Ray Rasker at Headwaters Economics, the think tank that studied the cost of the nation’s wildfires, also saw Colorado’s investment in firefighting aircraft as wasteful, but he was happy to see the costs borne at the state level rather than by federal taxpayers. If more of the tab for wildfire protection was paid by the people who live in flammable landscapes, he said, they would be less likely to build in the path of wildfires.
Even Jerry Williams, former director of fire and aviation for the U.S. Forest Service, found that the problem wasn’t that there weren’t enough planes, but that the nation’s strategy for dealing with wildfires continues to focus on fighting them rather than building homes and communities that are more resilient to fire and letting natural wildfires far from development burn to avoid putting planes and firefighters at risk.
“You can get lost in the weeds . . . about the efficacy of night air tanker operations, or better retardant mixes, or bigger helicopters, or more engines,” he said in an interview. “But if you overlook the basic strategic issues here, all is lost.”
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TRIED MANY TACTICS to stem its hemorrhaging of money to fight wildfires. In March 2014 the Obama administration proposed changing how the government funds fighting that 1 percent of fires that, according to the White House, consume more than 30 percent of federal wildfire suppression money.
The president’s proposal, and bipartisan bills introduced in the House and Senate, would give the Forest Service and Interior Department access to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund. Created in 2011, the emergency fund was earmarked for relief efforts in hurricanes, tornadoes, and major floods. The recommended change, which required congressional action, would add large wildfires to the list. FEMA funds would be tapped once the costs of managing wildfires reached 70 percent of their 10-year average, similar to how other disaster recovery efforts are funded.
“The President’s budget proposal, and similar bipartisan legislation before Congress, would solve a recurring problem of having to transfer money from forest restoration and other Forest Service accounts to pay the costs of fighting wildfires,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in a press release discussing the provision. “USDA will spend the necessary resources to protect people, homes and our forests, but it is not in the interest of forest health to transfer funds from forest restoration that can prevent future fires.”2
Proponents argued that the $12 billion Disaster Relief Fund, which falls outside discretionary budget limits, had gone largely unspent in recent years, giving the Obama administration a clear solution to addressing wildfire funding shortfalls.
“Fire is every bit as much an emergency as a tornado or a hurricane,” said Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, who supported the Obama administration’s proposal.
But Republicans east of the Mississippi, and former House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan in particular, resisted giving federal firefighters access to the emergency funds.
Andy Stahl, who saw wasteful spending as the biggest reason for the rise in federal firefighting costs, called the administration’s proposal “another blank check for firefighting that does nothing to contain costs.”
Despite the fact that nearly 150 members of Congress supported the bill, it never came up for a vote in 2014.
Five days into the next legislative session, representatives from both parties reintroduced the bill. In the following months a record number of U.S. acres burned, and another firefighting disaster occurred at the Twisp River Fire in Washington State, where the second exploding wildfire in two years trapped four wildland firefighters in their truck, killing three of them. Congress again failed to vote on the bill.3
WITH THE WEST CERTAIN to have much more fire, we’ll increasingly be faced with choices about what kind of relationship we have with it, rather than whether we allow it to burn at all.
Two years after the Colorado State Forest Service’s prescribed burn turned into the deadly Lower North Fork Fire in Jefferson County, Colorado, I stood with Jay Stalnacker, the fire management officer with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, at Heil Valley Ranch, about five miles north of Boulder. Five thousand acres of hanging valleys and ponderosa pine forests make up the ranch—the largest of the county’s open spaces and a haven for wildlife—but grazing and fire suppression had left many of its forests overgrown.
I’d visited the ranch with University of Colorado professor Tom Veblen, who’d pointed to it as an example of the portion of Front Range forests that exhibit an increase in wildfires due to previous fire suppression and grazing causing the forest to grow unnaturally dense. A week later I’d run into Rod Moraga, the fire behavior analyst who’d lost his home in the Fourmile Canyon Fire, as he mountain biked through the ranch to take photos that would help in planning a prescribed burn there to bring the forest closer to its historic density of trees and ground cover.
