00:00We have burned up at high intensity in the past two years about 3 million acres.
00:09That's a good portion of the pristine old growth forest that we have.
00:18The Dixie Fire broke out on July 13th.
00:23The topography and winds at that time pushed the fire upriver toward us.
00:29The Forest Service land had a very dense stand of timber on it.
00:36In essence, the fuels were so dense and the fire was so hot that the energy release caused a firenado in that area.
00:45And it's evidenced by a large diameter circle where the trees that were thrown over, wind-thrown by the wind, are all lying in the same direction.
00:57Here you have these fire-adaptive systems. The environmental movement has prevented management.
01:03You've had the growth of brush and understory of trees that have created giant fuel loads.
01:11And how do you roll that back is really where we're at.
01:21Fires are getting bigger and the effects on our forests are dire.
01:25But increasingly, there's a growing concern for human safety as well, particularly as we continue to push deeper into the forests.
01:34Somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 or 30 million homes have been built in the wildland-urban interface in the last 25 years.
01:41That's the interface like we're seeing between homes and forests.
01:45We're putting infrastructure into these areas at a very rapid pace because people want to build their homes in the forest.
01:56They want to be close to nature.
01:58There's a legion of retiring baby boomers who are now moving to smaller rural communities that give them the opportunity to access the out-of-doors.
02:09Since 1980, 40% of the homes constructed in the United States have been built in such areas, in what fire scientists call the wildland-urban interface.
02:25The problem it creates is that when you build a nice house in the woods, if a fire comes, you're sort of expecting the local government or the state government or the federal government or some combination of the three to try to help save your house.
