community

Western wildfires present a complex sustainability challenge characterized by more severe fires and escalating risks. To mitigate western wildfire risks, collaborative management practices need to transform the processes involved in knowledge production, seizing the opportunities and overcoming obstacles associated with actors’ multiple understandings.

Formal requirements of wildfire mitigation on private properties are increasingly being considered as one avenue for “scaling up” wildfire management and voluntary mitigation actions to landscape scales.

As climate change increases the frequency and severity of wildfires across the Western U.S., there is an urgent need for improved wildfire preparedness and responses.

Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity owing to climate change. Individual-level behavioural responses—notably, disaster preparedness and community helping actions (such as donating and volunteering)—supplement government efforts to respond to such phenomena, but rarely have they been explored together.

Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) are increasingly threatening lives and livelihoods. These growing impacts have prompted a paradigm shift toward proactive wildfire management that prioritizes prevention and preparedness instead of response.

Since their introduction two decades ago, Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) have become a common planning tool for improving community preparedness and risk mitigation in fire-prone regions, and for strengthening coordination among federal and state land management agencies, local government, and residents.

This article identifies specific social characteristics in two wildland urban interface communities that may have significant impacts on the ability of those communities to adapt to wildfire.

There is a growing recognition that the social diversity of communities at risk from wildland fire may necessitate divergent combinations of policies, programs and incentives that allow diverse populations to promote fire adapted communities (FACs).