to survive: heat, fuel and oxygen.  Heat and oxygen cannot be controlled, but fuel can.  A recent study by the Western Fire Research Center concluded, “Our results unanimously indicate that treated stands experience lower fire severity than untreated stands that burn under similar weather and topographic conditions.”4  Forest and range managers are quickly beginning to realize that when managed properly, fire can help maintain vegetation so that it is more ecologically stable, as well as more esthetically pleasing and useful to society.  A key priority of the Healthy Forests Initiative is more active forest and range management to reduce the accumulation of hazardous fuels and restore ecosystem health.  In the photos shown above; the top photo was taken before a hazardous fuels reduction project in the Gila National Forest, NM.  The bottom photo was taken after the fuels reduction project was completed.

Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA)

The Healthy Forests Restoration Act was enacted on January 7, 2003.  It was designed to aid the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management in protecting communities, watersheds and historical landmarks from catastrophic wildfire.  As defined in Title I, sec.101 of the HFRA, an at-risk community is an area “in which conditions are conducive to a large-scale wildland fire disturbance event; and for which a significant threat to human life or property exists as a result of a wildland fire disturbance event”. 

This definition is broad, and that is exactly why communities need to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans.  Without doing so they are not taking full advantage of federal funding to protect themselves.  Some non-profit organizations, such as the Sierra Club, feel that this is just another way to push commercial logging.  They feel that communities are still not properly protected because resources are being directed at issues like more logging rather than prescribed burning.(5) According to the Sierra Club, “The administrations true goal is to use the forest fire issue to cut the public out of the public lands management decision making process and to give logging companies virtually free access to our forests”.(6)

National Fire Plan (NFP)

The intent of the National Fire Plan is to respond to severe wildland fires and their impacts to surrounding communities as well as ensure firefighting capacity for the future.  The National Fire Plan addresses five key points: firefighting, rehabilitation, hazardous fuels reduction, community assistance and accountability.(7)Since the development of the National Fire Plan, over five years ago, more than five hundred people have been trained annually through the Wildland Firefighter Apprenticeship Program, the Fire Use Training Academy and the Prescribed Fire Training Academy.  These programs offer leadership and advanced training opportunities for firefighters and fire managers working for federal agencies.

 A main priority of the National Fire Plan is to ensure that the Department of Agriculture and Interior maintain a world-class firefighting organization.  The National Fire Plan has addressed the diminishing firefighting workforce by hiring and properly training additional seasonal and permanent fire staff.  Without the development of the National Fire Plan, these opportunities would not be likely.

After a catastrophic wildfire occurs, emergency stabilization and rehabilitation to affected landscapes and communities is conducted.  This work improves land that is unlikely to naturally recover after wildfire.  Emergency stabilization is necessary in protecting the lives and properties located downstream of affected areas.  Stabilization treatments take several years to complete and include fish and wildlife habitat restoration, reforestation, road and trail rehabilitation, invasive plant treatments and the replanting and reseeding of desirable vegetation.

Heavy fuel loadings—a result of decades of active fire suppression—pose a significant threat in causing catastrophic wildfires.  Frequent periodic fires maintain forest fuel hazards at a low level.  Fire exclusion is gradually changing the vegetation landscape from fire resistant to fire susceptible.(8) In response to the threat these heavy fuel loadings pose, the National Fire Plan has established a hazardous fuels reduction program.  “Hazardous fuels reduction treatments are designed to reduce the risks of catastrophic wildland fire to people, communities, and natural resources while restoring forest and rangeland ecosystems to closely match their historical structure, function, diversity and dynamics”.(9) Treatments can be accomplished by mechanical means, the use of prescribed fire, herbicides, and other methods available; or a combination of treatments.  There are few documented studies of hazardous fuels reduction treatments in both residential and recreational settings, thus making it difficult to the gain public support required to successfully implement these treatments.(10)

The National Fire Plan provides assistance to communities affected by wildfire as well as at-risk communities.  A variety of grant programs delivered by local agencies and State Foresters provides the funding communities need to take action and live safely in the wildland/urban interface.  Because most individuals and developers who build in these areas don’t give a second thought to how their home will survive a wildfire, it is important for local agencies to educate them.  After all, knowledge is power!

In providing accountability, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council is a cooperative interagency organization dedicated to consistently implementing the goals, actions and policies in the National Fire Plan.(11)

Past Precedence

Fire does not discriminate.  It does not chose whose life it will take or what structure and vegetation it will consume.  It won’t skip a wealthy man’s home and destroy a poor man’s.  It is like any other natural disaster.  Unfortunately, people are not always aware that they are living in a wildland/urban interface area prone to wildfire.  This was the case on October 19, 1991.  Oakland had a rapidly growing population, and the Oakland/Berkeley Hills were home to the wealthy.  The Oakland Hills was a place for people seeking to “get away from it all”, while still having access to it all.  Oakland is such a highly urbanized city; most did not give a thought to wildfire.  Nor did they know about, or remember the devastating wildfires that plagued the past in 1923 and 1970.

