Foresters urge moderation in spending on fire suppression

RENO, Nev. - State foresters across the country say wildland fires are being fought largely by pouring money on the flames, and call for recognition by homeowners and others that government cannot afford to spend millions protecting houses worth thousands.

A survey of foresters to be presented at a national conference starting Monday suggests money that could be spent to prevent fires or minimize their effects is being squandered trying to mollify potential critics who might later accuse firefighters of surrendering too much land to the flames.

''An immediate influx of money at the time of the crisis isn't going to resolve the crisis,'' said Donald Smith, Connecticut's state forester. ''The real need is for careful planning and funding of rebuilding of the nation's fire suppression structure.''

Smith, who heads the Fire Resources Utilization subcommittee of the National Association of State Foresters, will present his panel's draft report to the parent organization at its national meeting in Overland Park, Kan. It calls for a new fiscal restraint, with cost containment ranked second only to firefighter safety in managers' priorities.

The survey was prompted by the 1994 fire season - at nearly $1 billion, the most expensive in history to that time - and concludes that despite interim reports since then, an open checkbook mentality remains in what it calls ''a lack of 'corporate will' to effectively control suppression costs.''

The report stresses that at no time is firefighter safety to be compromised to save money, but that implementing some of the recommendations could help keep crews out of harm's way.

''The overall approach should be to balance the priorities of maximum safety, minimum fire size and minimum cost,'' the report says.

Ideally, the first agency on the scene should hit the fire hard in an initial effort to smother it before it explodes rather than waiting for distant reinforcements.

''In the final analysis, smaller fires present fewer safety risks and fewer conflicts with land use policies,'' the report says.

But conflicts with land use policies already are being argued, particularly questions of removing potential fuel before a fire starts, and later of deciding what to save and what to surrender.

''A lot of these issues that we raise in the report are real sensitive,'' said Montana State Forester Donald Artley, who saw 945,519 acres of his state burn this summer. Nationally, the toll was 6.88 million acres, nearly all of it in the West.

The politically expedient, but more expensive, approach has been to try to stop the fire's advance. But it might not be the safest one, Artley said.

''Maybe you give up some ground to give yourself a better chance of success from a more defensible position,'' he said. ''And, of course, you take the criticism, because somebody owns those trees.''

Equally unpopular is the decision of when to save a home even though it endangers firefighters and takes equipment from the front.

This summer's Montana firestorm saw dozens of homes lost but hundreds saved, he said.

''Will it be the homes that we lost that will create the lasting image and help change people's attitudes toward living in the forest?'' he asked. ''... Or will people look at the extraordinary efforts - and expense - that we went to, to successfully protect homes?

''Will the lasting impression be one of, 'Fire departments are going to come in and park a fire engine in my front yard so we don't really need to worry?'

''If it's the latter, we've just shot ourselves in the foot because we have spent millions of dollars protecting thousands of dollars of value,'' he said.

People who want to work in the cities but live in the woods have to accept the risks, foresters say. The report urges that some of the money now being spent on suppression be diverted to the education of homeowners, planners, insurers and regulators about those risks.

''The overwhelming majority of Americans have never experienced the raw fury of uncontrolled fire firsthand. Consequently, they persist in a belief that local, state or federal firefighting organizations will be able to protect them and their property from wildland fire,'' the report says.

''An important goal of the national wildland fire suppression organization must be to bring the nation to an understanding of the real world in the face of wildfire.''

The report says removal of years of accumulated brush, dead or dying trees and stunted saplings is crucial both to forest health and to wildfire prevention.

''We're not talking logging necessarily. What I'm talking is fuels management,'' Artley said. ''You're going to have to do some combination with sawing trees down - little trees, big trees, whatever. It's back to society. What do we want to do as citizens with our national forests? If they're important to us, then we need to make the proper investments.''

And it could be a significant investment. The absence of fires in some places and restrictions on cutting and clearing in recent decades has transformed many wooded areas into tinderboxes waiting for a spark.

A 1999 report by the General Accounting Office identified 39 million acres in need of some sort of fuels treatment at an estimated cost of $725 million. In contrast, the Clinton administration is calling for $1.6 billion to cover the costs of this summer's firestorm.

Montana's Artley calls it a ''tragedy waiting for a match.''

''When you are so successful at fire suppression as we have become, we don't let fires burn any more,'' he said. ''Human habitation in this kind of a natural environment creates a dilemma. In the long run, Mother Nature's going to win because the fires are going to burn.''

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On the Net:

National Association of State Foresters: http://www.stateforesters.com

The National Wildland/Urban Interface Fire Protection Program: http://www.firewise.com

National Interagency Fire Center: http://www.nifc.gov