Burning Through Exurbia

LightRock Returns To Exurbia:

As the most recent fires in Southern California faded from the national news and the major media outlets headed off for the next big story, an interesting and, I think, very telling op-ed piece appeared in last Sunday’s Washington Post. Entitled “Blazes on the New Frontier” and written by Dr. Steve Pyne, this piece put the most recent fires, and fire in what he calls the “new frontier” of America in a thoughtful and historical context. Dr. Pyne should know. He is a professor in the School of Life Sciences at the Arizona State University. He has a strong interest in how people and nature interact and is considered one of the world’s most renowned experts on fire. From reading and learning about Dr. Pyne, I feel safe in saying that fire as a force of nature and fire’s interaction with people and communities have been a principal focus of his life’s work.

Pyne, however, is not just another ivory tower academician. He understands fire from the perspective of a firefighter. For 15+ years, during summers, he worked as a firefighter on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, as well as in the Rocky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone. Pyne’s active firefighting experience ended in 1985, which gives him a unique perspective on the fires of the late ‘60’s, ‘70’s and early ‘80’s as compared to the fires we see today.

Before outlining some of the highlights of Dr. Pyne’s column for the Post, I’d like to refer you to an item that appeared on firegeezer.com some weeks ago. In that piece, we reported on the migration of large numbers of people to areas beyond the core cities and more traditional suburbs. We noted that as a part of this blurring between rural areas and the suburbs, a new form of community had emerged: The exburb. We also discussed structural firefighting and associated implications in the exburbs. You can take a look at that piece HERE.

Some highlights of Dr. Pyne’s column include:

1. The world of the wildland firefighter that Dr. Pyne experienced was a mix of firefighter and woodsman – a person who spent his time in the backcountry away from roads, homes, lodges, etc. and who knew the relationship between fire and the forest much like “a naturalist might know it through its flowers or mammals.”
2. Over the last 15 or so years, the world of the wildland firefighter has changed dramatically. Today’s wildland firefighters often deal in the wildland-urban interface or, to use some even newer terms, the I-zone or intermix. Call it what you will, Dr. Pyne notes that these terms “all describe the mingling of exburban developments with lands that are…wild, a kind of ecological omelet.”
3. While many of us might think the I-zone is about the west, it is not. Throughout the U.S., exburban developments are “interbreeding” with undeveloped areas as Americans seek to “recolonize its once-rural countryside.” This is the “New Frontier” that Dr. Pyne refers to in the tile of his piece.
4. Up until more recent times, firefighting in wildland-urban interface areas has been considered a part or subset of wildland firefighting. Dr. Pyne, however, argues that as development of the exburbs continues that it “makes more sense to consider it a subspecies of urban fire” since the world of firefighting in interface areas is becoming so closely tied to protecting the lives and property (i.e., structures) of exburban inhabitants.
5. The column also touches on issues as varied as how the Australians have reacted to the devastating Ash Wednesday fire of 1983 and the use of mandatory evacuations in the United States noting that, “we can defend our houses with an M16 and a bazooka if we choose, but not with a garden hose and a rake.”

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The entire thought provoking piece can be read HERE. I’d encourage you read it…and then re-read it. I think you will find that our firefighting brethren in the exburbs not only face the unique structural firefighting challenges that we have previously written about , but will likely face some additional and compelling challenges in the future.