Containing Wildland Fire Costs: Utilizing Local Fire Fighting Forces - Panel Report of the US National Academy of Public Administration Dec 2003
	Fire Fighter Fatalities in Wildland Fires
	Interagency Wildland Fire Communications Group - Rocky Mountain Area
	National Datebase of State and Local Wildfire Hazard Mitigation Programs
	National Interagency Fire Center
	Wildland Fires in Southern California/ Los Angeles

U.S. Wildfires Grow in Cost and Destruction

Over the past century, America's population nearly tripled. Much of the country's new growth occurred in the wildlands. Cities expanded into suburbs and suburbs blended into what was once considered rural America. The changing demographic condition created a complex landscape, now termed the 'wildland/urban interface', where wildland fuels threaten to ignite combustible homes and structures.

But with interface development come infrastructure problems specific to natural areas, including catastrophic wildfires. As community development increases, the threats to life and property - and the costs for fire suppression and protection - expand at astounding rates.

In 1993, 1.6 million acres of private, state and federal lands burned as a result of wildland fire, with $187 million in costs to taxpayers. In 1996, due in great part to the growth of interface areas, almost 6.7 million acres were consumed by wildland fires, with costs to taxpayers exceeding $689 million.