Wildfires represent an immediate strain on resources and are a public safety hazard. Hence policy should be development that optimizes the use of resources while minizming the hazard to the public. Well, this is obviously easier said than done as we will see. Also, there is a wealth of data available that can be used to better define policy, which has basically been unchanged since the 1930s.

To begin with, there has been no code re-design to prevent the build up residiental/vacation homes that are both remotely located and surrounded by heavily forested areas.



The Five State area of CA,OR,WA,ID and NE are the places where the civilian population is most at risk. That risk has hugely grown.

• in 1940 there were approximately 600,000 homes located in at risk areas.
• By 2010 that number had grown to about 7 million
• Because of climate change and different spring time runoff patterns the frequence of fires of size larger than 1000 acres has grown by a factor of 6 relative to the 1960-1985 average. This is a gigantic growth rate.

While some elected officials have advocated for changes to fire management techniques such as "thinning" out forests to get rid of dead, fire-prone trees, the same officials are unable to come up with sensible approaches to this.

The US Forest Service has said, however, that fuel reduction activities aren't sufficient to keep pace with the changes under way due to climate change. This is a statement that definitely needs to be investigated with real data and its unclear if the data support this view

The scientist view of the issue:

"There is no magic bullet to fix this issue," said Strader. "There needs to be locally-driven fire programs, new building codes and more resilient homes. We sit idly by time and time again and we get disaster amnesia. We have to take some responsibility and think more about the risk of buying a home in a wildfire prone area, just like we need to think about the flooding risk on the coasts."



Lag Time Issues ?















It is likely not as simple as this







More than 1000 acres per Wildfire



















https://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/nfn.htm





This is for the entire United States





MunichRe - The source of data Wisdom ( 2019 Catastrope Report and The Data Source )











The Worst Fires in Oregon History



Long Draw Fire, 2012, Basque Oregon

• Acres Burned: 560 thousand
• Cause: Lightning

Biscuit Fire, 2002, Siskiyou National Forest

• Acres Burned: 500 thousand
• Cause: Lightning

Buzzard Complex, 2014, southeast of Burns

• Acres Burned: 395 thousand
• Cause: Lightning

Bandon Fire, 1936 city of Bandon destroyed

• Acres Burned: 290 thousand
• Cause: Logging

Holloway Fire, 2012, Oregon/Nevada Border (grasslands)

• Acres Burned: 245 in OR; 215 in Nevada
• Cause: Lightning

Tillamook Burn (famous) 1933, Tillamook, Washington and Yamhill counties

• Acres Burned: 240 thousand
• Cause: Logging
• A second situation occured in 1939 at 217 thousand acres

Chetco Bar Fire 2017 Kalmiopsis Wilderness area in the Siskyous

• Acres Burned: 190 thousand
• Cause: Lightning