forests | watersheds | land protection | wildfires

Understanding Community Responses to Wildfire Risk

Great uncertainty surrounds the scope and success of community responses and why some communities manage to foster constructive adaptive responses to wildfire disasters while others fail to do so. In the last decade a natural experiment has occurred in the inland portion of the western United States as communities have taken different approaches to adapting to the successive incidents of wildfire disasters. This research investigates the scope of actions taken in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado to adapt to wildfire risk while also trying to understand why and how some communities have been more proactive and successful than others. The goal is to harvest this experience and diffuse the lessons from more successful communities to less successful communities through case studies of best practices.

The objectives of the research are to: 1) create an inventory of existing adaptive actions; 2) understand who (e.g. city managers, county commissions, insurance industry, emergency management agencies, interest groups, planners, building officials, public works engineers, etc.) is undertaking each of these types of adaptive actions; 3) explore the decision processes related to the adoption or refutation of adaptive responses; 4) assess the effectiveness of these adaptive processes and responses; and 5) create a process for dissemination of effective best practices of adaptive responses.

www.wildfirecommunities.ncsu.edu

State level analysis of responses to wildfire in New Mexico

State level analysis of responses to wildfire in Arizona

State level analysis of responses to wildfire in Colorado

“Innovative Community Responses to Wildfire Risk”. (with Ginger Kunkel and Devona Bell). Southwest Community Forestry Research Center Newsletter. Issue 7, June 2004. Pp. 1-2, 7.

“State Responses to Wildfire Threats: Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.” (with Ginger Kunkel and Devona Bell). Journal of Forestry. September 2004: 21-28.

“Effective Community Responses to Wildfire Threats: Lessons from New Mexico.” (with Ginger Kunkel). Society and Natural Resources. Vol. 17: 1-21.

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