In October 2014 I joined Moraga, Stalnacker, and about 50 other firefighters on the first morning of the burn. After the Lower North Fork disaster in March 2012, Governor John Hickenlooper had banned all prescribed burns for nearly a year, and when they were allowed to resume, new laws dictated how they were to be managed.
The leaders at Heil Valley Ranch carefully went over their preparations for the fire. Eight acres of blackline and portable water tanks surrounded the area they planned to burn. Local fire departments and a helicopter were on call. A public information officer contacted nearby homeowners and the media. Moraga provided details of the weather forecasts for the day of the burn and the coming week.
The crew hoped to create a fire that would kill about 40 percent of the mature pines, leaving about 60 trees per acre, and reduce the slash on the ground by about one-half.
Stalnacker, a former smokejumper, was the burn boss. As he briefed the crews, it was clear that he saw something more important than just making one forest healthier. He brought up the topic nobody wanted to talk about—the deadly prescribed burn two years earlier.
“One of the biggest things we lost that day was public trust,” he said. “You have a chance today to regain that public trust. I ask that you connect with this piece of land.”
Then he asked them to recognize their place in history.
“We were there when we put fire back in the Front Range.”
A few hours later the firing crew dripped flames from their torches onto the forest floor. The flames spread lazily along the ground, rarely rising more than a foot into the air. On occasion a tree inside the burn zone torched dramatically. Firefighters surrounded the area and walked carefully through it, occasionally stepping over the flames.
Months later I biked through and saw that most of the charred ground already had new grass. Some torched pines had fallen, but most were still standing. Many of those would die to make room for survivors that would bear “cat face” fire scars from the burn when they grew into massive trees over the coming decades. Most of the cyclists and hikers on the trail around me didn’t notice the burn at all. But during the following weeks and years I often saw smoke rise from the open space on days when the weather conditions were conducive to holding prescribed burns.
JEN STRUCKMEYER, THE VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER who was burned over on the Colorado plains during the winter of 2012, learned to walk again a few months before the Granite Mountain Hotshots perished. She’d spent nearly three months in the hospital and at a rehab center. By then the pain from the amputations to her burnt foot and the scars on her leg and arms had eased a bit. On the wall of her house was a framed purple heart honoring her service at the Heartstrong Fire. On her truck, a sticker read “Fight Like a Girl.”
She, however, would never fight fire again.
Instead, after her recovery, she volunteered as an emergency medical technician, first in the town of Holyoke, near the Struckmeyer ranch, then with the City of Yuma Ambulance Service, the same department that rescued her after she was burned over in the Heartstrong Fire. Eventually she would help
deliver several burn victims to the hospital herself. The first time, when the victim’s family prayed over him, Jen remembered how her own family had gathered around her hospital bed to pray. The rush of emotions drove her out of the room, but once outside, she stopped and calmed down.
“You can do this,” she told herself. She stepped back into the room to tell the victim what he could expect, and that he was strong enough to survive his burns.
Jen’s husband, Del—the burliest of the three Struckmeyer brothers on the Wages Volunteer Fire Department—tried to remain loyal to the service his family had built. While his wife was still recovering, a fire call came in, and he responded with his sister-in-law Pam, who had been in the truck when the family was overrun in Heartstrong. But as they approached the glow of the flames, Del felt something he’d never encountered in 20 years of firefighting—panic.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he told Pam.
They turned around, and Del drove back to his house, where he sat silently with his wife.
Acknowledgments
This book started with a simple idea and turned into an epic journey, during which I was dependent on the help of hundreds of people. First and foremost, I’m deeply indebted to the wildland firefighters, their family members, and survivors of wildfires around the world who shared their time and stories with me. In Prescott, Arizona, David and Claire Caldwell, Danny Parker, Wade Ward, Darrell Willis, Conrad Jackson, Brendan McDonough, and Pat McCarty were particularly helpful, as were many of the staff and participants at the Arizona Wildfire and Incident Management Academy.
