Role for citizens ... and for policy

　　After nearly 30 years in the state fire service, Janet Upton understands the value of that connection.

　　During her early days with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), veterans would tell war stories of huge fires that happened once in a career, she recalls.

　　“But in my generation, those of us who’ve come up through the '80s, '90s, 2000s … we feel like we don’t have the license to use the word ‘unprecedented’ any more. We’ve seen it all in the last few years,” she says. “I’ve probably had 15 once-in-a-career fires.”

　　And people caused most of them, Ms. Upton says. About 90 percent of all fires in California can be traced to human activity, whether it’s a stove left on or a campfire left burning. Which is why public education has been Upton’s main goal since 2008, when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her Cal Fire’s deputy communications director.

　　The department has since made strides, playing a major role in launching state and nationalcampaigns that underscore the public’s role in fire safety. But people’s tendency to put danger out of their minds until it’s too late continues to pose serious challenges, Upton says.

　　“This is going to sound cold. But if someone chooses to live in a rural area and continues to not be responsive to [fire-safety] education, sadly, the worst punishment they’re going to get is they’re going to lose their home in a fire,” she says.

　　A paradigm shift, some researchers hope, can address that gap between education and action. Environmental policy specialist Ray Rasker, for instance, envisions whole communities designed around the concept of fire safety, and a slate of fire-prevention policies at the local, state, and national level.

　　“What we’re telling the public now is, ‘Reduce the risk of fires – if you so choose.’ Imagine if we tried driving our cars like that,” says Dr. Rasker, who is also executive director of Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research firm based in Bozeman, Mont. “Why not use regulations, building codes, and subdivision design standards, development codes and ordinances that say, ‘Look if you’re going to build there, there are certain conditions you have to meet first’?”

　　Some places are already taking steps. San Diego’s municipal code, for instance, requires property owners to maintain landscape and vegetation standards – or face a penalty equivalent to the cost of hiring a private contractor to do so. Austin, Texas, has set aside close to 30 percent of city land as conservation areas, curbing the number of new structures that can be built within the fire-prone “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the space between unoccupied natural land and human developments. Flagstaff, Ariz., Boulder, Colo., and Santa Fe, N.M., have all enacted similar policies.

　　But the need for action continues to grow. As bad as wildfires have been in recent years, research shows they’re likely to get worse as the US population increases and people build more homes in the WUI, more than 80 percent of which remain undeveloped.

　　“We keep building more and more homes in harm’s way,” Rasker notes. “Unless we get a handle on development, we’re really not addressing the problem.”

　　Mind-set matters, too – for everyone, says Upton at Cal Fire.

　　“It’s a mitigation issue. You can take the lens we’re looking at [in California] and take it to Tornado Alley or the Eastern Seaboard,” she says. In the end, “it’s about informing yourself as a member of the public or a policymaker. How can you do something comprehensive?”

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