TODAY✓ Flathead Pioneer Auto

Club devoted to restoring and driving antique cars, meets 2 p.m., Flathead Electric Co-op building. Enter on north side. All visitors welcome. Call Dave Cooley, 257-4023.

MONDAY ✓ Children’s Story Hour at

10:30 a.m., Flathead County Library in Kalispell. Call 758-5822.

✓ Lake County Republican Women’s Club meets noon to 1 p.m., Wheat Montana, Polson. Guest speaker is Gehrand Berchard. Topic will be the Republican caucus to be held on Feb. 5. Lunch available. Call 883-9209 by 11 a.m. to order.

✓ Red Cross blood drive, 2-6 p.m., at the center, 126 N. Meridian Road, Kalispell.

✓ Akatsuki Club for Anime and Manga fans ages 12 to 18, meets 4:30 p.m., Flathead County Library, Kalispell. Call Teen Services Librarian Mar-tha Furman, 758-5713.

✓ Rails to Trails meets 5 p.m., Fish, Wildlife and Parks meeting room, 490 Meridian Road. All welcome. 257-1932.

✓ Red Cross certified course in Standard First Aid, 6 p.m. today and Feb. 5, at the office, 126 N. Meridian Road, Kalispell. Call 752-6433 to pre-register.

✓ Glacier Stamp Club meets in the basement meet-ing room of the Flathead County Library, Kalispell. Stamp trading and talk at 7 p.m.; short business meeting at 7:30 p.m. Visitors welcome. Call Gail Long, 752-6110.

✓ West Valley School Dis-trict meets in special session to discuss implementing bus program and awarding bus bid, 7 p.m., school library.

✓ Flathead Valley Fibromy-algia Support group meets at 7 p.m. at The Summit. Call Jerry at 253-7228.

TUESDAY✓ Helena Flats School

board meets to discuss a construction payment request, 6:45 a.m., school library.

✓ AARP Driver Safety Pro-gram for all drivers age 50 and older, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Feb. 5 and 7, The Summit, Kalispell. $10 course fee. Call 751-4500 to register.

✓ St. Joseph Medical Cen-ter Lap Quilt Day, 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., second floor hospital conference room. Volunteers needed to help make quilts for chemotherapy patients. Lunch provided. RSVP to Kathy Klinge at All in Stitches, 883-3643; or Toni Young, 883-8251.

✓ Glacier Park’s Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center invites public to a presentation by Jona-than Haufler on “Ecosystem Diversity as a Cornerstone for

Conservation,” at noon, in the Community Building, West Glacier.

✓ Red Cross blood drive, 1-6 p.m., Bigfork Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

✓ Creston School board meets at 4:30 p.m. in the school library. Public wel-come.

✓ All Saints Episcopal Church Shrove Tuesday Pan-cake Supper, 5-6:30 p.m., 2048 Conn Road, just south of Montana 40. Includes bacon, soy and regular sau-sage. Free. All welcome. Call 862-2863.

✓ Free pancake supper Feb. 5, Shrove Tuesday, 5:30-7 p.m., Episcopal Church, 215 Third Ave. E., Kalispell. Music by Razz Ma Tazz combo. Everyone welcome. An offer-ing will be taken.

WEDNESDAY ✓ Children’s Story Hour at 10 a.m., Bigfork Branch Library. Call 837-6976. ✓ Children’s Story Hour at 10:30 a.m., , Columbia Falls Branch Library. Call 892-5919.

✓ Babies Bounce into Books storytime 10:15 a.m., Flathead County Library in Kalispell. Call 758-5822. ✓ Children’s Story Hour at 11 a.m., Flathead County Library in Kalispell. Call 758-5822.

✓ Informational evening on healthy dark chocolate, 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Whitefish Credit Union, 343 Central Ave., Whitefish boardroom. Several brands will be tasted. Free and open to public. Call 862-3940.

✓ Red Cross blood drive, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Gla-cier Bank, Commons Way, Kalispell.

✓ Babies Bounce into Books storytime 11:45 a.m., Whitefish Branch Library. Call 862-6657.

THOUGHT “The path of civilization is

paved with tin cans.” ■ Elbert Hubbard, American author and publisher (1856-1915).

FROM PAGE ONETHE DAILY INTER LAKE Sunday, February 3, 2008■ Page A2

Online calendarIn addition to the

Daybook, the Inter Lake also publishes a separate online events calendar which allows groups, clubs and activi-ties to post their own event schedule. Go to www.dailyinterlake.com and click on “Events Cal-endar.”

