U.S. wildfire effort faulted for leaving communities unprotected

While more than 1,000 homes across the West burn each year in forest and brush fires, only a fraction of federal efforts to reduce fire danger in the region has been concentrated in the communities at greatest risk, a group of scientists found. The scientists analyzed a database containing the locations of all 44,613 fuel-reduction projects undertaken in Western states by various federal agencies under the National Fire Plan from its start in 2000 through 2008. They found that only 3 percent of those projects were within what is known as the wildland-urban interface -- areas where suburban and rural homes meet forests and rangelands. The National Fire Plan is a program that is intended to reduce the risk of wildfire to communities. The scientists found that 11 percent of those fuel-reduction projects were within an area that includes the wildland-urban interface plus a 1.5-mile buffer strip around it. That is far short of the 50 percent goal set by the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, which was supposed to help control the $1 billion regularly spent each year fighting wildfires. Wildfires burned 5.3 million acres in the U.S. in 2008...AP