George Wuerthner recently wrote an important piece in New West on the need to plan for those who build on “the fire plain,” just like planning should be done for those on a flood plain.
Land Use Planning Must Address Wildfire Plain. New West. George Wuerthner.
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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
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This is an excellent article, and I agree with all of it. Building a home in a likely fire area should be looked at as no different from building a home in a flood plain.
“Home protection” should not be a priority for fires in these areas. Fighting the actual fire should receive highest priority.
Maybe they should also require fire buffer zones around all structures in the “fire plane”. From reading articles I know of a couple of remote homes that ended up being used as staging areas for fire fighting because they had wide buffer zones around them with no fuel sources. Not only were they easy to save from the fires, but they were useful for the fire fighting effort.