Growth in wildland areas makes firefighting more costly

Building homes close to wildland areas in the rural West is driving up the cost of fighting wildfires, reported Raju Chebium in USA Today. In California, entire "stealth cities" have sprung up in the mountains — and thousands of people risk losing their homes when wildfires strike, said a UC Cooperative Extension specialist.

In uninhabited areas, authorities can let wildfire run their course. But that's not an option when homes are threatened, said Thomas Scott, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Ecosystem Sciences at UC Riverside. Scott also serves at UC Berkeley in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

"The reality is that if you are trying to rescue people's lives or trying to save people's houses, you end up spending an awful amount of money," he said.

The number of wilderness communities rose during the 1987 and 1997 housing booms, Scott said. Development slowed during the recent recession, but is showing signs of heating up again. Scott urges local officials to do a better job of directing growth adjacent to wild areas. 

Homes in wilderness communities sometimes "can't be saved in a large conflagration," Scott said. "The question then becomes, can you expect society to underwrite your desire to live in a chaparral?"

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Additional fire coverage with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources experts:

Nearly 10,000 acres burned in Southern California Wildfires
KQED Radio, Forum with Michael Krasny

Host Dave Iverson interviewed Bill Stewart, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley. Stewart is co-director of the Center for Fire Research and Outreach at UC Berkeley.

Some evacuations lifted in San Diego fire area
Julie Watson and Elliot Spagat

For this story, Gillian Flaccus interviewed Max Moritz, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, and Jan Gonzales, coordinator of the Wldfire Zone website, for this story.

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