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Social Vulnerability and Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface

Year of Publication
2019
Publication Type

People living in the Pacific Northwest confrontrisks associated with environmentalhazards such as wildfire. Vulnerability towildfire hazard is commonly recognized as beingspatially distributed according to geographic conditionsthat collectively determine the probabilityof exposure. For example, exposure to wildfirehazard is higher for people living in rural, forestedsettings than in a strictly urban neighborhood becauserural housing is built in close proximity tothe threat source, e.g., flammable landscapes suchas forests and chaparral. Yet, even if levels of exposureare held constant, not all people are equallysusceptible to wildfire events. In other words, somepeople are more vulnerable to harm than others.

Authors
M.R. Coughlan; A. Ellison; A. Cavanaugh
Citation

Coughlan MR, Ellison A, Cavanaugh A. Social Vulnerability and Wildfire in the Wildland-Urban Interface. Northwest Fire Science Consortium; 2019. Available from: http://ewp.uoregon.edu/sites/ewp.uoregon.edu/files/WP_96.pdf