Hannah Brenkert-Smith

Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes.

Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. Although many plants, animals, and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming. Policy and management have focused primarily on specified resilience approaches aimed at resistance to wildfire and restoration of areas burned by wildfire through fire suppression and fuels management. These strategies are inadequate to address a new era of western wildfires. In contrast, policies that promote adaptive resilience to wildfire, by which people and ecosystems adjust and reorganize in response to changing fire regimes to reduce future vulnerability, are needed. Key aspects of an adaptive resilience approach are (i) recognizing that fuels reduction cannot alter regional wildfire trends; (ii) targeting fuels reduction to increase adaptation by some ecosystems and residential communities to more frequent fire; (iii) actively managing more wild and prescribed fires with a range of severities; and (iv) incentivizing and planning residential development to withstand inevitable wildfire. These strategies represent a shift in policy and management from restoring ecosystems based on historical baselines to adapting to changing fire regimes and from unsustainable defense of the wildland–urban interface to developing fire-adapted communities. We propose an approach that accepts wildfire as an inevitable catalyst of change and that promotes adaptive responses by ecosystems and residential communities to more warming and wildfire.

Trying Not to Get Burned: Understanding Homeowners’ Wildfire Risk–Mitigation Behaviors

Three causes have been identified for the spiraling cost of wildfire suppression in the United States: climate change, fuel accumulation from past wildfire suppression, and development in fire-prone areas. Because little is likely to be performed to halt the effects of climate on wildfire risk, and because fuel-management budgets cannot keep pace with fuel accumulation let alone reverse it, changing the behaviors of existing and potential homeowners in fire-prone areas is the most promising approach to decreasing the cost of suppressing wildfires in the wildland–urban interface and increasing the odds of homes surviving wildfire events. Wildfire education efforts encourage homeowners to manage their property to decrease wildfire risk. Such programs may be more effective with a better understanding of the factors related to homeowners’ decisions to undertake wildfire risk–reduction actions. In this study, we measured whether homeowners had implemented 12 wildfire risk–mitigation measures in 2 Colorado Front Range counties. We found that wildfire information received from local volunteer fire departments and county wildfire specialists, as well as talking with neighbors about wildfire, were positively associated with higher levels of mitigation. Firsthand experience in the form of preparing for or undertaking an evacuation was also associated with a higher level of mitigation. Finally, homeowners who perceived higher levels of wildfire risk on their property had undertaken higher levels of wildfire-risk mitigation on their property.

Differential Adaptive Capacity to Extreme Heat: A Phoenix, Arizona, Case Study

AbstractClimate change is projected to increase the number of days producing excessive heat across the southwestern United States, increasing population exposure to extreme heat events. Extreme heat is currently the main cause of weather-related mortality in the United States, where the negative health effects of extreme heat are disproportionately distributed among geographic regions and demographic groups. To more effectively identify vulnerability to extreme heat, complementary local-level studies of adaptive capacity within a population are needed to augment census-based demographic data and downscaled weather and climate models. This pilot study, conducted in August 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona, reports responses from 359 households in three U.S. Census block groups identified as heat-vulnerable based on heat distress calls, decedent records, and demographic characteristics. This study sought to understand social vulnerability to extreme heat at the local level as a complex phenomenon with explicit chara...

Catching fire? Social interactions, beliefs, and wildfire risk mitigation behaviors

Social interactions are widely recognized as a potential influence on risk-related behaviors. We present a mediation model in which social interactions (classified as formal/informal and generic/fire-specific) are associated with beliefs about wildfire risk and mitigation options, which in turn shape wildfire mitigation behaviors. We test this model using survey data from fire-prone areas of Colorado. In several cases, our results are consistent with the mediation hypotheses for mitigation actions specifically targeting vegetative fuel reduction. Perceived wildfire probability partially mediates the relationship between several interaction types and vegetative mitigation behaviors, while perceptions of aesthetic barriers and lack of information play a mediating role in the case of fire-specific formal interactions. Our results suggest that social interactions may allow mitigation and prevention behaviors to “catch fire” within a community, and that wildfire education programs could leverage these interactions to enhance programmatic benefits.

