Wildland Urban Interface
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Wildfire across the western US has increased in size, frequency, and severity since the 1950s. These changes are closely linked with increases in temperature and an increased frequency and intensity of drought. Historically, frequent low to moderate-severity fires dominated the fire regime in many western forests, maintaining low-density forests with larger trees. A history of fire exclusion, logging activity, grazing, and invasive species has led to an uncharacteristic build-up of forest fuels in many areas, increasing the susceptibility to large-scale, high-severity wildfire. The US has a history of fire suppression efforts that has exacerbated the problem by increasing the density of trees and fuel availability, and reduced the overall area burned by wildfires to levels that are below those that occurred before the beginning of the 20th century.
The western US is also experiencing larger, more severe fires that are often near communities. In recent decades, the build-up of forest fuels, a warmer and drier climate, and expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI) into forested areas has changed western landscapes and increased wildfire hazard. Federal policy and management have primarily focused on fire suppression and more recently on fuels reduction on some federal lands. Forest restoration and fuels reduction projects have had positive ecological impacts; however, the pace and scale of forest treatments is not keeping up with heightened wildfire activity across the West.
Description: Learn about the science and data used to calculate and map wildfire risk nationwide in the new Wildfire Risk to Communities website. Hear from the project’s technical lead about the use of LF and other input datasets, the methods for modeling and mapping wildfire risk, and the data products available through the website. See a demonstration of the website and how to download geospatial and tabular data.
Presenters: Greg Dillon, Frank Fay, Jim Menakis, Kelly Pohl, Joe Scott
Description: See a demonstration of the new Wildfire Risk to Communities website, including use of the interactive maps, charts, and resources available for every community, county, and state in the U.S. Learn how the website and downloadable resources can help community leaders such as elected officials, community planners, and fire managers prioritize actions to mitigate risk. Wildfire Risk to Communities is a new easy-to-use website with interactive maps, charts, and resources to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk. It was created by the USDA Forest Service under the direction of Congress. Wildfire Risk to Communities builds on nationwide LANDFIRE data to provide new information about wildfire risk to communities across the U.S.
Presenters: Greg Dillon, Frank Fay, Jim Menakis, Kelly Pohl, Joe Scott
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We analyzed the relationship between predicted housing exposure to wildfire and local self-assessment of community competence to mitigate wildfire risks in 60 communities in the western US. Results generally demonstrate that (1) the number of sources of wildfire risk influences local housing exposure to wildfire, and (2) perceived community-competence is associated with predicted exposure to wildfire. We suggest that investments in ongoing updates to community risk planning and efforts to build multi-jurisdictional risk management networks may help to leverage existing capacity, especially in moderate capacity communities. The analysis improves the social-ecological understanding of wildfire risks and highlights potential causal linkages between community capacity and wildfire exposure.
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This study presents a novel risk-science approach that aligns wildfire response decisions, mitigation opportunities, and land management objectives by consciously integrating social, ecological and fire management system needs. We use fire-prone landscapes of the US Pacific Northwest as our study area, and report on and describe how three complementary risk-based analytic tools—quantitative wildfire risk assessment, mapping of suppression difficulty, and atlases of potential control locations—can form the foundation for adaptive governance in fire management. Together, these tools integrate wildfire risk with fire management difficulties and opportunities, providing a more complete picture of the wildfire risk management challenge. Leveraging recent and ongoing experience integrating local experiential knowledge with these tools, we provide examples and discuss how these geospatial datasets create a risk-based planning structure that spans multiple spatial scales and uses.
The overall objective of this paper is to clarify areas of debate, clearly define and contrast disparate approaches, and synthesize findings that may help address vulnerability to wildfires and other natural hazards. While land managers and fire personnel might find it pertinent to approach biophysical and social issues separately, addressing both aspects of wildfire hazard can be productive for minimizing risk and empowering communities, neighborhoods, and households to prepare and recover from wildfire events. We aim to provide a practical grasp of social vulnerability research as it relates to wildfire hazards in order to advance its application by people involved in wildland fire management in their efforts to address the social diversity and complexity they face in their wildfire prevention, mitigation, and suppression activities.
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This year’s conference, Discover Your Role: Reducing Wildland Fire Risk will provide an in-depth exploration of how community members across the spectrum can effectively contribute to better fire outcomes and provide community wildfire resilience leaders with new knowledge and tools for engaging partners and the public.
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This article analyses homeowners’ decisions to undertake fire-safe investments and create defensible space on their property using a unique dataset from 35 wildland–urban interface communities in Nevada. The dataset combines homeowner information from a mail survey with their observed fire-safe investments obtained through parcel-level hazard assessments. We find that homeowners’ self-reported mitigation expenditures are driven by their subjective beliefs about their wildfire risk, whereas observed defensible space status is driven by their costs of investment. We develop a theoretical model of a homeowner’s fire-safe investment decision that accounts for our empirical results.
One mechanism with which communities-at-risk from wildfire have addressed planning and adaptation to wildfire are Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs), which were created as part of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act in 2003. CWPPs are required to include measures to reduce hazardous fuels, reduce structural ignitability, and increase collaboration and outreach. Communities across the Western U.S. have used a wide range of approaches for developing CWPPs with varying outcomes. This webinar will provide results from a study that assessed CWPPs in Arizona and other western states. It will include results from an assessment of CWPP effectiveness in Arizona, results from a survey of CWPP program strategies in other western states, as well as lessons learned and recommendations for effective CWPP development, implementation, and management.