Colorado fire statistics through the decades ( CO is becoming CA)

[SoCalDem]

http://csfs.colostate.edu/pages/documents/COLORADOWILDFIRES_reprt_table_cb_000.pdf
http://csfs.colostate.edu/pages/wf-historical-facts.html

These charts are interesting when you look at 1990's & beyond.

From the 90's on, rampant building (over-building?) in sensitive foothill & mountain areas has happened in both states.

Everyone wants to live in a pretty area, but a housing boom integrates housing into areas that perhaps should not be built on.

When fires break out, superhuman efforts to save homes becomes the first priority.

The ecosystem takes a huge hit too, because 30-40 years ago, when fires broke out, the woodland critters fled to the foothills for safety, but they can no longer do that because the people are there now.

No one has determined the cause of this fire yet, but regardless of the cause, the fire is in an area that 30-40 years ago would have probably been uninhabited or at the very least, sparsely populated.


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and this from The Denver Post
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_20954884/editorial-tough-questions-colorado-homes-burn

Editorial: Tough questions as Colorado homes burn
As more and more homes are built in fire-prone areas, Colorado must consider the implications.
Posted: 06/27/2012 05:41:48 PM MDT
Updated: 06/28/2012 08:55:01 AM MDT

By The Denver Post


Like many of you, we watched in horror Tuesday night as cameras captured the stunning images of the firestorm swallowing homes in the foothills near Colorado Springs. Amid the gruesome backdrop, there was thankfully no loss of life. But there was significant loss of property. And while it is still too soon to tally the damage, the Waldo Canyon fire has added to what is already the most devastating fire season in Colorado history. Given the increase in building in the so-called wildland-urban interface, or WUI, in recent years and the expected boom in coming decades, it's imperative that we use this moment to ask whether we have done enough to confront the difficulties of building homes in or adjacent to forests that are loaded with fuel.

We do not mean that as criticism of any of the victims of this year's fires. But this fire season serves as a wake-up call to an increasingly troubling issue confronting Colorado. The total of at least 450 homes destroyed by wildfires since 2010 exceeds the 387 homes lost between 1976 and 2006, according to data from the Colorado State Forest Service. A U.S. Forest Service analysis found that 40 percent of homes built in the U.S. between 1990 and 2000 were in the WUI. In Colorado, the figure in that time was 50 percent.

A CSU analysis expects a 300 percent increase in WUI acreage in the next couple decades — from 715,500 acres in 2007 to 2.16 million acres in 2030. At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars have been cut from the federal firefighting budget.

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