Our View: Preventing Fires Is As Important As Fighting Them

Our View: Preventing fires is as important as fighting them

ELSEWHERE

Idaho StatesmanEdition Date: 08/15/07

Evacuation in Yellow Pine, structures charred near McCall, record numbers of acres burned, critical habit destroyed, choking air quality.

Unusually hot and unusually bad fire seasons are no longer abnormal. Climate change is altering Earth and Idaho is not immune. Six of the last eight years have been among the top 10 worst fire seasons since 1960.

The warming trend is reshaping the ecosystem.

Fires are erupting earlier in the season and burning grander than ever before in history while more homes are sprouting up in wildland areas.

Government firefighting agencies simply don't have enough resources to protect the number of homes threatened. There are not enough engines and firefighters to be at every home during a wildfire.

Times have changed, and so should our firefighting methods. Instead of planning to stop fires, we must now answer how to live with them in a warmer, dryer and more populated future.

Throwing more money and resources at burning flames isn't the answer — being better prepared is.

More money and time should be spent before the fire season, and homeowners and local governments must take a greater responsibility for protecting property.

More than 900 homes are destroyed by wildfire each year.

Often homes and other structures are built and maintained in a manner that leaves them vulnerable. It should no longer be optional whether homeowners take steps to defend their property. It should be mandatory. Local government should educate, help and then inspect the efforts of the property owners.

When wildland fires erupt, people and structures take priority, often at a devastating expense to natural resources or taxpayer dollars. That's why people who live in these areas must break careless habits and understand fire preparedness.

BLM and the Forest Service should continue to reduce hazardous fuels by thinning and logging near rural communities as they have in places like Idaho City, which has so far survived the fire season unscathed.

Places like the Boise Foothills should do more.

Under city of Boise rules, homes built in the Foothills must have a flame retardant roof, but homeowners are voluntarily responsible for "firewise" landscaping — having defensible green space around homes and removing flammable trees, shrubs and grasses from near homes.

Many homeowners in the Foothills haven't embraced this kind of landscaping. It's time for local government to intervene and put restrictions on new development.

Mother Nature is moving faster than we are. Building defensible space around homes is now essential. It's not if a fire will happen, but when.

Maybe it's time for Smokey Bear to change his message. You can't stop forest fires, but you can improve chances of surviving them.

"Our View" is the editorial position of the Idaho Statesman. It is an unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Statesman's editorial board. To comment on an editorial or suggest a topic, e-mail