© 2024 | Jefferson Public Radio
Southern Oregon University
1250 Siskiyou Blvd.
Ashland, OR 97520
541.552.6301 | 800.782.6191
a service of Southern Oregon University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Study Says Poor Planning Contributes To Wildfire Costs

An Oregon Army National Guardsman looks for spot fires around the Government Flats Complex fire from a Blackhawk helicopter, near The Dalles, Aug. 21, 2013
Oregon Military Department
An Oregon Army National Guardsman looks for spot fires around the Government Flats Complex fire from a Blackhawk helicopter, near The Dalles, Aug. 21, 2013

Wildfires in the West are getting bigger, hotter – and more costly. A new report from a national science advocacy group says climate change is one major reason wildfires are getting worse.

And short-sighted development policies are a big reason they’re costing more.

In recent years, the number of homes and businesses built in wildfire-prone areas has skyrocketed. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, across 13 Western states there are more than 1.2 million homes -- with a combined value of about $190 billion -- that are at high or very high risk of wildfires.

More than seven percent of the homes in Oregon are in those areas.

At the same time, the cost of battling wildfires has increased nearly four-fold since 1985. The US Department of the Interior expects to spend upwards of $1.8 billion on firefighting this year alone.

And Rachel Cleetus, an economist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that doesn’t even count the costs of other fire impacts.

Rachel Cleetus: “They include damage to property, pollution of watersheds, loss of livelihoods, impacts on public health and an increase in the risk of post-fire flooding.”

Many of those costs, Cleetus says, are the result of what she calls “a misalignment of incentives.”

“A lot of the firefighting money is coming from federal sources like the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service," she said, "whereas a lot of decisions around development are being made at the local level through local zoning regulations, for example, where the folks who make those decisions are not paying for the firefighting cost.”

Ray Rasker is the executive director of Headwaters Economics, an independent research group based in Bozeman, Montana. He applauds the efforts being put into FireWise and other programs to make existing homes safer and more resistant to fire in what’s called the “Wildland/Urban Interface.”

“That’s the right thing to do; voluntary landowner education, getting people to create defensible space, using the right building materials," he said. "But the conversation also needs to be about the 84 percent of the Wildland/Urban Interface that’s not yet developed.”

Rasker said changing the “pace, pattern and scale” of development in wildfire-prone areas is one way to rein in the costs of fighting and recovering from fires. And he said, making that happen is going require policy-makers to take a carrot and stick approach.

“The stick aspect would be for the federal government to bill local governments for their share of the firefighting costs, which would create a strong incentive for better planning,” he said.

Rasker said the carrot could be lowering those costs if the local government shows it’s reduced its wildfire risks.

The idea of forcing counties and other local jurisdictions to back their planning decisions with cash is somewhat novel. And, not surprisingly, it isn’t likely to go over well with those local governments.

Gil Riddell is the policy director at the Association of Oregon Counties. He said since wildfires usually start on public land, the cost of fire suppression rightly belongs to the federal and state governments.

“The largest share of the danger comes from the lands that are producing these fires. And I think you go to the source to deal with that problem,” Riddell said.

Riddell points out that Oregon has strong statewide planning rules, so local governments aren’t the only decision-makers. Besides, he said, cash-strapped rural county governments are in no position to contribute to fire-fighting costs.

“If you’ve been reading the news about the crisis in public safety and mental health, that goes back, for a large part, to meager county budgets,” he said.

Meanwhile, wildfires continue to burn across the region, as the debate over what can be done – and how to pay for it – heats up.

This was first reported for Jefferson Public Radio.

Copyright 2020 EarthFix. To see more, visit .

Liam Moriarty has been covering news in the Pacific Northwest for three decades. He served two stints as JPR News Director and retired full-time from JPR at the end of 2021. Liam now edits and curates the news on JPR's website and digital platforms.