5 ways to protect your home from wildfire
Fire is both integral to the West and generally ignored — a natural force that is an enduring threat but nevertheless remains out of mind for most people. When fire does arrive on a large scale, we are reminded that it is one concern truly shared by all of us who live in the West.
Fires have been burning more acreage with a greater intensity. Adding to the risks are drought, dying trees, the buildup of vegetation as a result of long-standing fire-exclusion policies, and logging and land-use practices that have altered the forests' natural mix.
The most significant factor is also the most inescapable one: The West is meant to burn. From the coastal chaparral of Southern California to the lodgepole pine forests of Yellowstone National Park, most of our native plants are adapted to fire as part of their life cycle.
"Instead of thinking of fire as a catastrophe, we need to accept it as a part of nature," says Paul Alaback, associate professor of forest ecology at the University of Montana. "If we think we're going to exclude fire from the West, it's just not going to happen."
Two basic facts distinguish the current threat from that of 100 years ago: Forests a century ago were healthier, and back then relatively few people lived in fire-prone areas. Today forests are more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire, and millions of us now live in what is referred to as the wildland-urban interface.
That term is a catchall for different kinds of residential development found in the fast-growing rural West: subdivisions that bump up against open space and places where housing is mixed into areas of natural vegetation and woodland. The vegetation in these interface areas makes them prone to fire in a way that urban landscapes are not.
More people living near wildlands also increases the chance of blazes igniting. The situation demands an increased vigilance and understanding that the public has not always shown. "Fire," says Alaback, "forces us to reexamine the basic notion that we can play by our own rules." If the recent fires and an understanding of the West's ecology can teach us anything, it is that every homeowner should prepare now for more fires to come.
How the West has burned 1988–2004
Yellowstone 1988: Historic fires burned 1.2 million acres in and around the national park.
Awbrey Hall 1990: 21 homes and 3,353 acres burned on the outskirts of fast-growing Bend.
Paint 1990: Human-caused fire destroyed 666 structures near Santa Barbara.
Firestorm 1991: Wind-driven fires near Spokane turned into 35,000-acre blaze that ravaged 114 homes.
Tunnel 1991: Oakland/Berkeley Hills fire killed 25 people and destroyed 2,843 houses plus 433 apartments.
Laguna Canyon 1993: 366 homes destroyed in affluent, hilly area of Laguna Beach.
Topanga 1993: Classic Southern California fire, driven by Santa Ana winds, destroyed 411 structures.
South Canyon 1994:14 firefighters killed in Colorado blowup.
Hochderffer 1996: Charred 16,400 acres near Flagstaff.
Cerro Grande 2000: Burned 47,650 acres and destroyed 350 structures in Los Alamos.
Clear Creek 2000: One of many wildfires in Idaho and Montana that torched nearly 2.3 million acres.
Valley Complex 2000: Series of fires in Bitterroot Valley burned 356,000 acres, 240 structures.
Viejas 2001: Human-caused fire burned more thean 10,000 acres east of San Diego.
Southern California 2003: Driven by drought and Santa Ana winds, roughly 750,000 acres burned, about 4,800 homes were destroyed, and many lives were lost, mostly in San Diego County.
Santa Clarita, 2004: More than 6,000 acres blackened; more than 1,600 homes evacuated. The Pine fire 20 miles to the north burned 17,500 acres and destroyed three homes.
More: Our Wild Fire reprint from June 1992