Understanding social impact from wildfires: advancing means for assessment

There is no uniform means for assessing social impact from wildland fires beyond statistics such as home loss, suppression costs and the number of residents evacuated. In this paper we argue for and provide a more comprehensive set of considerations for gauging social impact following wildfires. These expanded considerations can advance methods for determining how social impacts from wildfire are changing over time and among diverse communities affected by fire. Our preliminary considerations for social impact from wildfire are drawn from the synthesis of the literature on wildfire and other hazards. We explain how our considerations cover existing research insights and advance them by accounting for wildfire-specific impacts. Considerations are presented as a series of questions that could be answered by an assemblage of outside professionals and local key informants in an affected area for comparison and policy purposes. Those considerations could also be used to advance research questions related to wildfire exposure and impact. We discuss multiple methodological strategies for collecting and analysing data that would be needed to answer considerations presented as part of this synthesis. This includes potential methods for using those considerations to assess social impact across communities.

Wildfire-Migration Dynamics: Lessons from Colorado’s Fourmile Canyon Fire

The number of people living in wildfire-prone wildland–urban interface (WUI) communities is on the rise. However, no prior study has investigated wildfire-induced residential relocation from WUI areas after a major fire event. To provide insight into the association between sociodemographic and sociopsychological characteristics and wildfire-related intention to move, we use data from a survey of WUI residents in Boulder and Larimer counties, Colorado. The data were collected 2 months after the devastating Fourmile Canyon fire destroyed 169 homes and burned more than 6,000 acres of public and private land. Although this study is working with a small migrant sample, logistic regression models demonstrate that survey respondents intending to move in relation to wildfire incidence do not differ sociodemographically from their nonmigrant counterparts. They do, however, show significantly higher levels of risk perception. Investigating destination choices shows a preference for short-distance moves.

Where you stand depends on where you sit: Qualitative inquiry into notions of fire adaptation

Wildfire and the threat it poses to society represents an example of the complex, dynamic relationship between social and ecological systems. Increasingly, wildfire adaptation is posited as a pathway to shift the approach to fire from a suppression paradigm that seeks to control fire to a paradigm that focuses on “living with” and “adapting to” wildfire. In this study, we seek insights into what it means to adapt to wildfire from a range of stakeholders whose efforts contribute to the management of wildfire. Study participants provided insights into the meaning, relevance, and use of the concept of fire adaptation as it relates to their wildfire-related activities. A key finding of this investigation suggests that social scale is of key importance in the conceptualization and understanding of adaptation for participating stakeholders. Indeed, where you stand in terms of understandings of fire adaptation depends in large part on where you sit.

Climate change beliefs and hazard mitigation behaviors: homeowners and wildfire risk

Downscaled climate models provide projections of how climate change may exacerbate the local impacts of natural hazards. The extent to which people facing exacerbated hazard conditions understand or respond to climate-related changes to local hazards has been largely overlooked. In this article, we examine the relationships among climate change beliefs, environmental beliefs, and hazard mitigation actions in the context of wildfire, a natural hazard projected to be intensified by climate change. We find that survey respondents are situated across a continuum between being ‘believers’ and ‘deniers’ that is multidimensional. Placement on this believer–denier spectrum is related to general environmental attitudes. We fail, however, to find a relationship between climate change beliefs and wildfire risk-reduction actions in general. In contrast, we find a statistically significant positive relationship between level of wildfire risk mitigation and being a climate denier. Further, certain pro-environmental attitudes are found to have a statistically significant negative association with the level of wildfire risk mitigation.

Living with wildfire in Log Hill Mesa, Colorado

Over the past 50 years, Colorado has experienced an increase in the number and size of wildfires on its public and private lands. Nationwide, expenditures on wildfire suppression have increased for decades and now are measured in the billions of tax dollars. Current trends in climate changes, fuel accumulation from past wildfire suppression, and expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), which means more development within areas of heightened wildfire potential, all suggest that continued increases in the costs of wildfires are likely.

Understanding change: Wildfire in Boulder County, Colorado

Wildfire activity continues to plague communities in the American West. Three causes are often identified as key contributors to the wildfire problem: accumulated fuels on public lands due to a history of suppressing wildfires; climate change; and an influx of residents into fire prone areas referred to as the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The latter of these contributors is the focus of much attention. Encouraging homeowners to mitigate wildfire risk on private land has been identified as essential to reducing the devastating effects of wildfires. However, little is known about WUI residents’ attitudes toward wildfire and what actions homeowners are taking to mitigate wildfire risk. This report presents the results of a unique homeowner survey administered twice over a three-year period. As such, we are able to provide some insight into changes in attitudes and beliefs about wildfire and concern about existing risk, as well as reported behavioral changes over time.