Yesterday's #Washingtonfire in Tuolumne County was an excellent reminder of why size is a poor metric for fires. It was only 81 acres, not enough to even need a 209 report. But bc of where it started, 8 homes were lost, pets and livestock were killed. It was a disaster. 1/5
You might think "oh, it's only 8 homes." But these were all primary homes, not cabin/vacation homes. Since we scientists like to normalize when we compare things, you could even argue that at 1 home/10 ac, it has the highest area-weighted losses (0.1 h/ac) of 2021 so far. 2/5
By contrast, the mammoth #DixieFire is closing in on 750K ac and has burned ~1,200 structures. Even if 1,000 are homes (a high estimate), that's 1 home/750ac (0.0013h/ac) area-weighted. Which fire is worse? It's an absurd question -> both are disasters to those affected. 3/5
My point is this: firefighting resources don't get prioritized by which fire is biggest, they get prioritized by lives, infrastructure, and values at-risk. We need to get over our obsession with size. Focus on what is at risk and what is not. 4/5
I constantly bring this up because too often the focus is about preventing all fires (impossible) or keeping them small (also impossible), when it should be about mitigating disasters by reducing fire severity and supporting beneficial fire (absolutely possible to achieve). 5/5
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