The Wildland Urban Interface–Its Unaddressed Risks
It’s not quite summer and wildfire season is already upon us. Last Tuesday the Grove Fire, driven through a drying landscape by high winds, forced evacuations west and south of the dense housing of the Grandview/Thorpe and Latah/Hangman Neighborhoods of the City of Spokane (click for a map), sending plumes of smoke over Spokane. By Tuesday evening the wind had died down, evacuation orders were relaxed, and the fire was mostly contained, but the incident was a stark reminder of what we now face every summer:
“It went from a small size to increase in size very, very quickly,” DNR Public Information Officer Guy Gifford said. “This fire in August will be a different story. The key thing here is June, we still had a lot of green out there to help slow the fire down in spots.”
Welcome to the WUI, the Wildland-urban interface, the zone of transition between unoccupied land and land developed by human activity—an area where the built environment meets or intermingles with the natural environment. The entire Latah Valley, including the Grandview/Thorpe and Latah/Hangman Neighborhoods, is part of the Wildland-Urban Interface. One might blithely assume that an elected official representing such a region would diligently work to make sure that fire infrastructure and adequate evacuation routes were in place before pushing for development that will put more structures and families at risk for wildfire.
Spokane County Commissioner Al French, arguably the most powerful elected official in Spokane County (something little recognized), is a tireless advocate for additional development, both commercial and residential, on the West Plains and in the Latah Valley, both within and outside the city limits of the City of Spokane. Infrastructure, including fire stations and staff, access and egress routes, and the health of his constituents (see PFAS and SIA) take a back seat to his advocacy for development (except in election years). He interjects at every opportunity his disdain for any moratorium on development in the Latah Valley, even as he claims, rather disingenuously, that additional Latah Valley development will provide “low income housing.” He fights building code changes, claiming added expense that will “hurt the poor.”
His election year awakening to the infrastructure inadequacies for those living west of Spokane seem a late epiphany for a man whole dominated the previously three person Spokane County Commission starting in 2011 and served on the City of Spokane City Council for nine years before that. He lives in Eagle Ridge in Latah Valley within the City limits and he is supposed to represent his neighbors to the county commission. Where was he in dealing with glaring infrastructure inadequacies for more than twenty years?
Development in Spokane’s western WUI is still profitable for the companies engaged. If there were not a high likelihood of turning a healthy profit by building and selling houses developers wouldn’t take part. But here’s the thing: once the houses are sold and the profit turned, developers can walk away. The folks who buy the houses have a reasonable (if, in this case, a bit naive) expectation that government has overseen the provision of fire protection, ample and safe ingress and egress, and efficient and clean water and sewer. Those same homeowners (and ultimately the rest of us, too) can wind up paying a steep price for infrastructure shortfalls. They pay in fleeing wildfires on inadequate road systems and in paying ever higher dwelling insurance costs on account of long fire response times, too few fire stations, inadequate water pressure, and less than robust building codes (the evil “regulations” that Republicans continually decry). Insurance companies make money by carefully assessing risk and charging accordingly. They are the canaries in the coal mine. They offer a soberly researched assessment of the risk of losses that would bankrupt them.
When houses burn and lives are lost in the next wildfire, it is then that community sympathy, goodwill, and tax dollars (local, regional, and national) will be deployed (over and above what insurance companies are on the hook to pay out) to help shore up the losses of the un- and under-insured. Developers and builders will have long since moved on with their profits to the next thing.
In August and November vote for Molly Marshall for County Commissionerfrom District 5. She is embedded in these communities on Spokane’s west border. She has the expertise and has been doing her homework for the people of the WUI.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. It is a total misconception, a misconception under which I once labored, to imagine that county commissioners concern themselves only with those parts of the county that lie outside urban boundaries. In fact Mr. French is supposed to represent the considerable population that lives in City of Spokane neighborhoods as well as those living in the WUI on the West Plains outside the city boundaries. Many of the people of the West Plains have been drinking PFAS-laden well water for years longer than they needed to thanks to the silence of Spokane International Airport in which Al French played a role.
P.P.S. For a window on Molly Marshall’s plans to address the PFAS problem I recommend Tim Connor’s “Thursday’s postcard, and a push for action and accountability from Al French’s latest challenger” published June 13th. Thursday’s media coverage of Marshall’s press conference held Wednesday afternoon was absent. (I hope they wake up on Friday by the time you’re reading this.)