Wildland Urban Interface
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In this white paper, we assert that the current wildfire management approach has partially inverted the wildfire problem as one in which wildland fires encroach on communities when, in actuality, it is communities that have increasingly impinged on wildlands where fires might appropriately play an important ecological role. As a result, predominant strategies continue to apply shortsighted, risk-averse reactions emphasizing community protection at the expense of creating resilient landscapes and promoting safe and effective wildfire responses. In doing so, managers are inadvertently limiting agency ability to build fire-adapted communities and generate landscape vegetation and fire conditions that support more meaningful and useful change.
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We find that significant precursors for fire suppression resource deployment are location, fire weather, canopy cover, Wildland–Urban Interface category, and history of past fire. These results align partially with, but are distinct from, results of earlier research modelling expenditures related to suppression which include precursors such as total burned area which become observable only after an incident.
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For this webinar, we are joined by Dr. Andrew Merschel, Postdoctoral Scholar with ORISE and the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station and Dr. Chris Dunn, Assistant Professor at Oregon State University.
Dr. Andrew Merschel: The largest, tallest, and often the longest-lived species of nine conifer genera are found in temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. Newly developed fire and tree establishment histories are challenging paradigms regarding how old-growth trees and forests developed their iconic structurally diversity and their tremendous biomass. This presentation will review annually precise reconstructions of fire and forest development history that reveal how low- to moderate-severity fire and Indigenous fire stewardship historically shaped old trees and forests.
Dr. Chris Dunn: In 2021, Oregon’s Legislature passed Senate Bill 762 requiring Oregon State University, in collaboration with Oregon Department of Forestry, to create a wildland-urban interface map coupled with a wildfire hazard map to narrow regulation of the home ignition zone to only those properties at high or extreme risk. Upon release, the public exploded with anger, fueled in part by misinformation and false-narratives, including threats of violence, leading to retraction of the map. In this talk I will discuss the difficulty of integrating science with policy, how the public responded, and lessons learned relevant to state and local government policy actions.
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Quaking aspen forests are widely known and prized for their numerous values—biodiversity, habitat, forage, recreation, aesthetics, and others—including as a deterrent to wildfire. This reputation for stopping or slowing flames is explored here, alongside measures that may be taken to facilitate thriving aspen communities near human developments. It is clear that science supporting the premise of aspen as an effective firebreak is far from complete. Yet, how can we benefit from what we do know on this topic to increase the probability of preventing structural fire damage, while also encouraging the valued characteristics of aspen ecosystems?
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Fires are a natural part of the Pacific Northwest’s ever-changing ecosystem. As people continue to live and build in fire-prone landscapes, they must take steps to protect their lives, homes, properties and communities. These safeguards are needed in rural, suburban and urban environments, which are all prone to wildfire devastation.
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Fires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) are an important issue globally. To understand the change of WUI, we develop a 9 km worldwide unified wildland-urban interface database for 2001–2020 with Random Forest models and satellite data. We find that WUI has been increasing in all populated continents from 2001 to 2020 and the global relative increase is 24%, with the largest relative increase (∼59%) over Africa. Global total fire counts decrease by 10% from 2005 to 2020, whereas the WUI fraction of fire counts increases by 23%. The global total burned area decreases by 22% from 2005 to 2020, whereas the WUI fraction of burned area increases by 35%. These are mainly due to the expansion of WUI area. On all the populated continents, the WUI fractions of fire counts are higher than the WUI fractions of burned area, implying that WUI fires tend to have smaller sizes than wildland fires. We also project future WUI changes for the years 2030 and 2040, together with the projection of future fire burned area under different shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) scenarios in the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2). The projected global WUI fraction (excluding Antarctica and the oceans) is 5.9% in 2040 compared to 4.8% in 2020. The global WUI fraction of burned area is projected to increase from now to 2040 under most scenarios analyzed in this study, unless the WUI area stays at the 2020 level together with the projected burned area under SSP4-4.5. This study is a first step to understanding the changes of WUI fires at the global scale and demonstrates a growing importance of WUI fires. The global multi-year WUI and WUI fire datasets developed in this study can facilitate future work quantifying the impacts of WUI fires on air quality and climate.
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In this webinar from Fire Adapted Communities NM, knowledgeable fire and forestry professionals from New Mexico and Colorado introduce an important fire risk and readiness tool: Home Hazard Assessments (HHAs). Topics include guidance and digital and printed tools to complete HHAs, local partners who can guide the process or travel to complete HHAs on-site alongside property owners and residents, how different Assessment programs are structured, why HHAs are an important fire readiness tool, how county ordinances and insurance providers can influence the need for HHAs, and what opportunities may open up as a result of completing them.
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Step by step home hazard assessment, preparedness, and evacuation options.
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Compared with other models, the escape routes planned by the final improved model not only effectively avoid wildfires, but also provide relatively short travel time and reliable safety. This study ensures sufficient safety margins for firefighters escaping in wildfire environments. The escape route model described in this study offers a broader perspective on the study of escape route planning.
Webinar recording.
Learn what agencies mean when they reference the WUI, its defining characteristics, and the unique challenges of living in these areas, particularly in Nevada. Discover the responsibilities that come with living in the WUI and explore the wealth of resources available to mitigate wildfire risks. Whether you’re a resident, stakeholder, or rightsholder, watch to gain valuable insights and actionable strategies for building safer, more resilient communities in the WUI.