High costs of fighting wildland fires probed
LAKE TAHOE, Calif. -- The high cost of fighting forest and other wildland fires is sobering. Earlier this summer, for example, the U.S. Forest Service was bleeding $1.5 million per day fighting the Angora Fire at Lake Tahoe. Altogether last year, the agency spent $1.5 billion on fires.
For years, critics have said that the agency is addicted to fires. Come fire season, everybody from archaeologists to silvaculturists peel off to fires, making overtime wages while engaging in a paramilitary effort aimed at a common enemy.
The Los Angeles Times also notes the expenses: $80,000 an hour for rental of firefighting helicopters at one fire in California, Even seasonal firefighters, making much less than most permanent agency employees, can pull down $23 an hour including overtime. And with such hard work to do, meals are calculated for 6,000 calories a day, which comes to $47 per person.
The nagging question is whether fire policy has really changed all that much. The congressional General Accountability Office says the agency hasn't clearly defined how it intends to cut back costs.
Tom Harbour, the agency's director of fire and aviation management, told the Times that officials have renewed their vow to let fires in some areas long untouched by flame burn for the well-being of the forest. And, adds the Times, Harbour suggested that firefighters would steer clear of heroic measures to save remote, wood-shingled forest hideaways surrounded by cascades of flammable shrubbery.
But critics say more can be done. Among the is Tim Ingalssbee, a former seasonal firefighter who now teaches at the University of Oregon.
"About 45 percent of the Forest Service's budget is related to fire, and that's a big source of the problem," he said. "The agency sees its money trained hitched to fire." He said contracts can be bloated, and that the Forest Service hasn't made use of prescribed fire as it should.
Free-market real estate floats a lot of expenses
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- Further evidence of the pricey nature of real estate in Jackson Hole is found in the case of a development called Pine Glades. The project is located on the most prominent mountainside above the town of Jackson.
Neighbors lower on the slope might well have created an uproar of opposition with a conventional plan, using their streets for access. Instead, developer Dave Taylor proposed to tunnel under the slopes of Snow King Mountain, a small downhill ski area adjacent to the building sites.
In addition to 27 free-market townhome units, the project will have 12 deed-restricted affordable housing units. Half of those will be eligible to people with incomes of up to 200 percent of Jackson's median, which means they will sell initially for about $450,000, reports the Jackson Hole News&Guide. The affordable units are on slopes of greater than 25 percent, which pose some avalanche risk.
Buffer being created in forest around Vail
VAIL, Colo. -- Another 8,000 trees are being removed this summer from the periphery of Vail, with the goal being to create a 200- to 300-foot buffer to slow the spread of fire. Although intermixed with aspen, some 90 percent of the lodgepole pine in the surrounding forests are expected to eventually die.
Much of the felled trees are to be taken across the Gorge Range to Kremmling, where a pellet mill is being assembled, reports the Vail Daily. Cost of the work is about $650,000, with Eagle County government paying $250,000, and lesser amounts coming from the U.S. Forest Service, the Town of Vail, and Colorado state government.
Steamboat considering regs for franchise stores
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. -- Steamboat Springs is now looking at regulations designed to prevent the proliferation of franchised chain retailers such as Starbucks, The Gap and other such stores.
At issue is the town's original business district, several miles from the ski mountain. It's a slice of small-town Americana, if now considerably gussied up. Going on 20 years, the town has been determined to retain that distinctive character even as it modernizes.
Now, the changes are arriving with a roar. Several major construction projects art now underway along the town's original main street, called Lincoln Avenue. The current redevelopment is expected to yield upwards of 50,000 additional square feet of commercial space in the district, plus residential space.
Although the town has nearly 10,000 residents, that's still not quite enough people to attract the national chains in droves. Still, with Intrawest now plowing money into the ski area, the town has become one of the West's premier boom areas.
The regulations being considered would subject the national franchise businesses to greater scrutiny. The town planning staff reviewed formula business regulations from Sausalito, Calif.; Port Townsend, Wash.; and Bristol, R.I.; among others.
