Exposure Complexity and Community Capacity to Manage Wildfire Risk: A Coupled Biophysical and Social Analysis of 60 Communities in the Western United States

Max Nielsen-Pincus,Alan Ager,Cody Evers

doi:10.3390/fire2040059

Abstract

Coordinated approaches to wildfire risk mitigation strategies that cross-ownership and management boundaries are found in many policies and programs worldwide. The “all lands” approach of the United States (US) National Cohesive Strategy, for example, attempts to address the mismatches between biophysical risk and the social potential to address risks by improving multijurisdictional coordination and collaboration. Local capacity to coordinate wildfire risk mitigation, therefore, may be an important influence on whether risk reduction planning makes success stories out of at-risk communities, or turns what would appear a manageable problem into a disaster waiting to happen. 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.

Highlights

In the western United States (US) and elsewhere across the globe, wildfire strains government capacities to protect people and resources from harm [1]
After deriving local exposure to wildfire and social and ecological independent variables, we explored the relationship among exposure, the complexity of the wildfire exposure network, community capacity to address wildfire risk indices derived from key informant surveys, and constraints to community capacity as represented by different features in the landscape surrounding communities
Fire regimes varied across communities, with 23 communities being dominated by a frequent low severity fire regime, and an equal number having a mix of fire regime types within the community landscape

Summary

Introduction

In the western United States (US) and elsewhere across the globe, wildfire strains government capacities to protect people and resources from harm [1]. 10s to 100s of thousands of hectares and spread 20-50 km or more from their ignition points [20], causing the majority of area burnt from ignitions on some national forests in the western US to occur outside of those National Forests [29] In this context, the transmission of fire risk across boundaries of land ownership and management (hereafter, land tenure) takes on an important role only recently recognized in the wildfire risk literature. The movement of wildfire across tenures creates risk transmission as objects of value (e.g., homes) are exposed to fire and incur losses This analytic framework can be used to spatially identify planning areas (i.e. the “fireshed”)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion