Scott Stephens, associate professor of fire sciences, UC Berkeley; co-director, Center for Fire Research and Outreach
Scott Stephens, who directs the Fire Science Laboratory at UC Berkeley, is in Australia studying that country's fire management policies.
"The Australians are way ahead of us in managing fire in the urban interface," he says.
They've reduced their losses from wildfires by 80 percent, he says, through a different approach to battling fires in the regions where development is butting up against wilderness areas, a condition that is growing outside every major urban area in California.
In Australia, rural fire brigades are trained to stay and defend their homes rather than wait for local fire departments to rescue them or evacuate the area. Communities have fire trailers equipped with hoses and firefighting equipment they are trained to use. When fire erupts they either leave immediately, he says, or stay prepared to fight.
"They engage people much more in the firefighting process," he says. "If you're going to fight your own fires, you're going to make sure your house is pretty fire safe."
That has been the building trend in Australia's urban interface, Stephens is finding. California's urban interface continues to spread out into more wilderness areas. Stephens believes if tougher building codes were imposed and enforced by a state agency such as CalFire, those new developments would be more fire-resistant and eventually form a protective buffer around the older urban interface communities.
"Unless we really start to engage the urban interface dwellers, we're going to keep building in the same way," he says. "Why would it change? We're going in the wrong direction, and we're very vulnerable."
Fighting fire with fire may be the solution
Richard Minnich, professor of geography, UC Riverside earth sciences department
Donald Turcotte, distinguished professor of geology, UC Davis
Climate change fanning the flames
Anthony Westerling, assistant professor of environmental engineering, and geography, UC Merced; principal investigator, California Applications Program and Climate Change Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography