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9.0 WILDLAND/URBAN iNTERFACE FIRES Fire has posed a threat to mankind since the dawn of civilization. Fires may cause significant damage to property and may also result in deaths and injuries. For the purposes of mitigation planning, we consider three types of fires: structure fires, wildland fires, and wildland/urban interface fires. Structure fires are fires in urban, suburban or rural areas where buildings (and contents) are the primary fire fuel. Structure fires may also affect other types of structures, including bulk fuel storage, hazmat facilities, as well as vehicles, aircraft, and railcars. Structure fires of these types require more specialized fire suppression techniques and may be particularly hazardous to both firefighters and nearby residents. Wildland fires are fires where vegetation (grass, brush, trees) is the primary fire fuel. Wildiand/urban interface fires are fires where the fire fuel includes both structures and vegetation. This chapter considers all types of fires. However, the emphasis is on wildland/urban interface fires because such fires may affect large developed areas and large numbers of people. Thus, wildland/urban interface fires are of special concern for mitigation planning. Most structure fires are limited to one structure. Structure fires involving bulk fuel, hazardous materials, pipelines, and transportation fires have many similarities in response strategies and impacts to the more general discussion of Hazmat Incidents, as discussed in Chapter 14. Wildland fires, by definition, affect wildlands with limited impacts on developed areas. In 2002, according to National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) data there were over 30,000 fire departments in the United States. About 88% of these are all volunteer or mostly volunteer departments with only about 12% being career or mostly career fire fighting staff departments. However, the career fire departments tend to serve large communities. Thus, about 60% of the total population in the United States is served by career departments, while about 40% is served by volunteer departments. in Oregon, historical fire statistical data are generally good because each local fire agency is required to file reports of every fire incident with the State Fire Marshal's Office. National fire statistics are available through the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS)that is maintained by the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA). National fire data are published by the USFA and by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a private association. THE NFIRS database contains incident reports from 49 states and over 11,000 fire agencies and includes about one-third of all reported fires that occur annually in the United States. The Eugene/Springfield Metro Area is bordered by a mix of agricultural land, grasslands, brush and forests. Forest cover patterns for lands surrounding the Eugene/Springfield Metro Area are shown in Maps 5E and 5S. As shown on these maps, much of the southern hilly areas of both Eugene and Springfield have significant forested areas which interface directly with built areas or are close to built areas. Other areas, including northeast Springfield, also have large areas with high vegetative fuel loads interfacing with or very close to developed or developing built areas. Given the large acreage of forest lands in immediate proximity to both Eugene and Springfield, portions of the Eugene/Springfield Metro Area may have significant risk from wildland/urban interface fires. Public Review Draft: August 6, 2004 9~1