Montana Legislature

Bills Seek Solutions to Firefighting in Urban Interface

By Dan Testa, 1-11-07

At a hearing today before the Senate Local Government Committee, in order to make a point, Montana State Forester Bob Harrington of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation held up a poster.

The poster depicted a number of overhead photos of large, secluded log cabins surrounded by acres of lush, green pines. One home was in Missoula’s Pattee Canyon, another in Grant Creek. The houses would be, in the opinion of many, dream homes.

But those homes, Harrington said, are the problem.

The hearing was the legislature’s first glimpse at the second and third bills in a trio introduced this week that grapple with the growing strain on state and local agencies responsible for fire protection in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI).

Like the hearing earlier this week on fire assessment rates, both opponents and proponents seemed to agree that the growing WUI is a problem, but these bills in their introductory stages will require some work before they are ready to be voted on.

Sen. Bob Hawks, D-Bozeman, introduced his two bills, then acknowledged they would likely morph into one. SB51 would require growth plans to consider wildland fire hazards. SB167 would require counties to designate the WUI, essentially zoning those areas. Those counties that fail to designate the areas would have to reimburse the state for firefighting costs amassed within the the WUI.

Both bills tackle similar ground but SB167, in the words of multiple proponents was the one with “teeth,” due to the obligation it imposes on counties to designate interface areas.

The committee took no action on the bills, opting to form a subcommittee to craft one bill from the two originals taking into account testimony from the initial hearing.

DNRC Director Mary Sexton, who spoke in support of SB167, said 39 percent of her agency’s direct fire protection responsibilities lie in the WUI, but 66 percent of suppressed fires occurred in these areas. Sexton added that WUI fires are often more dangerous for firefighters, and cost almost 50 percent more than wildland fires, due mainly to the added efforts of structure protection.

Sexton estimates that in 20 years, 200 thousand more people will be living in Montana’s rural areas.

“We can’t wait another ten or 20 years, the time is now,” she said. “This is not something we can just say ‘no’ to.”

Fred Hodgeboom, president of the non-profit Montanans for Multiple Use, argued that SB51 and SB167 ignore that most fires fought in the WUI begin on poorly-managed public land.

“How many of those fires that affected the urban interface -- what ownership did they start on?” he asked.

“Nonindustrial private landowners are not the problem, we’re the solution,” Hodgeboom said. “Our private lands are providing the example of how these lands should be managed.”

After the hearing Hawks predicted that the final bill will provide homeowners in the interface the choice between paying a surcharge to the county or bringing their property in line with a kind of WUI building code. Rather than declaring on a state map where the interface exists, Hawks said the bill should create a definition, or code, of what conditions constitute the WUI.

That surcharge wouldn’t be a penalty so much as an “incentive to do the right thing,” Hawks said.

Sen. Rick Laible, R-Darby, is also hopeful that the bill that will return to the committee in a few weeks will be much improved, with a combination of incentives and penalties for homeowners in the interface.

“This is the process, this is the best part,” Laible said of the bills’ impending revisions, however long they may take. “This is not a sprint, this is a marathon.”

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