It was a hot, dry, Indian summer day.  The Diablo winds sparked up a fire that was thought to be extinguished from the previous day.  The fire quickly overwhelmed firefighters, and the long, narrow, winding roads further hampered firefighting efforts.  Firefighters tried to take a defensive stand, but high winds overpowered fire streams, gas lines ruptured, power failed and water reservoirs went dry.  Twenty-five people lost their lives and over three thousand homes were destroyed.(12)

This fire, like all fires, holds a valuable lesson.  When these fires start and spread rapidly, there is little time for fire managers to plan and organize.  Action plans are necessary for a positive outcome when a major disaster begins in your territory.  Community Wildfire Protection Plans can help communities in the wildland/urban interface better prepare for when disaster strikes.  Had a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) been developed, devastating loss to life and property may have been preventable. 

Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP)

A Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is a plan to help at risk communities take full advantage of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA), which includes incentives for the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to give consideration to the priorities of their local at risk communities as they develop and implement forest management and hazardous fuel reduction projects.  Community Wildfire Protection Plans are designed to address the issues of wildfire response, hazard mitigation, community preparedness and structure protection.  During the process of developing a CWPP, a community can clarify and refine it’s priorities for the protection of life and property.  It may also strike up conversations within the community regarding management for the local watershed after a disaster strikes.(13)

There has been a dramatic surge of people moving into the wildland/urban interface over the past quarter century.  The threat these fires pose has increased proportionately, making the need for proper planning and prevention methods even more prevalent.  Each new fire season demonstrates the alarming trend of increased risk to life and property from catastrophic wildfires.  A Community Wildfire Protection Plan gives the community the flexibility to define their own wildland/urban interface. 

Without an established CWPP, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act limits the wildland/urban interface to a half mile of the communities boundary, or one and a half miles of the boundary when mitigating circumstances are present, such as a steep slope that may aid in extreme fire behavior endangering the community.  Having a developed Community Wildfire Protection Plan will not only help to save the lives and homes of those in wildland/urban interface communities, but it will also help to make one of the most dangerous situations a firefighter faces, a little less complicated.    

The Wildland/Urban Interface (WUI): Protecting Your Life and Home

This is an area where wildland and residential communities meet.  This zone poses a significant risk to life and property in the surrounding community.  The wildland/urban interface problem begins one of two ways.  Fires can either move from the forest, rangeland, or grasslands and move into the community, or fires can start in the community and move into adjacent wildlands.  When fires start in the wildland, their behavior depends on a number of factors.  When extreme fire behavior is present, the fire can burn uncontrollably in the forest and vegetation adjacent to the interface homes, posing a threat to the neighboring community.  Conversely, a fire can start at a home in the interface community and burn into the adjacent wildlands, causing a threat to the surrounding community. 

For the people who choose to continue living in, or move to an area in the wildland/urban interface, there is good news.  The threat of a devastating wildfire can be lessened by taking some simple precautionary measures.  Preparing a Community Wildfire Protection Plan can help protect a community during a wildfire event.  It is also important to understand simple fire behavior.  If deciding to build your home on a slope for example, fire generally moves upslope at a faster rate.  This is because the fire has longer flame lengths than one on level ground, and preheats the fuel in front of it, allowing for a more rapid consumption of fuels.  You don’t want your home to be the fuel!

Burning embers are carried by wind, and commonly land in gutters, on roofs, woodpiles, and other areas located near the home.  If your gutters are full of dead pine needles and leaves when a fire occurs, hot embers could likely land there.  The embers would ignite the dead fuel, and the fire would start under the eaves of the home.  Taking all the proper precautions is necessary.  Both individual and collaborative efforts within the community should take place.

 One positive community effort is developing fuel breaks within the community.  A fuelbreak is an easily accessed strip of land that is suitable for hazardous fuel reduction treatments.  This will create an open, park like setting that is esthetically pleasing and safer.

Conclusion and Discussion

Frequent low severity fires have long since been a part of our history.  The exclusion of these fires has made our forests susceptible to disease, drought, and severe wildfires.  The Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) calls for more active forest and range management, as well as establishes a framework for protecting communities and the environment through local agency collaboration on thinning, prescribed burns and forest restoration.  The Healthy Forests Restoration Act was designed to make it easier for the federal government to conduct hazardous fuels reduction projects on National Forest System and Bureau of Land Management Lands.  They will be able to complete these projects in a timely manner, so that they can effectively protect communities, watersheds, and other at-risk areas from catastrophic wildfire.  On the other hand, if aggressive treatments such as thinning are accelerated, scientific forest management may be sent back a number of years.

The National Fire Plan does well at outlining and addressing five key points to help aid in the response to wildland fires and their impacts.  However, the National Fire Plan does not train firefighters in agencies outside of the federal government.  It is important that all who work in the field be properly trained in order to effectively protect communities and themselves.  When the Oakland Hills firestorm erupted, many of the firefighters did not know how to handle this type of situation.  The quickly became overwhelmed, and many of their own lives were put at risk.  They cannot be asked to do a job they were not accurately trained to do.  Applying what has been learned from situations like this will lessen the damage done by catastrophic wildfire.

Community Wildfire Protection Plans help communities to identify their priorities before a disaster strikes. A Community Wildfire Protection Plan can help prevent devastating loss to life and property.  As surges of people continue to migrate into the wildland/urban interface, this will prove to be a very effective way to minimize expected damage that could have otherwise occurred.  Homeowners need to take precautionary measures to protect themselves from wildfire.  Having a firewise home does not mean the homeowner needs to have an unattractive landscape.  A person who is aware to the dangers they reside in may be the best prevention of all.