Wildfire happens.

Increasingly, it happens in that forest/urban interface - places like Alabaugh Canyon - where more and more people choose to live.

After the devastation of the Alabaugh Fire, which destroyed 35 homes and cost one man his life in July, the Hot Springs area raised more than $100,000 for its victims. We think that astonishing fundraising effort is commendable for its compassion and community spirit.

But it also begs the question - what about the next wildfire that happens in Fall River County, or in any of the other numerous forested communities throughout the Black Hills?

Will we continue to respond to the reality of wildland fires with donations after the fact, or is it time to take a more proactive approach to homebuilding in the forest? Should homeowners who choose to live in places that don't have a fire hydrant on every corner assume firefighters will always try to save their homes?

These are public policy questions that must be asked, since fighting forest fires is an increasingly expensive proposition for taxpayers. The U.S. Forest Service has spent more than $1 billion per year in three of the last six years suppressing wildfires, mostly in the wildland urban interface. That price tag comes at the expense of other forest management practices, such as reducing excess fuels and improving forest health.

Fall River County, along with other municipalities and subdivision developers, has the right to demand, in the form of landscaping requirements and home building materials regulations, zoning laws that put the responsibility for limiting wildfire home loss where it belongs - on individual homeowners.

The Firewise Communities program offers simple but effective ways to reduce the risks of home loss by wildfire. They range from tree thinning and fencing suggestions to the use of fire resistant materials on roofs, windows and exterior walls for homes that border wildland areas.

We think the Fall River County Commission would be wise to require some of them of homeowners in the forest, thus reducing firefighting costs to all taxpayers.