Categorizing the Social Context of the Wildland Urban Interface: Adaptive Capacity for Wildfire and Community “Archetypes”

Paveglio, Travis B.; Moseley, Cassandra; Carroll, Matthew S.; Williams, Daniel; Davis, Emily Jane; Fischer, A. Paige

doi:10.5849/forsci.14-036

Cited by 151 publications

(133 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Perhaps more importantly, social science has not yet determined a common set of predictors or incentives (in either the USA or globally) that can be harnessed to foster local responsibility and action in reducing wildfire risk [22,25,26]. Instead, longitudinal lessons from that research indicate that common predictors vary in their importance to the diverse human populations that live with, in and near the wildlands [27]. Wildfire science from locations across the world continues to recognize that the unique social and biophysical characteristics of fire-prone environments, including historical approaches to land management, area culture, amenity migration, locals' perceptions about wildfire and trust between stakeholders can all influence drastically different collective responses to wildfire risk [28][29][30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, they are meant to be seen as a heuristic device to suggest tendencies for types of communities to share characteristics and be likely to share commonalities in practical strategies for achieving greater fire adaptiveness. Below we outline some of the critical differences between 'points' in our continuum, while a more complete discussion of all differences can be found elsewhere [27]. One side of the continuum is anchored by what we call Formalized Suburban (FS) WUI communities.…”

Section: Wildland-urban Interface Community Archetypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We do this by briefly summarizing the community 'archetypes' that our recent meta-analysis produced [27]. Our continuum approach highlights how the social context of communities changes over time, and recognizes that documenting ongoing changes in the relationships among at-risk populations, and with their landscape, will continue to drive wildfire management approaches.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The present authors, along with other colleagues, have been developing the insights, frameworks and conceptual approaches that address this need. We recently published a scheme for beginning to classify WUI communities as a way of better understanding how communities with different key characteristics may approach the problem of becoming more fire adapted in different ways [27]. That typology is based on a meta-analysis of 20 years of previously published case studies of fire-prone communities in the US West [24,27,[36][37][38][39].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We recently published a scheme for beginning to classify WUI communities as a way of better understanding how communities with different key characteristics may approach the problem of becoming more fire adapted in different ways [27]. That typology is based on a meta-analysis of 20 years of previously published case studies of fire-prone communities in the US West [24,27,[36][37][38][39]. Corresponding reviews of the wildland fire social science literature, in which these studies were embedded, also found a great deal of variability in the composition of WUI communities and their approaches to dealing with fire risk [27].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

Carroll

Paveglio

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 24 to a discussion meeting issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'. One of the immediate challenges of wildfire management concerns threats to human safety and property in residential areas adjacent to non-cultivated vegetation. One approach for relieving this problem is to increase human community 'adaptiveness' to deal with the risk and reality of fire in a variety of landscapes. The challenge in creating 'fire-adapted communities' (FACs) is the great diversity in character and make-up of populations at risk from wildfire. This paper outlines a recently developed categorization scheme for WildlandUrban Interface (WUI) communities based on a larger conceptual approach for understanding how social diversity is likely to influence the creation of FACs. The WUI categorization scheme situates four community archetypes on a continuum that recognizes dynamic change in human community functioning. We use results from the WUI classification scheme to outline key characteristics associated with each archetype and results from recent case studies to demonstrate the diversity across WUI communities. Differences among key characteristics of local social context will likely result in the need for different adaptation strategies to wildfire. While the WUI archetypes described here may not be broadly applicable to other parts of the world, we argue that the conceptual approach and strategies for systematically documenting local influences on wildfire adaptation have potential for broad application.This article is part of the themed issue 'The interaction of fire and mankind'.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Wildland-urban Interface Community Archetypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Using community archetypes to better understand differential community adaptation to wildfire risk

Carroll

Paveglio

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

et al. 2018

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Expanding the footprint of natural fire has been proposed as one potential solution to increase the pace of forest restoration programs in fire‐adapted landscapes of the western USA. However, studies that examine the long‐term socio‐ecological trade‐offs of expanding natural fire to reduce wildfire risk and create fire resilient landscapes are lacking. We used the model Envision to examine the outcomes that might result from increased area burned by what we call “restoration” wildfire in a landscape where the ecological benefits of wildfire are known, but the need to suppress high‐risk fires that threaten human values is also evident. Our study area, in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA, includes the Deschutes National Forest where large tracts of mixed conifer forest structure are outside the historical range of variation and characterized by multi‐layer, closed‐canopy stands. We found that simulation of one restoration wildfire per year in addition to high‐risk wildfires in the regular fire season and over the course of 50 yr resulted in a 23% increase in total area burned, but the same probability of fire‐on‐fire interactions. This translated into 0.3% of the national forest burned by restoration wildfire per year and had a small impact in area burned by high‐risk fires albeit more likely in extreme fire years. Smoke production doubled in the restoration scenario relative to the scenario without restoration wildfire, but still resulted in minimal smoke production in most years. Restoration fires burned with low‐ to mixed‐severity and led to a steady reduction in canopy cover and increase in resilient forest structure in dry‐forest types. Habitat for the federally protected northern spotted owl declined with the inclusion of restoration fire, while habitat for species that use recently burned forest stands (e.g., black‐backed woodpecker) increased. Our results suggest that restoration wildfire can improve forest resilience and contribute to restoration efforts in fire‐adapted forests, but there are trade‐offs (wildlife habitat, smoke, area burned in fire‐sensitive forest types), and the level of restoration fire use we simulated is unlikely to have a significant impact on the occurrence of high‐severity wildfires.

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