In Colorado the Struckmeyer family welcomed me into their homes, and Damon, Del, Jen, and Pam Struckmeyer, along with Darin Stuart, generously relived a horrifying experience from which they were still recovering. Sheriff Chad Day and Chief Elmer Smith made sure I understood the challenges faced by the volunteers at the Heartstrong Fire. At the Lower North Fork Fire, Bill McLaughlin, Andy and Jeanie Hoover, Kim Olson, Tom and Sharon Scanlan, Kristen Moeller and Dave Cottrell, and Dave Brutout shared their experiences while still digging out from the tragedy and its aftermath. Steve Riker, Jim Schanel, Dave Vitwar, Steve Wilch, and Steve Schopper from the Colorado Springs Fire Department recounted their efforts during the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest Fires, while Cindy Maluschka, Michael and Peri Duncan, and Laura Hunt helped me understand the impacts of those wildfires on suburban residents.
Rod Moraga was particularly helpful not only in my understanding of the Fourmile Canyon Fire that took his home, but also in all aspects of Colorado’s and the nation’s response to fire disasters, and in the challenges of mitigating developments in dangerously flammable forests. That we could do some of that while on bikes and skis helped make my research more tolerable.
The chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tom Tidwell, and the service’s now retired directors of fire and aviation management Jerry Williams and Tom Harbour, along with Randy Eardley, Jennifer Jones, Susie Stingley-Russell, Tim Murphy, Scott Fisher, John Segar, Ed Delgado, and Jeremy Sullens at the National Interagency Fire Center, guided me through the nation’s complex systems for predicting, preparing for, and responding to wildfires throughout the nation. My own fire crew in Connecticut years ago tolerated my photography and note taking and made sure those never got in the way of my safety or that of my colleagues, a skill that continues to serve me today.
I’ve spoken to scores of researchers focused on the earth’s fire cycles and history. Most helpful among them were Tom Veblen and the crew in the terrific Biogeography Lab he leads at the University of Colorado. Stephen J. Pyne, Craig Allen, Jack Cohen, Mark Finney, Tom Swetnam, Tania Schoennagel, Jennifer Balch, Max Moritz, Ray Rasker, Russ Braddock, David Bowman, LeRoy Westerling, Richard Wrangham, Chad Hanson, George Wuerthner, Park Williams, Mike Battaglia, Dave Theobald, Dave Lucas, Steve Segin, Chad Oliver, Sergiy Zibtsev, Gavriil Xanthopoulos, and the staff at the Tall Timbers Research Station helped me understand the many facets of wildfire science, economics, and management. Nolan Doesken, Katharine Hayhoe, and Jim White explained the complex relationship between climate and fire. Jeremy Bailey, of the Nature Conservancy, and Jay Stalnacker, with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, welcomed me to the prescribed burns they held in Nebraska and Colorado and guided me through the challenges of reintroducing fire to our forests. Bob Mutch, Steve Arno, and George Weldon provided excellent insights into the U.S. Forest Service and wilderness fires, as well encouragement for my work.
Tim Rasmussen, Helen Richardson, Mahala Gaylord, AAron Ontiveroz, R. J. Sangosti, and Bruce Finley at the Denver Post helped me develop this project, along with several smaller ones, and Laura Frank and Burt Hubbard at Rocky Mountain PBS supported and collaborated on my wildfire work from the beginning. John Maclean, a reporter and author I’ve long admired, provided guidance early on in this project. Holly Neill read and refined critical portions of the manuscript.
I owe a special debt to Tom Yulsman, Len Ackland, and Cindy Scripps for selecting me, in 2009, as a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado’s Center for Environmental Journalism, the nursery where the seed of this project was first planted. A few years later, when the CEJ turned into my academic and professional home as a faculty member in the University of Colorado’s new College of Media, Communication and Information, I found myself with a newsroom of journalism fellows and students, many of whom deserve deep gratitude. First, I’m thankful to Chris Braider, who hired me. Tom Yulsman continued to mentor me as closely as a colleague on the faculty as he had as a codirector of my fellowship.
