Consider This from NPR - Why Wildfire Is Not Just A Western Problem

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

All over the east coast and Midwest, forests are getting hotter and drier. Many are also overgrown and overdue for wildfire. And increasingly, Americans are moving to areas where these forests and their homes tangle close together. The fastest such growth is in the Southeast, where few consider wildfire much of a threat. Molly Samuel with member station WABE reports from Tate City, Georgia.Additional reporting in this episode from Annie Ropeik of New Hampshire Public Radio and from NPR's Nathan Rott, who reported on fire risk in Wisconsin, home to the deadliest fire in American history.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

American forests actually used to burn a lot more often. See the creases? Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire. Jed Mounier, an ecologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, is showing NPR the rings on a slab of wood in his lab. These were stumps that were harvested 150 years ago. Written next to creases in the rings a year. So it burned in 1664, for sure in 1683, 1700, 1715, 1726, 45, 63. In fact, the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history happened in Wisconsin in 1871. It killed more than 1,200 people. The next two deadliest fires in U.S. history were in Minnesota. Forests from Maine to South Carolina have burnt.

And the first wildland firefighting crew in the country was in upstate New York. There's a reason for that, right? There was a lot of fire in the Adirondacks. Crystal Colden is a fire ecologist at the University of California, Merced. It's just sort of forgotten in the modern era. Fire can happen anywhere in this country. And with climate change, it is going to happen more frequently in places like the Northeast, in places like Appalachia, in places like the upper Midwest. Which is why lately when Laura Hayes speaks to people about wildfires, she usually starts with the same question.

How many wildfires do you think there have been in Wisconsin so far in 2021? And it's almost always under 10. Right now, as of the last time I looked, it was 675 so far this year. Hayes is also with the State Department of Natural Resources. Hello, Sarah, how are you? I'm good, how are you? On a recent afternoon, NPR tagged along while she went door-to-door, speaking to homeowners about how to mitigate fire risk.

Consider getting rid of some of the mulch, especially closest to your home. Not going to happen. Not going to happen, one man said. And we understand, this is totally, we're just giving you information. What you choose to do is totally up to you. Consider this. Foresters on the East Coast and in the Midwest are nervous. They know dangerous fires are not just a problem on the West Coast. But increasingly, Americans are moving into areas where they may be unprepared for that reality. Areas where the question is not if a fire will strike, but when. From NPR, I'm Audie Cornish. It's Thursday, July 8th.

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I feel that it's a very safe system. I am constantly in fear of losing my job. It is our biggest success and our biggest failure. On this special series from ThruLine, capitalism. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. So that deadliest fire in American history, the one in Wisconsin, well, it happened 150 years ago in a small town in the northeast part of the state called Peshtigo. Hopefully it doesn't smell too much like smoke or anything in here.

Mike Folgert is the fire chief there. He took NPR on a drive around the area. We have no hydrants out in this area. It's all rural. We have a lot of little subdivisions, homes here and there scattered. Firefighters have a term for this, the wildland-urban interface. The messy middle where people and woods tangle. One-third of the homes in the U.S. are in places like that. And it's those areas that Fulgert watches every spring.

That's when our fire season occurs. From the time of snowmelt until the time of full greenup, which we're just getting into that now, the full greenup. Most of the fires they're able to catch, thanks to heavy equipment, good road access, and early detection. Unless we get into a drought period. And that's what happened in 1871. The year of the Peshtigo Fire. And while there hasn't been another fire of that scale in recent history, there's concern that the warming climate will make major fires more likely in many places. It's just all dry leaves. Like this stuff, we'll catch in a minute, you know. Jim Innes is a

district forest ranger in Conway, New Hampshire, crouched down next to a strip of dirt that looks like a trail. That loom loops all the way around the edge. The trail is actually a fire break. The Forest Service keeps it clear with leaf blowers and chainsaws. It's designed to prevent fire from spreading to condos and homes just a few hundred feet away. Now lately, with the forest so dry, even in normally wet New England, Innes has been extra vigilant. I just want to get ahead of it, you know, so I don't have to be in that position to explain to these people like, you know, oh, sorry, you lost your house.

You know, it's one of those things that it could happen. And, you know, I don't want that, obviously. No one does. On the East Coast and all over the Midwest, forests are hotter and drier thanks to human-caused climate change. Climate change means less snow in the winter, less snow melt in the spring. Plus, while scientists say climate change means more rain, it's falling in heavier bouts with longer dry stretches and more intense droughts in between. All of that is happening at a time when many ecosystems are overdue for fire. Forests used to burn more often from lightning strikes or from fires set by indigenous people to manage the forest.

That helped clear out brush. But in the late 1800s, after huge fires caused by logging and railroad construction, the government cracked down. Since then, there's been very little burning in many forests outside the American West. Now, as Molly Samuel of member station WABE reports, more and more people are moving to areas that can and will burn, often without realizing the danger. Miriam and Phil Harrison moved to higher ground in Tate City, Georgia after their home in South Carolina flooded. They thought it would just be temporary. And then when it came time to go home, we didn't want to go. Phil says the beauty of the place made them want to stay.

