Posted: Tuesday, June 9, 2009
OLYMPIA, WA - A scientific review published today says only a small
fraction of the federal efforts to reduce fire danger in the West is
happening near the homes that face the greatest risk.
Correspondent Tom Banse reports.
A group of fire ecologists from universities in Colorado and
Montana analyzed a federal database of more than 44-thousand
wildfire mitigation projects. The forest thinning, brush clearing,
and controlled burns took place between 2004 and 2008 across 11
Western states. Lead study author Tania Schoennagel of UC-Boulder
says only 11 percent of the fire mitigation efforts were near rural
neighborhoods. Schoennagel says the buffer zones that would be
most beneficial to treat are usually privately owned.
Schoennagel: “So that really makes implementation of federal
fire mitigation treatments are real challenge. They sort of have to
cross that federal-private boundary. There are some mechanisms in
place to do that, but clearly that needs to be improved.”
Forest Service officials are reserving comment until they finish
their own review of the study.
The piece appears in this week’s Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Copyright 2009 KUOW
On the web:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences