{"id":5875,"date":"2013-07-07T16:48:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=5875"},"modified":"2013-07-07T16:48:29","modified_gmt":"2013-07-07T20:48:29","slug":"wildfires-and-the-cost-of-sprawl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/07\/07\/wildfires-and-the-cost-of-sprawl\/","title":{"rendered":"Wildfires and the cost of sprawl"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"10\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:600px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"8268618372\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t have anything to add to an excellent op-ed today by Crystal A. Kolden &#8212; former firefighter, fire ecologist, and geography professor &#8212; in the Washington Post: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/arizona-fire-deaths-show-no-one-should-die-for-a-house\/2013\/07\/05\/1c14eaf2-e343-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html?hpid=z4\" target=\"_blank\">Arizona fire deaths prove no one should die for a house<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>From that piece, with emphasis added:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>But since 1970, there has been an expansion of more than 50 percent in the rural and low-density housing communities that border state and federally owned wildlands. These communities are more concentrated in the western United States, where steep terrain and long, dry summers compound the problem. For example, <strong>more than a million new homes were built in high fire danger areas in California, Oregon and Washington since 1990.<\/strong> But homes are built amid dense, flammable vegetation everywhere from Florida to Michigan to Texas to New Jersey.<\/p>\n<p>In parts of the country prone to earthquakes and flooding, owners and developers must purchase expensive hazard insurance \u00e2\u20ac\u201d homeowners in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, for instance, have seen a 25 percent increase in rates. New construction often must meet specialized codes designed to mitigate potential catastrophe, such as requirements that homes in coastal areas be built on stilts.<\/p>\n<p>Yet, for those who face wildfire, mitigation measures such as building with burn-resistant materials and clearing nearby vegetation are usually optional, making it nearly impossible for firefighters to safely defend communities. Meanwhile, since the federal government picks up most of the tab for firefighting, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much incentive for state and local agencies to regulate development.<\/p>\n<p>This needs to change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kolden&#8217;s entire piece is well worth a read.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4374909701\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don&#8217;t have anything to add to an excellent op-ed today by Crystal A. Kolden &#8212; former firefighter, fire ecologist, and geography professor &#8212; in the Washington Post: Arizona fire deaths prove no one should die for a house. From&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2013\/07\/07\/wildfires-and-the-cost-of-sprawl\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[279,1228],"class_list":["post-5875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-urban-form","tag-sprawl","tag-wildfires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-1wL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}