Preventing wildfires demands bold thinking

Driven by climate change and human encroachment into once-wild areas, wildfires are bigger, deadlier, costlier and more frequent than those a few years ago. There have been warnings, but we’ve failed to heed the lessons those earlier crises imparted.

The organizations we rely on for fire protection were not designed, nor funded, for the crises we now face. The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), the state’s premier fire organization, has suffered from chronic underfunding. Coping with the growing threat will demand an increased budget.

The state’s increasing population and the need to find more affordable housing have brought more people into fire-prone areas. With more people and property in harm’s way, the toll from fires increases.

Climate change has meant longer and more unpredictable droughts. Higher temperatures dry out soil and vegetation more quickly, turning much of the countryside into kindling. The accepted precautions of removing vegetation around homes, ensuring passable roads for fire equipment and better escape routes for emergency evacuation, while necessary, are no longer enough. Measures for lessening fire risk do exist, but aside from combatting climate change itself, they are piecemeal. None of them is easy.

My experience in crisis management shows that we can address these escalating emergencies successfully, but only if we engage in bold new thinking:

Discourage development in high fire-risk areas: In many cases, we’ve inadvertently put people in harm’s way. Inexpensive national flood insurance for homeowners has in effect subsidized development in floodplains. Inexpensive fire insurance has done much the same in fire-prone areas. The cost of insurance needs to match the actual costs of the threats, but it also needs to acknowledge that people often move into fire-prone areas because they can no longer afford to live in more affluent communities. They shouldn’t have to bear the full costs of fire insurance alone; the state needs to step in and help. The fire problem is part of the bigger affordable housing problem.

Make firewalls part of the design for new developments: Physical barriers can stop or at least slow the spread of fire. Nonetheless, besides their cost, they raise major issues. They can be eyesores, and they can impede wildlife movement and interfere with watersheds. Their use, however, would provide architects with a needed role in fire protection. To generate new ideas, we need people and professions addressing the problem beyond the usual players of planners and fire agencies.

Find new ways to pay for fire protection: People need to pay a premium for living in fire-prone areas. The premium would be based on ability to pay and the cost of rebuilding that other areas have experienced. Special funds, secured and administered by the state, should be set up for especially hazardous areas. It will cost dearly, but the cost and pain of rebuilding are greater. Adopt new techniques for generating more and better ideas: Idealized design, a form of brainstorming developed by Russell Ackoff, the late organizational theorist, sets aside timeworn solutions in the search of ideas not constrained by current thinking. Business, government and education have used the technique to involve a wide range of stakeholders. We could start by convening insurance companies, local politicians and homeowners, as well as Cal Fire officials, to address our state’s growing fire disasters.

We desperately need fresh solutions, and soon. Otherwise, apocalyptic images of burning homes and landscapes will become commonplace.