…Even in the wake of a tragedy like the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona, northwest of Phoenix, lessons about lessening risk “are not being learned,” said Ray Rasker, executive director of Headwaters Economics, a research group in Bozeman, Mont.
About 16 percent of wildland-urban interface has been developed, he said. “But we’re not even having a national conversation about the other 84 percent.” He added that “the reason that local governments are not responding and not restricting development is that they don’t bear much of the cost” of fighting the fires and cleaning up afterward. “The bulk is borne by the federal taxpayer.”…