Researchers say adaptation makes more sense than fighting wildfires
Researchers say adaptation makes more sense than fighting wildfires
24 July 2013
published by http://methowvalleynews.com
USA — Rather than spending money to fight extreme wildfires like the deadly Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, wed do better to create fire-adapted communities in fire-prone areas like the Methow Valley, according to Peter Morrison of Pacific Biodiversity Institute (PBI) in Winthrop.
We spend billions of dollars a year in our attempts to suppress wildfires. A lot of it is futile, said Morrison, executive director of PBI.
The solution, and a number of fire ecologists are calling it this, is creating fire-adapted communities, said Morrison, who has a background in forest ecology and fire history.
Morrison recently released a report on the wildfire in Yarnell and Glen Ilah, Ariz., which claimed the lives of 19 firefighters, destroyed more than 100 homes and scorched 8,300 acres last month. PBI has conducted numerous studies of wildfires over the past decade to help guide public policy and practices related to wildfire management.
PBIs recently released study points out a lack of preparedness for wildfire in the devastated communities, and questions the wisdom of sending a crew of hotshot firefighters into extremely hazardous situations where they are risking their lives to protect property.
In an interview this week, Morrison said the extreme fires and loss of property and life in Arizona could be repeated in communities throughout the West, including the Methow Valley.
The communities of Yarnell and Glen Ilah were not fire-safe prior to the wildfire, and are typical of many similar situations in the country, and particularly the West, Morrison and co-author George Wooten wrote in their study: Communities that exist in fire environments like Yarnell Hill will always be at significant risk to wildfire, just as homes that are built in a rivers floodplain are at risk of periodic flooding.
Fire-safe homes survive
Using satellite images and mapping software, Morrison and Wooten assessed homes and other structures in the fire area and found that prior to the fire, 85 percent of the buildings had direct contact with shrubs and trees that act as fuel. Only about 63 of the 569 structures analyzed had a buffer zone free of vegetation to protect them from fire.
Following the fire, the researchers obtained data on the structures that burned. They found that 95 percent of the fire-safe homes (with buffers around them) survived, it while about 30 percent of the non-fire safe structures that PBI identified were destroyed.
The contrast between these two structure survival rates is substantial and illustrates that simple and inexpensive measures like keeping flammable vegetation away from homes can significantly increase the odds of a home surviving a wildfire, the researchers said.
Extreme fires in areas like Yarnell are not unusual, but are actually normal, Morrison said.
Ecosystems of the West are fire-adapted. The Methow Valley is a good example, he said. The Yarnell hills normally burn every 30-50 years, sometimes up to 100 years, in fires just like the one that happened. There wasnt anything abnormal about the fire and the ecosystem actually needs that. Its designed around that. Whats unusual is we have a whole bunch of homes there now. The situation that happened in Yarnell could repeat itself in most communities throughout the West, including our community.
The fact that the Yarnell Hill Fire grew out of control was predictable, the study said. The interior chaparral shrub lands that it burned through are notorious for high intensity wildfire. There was extreme fire weather during the fire coupled with very dry vegetation as a result of long-term drought, high temperatures, intense sunshine and persistent winds Weather events like this are becoming more common because of global climate change.
Common misperceptions
These factors should have been given greater consideration before deploying the hotshot crew to fight the fire, PBI researchers said.
Tragically, the hotshot crew did not have a chance once the fire exploded. The explosion of this fire, given the extremely hot weather and dense, dry brush and grass was entirely predictable. These natural forces are much, much stronger than anything we have to fight them, the report said.
Wildfires can quickly develop into incredibly intense forces of nature, Morrison said. Once they get really big its really hard to have any effect on them.
Morrison said his decision to conduct the analysis of the Yarnell Hill Fire was prompted partly by misperceptions about wildfire that he was seeing in reports on the event. In particular, he said, many people equate wildfire with forest fires thats not right.
PBIs study cites data from the National Fire Information Center (NFIC) showing that 78 percent of fires over the past 20 years occurred on private property or state-managed lands, not on national forests. A fire study conducted by PBI in 2001 found that all of the largest fires (over 50,000 acres) burned in chaparral, shrub lands and grasslands, not in forests.
In the Methow Valley, many homes are in shrub-steppe, which is a really risky fire environment, Morrison said. Most of our shrub-steppe hasnt burned in 50 years or more.
Misconceptions about wildfires leads to misguided public policy and misspent money, Morrison said.
In the wake of the Yarnell Hill Fire which occurred primarily on private property and state land Arizona senators John McCain and Jeff Flake introduced a bill aimed at thinning trees and vegetation in national forests, Morrison said.
The nearest national forest [to Yarnell] was 11 miles away, Morrison said. Statistics from the NFIC show that only 12 percent of fires are in national forests, he said.
How do we spend our tax money? This is why those numbers matter. Are we going to spend it in a smart way or a dumb way? Putting a whole bunch of money into thinning in the back country in national forest is a dumb way in terms of doing society any good, Morrison said.
The focus of national wildfire policy should shift from fire suppression to fire adaptation, rather than spending billions of dollars every year trying to fight wildfires often with little success, the PBI researchers said. There should be more effort into the initial attack (when firefighters can be more effective) and firefighters need to stand down once the wildfires get to be very hard to control.
Ninety percent of all wildfires get put out or at least contained within the first 24 hours, Morrison said.
Rather than fighting fires, the study concluded, a much wiser use of our tax dollars would be to use this money to help homeowners and communities create fire-adapted homes and defensible spaces.
