Oregon Public Broadcasting

A scientific review published Tuesday says only a small fraction of the federal efforts to reduce fire danger in the West is happening near the homes that face the greatest risk.  Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

A group of fire ecologists from universities in Colorado and Montana analyzed a federal database of more than 44,000 wildfire mitigation projects. 

The forest thinning, brush clearing, and controlled burns took place between 2004 and 2008 across 11 Western states. 

Lead study author Tania Schoennagel of UC-Boulder says only 11 percent of the fire mitigation efforts were near rural neighborhoods.

Schoennagel says the buffer zones that would be most beneficial to treat are usually privately owned.

Tania Schoennagel: “So that really makes implementation of federal fire mitigation treatments a real challenge. They sort of have to cross that federal-private boundary.  There are some mechanisms in place to do that, but clearly that needs to be improved.”

Forest Service officials are reserving comment until they finish their own review of the study.

The piece appears in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Online:

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences