2.12 Community costs for planning and resources Maranghides et al. (2015) provide an event timeline and review of firefighting actions in response to the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Among several dozen findings that are relevant here, the authors find that “pre-fire planning is essential to enabling safe, effective, and rapid deployment of firefighting resources in WUI fires. Effective pre-fire planning demands a better understanding of exposure and vulnerabilities. This is necessary because of the very rapid development of WUI fires.” Maranghides et al. (2015) mention several kinds of plans and other resources: • Mapping: “Mapping of hazards within and around a community, together with preplanning for rapid and targeted deployment [of firefighters] within the community” • Standard operating procedures: address “staging of resources and the identification and prioritization of hazards” • Exercises: rehearsed deployment with mutual aid providers • Ground apparatus and personnel: “Engines, rush trucks, hot shot crews, etc.” • Aerial fire suppression resources: aircraft and personnel • Water distribution • Handheld radios with additional batteries • Situational awareness: “Data to enhance situational awareness assessment” Planning. Many of these cost items are related to planning. It may be useful to know how much one full-time equivalent planner costs. In Canada, the US, and Mexico, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) sector 541320 (landscape architectural services) comprises establishments primarily engaged in planning and designing the development of land areas for projects, including subdivisions and public buildings (Classcodes.com 2017, p. 466). In Canada, planners and urban planners earn approximately $86,000 per year (Brasuell 2016, Neuvoo 2021a). In Canada, 12,655 planners are employed, which equals 0.068% of 18.5 million employees and 0.034% of the population (Statistics Canada 2019). Access and egress routes. The National WUI Guide specifies recommendations for access and egress routes by referring to NFPA 1141 (National Fire Protection Association 2017). That standard specifies the number of access routes and a multitude of road design features, including a hard surface finish (paving), road widths, curvature, clearances, slope, sight distances, and accessories such as speed bumps and traffic calming devices. The present work cannot attempt to quantify all these costs even for a single community. We can, however, provide information about some of the likely leading cost items. Paving unpaved roads. For some rural communities, the leading cost item for access routes may be hard, all-weather surface paving. The cost for asphalt concrete pavement on top of the roadbed adds about $444,000 per mile of undivided two-lane rural road. That figure is about 15% of the total construction cost of $2.5 million to $4 million per mile for a paved two-lane rural road (Florida Department of Transportation 2020). That paving figure is somewhat lower than RSMeans (2019e, p. 310), which estimates the cost to add an asphalt 2.5-inch wearing course at $18 per square yard, or $250,000 per mile of undivided two-lane road that is 24 feet wide. A community might opt to add curbs, gutters, and sidewalks. Curbs and gutters add about $12.50 per linear foot, or about $132,000 per mile for both sides (RSMeans 2019e, p. 318). Cast-in-place four-foot sidewalks with
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