——— Send items for this column

to The Daily Inter Lake, Box 7610, Kalispell, MT 59904. Fax 758-4481.

FLATHEAD COUNTY has 60.6 square miles of developed land in the area known as the wildland urban interface, which makes it the highest-ranked county in Montana for existing fire risk. With another 223 square miles available for develop-ment, the county could experience skyrocketing costs associated with fire protection in the interface.

Flathead County Planning and Zoning Director Jeff Har-ris said his office is working with the Planning Board on subdivision regulations.

“The legislature passed a bill requiring us to deal with the interface in the growth policy,” Harris said. “We must include fire risk and implementation in the growth policy.”

Language in the revised subdivision regulations, which should go to the Board of Commissioners in the next month or two, require subdi-visions within the wildland urban interface to be planned, designed, constructed and maintained to minimize the risk of fire, to allow for safe escape routes and to permit effective fire suppression.

SOME OF the specific measures in the regulations include:

■ All subdivisions shall incorporate Firewise mea-sures into the design;

■ The commissioners shall require a second or multiple accesses;

■ A fire prevention control and fuels reduction plan shall accompany of any prelimi-nary plat application in the wildland urban interface, which a local fire authority must approve.

Peck supports better regu-lations for planning issues.

“I don’t see them as restric-tions,” he said. “I see them as common sense.”

The issue of multiple roads has been the most conten-tious in the planning process because many areas in the county have dead end roads that aren’t built to county standards, and other areas just don’t allow for second-ary access due to topography constraints. That could poten-tially limit areas from devel-opment.

“Given the wildfire season

last year and what the state spend and the effort involved, it ought to give us reason to redefine how growth should occur in those areas,” Harris said. “We need to protect pub-lic health and safety.”

Steve Frye, the operations manager for the Northwest Land Office of the Depart-ment of Natural Resources and Conservation, said the Planning Board has kept an open ear for advice on deal-ing with growth issues in the interface.

“I’ve met with the Plan-ning Board over subdivision regulations to talk about the kind of things that are impor-tant to the business of fight-ing fires,” Frye said. “If you look at Flathead County and recognize the wide variety of fuels and topography that we have, the Planning Board is trying very hard to do the right thing, but it’s incredibly difficult to come up with a set of standards that fit across the entire county. My hat’s off to them.”

At the top of the county’s food chain sits the commis-sioners, and a helicopter flight over the Chippy Creek Fire this summer drove home the point that interface devel-opment is a major concern.

“We saw the areas where people had thinned and taken care of their properties,” Commissioner Dale Lauman said. “It works. If we own acreage in the forest, and we take care of it, it is going to mitigate some of the fire problems.”

LAUMAN SAID that the commissioners are always looking for ways to encourage Firewise prevention for sub-divisions in interface areas.

Homeowner education throughout the county will also help individuals take care of their lands and create a situation where firefighters can effectively respond when a fire incident occurs.

“We focus a lot on saving homes and infrastructure, but it’s always with the under-standing that none of those improvements are worth the loss of a single firefighter

or member of the public,” Frye said. “I’m very optimis-tic that as our constituents become more sophisticated in their understanding of fire behavior and what it takes to reduce fire threat that we’ll make progress.”

No matter what happens with planning regulations or emergency response, the threat will never go away, especially as development continues to spread through the wildland urban interface. Government officials, though, believe that through a myriad of preventative measures, property owners may face a reduced risk.

“None of us at the state, federal or local level will be able to meet our fire responsi-bilities alone,” Frye said. “We need each other, and we need to work together. Success will only be because of a collab-orative effort through all the parties.”

For more information on Firewise preventive sugges-tions, visit www.firewise.org.

‘We need each other, and we need to work together’COUNTY/From A1

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AS THE BRUSH CREEK fire burns in the background, Evergreen firefighters Ben Covington, left, Lance Melin and Ryan Pitts talk with Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan on Aug. 4, 2007, at a home in the Star Meadow area.

Vol. 100, No. 294USPS 143-340

Published every morning by Hagadone Mon-tana Publishing L.L.C., 727 East Idaho, P.O. Box 7610, Kalispell, MT. Zip Code 59904. Periodical Postage Paid at Kalispell, Montana. Copyright 2008, The Daily Inter Lake. All rights reserved. Reproduction, reuse or transmittal in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or an information storage and retrieval system is prohibited without permission in writing from The Daily Inter Lake.

Tom Kurdy, publisherFrank Miele, managing editor

Scott Crandell, assistant managing editor Dave Lesnick, sports editor

Cindy Sease, advertising directorBrant Horn, circulation manager

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