| Idahoans got a wakeup call on August 25th.
On that Monday evening, the Oregon Trail Fire, aided by 50 mile-per-hour winds, destroyed 10 homes and damaged several others, resulting in one fatality; all within just a few hours and within Boise city limits.
While the results of the fire were tragic, the outcome is not surprising. The homes were built on top of a steep slope abutting rangeland. The homes’ roofs were composed of cedar shake, and many of the homeowners had not provided adequate “defensible space” to protect their homes from wildfire.
This tragic event will serve as a backdrop for the Idaho Wildland Fire Conference, to be held in Boise on Oct. 8-9, 2008.
The statewide conference will include an "after-action review" of the Oregon Trail Fire, complete with a discussion of the lessons learned and the steps that need to be taken to mitigate future loss of lives and homes.
While it is not possible to completely mitigate the effects of an extreme fire event such as the one that played out in late August, the conference will provide participants with some new strategies pertaining to wildland fire mitigation and prevention.
Headlining the conference will be Keith Harrap, Assistant Commissioner of the New South Wales Fire Service in Australia.
Harrap will discuss the Australian firefighting policy of “Stay and Defend.” Instead of evacuating a home during a fire, homeowners in Australia are trained and sometimes encouraged to stay in their homes and protect the property so that it does not succumb to a wildfire.
Also speaking at the conference is Alan Tresemer, fire chief for the Painted Rocks Fire Rescue Company in Darby, Mont.. Painted Rocks is one of the first fire departments in the West to adapt the “Stay and Defend” concept.
The two-day conference is designed to give rural firefighters, local, state, and federal officials, and county emergency services coordinators an overview of Idaho’s efforts to protect homes and communities from wildfires.
The conference will focus on three themes:
In addition to the talks by Harrap and Tresemer, the conference will also include a discussion of land-use planning in the Wildland-Urban Interface; a talk by state and federal land managers about whether federal agencies will continue to be able to afford to pay to fight fires on private property; and information about creating a new fire protection district in a community.
Invited guest speakers include Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson.
Brett Ingles, MPA, is with the Environmental Science and
Public Policy Research Institute
at Boise State University in Idaho. Ingles conducts policy analysis, research and technical assistance on
public lands issues for state and federal agencies. He currently works
with the Idaho State Fire Plan Working Group in their effort to better
prepare community response to wildland fire.
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