Fueling Adaptation: Leveraging Community Capacity to Reduce Wildfire Risk

Photo Credit

Photo Credit Miranda Mockrin, USDA Forest Service.

During a field tour in May 2025, Fueling Adaptation researchers visited this neighborhood of residential homes surrounded by undeveloped wildland, an example of an wildland-urban interface in Boise County, Idaho.

Wildfires across the United States have resulted in rising ecological and social costs. More homes and communities are threatened by wildfires resulting from a legacy of fire exclusion on the landscape, changing climate and fuel conditions, and an expanding wildland-urban interface.

As a part of the 2021–2024 Wildfire Crisis Strategy, the U.S. Forest Service made unprecedented investments in forest health and risk mitigation for communities, including using fuel treatments to reduce wildfire risk. Rather than a one-time effort, these investments were intended as a “down payment” on a long-term commitment to proactively manage for wildfire risk reduction, in collaboration with diverse partners in local communities. By tapping into existing capacities and networks, these federal investments can more effectively fuel adaptation to changing wildfire dynamics on and off Forest Service lands through enhanced all-lands partnerships with state and local governments, as well as private and nonprofit nongovernmental organizations.

However, it was less clear how these federal investments complement or leverage other risk reduction efforts within and across landscapes. Complex patterns of land ownership mean it is critical to understand how non-Forest Service actors are mitigating and managing risk, and how existing mitigation efforts affect the social acceptability of future proposed work.

To address these questions, this project launched a cross-site research investigation to examine adaptation outcomes within priority landscapes across the Western United States. This research integrated information about ongoing Forest Service adaptation efforts as well as other actors, including municipal and regional governments, fire protection districts, civic stewardship groups, homeowner associations, and other groups. It serves as an assessment of the proof of concept behind the Wildfire Crisis Strategy: that long-term investment in fire-prone landscapes can catalyze and leverage other capacities and serve as a long-term strategy for adapting to wildfire.

Key Takeaways from Our Research Project:

• Forest management is important for reducing wildfire risk and so are collaboration and capacity. 
• Collaborative planning is easier than cross-boundary implementation, but not easy. 
• It is important to support and track collaborative work, including the work that occurs before implementation. 
• Collaborative capacity takes time to build, is structured in networks, and can be visualized. 
• Invest in the how by focusing on strategic bridging and supporting high-quality forums. 
• Adapt to regional context; no two landscapes are exactly alike.

See the research products to learn more about these takeaways.

Photo Credit

Miranda Mockrin, USDA Forest Service.

Research project members learn from a U.S. Forest Service fuels specialist about a prescribed burn outside Bailey, Colorado. From left: Lindsay Campbell, Michelle Johnson, and Sonya Sachdeva (USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station), Kelly Johnston (Community Wildfire Planning Center), Cody Evers (Portland State University), and James Pilsmaker (Pike-San Isabel National Forest).

Objectives

The project objective was to understand how increased federal investments in mitigating wildfire risk through the 2021–2024 Wildfire Crisis Strategy combined with, enhanced, or leveraged other capacities, networks, and adaptations across the landscape in response to social and ecological conditions.

Research Activities

Photo Credit

Robert Anderson, USDA Forest Service.

September 2024: Staff from the Community Wildfire Planning Center, Larimer County, and the Estes Valley Watershed Coalition walk through an area where forests have been thinned to reduce wildfire risk to homes near Estes Park, Colorado.

• Wildfire governance: In southwest Idaho and on the Colorado Front Range, we conducted an online survey of organizations involved in wildfire risk management, land stewardship, or community development, to find out where they work, who they work with, and how they collaborate. We also conducted a separate round of surveys and interviews with Homeowners Associations to gather information on the role these organizations play locally in wildfire risk management. 
• Community-level wildfire adaptation: We completed three research site visits and interviewed more than 50 local practitioners on the four primary focal landscapes to document local efforts to mitigate wildfire impacts on communities and to examine local practitioners’ perspectives on the efficacy and challenges of these efforts.
• Communication networks: By using big datasets of online communications from 10 focal landscapes, we identified topics and framing surrounding wildfire risk, and how information is shared among organizations and 

Geographies

Four focal landscapes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado, and six additional landscapes in the western United States.

Photo Credit

Rob Anderson, USDA Forest Service.

Map of the study area.