TIJUANA — Among the many cultural differences along the U.S.-Mexico border is a widely differing approach to the task of fighting brush fires.
Mexican governments -- partially because of tight budgets -- do not attempt the quick suppression of brush fires that property owners and politicians in the United States demand of their firefighters.
Mexican officials, backed by some U.S. academics, believe that having several medium-sized brush fires in one season is preferable to having one large brush fire that can destroy homes and cost lives. Smaller fires burn the fuel that can feed a large fire, they note.
The catastrophic fires in Southern California last week, which destroyed thousands of homes and killed 22 people, have convinced Mexican officials that their approach is correct. In Baja California, only 10 houses burned and two elderly people died of smoke inhalation. One fire near Ensenada ultimately ran out of fuel.
In Baja, fires on the outskirts of cities are allowed to burn themselves out. Ranchers and squatters actually start fires on their lands to clear brush and get rid of junk and trash.
Such "controlled burns" are done more sparingly in the United States. One such fire, set to thin a forest in northern New Mexico three years ago, spread with disastrous consequences, burning 200 homes in the town of Los Alamos before it was extinguished.
In Mexico, fires can be set or allowed to burn with less risk to residential neighborhoods because there is less development in rural areas. That is likely to remain the case until city services are more readily available in the countryside.
"Well, let it burn. What's the problem?" said Jose Luis Rosas, executive coordinator for Baja California's civil protection agency, echoing the common reaction in his office to reports of blazes in the region's grasslands, forests and arid hills.
The result in Mexico, some experts said, is a patchwork of tall, thick brush, newer, less flammable growth and recently blackened earth, which combine to provide buffers to keep fires from reaching the proportions of the recent Cedar and Paradise blazes in San Diego County.
Richard Carson, professor of economics at UC San Diego, is one academic who favors the Mexican approach. He says statistics bear out the wisdom of letting brush fires burn unless they threaten structures.
He said Mexican figures on lives lost and acreage burned are considerably lower than those in the United States though the same potential for fire exists.
