Social and Economic Issues of the Hayman Fire

Social and Economic Issues of the Hayman Fire Brian Kent, Krista Gebert, Sarah McCaffrey, Wade Martin, David Calkin, Ervin Schuster, Ingrid Martin, Holly Wise Bender, Greg Alward, Yoshitaka Kumagai, Patricia J. Cohn, Matt Carroll, Dan Williams, Carol Ekarius Introduction ____________________ frequency and magnitude of wildfires has increased, especially in lower elevation Ponderosa pine and mixed On June 26, 2002, U.S. Representative Mark Udall conifer forests because of significant fuel buildups and wrote the US Forest Service Chief, requesting that the extreme drought, more wildfires are causing signifi- Forest Service conduct an analysis of the Hayman cant damage and disruption to both social and eco- Fire. In response to the Congressman’s letter, five nomic systems. This trend ensures that the interplay teams were established in August, 2002 to analyze between wildland fire management and human di- various aspects of the Hayman Fire experience. This mensions issues takes on far greater importance than report describes the Hayman Fire analysis work con- it did historically. As pointed out in (Machlis and ducted by the social/economic team and presents our others 2002): findings. The human dimension of Federal wildland fire man- When a fire the size and intensity of the Hayman agement – the relationship of people and wildland fire in Fire occurs largely in an urban/wildland area as highly America – is an important and driving force in how Federal agencies respond to wildland fire, now and in the developed as the Colorado Front Range, the social and future. In many ways, it is the critical element, for the economic effects or consequences will be extensive, management of wildland fire is very much the manage- complex, and long lasting. Any attempt to comprehen- ment of people, communities, and organizations. From the fire prevention behaviors of local residents, to the sively catalog these impacts will be difficult, in part safety of fire crews, to the economic impacts and ecologi- because it has never been attempted, especially for a cal benefits of wildland fire, fire management has social, fire as large and complex as the Hayman. Typically, economic, and cultural consequences. Hence there is a need for accurate and comprehensive understanding of social and economic or human dimensions consequences the human dimensions of wildland fire. of wildfires have not received the attention that ecological issues have (Ffolliett, 1988; McIver and Starr, The Hayman Fire certainly is a first-class example 2000), especially on the part of the Federal agencies of large, severe fire that had and will continue to have directly involved with firefighting, such as the USDA significant impacts on social and economic systems. It Forest Service and the USDI Bureau of Land Manage- directly impacted four Counties: Park, Jefferson, Dou- ment. As an example, Butry and others (2001) note glas, and Teller. Some of the immediate impacts that that they are unaware of the existence of any “organi- are relatively easy to tally up include the destruction zation in the United States that systematically and of 132 residences, one commercial building, and 466 empirically quantifies economic impacts of wildfires.” outbuildings; estimated suppression costs of The situation is perhaps even worse for the assess- $39,100,000; and numerous resources threatened in- ment of wildfire-related social impacts, with research cluding communities, subdivisions, isolated homes, having been limited to such key areas as public health gas transmission lines, electrical facilities and lines, and safety impacts, and social and community impacts timber, the major watershed for Denver County and (Machlis and others 2002). In fact, an understanding of recreation areas (from the Hayman Fire Web site: the nature of these impacts is only now beginning to http://wildfires.nwcg.gov/colorado/hayman/ appear in the relevant literature. index.shtml.) Other impacts will be much more diffi- Historically, wildfires, especially in the Western cult to estimate or, in many cases, to predict with great United States, typically burned in areas of low or confidence, for they will make themselves felt over the nonexistent human habitation, with the result of mini- next several years. Examples include; reduced prop- mal impacts on social or economic systems. For fires erty values and property tax revenues (The Jefferson such as these, the importance of human dimensions County assessor’s office is reducing values by 50 per- issues was and is relatively low. As human populations cent for burned acreages and up to 100 percent for in the West have grown; as the popularity of living in burned structures Rocky Mountain News, September the wildland-urban interface has increased; and as the 18, 2002); lost sales tax and business revenues from causes such as reduced tourism; damage to the health USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-114. 