Editor’s note: A timely new report from Bozeman, Montana-based Headwaters Economics explores how communities and counties in that state can learn from one another’s land-use planning strategies – as well as best practices in other states – to reduce the risks and costs of homebuilding in the wildland-urban interface. Here is the group’s introduction to the report, with links to the executive summary and full report.
Across Montana — like most of the West — wildfires are getting bigger, lasting longer, and causing more damage to homes and property, as the severity of the severity of the 2017 wildfire season demonstrated. This trend can only be expected to continue under a warmer, drier climate and as more homes are built in at-risk locations (known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI).
Land use planning is an important tool to reducing risk, but few Montana counties have fully integrated wildfire into their land use planning programs. [Read more…]