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Literature Review—
In a general sense, forest fire suppression has produced contradictory results. It has been efficient in preserving natural resources and protecting life and property. It has also resulted in a gradual buildup of living and dead vegetation, which, under proper conditions, feeds disastrous wildfires (Parissi, 1989).
As forest fuels accumulate, the fire services have the responsibility to protect the forest resources and the structures which are being built in the wildland/urban interface. This is being done through both passive and active fire prevention methods.
Passive measures employ Smokey Bear and his fire prevention message. The Virginia Division of Forestry has developed easily conducted, assembly-type forest fire prevention school programs (Rodger, 1983). The USDA Forest Service, the California Department of Forestry, and U.S. Department of the Interior (USDI) Bureau of Land Management have combined two powerful images. Know as "Smokey and the American Cowboy," this program is reaching a new group of forest users—audiences at rodeos and other performances featuring cowboys (Dowdy, 1990). These programs have become very successful in maintaining the public’s awareness of fire prevention.
Active fire prevention programs are designed to treat forest fuels which cause the fire problems. The California Department of Forestry (CDF) actively uses prescribed fire to burn fire-prone brush land in 30 to 50 acre blocks. They have also developed a cost-share program. When a CDF burn plan is used, 90% of a burn’s cost is shared by the state (Guelden, 1983).
An ordinance in the city of Los Angeles requires 100 feet of clearance from brush land to a homeowner’s structure. This ordinance resulted from 55 years of learning, during which firefighter lives, structures, and natural resources were lost to wildfires. Since 1981, when the brush clearance ordinance began, not one dwelling has been lost to a brush fire in the Mountain Fire District (Haworth, 1988).
The County of Los Angeles Fire Department developed a program to manger fuels at the wildland/urban interface. Prescribed fire is used in addition to clearing around structures and fire-retardant construction ordinances. Chaparral is treated by prescribed fire in wildland/urban interface areas where fuel accumulation is a significant threat to structures. "Since 1983, 11 major fires have occurred in areas that were under advanced planning (a major fire is defined as larger than a second alarm resource requirements), thus validating the overall management strategy. These wildfires were stopped dead where burns had been completed" (Franklin, 1988). The fires occurred under high intensity conditions: temperatures above 90 degrees, relative humidity below 20%, and winds above 20 miles per hour.
East of the San Francisco Bay area, brush-clearing crews and mechanical clearing have long been used to reduce fire hazards. Areas which adjoin parks and other underdeveloped land are target areas in which to create defensible space for stopping wildfires. Rather than contending with the damage and non-selective destruction of vegetation by clearing and prescribed burning, an innovative system was put to use. Goats are used to overgraze hazard areas as they are herded across several acres a day. Portable battery-powered fences contain the goats, and two Chilean herders move the goats in their 300 foot swaths (Ross, 1990).
In 1986, Region 8 of the USDA Forest Service developed an assessment of the best available data to evaluate the effects of fuel treatment upon wildfire intensity, size, suppression cost, and damage. The analysis was based on fire occurrence during the severe 1985 fire season in the Southeast {US}. The assessment area encompassed 4.9 million acres of Region 8’s 12.5 million acres. Between 1983 and 1985, 572,522 acres were prescribed burned. Martin (1988) indicated that the effect of prescribed burning on fire occurrence (i.e. number of fires) was, at best, speculative. An analysis was done on the wildfire sizes in areas burned by prescription and areas that were eligible but not burned. This provides the most significant indicator of the effects of prescribed burning on wildfires in 1985.
The acreage data show that prescribed burning had a significant effect on wildfires greater than 100 acres. In 1985, Region 8 had 12 wildfires that were greater than 100 acres. Two of these occurred in areas burned by prescription in the previous 3-year period. While these large fires burned 24,368 acres, only 2.057 acres burned in areas that had been previously burned by prescribed fire. The majority of the large fire acreage burned (15,021 acres) occurred in areas that were eligible for prescribed burning but had not been burned during the previous 3-year period. It is significant that 91.5% of the acres burned in large wildfires were in areas that had not been burned in prescribed fire in the previous 3 year period.
Wildfires that occurred in areas burned by prescribed fire in the previous 3-year period averaged 20.9 acres. Those occurring in eligible but unburned areas averaged 62.39 acres. This held true on all national forests in the survey except Louisiana’s Kisatchie National Forest.
The National Fire Management Analysis System was used to analyze the results of the survey. The economic analysis portion for fuel treatment calculated that prescribed burning saved more than 11,000 acres from wildfire in the 1985 fire season. In addition, prescribed burning had resulted in lower intensity burning of the 5,893 acres of wildfire in areas that had been burned by prescription (Martin, 1988).

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