It’s rare when I run across reporting about the Forest Service taking an official position on development of private land. Yet the importance of doing so is increasing in a world where more frequent and dangerous wildfires on national forests are affecting human developments. Here is one of those rare examples.
Grand Targhee Resort in Idaho has proposed adding cabins to its base area of private land, 120 acres surrounded by the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. This has been controversial, in particular because of concerns about limited access and how the Resort would plan for and respond to wildfire. The Forest Service has expressed concerns to the county commissioners about the ability to fight wildfires there.
Asked where Targhee fell in his list of wildfire priorities, Jay Pence, Teton Basin District Ranger for the Caribou-Targhee National Forest, said the resort was “towards the upper end.” “It’s always been that way,” Pence told the Jackson Hole Daily. But, he added, “the new development just adds additional people and additional values at risk.”
To mitigate wildfire risk, Pence asked commissioners to require a few things of Targhee. It would be “helpful,” Pence said, to have “a clear and agreed-to emergency plan for the entire resort” as well as a “loop road” within the resort, and more information about “how the entire development is envisioned to be constructed.” He also asked for fuels reduction work to be done while the cabins are built. And Pence asked commissioners to “insist” on a 300-foot setback from the U.S. Forest Service’s property line, hoping to prevent the forest from having to clear vegetation on public land to protect the cabins from fire.
But Pence said any fuels reduction done on the forest will require separate permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act. It would likely require a separate analysis from the ongoing analysis of Targhee’s request to expand its boundaries.
This commercial development of an inholding is kind of an extreme case, but the kinds of things the Forest Service is asking for should be considered in any WUI development. The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy identifies “fire adapted communities as one of three goals, and “Protecting homes, communities, and other values at risk” as one of the four “broad challenges. The Forest Service has a “Fire Adapted Communities Program,” which includes “tools of fire adaptation” like, “Wildland urban interface codes and ordinances can define best practices for construction and location of new development in a WUI community …”
I would like to know if there is also any agency guidance for Forest Service land managers for how to promote achieving these desired outcomes. They need to be able to effectively participate in local planning for private land developments that will become “values at risk” for national forest fire management. This ranger is doing the right thing, but is there any agency leadership that would encourage more of it?