And the remoteness. The tiny community is deep in the woods of the North Georgia mountains. Homes are hidden up steep curving drives on wooded slopes. It's the closest thing I'll get to heaven on earth. It really is. It's wonderful. But in the fall of 2016, wildfire came to their piece of heaven while they were still building their house. It was a terrible fire season across the southeast, including a fire that killed more than a dozen people in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. In Georgia, Phil and Miriam were driving on the road out of Tate City to do errands in town. And we noticed on the left-hand side a small fire along the road. Then we noticed two more separated down the road. Then they saw a

fourth fire and a woman trying to put it out. Growing every minute by the time we came back home. They didn't have to evacuate, but over a few days the fire spread towards them and around Tate City. Miriam says it was frightening. I remember thinking, I just want to get this house finished and live in it and enjoy it and certainly not have it burn down. The Harrisons say they had no idea that wildfire was something they needed to worry about, especially moving to the lush, green, and humid Blue Ridge Mountains. But it turns out, like tens of millions of Americans, they live in what's called the wildland-urban interface,

where wildfire is a big and growing problem. Right now, the wildland-urban interface is the fastestfire is a big and growing problem. Right now, the wildland-urban interface is the fastest growing land use type in the country. Kimiko Barrett is the lead wildfire researcher at the Montana think tank Headwaters Economics. She says the wildland-urban interface has been growing since the 1970s, and the pace has picked up as housing costs have skyrocketed, and many have looked farther out to find something they could afford. So now one in every three homes is situated in wildland-prone lands and more than half of the population in the West now lives in these wildfire-prone landscapes. But the Southeast is the region where the most new home construction is happening in the wildland-urban interface.

It also has more wildfires every year than the West, though they're typically smaller. And that number is expected to go up as climate change leads to higher temperatures and more intense drought. Barrett thinks we need more regulations around development to help protect people. Such as development codes or wildland urban interface codes, building codes, things along those lines. Four states have rules around development and fire, and Barrett says a growing number of cities are adopting them. But there's not much appetite for more regulation in some rural counties of the southeast, which leaves volunteer groups trying to persuade people to protect themselves. On a Saturday spring morning, some have set up at a booth at a North Georgia farmer's market

between a pork rind vendor and a towering, inflatable, smoky bear. They hand out pamphlets and talk to passersby. So this program, the FireWise program, you're probably aware of this. Volunteer firefighter Frank Riley coordinates the FireWise program in Georgia. He says some homeowners associations actually require people to grow shrubs right up to their houses' foundations, which is bad for fire safety. And there are developments where he knows a fire engine can't maneuver. And then they live on these roads that you can't turn the fire truck around on.

He says there are mountain communities on steep hillsides with only a single road in and out, where he worries a wildfire would create gridlock. They have a problem. And he says if he doesn't tell them, they probably won't realize it until there's a fire. So he does his grassroots work, homeowner by homeowner. And what happens is this guy starts doing something in the home next year. The other one says, hey, can I do that too? And it starts spreading like fire.

And that's the whole concept. One of his partners at the booth is Mark Wiles, a fire prevention specialist with the Georgia Forestry Commission. There are so many folks that I have talked to over the years that says, you know, if we have a fire, I'll just call 911. They'll take care of it. What they don't realize is when our resources are exhausted, 911 can't take care of it because there's nobody to send. He says, yes, a local fire department can handle a one-off structure fire, but not necessarily a big wildfire in an area with a lot of homes. We'll never have enough fire trucks for everybody.

I mean, it just won't happen. In many of the communities here in the state, it's all volunteer. This is a message that Judy Potter has really taken to heart. She lives part-time in Tate City in a house she designed and had built. It's beautiful, four stories set in the trees surrounded by birdsong and sunlight. But she's learned in terms of fire danger, it's in a terrible place, hard to get to on top of a ridge, and it's built out of material that burns easily, cedar shake. Potter's home in the woods is basically a flammable chimney. I love it. It's a lovely spot,

but it's not a good spot. Was any of this stuff on your mind? No! I built for sunshine and look. She says maybe if someone had given her a pamphlet when she got her building permit, or if her builders had said something, she would have made different choices. Since the 2016 fire, she's treated her cedar shake siding to make it fire-resistant. She uses rocks instead of mulch around her foundation. She has an evacuation plan, and she built a garage out of concrete and metal. This is my bunker. Potter's made changes in the town, too, like adding signs so that firefighters know how many homes are up each twisting mountain road.

And in the Tate City Community Center, Potter hung up photos of the fire menacing the town. It's a reminder to the people here or the people who come here afterwards, fire came close. We remember. I want people to remember. Her neighbors Miriam and Phil Harrison say they're more prepared now. If it comes, we know what to do. There was another fire in Tate City earlier this year. This time, a helicopter was able to get there quickly and put it out. The Harrisons say they've never considered, even for a second, moving away. Molly Samuel of member station WABE in Georgia. Additional reporting in this episode came from Annie Ropeak with

New Hampshire Public Radio and from NPR's Nate Rott. He reported on wildfire risk in Wisconsin. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.