Book Description

We are here today to discuss two related issues, lessons learned from the recent Cerro Grande fire, and, on a broader note, actions needed to mitigate current hazardous forest conditions in the interior West. Only a few months ago, the Los Alamos fire, now officially known as the Cerro Grande fire, caused hundreds of families in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to lose their homes and more than 18,000 residents of the state to be evacuated. Over 1,000 fire fighters were required to bring the fire under control. Estimates have placed total damages at about $ 1 billion. This tragedy was the result of a prescribed fire ignited by officials of the National Park Service. Ironically, the fire was ignited in an effort to reduce some of the vegetative buildup in a forested area of Bandelier National Monument and thus help prevent the very kind of event that occurred. The plan was to burn up to 900 acres; in the end about 48,000 acres were burned. The policy supporting the use of prescribed or controlled burns as a forest management tool has been in place for some time. According to analyses by federal land management agencies, the use of prescribed burns has been and will continue to be a critical component of forest management if the nation wants to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, particularly in the interior West. The need to reduce these risks has never been more obvious as it as at this time. While the Cerro Grande fire demonstrated this, as events have unfolded, it was only the beginning of what has turned out to be one of the worst wildfire seasons in history with over 4 million acres already burned and dozens of fires still burning in many western states. In reviewing the events surrounding the Cerro Grande fire, we examined how well the policy was implemented and what, if any, lessons can be learned to prevent future tragedies like it.