VICTORIA, B.C. - A U.S. firefighting expert says evacuating communities to escape forest fires is not always the right thing to do.

Fire historian Stephen Payne says it's rare that communities are engulfed in "tsunami of fire."

More often, homes are destroyed by fires started from small burning embers thrown out from the fire front, Payne said in an interview. They could be extinguished with little effort.

"After the front has passed, or the main surge, you could go out with a squirt gun and a whisk broom," said Payne.

He pointed to a wildfire that destroyed a number of homes an evacuated neighbourhood in Los Alamos, NM, nine years ago.

Afterward, officials realized most were the result of burning embers, said Payne, who teaches at Arizona State University.

"Are these mass evacuations the right approach?" he asked. "Or is that what people are doing because they're afraid of TV or lawsuits, who knows what?"

A province on fire

Thousands of British Columbians have been ordered out of their homes in the last month as fires threatened several communities, from Bella Coola on the central coast to West Kelowna in the Okanagan and Lillooet, north of Vancouver.

In 2003, about 50,000 people were forced to evacuate in Kelowna and communities north of Kamloops because of fires that razed more than 200 homes and a lumber mill.

Fight or flight?

Payne, who wrote Awful Splendour, A Fire History of Canada, in 2007, said Australia has a policy of allowing homeowners to choose between early evacuation and staying behind to protect their property.

"There's a lot of evidence that, as the Australians say, houses protect people and people protect houses," he said.

"If you have a structure that is defensible and that can provide protection for people, then people can protect the structure."

Homeowners are given basic courses on how protect their roofs and clear flammable vegetation.

Payne conceded the policy is under review after 210 Australians died fleeing wildfires in the state of Victoria last February.

A royal commission is expected to issue its report soon but Payne noted many of those killed were caught on the road.

"If you want to go, you go early," he said. "These last-minute evacuations are when people get killed."

A political decision

Mass evacuations are part of an approach that stresses fire fighting over fire management through preventative measures, Payne said.

The reason, he said, is that it's more politically attractive to be seen battling fires head-on than doing the mundane land-management work needed to minimize the threat of fires to adjacent communities.

"There are strong pressures to have fire fighting," said Payne. "That's where the public sees it, that's where the politicians have to respond. You have to show you're doing something."

The B.C. government has said is implementing recommendations out of the Filmon report on the 2003 fire season to clear fire fuels from around forest communities.

But Payne said Canada has lagged behind the United States and Australia in developing comprehensive land management plans that address the fire threat.

"Canada has extraordinary fire-fighting capabilities and B.C. has been a leader from the beginning," he said. "But fire management involves more than firefighting."