Fire threat needs to be addressed

Getting a grip on increasing development and fire risks in Flathead County's wildland urban interface is long overdue.

Some don't agree. We've received input from some who contend that Sunday's articles on the subject suggest that private landowners are being painted as villains, and that somehow, we are letting the U.S. Forest Service off the hook for its forest management and fire protection responsibilities.

That is simply not the case. County fire officials are proposing nothing more than some pragmatic, common-sense measures to address growing fire protection issues at the local level.

Volunteer fire chiefs and the county office of emergency services cannot dwell in the ether of the perpetual forest management wars between the U.S. Forest Service and a persistent swarm of environmental groups. They should do what they can to protect the public, and that's what they are doing.

There is nothing onerous about proposed planning regulations that consider an increasing fire risk to homes and property within the county's wildland urban interface. Requiring developers to incorporate "Firewise" measures into their designs is something that is long overdue. As first responders in most cases, local volunteer fire departments should expect developments - especially new ones - to provide safe access and escape routes and some degree of effort to reduce fuel loading in the immediate vicinity of homes that are expected to be protected.

It is true that most major fires in Flathead County over the last 20 years have originated on national forest lands, far from developed areas that were later threatened and protected through costly firefighting efforts.

But it's wrong to suggest that will always be the case. A 30-acre fire in the wrong place and the wrong time could cause devastating, costly damage. Consider the 1929 Half Moon Fire that started on private timberlands near Columbia Falls. That fire raced to the east, scorching 129,000 acres through the entire canyon between Hungry Horse and Apgar - an area that is now peppered with homes that are surrounded by a mature and fire-prone sea of lodgepole pine.

A consulting firm out of Bozeman has found that there are 7,846 homes in Flathead County's forested interface, and that number will obviously increase because that's where people are choosing to live. But there are a variety of public costs for this preference, including fire protection.

"We have an increasing threat, limited resources and no rules to mitigate the problems," said Mark Peck, the county's emergency services director.

And that is a serious problem that should be addressed at the local level as much as possible. The Flathead National Forest, for its part, has been working to address fuel loading issues on the lands it manages.

The forest has completed some projects and it is at varying degrees of finishing nine projects from the Swan Valley to the North Fork Flathead drainage that were approved under a special "categorical exclusion" rule. The status of those projects is now unclear, because the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently supported a Sierra Club claim that the Forest Service was failing to adequately assess environmental impacts that result from fuel reduction projects approved under the rule.

Local fire officials shouldn't be holding their breaths for a quick resolution to that matter. Instead, they should continue to address fire threats, however they can, at the local level.