Lane County's urban-forest fire risks rank high in study.

Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

A national study released this week warns that firefighting costs will soar if housing development near forests continues. It ranks Lane County as a high-risk place for fire in the wildland-urban interface.

The study takes a county-by-county look at development in 11 Western states.

It notes that just 14 percent of land available for development in the wildland urban interface has actually been developed and cautions that future development on the remaining 86 percent could send fire-fighting costs skyrocketing.

Headwaters Economics, a Montana think tank, produced the analysis.

"It's easy to understand why people want to live in beautiful forested areas, but our analysis indicates things will get much worse for U.S. firefighting efforts if current building trends continue," said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, in a news release.

The study found 110,563 residences built near forested public lands in Oregon.

Of the top at-risk 25 counties in the 11-state region, the study ranked Lane County third, behind Josephine and Jackson counties, in the number of square miles developed within the wildland-urban interface.

This season's blazes - 2,308 in Oregon that to date have consumed 567,345 acres - included fires that threatened homes in the Black Butte Ranch area as well as a grass fire near several Fern Ridge residences.

Nationally to date, 70,816 fires have burned 7 million acres, including the Lake Tahoe wildfire that destroyed 250 homes.

Protecting private property from wildfires may eat up 50 percent to 95 percent of all firefighting costs, estimated at $1 billion annually.

Headwaters took those figures from a recent survey conducted by U.S. Office of the Inspector General.

If development continues at its current pace those costs could rise to $2.3 billion to $4.3 billion annually, the study's authors wrote. By comparison, the U.S. Forest Service's average annual budget is about $4.5 billion.

Those numbers are based on best estimates from U.S. Forest Service managers, said Bill Lafferty, Protection From Fire program director with the state Department of Forestry.

It's difficult to say how much it costs state and federal agencies to protect Oregon homes because the state doesn't separate out the expenses, he said.

The report recommends that land-use planners guide new construction away from fire-prone areas as a way to reduce wildfire risks.

It would be a challenging strategy to accomplish in Lane County, with a land base that is almost 90 percent forested.

Instead, county and state officials say the focus in Oregon has been on promoting fuel reduction efforts on public forests, and fire mitigation efforts for those who live in fire-prone areas.

Oregon's land-use fire regulations include suitably wide driveways so firefighters can get to threatened homes and fire-resistant roofing. But those regulations have one weakness, Lafferty said.

They apply only to homes in forest zones, not in rural residential zones, he said.

Counties compensate for that gap by creating comprehensive wildfire protection plans that include coordination among local, state and federal firefighting entities; risk assessment; and education and outreach effort to homeowners.

More homes in the woods are a likely outcome of Measure 37 claims, said Lane County planner Keir Miller. Passed in 2004, the measure allows landowners to seek compensation or suspension of land-use laws that have a negative impact on their property values.

The county has almost 400 Measure 37 claims on about 34,000 acres, Miller said. Many of those claims call for new housing on or near forests, he said.

Most Lane County residents don't realize the potential for fire danger, said Miller, who said he wasn't surprised by the county's high ranking in the Headwaters analysis.

"In Lane County, it's curious, but there's a perception that wildfire isn't likely here and that's unfortunate because we have an abundance of fuel," he said.

While the county's wildfire season is shorter than that of more arid counties east of the Cascades, the threat is real, he said.

"We're not as hot as eastern Oregon," he said, "but we do have forests and the potential for catastrophic fire."

FIREFIGHTING COSTS ESCALATING

A new study blames the increase in part on the number of homes being built in or near public forests.

Read more: online at www.head watersecono mics.org/wildfire