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Now that wildfire season is (already) upon us, some old-timer will surely start reminiscing about the days when “work fires” were common; when, on hot summer days, locals set forest fires in the hope that they and their buddies would get jobs on the federally-funded fire crews. A few dozen acres of brush gone up in smoke allowed the able-bodied folks in the rural community to get some decent government wages for a week or two. It’s a logical economic exchange. Or at least it was.

In these days of mega-fires that torch not 30 acres, but 300,000, the concept of wildfires as job-creators has lost some of its folksy charm. When Leonard Gregg, a seasonal firefighter, started Arizona’s Rodeo Fire in 2002, it put people to work, sure, but it also burned more than 400 homes and 470,000 acres, and cost taxpayers millions. Suppression efforts for such fires can run $1 million or more per day. Add to that the cost of lost property, and a natural disaster turns into an economic one, too.

Surprisingly, though, even catastrophic fires can have an economic upside. And while a fire will never be profitable for a local community, the old idea of work fires isn’t totally obsolete after all.

Over several days in September 2010, the Fourmile Canyon Fire ripped through the suburban forests outside of Boulder, Colo. It burned a mere 6,181 acres, small by today’s standards, yet the fire was also costly. That’s in part because the flames focused on a section of wildland urban interface that was scattered with homes. According to a study by Headwaters Economics, Boulder County has one of the most heavily developed WUIs in the country, and fighting fires in such areas is far more costly than in undeveloped forests. A 2012 U.S. Forest Service postmortem estimated that $14 million was spent on suppression, management and burned-area restoration. On one especially nasty day, more than $1.5 million was spent in the effort to protect homes. The total bill for fire retardant, alone, was $343,000.

But the biggest expense was from charred homes. Insurers estimated that total losses were more than $200 million, in part because so many homes burned — a total of 168 — but also because they happened to be in one of the nation’s more costly real estate zip codes. Since many of the homes were under-insured (insurance policies were not updated to reflect rising values over the years), the total value of destroyed structures was probably higher. Real estate values and associated property tax revenues took a dive, too. The taxable value of lots where houses had burned dropped 80 percent or more after the fire. Even homes that escaped the flames saw decreases of 30 percent or more in assessed value, which was directly reflected in their respective property tax bills. As a result, the county lost some $800,000 in property tax revenues during 2011 alone, according to estimates by the Boulder County Assessor.

Typically, a fire can also batter the tourist economy. For 36 days in June and July of 2002, smoke billowed out of the hills north of Durango, Colo. as the Missionary Ridge Fire burned 70,000 acres and some 56 homes (insured losses were $18 million). It followed close on the heels of the Hayman Fire, which tore through the foothills of the state’s Front Range, and as word got out that a good portion of the state was aflame, potential visitors stopped coming during the peak of tourist season. In Durango, where tourism makes up nearly one-third of all economic activity, hotel occupancy rates plummeted beginning in mid-June, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, a trend that held all summer. Ridership on the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge train and visitor numbers to Mesa Verde National Park dropped by 33 and 25 percent, respectively. It was one of the worst tourist seasons in the town’s collective memory.

So Durango officials were pleasantly surprised to find, when all the sales tax figures were added up at the end of that devastating year, that the retail economy had weathered the fire relatively well, taking a less than one percent dip from 2001. (Up in Boulder eight years later, the Fourmile Fire’s impact on retail sales was virtually undetectable. In fact, sales tax revenues from September 2010 — the month of the fire — jumped considerably from the year before). Something had apparently offset the devastating losses to the tourism economy. Perhaps it was wildfire-related spending.

A study by the University of Oregon’s Ecosystem Workforce Program backs that hypothesis up, showing that wildfires can, in fact, have a positive impact on various sectors of the local economy.

The study focused on Trinity County, Calif., and the very active 2008 wildfire season. By the time the smoke all cleared, a whopping $156 million had been spent on fighting the fires, with a bulk of it coming from state and federal government. If you’re a federal taxpayer, a figure like that makes you cringe. But viewed from another angle, it’s a sort of government stimulus package. After all, money is flowing into the community from the outside, and is being spent on wages, services and goods. If the locals have the resources to capture some of that cash, it can be a big bonus (if you’ve got an air tanker fleet nearby, you’re golden). Trinity County, it turns out, didn’t have the resources — there are no incorporated towns and not even a stoplight in the entire county — so only 5 percent of the money was dropped locally. Surrounding rural counties fared better, capturing some 23 percent. A sizable chunk of cash was also spent in other parts of the state. Locally, public sector wages and employment shot up, as expected. And in most other sectors wages and employment held steady or increased.

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Closer to Community Safety

Twenty three Ham Radio enthusiasts got new/used radios at the Allenspark Fire Station on January 26. The radios are compliments of Boulder County, generously donating used radios to BCARES (Boulder County Amateur Radio Emergency Services). The radio giveaway is to augment MERN (Mountain Emergency Radio Network) to form a network of Ham Radio operators in emergencies across the immediate Front Range. Disasters such as forest fires and floods can cause loss of power and confusion with the public and a communication network can disseminate information to calm and inform the public of escape routes, unseen dangers, road closures, and provide a link between Emergency Services and the rest of the people for communications and trust. Large disasters are always confusing and this extra link is hoped to reduce the panic and fear often felt in a large scale emergencies.

Special thanks goes to Dan Hershman, Road Maintenance Director and Sheriffs Auxiliary for this radio giveaway. The radios are surplus from the FCC change to narrow band radios for all public service organizations, but were able to be adapted to 2 meter Ham Radio frequencies.

The radio network is planned to connect the Front Range from Estes Park to Nederland and link emergency plans for evacuations and safety. Repeaters for the Ham network are located at Gold Hill, Estes Park, and Longmont and new repeaters are planned for Allenspark and Nederland.

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Learn how to properly insure your home and be prepared in case of a disaster.

July 23 7-8:30PM at the Nederland Community Center, 750 Hwy 72, Nederland CO.

July 24 6:30-8PM in the Commissioner’s Hearing Room, County Court House, Third Floor, 1325 Pearl St., Boulder, CO

For more information contact Amy E. Hardy 

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Right after the 6,500-acre fire was contained, it became painfully clear that residents who still live in the burn area, are in danger of another imminent disaster: flash flooding and debris flows.  Geographically, the Town of Gold Hill is in a good position to support our downhill neighbors located in both Four Mile and Sunshine canyons.  Residents in these areas have been instructed to climb to safety during rain events.

Today, more than a year a half after the fire, our mountain communities are working towards creating a better preparedness plan. The protocol that we are currently developing outlines in detail how to support one another in the case of future disasters.

As part of this process, officials from every small town West of Boulder have formed an Inter Mountain Alliance organization, with the intention to design both individual and community preparedness plans. Our organization contacted Boulder County’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) requesting supplies to support a citizen-based response designed to work hand in hand with local emergency personnel. The goal of our initiative is to provide a warm safe place for residents as they regroup and gain information during a flood event.

As the mayor of Gold Hill, I am proud to say that our town received a 6×6 Tough Shed that will house the equipment necessary to create a temporary Safe Site.  The same initiative is in place in our neighboring communities of Ward and Sunshine.

In collaboration with our volunteer fire agencies, the Office of Emergency Management and local citizens, we are paving the way to mountain community preparedness!

Big thank you to the Boulder County Transportation Department for delivering the ToughShed.

Post Written by Amy E. Hardy

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