Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface

Abstract

In this chapter we provide an overview of the socio-economic and ecological effects and trends of wildfire in the WUI, methods for assessing wildfire risk in the WUI, approaches to managing the wildfire problem including fuels management, home construction and design, and community action programs. This overview is combined with two case studies analyzing wildfire risk and the use of prescribed fire to reduce that risk in the Florida wildland–urban interface. The federal government’s expenditures for fighting wildfire more than tripled (in inflation-adjusted dollars) between 1996 and 2007, increasing from $984 million in 1996 to $3 billion in 2007 (U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2009) (Fig. 16–1). Between 1999 and 2010, an average of 1179 residences, 1156 outbuildings, and 42 businesses were destroyed by wildfire annually (National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2010), and each year an average 21 firefighters die fighting wildfires (Rasker, 2009). One cause of the increasing costs associated with wildfire has been the rapid growth of the wildland–urban interface and the concomitant increase in the number of citizens and property in wildfire-prone areas. For example, the USDA Office of the Inspector General (2006) estimated that protecting lives and property in the wildland–urban interface accounts for 50 to 95% of the costs of fighting wildfires. Although the wildland–urban interface covers only 9% of the land in the 48 contiguous states, it contains 39% of all houses (Hammer et al., 2008). With housing starts three times greater in the wildland–urban interface than in non-wildland–urban interface areas, the USDA Office of Inspector General (2006) predicted that there will be a 40% increase in the number of homes in the wildland–urban interface by the year 2030. Exacerbating the future wildland–urban interface wildfire problem is climate change, which is also projected to result in greater incidence of future wildfire (Bachelot et al., 2007; Westerling and Swetnam, 2003; Westerling et al., 2006). Furthermore, the USDA Office of Inspector General (2006) reported that many wildland–urban interface residents underinvest in mitigation actions, assuming government emergency services will protect them from wildfire and insurance or federal disaster assistance will cover any property losses. As a result, wildfire management in the wildland–urban interface has become a major focus of federal, state, and local government agencies struggling to develop policies, programs, and regulations to reduce the growing costs of wildfire (USDA Office of Inspector General, 2006). D. Evan Mercer, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, 3041 E. Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 (emercer@fs.fed.us); Wayne Zipperer, USDA Forest Service, University of Florida, Bldg. 164, Mowry Road, Gainesville FL 32611-0906 (wzipperer@fs.fed.us). doi:10.2136/2012.urban-rural.c16 Urban–Rural Interfaces: Linking People and Nature, David N. Laband, B. Graeme Lockaby, and Wayne Zipperer, editors Copyright © 2012. American Society of Agronomy, Soil Science Society of America, Crop Science Society of America 5585 Guilford Rd., Madison, WI 53711-5801, USA.