Her words echo the devastation felt by homeowners across the American West. A disastrous mix of drought, high winds, population growth, dead wood and federal budget cuts has sent wildfires raging out of control this summer, destroying more than 4.4 million acres, roughly the combined areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island, in 12 states. Seven firefighters and two civilians have died; scores of homes have been lost, and thousands of residents have been evacuated.
The current fire season has been one of the most destructive in the last half century–and it’s not over yet. Of the 65 major fires burning as of last weekend, roughly a dozen are unlikely to be extinguished before October or November. In the most difficult terrain a couple of blazes will have to wait for winter snows to put them out. Firefighters can only pray they don’t get a replay of 1910, a hot, windy, fire-plagued year a lot like this one. In late August of that year a sudden windstorm burned more than 3 million acres of the Idaho Panhandle and western Montana in just two days. Local historian Dave Strohmaier says the Big Blowup destroyed half a dozen towns, killing 78 firefighters and seven civilians. Many ended up in graves marked unidentified man.
This year has all the makings of a tragedy. Frontline crews complain they are dangerously understaffed and ill equipped. Veteran smoke eaters are retiring and not being replaced. For the last five years the federal Bureau of Land Management has been pleading for more funds. With fewer than 9,000 employees, the bureau is expected to look after roughly one eighth of the total U.S. land area. Early this year Lester Rosenkrance, who has since retired as director of the BLM’s top fire-control office, sent a memo to the bureau’s chief, Tom Fry, warning that budgetary skimping was endangering both firefighters and civilians. Interior Department officials say no one disputed his concern. “Was he right? Yes,” says John Berry, Interior’s assistant secretary for policy and budget. “Everyone recognized it at the time.” Interior drummed up an additional $200 million in emergency funds.
Even with help from as far away as Australia, the frontline crews are nearly overwhelmed. Trying to save houses often keeps them too busy to do the job they are trained for: bringing wildfires under control. Still, much of this land was never meant for permanent human habitation. In the Bitterroot Mountains, the low country tends to be dominated by fire-resistant trees like ponderosa pine and Western larch. Frequent low-intensity fires used to keep the forest floor clear of tinder; many fires this year have been on land long overdue for such a cleansing. The cool, moist upland ecosystems are often dominated by fire-dependent species like lodgepole pine, whose seeds are released only by intense heat. Fires are rarer here but far more devastating. Every century or so, enough fuel builds up for a “stand-replacement fire,” clearing the ground for a new generation of lodgepoles.
People here try to accept the fire threat. “Part of living in the woods is living with the risk of losing everything you worked for,” says John Long Bow, up the valley from the Davises. The wind turned away before the flames reached Long Bow’s house. “There’s nothing wrong with people living in the deep woods as long as they are prepared for it,” he says. Prepared or not, the Davises will have to start over–and it hurts.