Several of my graduate students were critical in the completion of this project. Gloria Dickie, in particular, provided crucial reporting on wildfire and invasive species, particularly cheatgrass, and collaborated with me on research and reporting in Colorado, Arizona, and Montana. She assisted with some of the most emotionally demanding reporting in Prescott, took the lead in reporting on the Last Chance Fire, and provided a valuable read of the book during one of its many transformations. Christi Turner reported on the Fern Lake Fire and also provided reporting on wildfire and climate, and on black carbon’s impacts on snow and glacial ice. Caitlin Rockett helped report on the Arizona Wildfire Academy and the history of Eric Marsh and the Granite Mountain Hotshots in the development of that training facility. Paul McDivitt helped report on the nation’s wildfire budget challenges and did much of the reporting on Chernobyl’s risk of nuclear wildfires. Kelsey Ray dug deep into the creation of Colorado’s fleet of firefighting aircraft and fire aviation center. She also assisted with the reporting on the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs and gave a valuable read of the early manuscript. Avery McGaha reported on “vapor-pressure deficit” and how that is stressing southwestern forests. Every student who has taken my Reporting on the Environment class deserves my gratitude for tolerating my obsession and assignments related to wildfire. Kevin Moloney, who taught the Transmedia Wildfire class alongside me, deserves special thanks for his insights, experience, unflappable demeanor, and terrific teaching abilities.
Hillary Rosner provided great support and an early read of my manuscript. Frank Allen and the staff at the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources provided me access to the forest charred by the Las Conchas Fire and important sources who continue to guide me. Many friends in the Society of Environmental Journalists have provided guidance and support for my interest in wildfires and other environmental hazards over the years, and I continue to be amazed by what a small, scrappy, underfunded organization can accomplish with the right combination of passion, smarts, and commitment. My agent, Wendy Strothman, was a valuable guide throughout the unexpected twists, turns, and time sucks involved in creating this book, and my editor, Susan Canavan, showed patience and good humor as the subject grew into something far larger than any of us ever anticipated. Copyeditor Barbara Jatkola’s diligence and precision saved my manuscript more times than I care to mention.
My brother Jeff Polson and his partner, Nara Wood
, generously recounted their experiences in the Valley Fire, cheerfully recounting their losses and grief. My other brothers, Todd Kodas and Doug Polson, put up with my fascination with wildfire and the long, tedious process of turning that into a book.
My wife, Carolyn Moreau, tolerated many “vacations” to fire disasters around the world and managed a variety of steering wheels for hours on end while I tapped on my laptop in the passenger seat.
Finally, I’d like to thank my mother, Anita, who didn’t see this project come to its fruition but planted the seed that grew into it.
Notes
PROLOGUE
1. CAL FIRE Incident Management Team 3, Valley Incident Damage Inspection Team, “Valley Incident Damage Inspection Report” (September 12, 2015), http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/pub/cdf/images/incidentfile1226_1957.pdf.
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2. U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Announces 2015 Wildfires Burned Record Acres, Urges Congress to Pass Wildfire Funding Fix,” news release, January 6, 2016.
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3. Jerry Williams et al., “Findings and Implications from a Course-Scale Global Assessment of Recent Selected Mega-Fires” (paper presented at the Fifth International Wildland Fire Conference, Sun City, South Africa, May 9–11, 2011).
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1. YARNELL HILL
1. Jim Karels et al., “Yarnell Hill Fire, June 30, 2013: Serious Accident Investigation Report” (State of Arizona, September 23, 2013), http://www.iawfonline.org/Yarnell_Hill_Fire_report.pdf.
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2. Ibid.
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3. Ibid.
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4. Ibid.
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