Post-fire Environment & Management
Webinar recording.
We merge property-level damages for U.S. wildfires with individual tax and Census data to understand the demographics of wildfire victims and the financial consequences of wildfire property loss. The data illuminate disparities in hazard and structure vulnerability. Occupants of destroyed homes have lower pre-fire income than those in surviving homes. Wildfires reduce earnings for occupants of destroyed homes by 10% on average in years following the fire and 40% of occupants are still filing taxes from a different county 3 years after the event.
Judson Boomhower is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of California San Diego and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research focuses on environmental economics, energy markets, climate risk and adaptation, and the design of environmental and energy policy. Judson is a contributor to the U.S. National Climate Assessment, an invited researcher at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and a faculty affiliate at the E2e initiative. He joined UC San Diego after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He earned his PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley and BA and MS degrees from Stanford University.
Conference website.
The After the Flames Conference and Workshop is a dynamic, solutions-driven event focused on post-fire recovery. It brings together wildfire-impacted communities, response agencies, and recovery experts to share practical tools, build partnerships, and drive real progress in restoring landscapes and building resilience. Early bird registration ends in February.
Conference will be April 6-9, 2026, in Cle Elum, WA at Suncadia.
View article.
Wildfires can produce health impacts that persist for years in affected communities. This article describes an Extension-led study of health impacts in rural Oregon communities one year after a destructive wildfire. Data collection included key informant interviews (n=36), an online survey (n=80), and three focus group interviews with survivors (n=23). Mental health, exposure to contaminants, physical stress, food insecurity, and other issues were frequently identified health concerns. Survivors’ difficulties in dealing with housing displacement significantly exacerbated health challenges. We describe potential roles for Extension in addressing wildfire risk and mitigating health impacts, including a description of the Oregon Fire Program.
Webinar registration.
The cascading effects of post wildfire can bring more devastation to an already battered community. Utah’s Post Wildfire Mitigation Team, established in 2019, is led by the Utah Division of Emergency Management. It brings together Federal, State, private and local partners to meet with communities throughout Utah affected by wildfires. The team discusses actions, makes available resources, and identifies hazard mitigation opportunities to assist communities with the cascading events that can occur post wildfire. Bringing a “One stop shop” to communities.
View report.
We continued to monitor streamflow and precipitation at an existing hydrologic monitoring network at the Grizzly Creek Fire, CO. Through analysis of this long-term dataset, managers may better plan for infrastructure impacts multiple years post-fire. Next, to evaluate the performance of existing post-fire decision criteria and assess potential improvements, we developed the Post-fire Decision Criteria Assessment Framework. We applied this framework to the Grizzly Creek Fire, CO (2020) and specifically evaluated the decision criteria for highway safety closures applied by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) to Interstate (I-) 70 within Glenwood Canyon, CO between Dotsero and Glenwood Springs in the first three years post-fire (2021-2023). We defined the infrastructure impact (referred to as ‘impact’) as any instance where I-70 was closed by the Colorado Department of Transportation beyond the end of the precipitation event for maintenance or cleanup associated with flooding or sediment. We
identified a total of 20 safety closure decisions reported by CDOT over the study period and classified each decision into one of three performance categories: true positive (preemptive closure and impact occurred), false positive (preemptive closure and no impact occurred), and false negative (no preemptive closure but impact occurred, resulting in emergency closure). We found that the performance of the safety closure decision criteria varied over the study period in alignment with the Colorado Department of Transportation’s aim of protecting travelers’ safety while reducing unnecessary safety closures without impact. Decisions that resulted in compromised traveler safety or unnecessary closures were considered poor performance. We identified that precipitation-based metrics including precipitation event depth and short-term intensity (i.e. 15-minute) were significant indicators of impact to I-70. Soil moisture-based metrics may be a good secondary indicator but further analysis with a larger dataset is needed. This framework is applicable across burned watersheds and to other infrastructure impacts of interest, such as for water intake shutdown.
Event webpage
When: May 12-13, 2025
Where: Kittitas County Armory in Ellensburg, WA
Who: People working on post-fire recovery in WA, we aim to improve how watersheds, working lands, communities, infrastructure, and people recover from wildfire. This includes recovery readiness planning, actions taken during the fire, and in the months to years following. We’re all in this together.
Purpose: Learn from each other to improve recovery coordination, share best practices, and network with other professionals. This year we will spend time working to develop locally led BAER teams, learn about county-led recovery readiness guides, post-fire in CWPPs, a policy update, science, and more!f
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Our research found that persistent administrative and coordination challenges exist within and among federal agencies in the post-fire response and recovery space. Challenges included cross- jurisdictional coordination of key emergency response programs, program rules that affect post-fire project timing and effectiveness, the absence of a formal federal post-fire response strategy, and program funding issues. These factors revealed and exacerbated scale mismatches between existing agency capacities and the post-fire landscapes that result from unprecedentedly longer, larger, and more severe wildfires occurring in the western USA. Non-federal and nongovernmental organizations were instrumental in overcoming these challenges through coordinating response and recovery efforts across both federal and private lands. To improve the federal post-fire response capacity, study participants stressed the importance of broader cross-jurisdictional use of federal resources, longer timeframes for recovery activities, and reforming the federal funding process.
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Climate change is altering fire regimes and post-fire conditions, contributing to relatively rapid transformation of landscapes across the western US. Studies are increasingly documenting post-fire vegetation transitions, particularly from forest to nonforest conditions or from sagebrush to invasive annual grasses. The prevalence of climate-driven, post-fire vegetation transitions is likely to increase in the future with major impacts on social–ecological systems. However, research and management communities have only recently focused attention on this emerging climate risk, and many knowledge gaps remain. We identify three key needs for advancing the management of post-fire vegetation transitions, including centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire-prone ecosystems, developing decision-relevant science to inform pre- and post-fire management, and supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information-sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries. We highlight promising examples that are helping to transform the perception and management of post-fire vegetation transitions.
View guidebook.
It’s difficult to put into words the profoundly life – changing experience of surviving a wildfire. After the flames are out, the road to recovery is about more than filing claims, calls with agencies, clean-up, and what will feel like a never-ending to-do list. It’s about the emotional healing of accepting what was lost, forgiving yourself for what you wish you would have done, and remember to have faith again in the future ahead. The smiles will eventually outweigh the tears— you’ll emerge stronger and be amazed by your resilience. No two recovery journeys are the same, and each present unique circumstances. Colorado State University Extension has gathered a variety of resources based on insights from subject matter experts and survivors to provide guidance on the road to recovery. We hope you find this toolkit useful as you embark on the journey ahead.
View factsheet.
In recent years, biochar has become a way to dispose of woody debris from forest activities. A new General Technical Report (GTR) has been published by the Rocky Mountain Research Station covering the eight types of biochar production available to land managers. This product will help increase the use of biochar and provide resources to inform those who are interested in it.