Wildfire risk governance from the bottom up: Linking local planning processes in fragmented landscapes

View article.

Using data on the patterns of participation of 10,199 individual stakeholders in 837 community wildfire protection plans (CWPPs) within the western U.S., we document the emergence of a locally clustered but spatially extensive wildfire risk governance network. Our evaluation of factors that contribute to connectivity within this network indicates that risk interdependence (e.g., joint exposure to the same fires) between planning jurisdictions increases the prospects for linkages between planning processes, and that connectivity is also more likely among planning processes that are more proximate and similar to one another. We discuss how our results advance understanding of how changing hazard conditions prompt risk mitigation policy networks to reorganize, which in turn affects risk outcomes at multiple spatial scales.