California 2008 wildfire costs top $1 billion

Citation

(2009), "California 2008 wildfire costs top $1 billion", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 18 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2009.07318cab.002

California 2008 wildfire costs top $1 billion

Article Type: News items From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 18, Issue 3

About 1.4 million acres of California land burned in 2008, costing the US government about $700 million and state coffers more than $1 billion, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Despite what California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Director Ruben Grijalva called “unprecedented fires”, no meaningful reforms emerged from either Sacramento or Washington, the paper said.

State legislation requiring high-risk fire areas to have two access roads and to demonstrate adequate water pressure and fire protection was vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The state Chamber of Commerce called the legislation a “job killer”, the Times said, which could shut down suburban development in parts of the state.

“There is an absolute disconnect between requiring state taxpayers to take on the ever increasing burden of fighting fires when it is the decisions at local levels to put more homes and people in harm’s way”, said state Assemblyman Dave Jones, who sponsored the legislation.

Grijalva said one possible reform could be a massive education effort to promote a stay-and-defend program along the lines of residence protection used in Australia.

Homeowners are trained to take precautions to make their homes fire resistant prior to a fire breaking out, then stay and protect them during a fire.

According to a study by researchers at Texas Tech University and the Institute for Business and Home Safety, in the 2007 Southern California Witch Creek fire, not a single home burned in three study communities that followed “shelter-in-place” guidelines, including vegetation modification and building code provisions.

In contrast, two similar communities that did not shelter in place had 145 homes burn in the same fire.

In a 2005 paper in the journal Environmental Hazards, Australian researchers John Handmer and Amalie Tibbits said, “Evacuating at the last minute is often fatal and…generally, a key factor in house survival during a wildfire is the presence of people in the building.”

February bushfires in Australia, though, may force a reconsideration of the “stay and defend” policy. More than 180 people are believed to have been killed in the blazes.