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Experts Say California Needs New Fire Policy

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By KIRK JOHNSON and JESSE McKINLEY, The New York Times

Published: October 28, 2007

SAN DIEGO - As Californians sift through the cinders of last week's wildfires, there is a growing consensus that the state's fight against such disasters - as it is currently being fought - cannot be won.

'California has lost 1.5 million acres in the last four years,' said Richard A. Minnich, a professor of earth sciences who teaches fire ecology at the University of California, Riverside. 'When do we declare the policy a failure?'

Fire-management experts such as Minnich, who has compared fire histories in San Diego County and Baja California in Mexico, say the message is clear: Mexico has smaller fires that burn out naturally, regularly clearing out underbrush and causing relatively little destruction because the cycle is still natural. California has giant fires because its longtime policies of fire suppression - in which the government has kept fires from their normal cycle - have created huge pockets of fuel that erupt into conflagrations that must be fought.

The main problem is that many Californians are obstinate about the choice they have made to live with the constant threat of fire. Even officials favoring change concede that it could take a decade - and more wildfires - before it happens.

In San Diego County, three of four homes built since 1990 are in the dangerous zone where undeveloped areas and housing meet. These are the most vulnerable and exposed places in fire season because wildfires generally start in national forests, recreation areas and other public lands. Had last week's fires burned in the same locations in 1980, about 61,000 homes would have been within a mile of a fire. This year, it was 125,000, according to an analysis by the University of Wisconsin.

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