2003 315 of individuals and resultant costs, such as doctor and about a social/economic analysis of the effects of a medical expenses; lost productivity – by evacuees, large-scale wildfire. We then describe four question suppression volunteers and others; increased water areas that are considered in developing this analysis. treatment costs, both in terms of water quality and We look briefly at the geographic scope of a social/ quantity issues; and nonmarket costs – including, economic analysis of the Hayman Fire. Next, we report aesthetics, habitat damage, reduced or lost recreation on our findings for social and economic effects of the use, and reduced access. As a simple example of one of Hayman Fire. Then we turn our attention to a deter- these questions, what will be the resultant damage to mination of what those individuals who live with the the blue ribbon trout fishery on the South Platte River Hayman Fire and its aftermath every day have seen and what will be the cost of this damage? Clearly, fully and learned. Next, we present some preliminary con- characterizing all of the monetary and nonmonetary siderations pertaining to designs of social and eco- impacts from the Hayman Fire especially in advance nomic monitoring systems for communities impacted of when they occur will be difficult. by wildfire. We close with some conclusions and a It is generally acknowledged that wildland ecosys- review of key findings. tems are complex and that there is much about the ways in which they function that humans do not understand. Perhaps less frequently recognized is the A Study Framework for Examining fact that human social and economic systems are also the Social/Economic Effects of the complex and in most cases, not fully understood. In Hayman Fire____________________ terms of impacts from wildland fire, it may be easier to characterize ecological consequences than to charac- Our first step in trying to answer the above ques- terize social/economic ones. In both cases some im- tions involved the definition of a study framework that pacts such as those arising from the actual destruction facilitates identification of both Hayman Fire social/ by fire are relatively easy to determine. However, for economic impacts and the individuals and organiza- social/economic systems, many other impacts are less tions that were impacted. As an example of such a obvious. In addition, simply identifying all of the framework relating to social issues, Carroll and others components of social/economic systems that are im- (2000) conducted a social assessment for three Oregon pacted can be quite difficult. For example, in the case communities that were impacted by wildfires on the of the Hayman Fire, local and County governments in Wenatchee National Forest in 1994. The primary the four Counties directly affected were clearly im- purpose of their assessment was to determine the pacted, as were residents in these areas. Beyond this, public’s interest in fire recovery management on the who else was affected and how? Wenatchee in response to the 1994 fires. The frame- As a closeout to this introduction, our team would work they developed comprises five categories of people like to point out that compared to other natural and or organizations: (1) political coalitions such as those human-caused environmental disasters such as hur- representing environmentalism and multiple use in- ricanes and floods, there is little social information terests, (2) stakeholder groups such as civic leaders and completed research results regarding wildland and residents directly effected by the fire, (3) residency fire. In addition, social scientific data on the specific tenure distinctions, or long timers and newcomers, (4) area impacted by the Hayman Fire is especially sparse. geographic divisions, or in town and up the valley, and So when asked what we already know, what we are (5) ethnic communities, or Latinos and non-Latinos. already doing, or what needs to be done it is hard to be This framework of categories and descriptors was specific. Organizations need to invest more in this used to organize the data collected during interviews area of research. For example, two of our team mem- and also to help in understanding the data. bers have been working on a framework for monitor- Butry and others (2001) modeled and analyzed the ing the social/community impacts and recovery efforts economic impacts of 6 weeks of large catastrophic associated with fires that took place in Forest Service wildfires that took place in northeastern Florida in Regions 1 and 4, but thus far have had little opportu- 1998. Their framework consisted of seven categories of nity to test and refine this model. There is an urgent costs and losses: (1) presuppression costs, (2) suppres- need and a real opportunity to learn how communities sion costs, (3) disaster relief expenditures, (4) timber handle/react to a large wildfire. While work in other losses, (5) property damage, (6) tourism-related losses, natural hazards can point to a variety of demographic and (7) human health effects.

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