Wildfire Research (WiRē) Team: Using social data to foster community engagement in high risk firesheds

The Wildfire Research (WiRē) team is characterizing community wildfire risk, with a focus on private properties located in areas where cross-boundary collaborations are actively striving to reduce wildfire risk on a landscape. The social and biophysical data collected in study communities provides local wildfire education programs with the information they need to appropriately and effectively incentivize private landowners to lower their wildfire risk and prepare for evacuation during a wildfire event. 

WiRē researchers and the associated nonprofit WiRē Center have co-productively developed and refined their approach to data collection and development of tools and products across many study communities. This project adds a new dimension to the work they’ve been doing for over a decade. That is, the WiRē team and their partners in each study community are engaging in collaborative cross-boundary efforts that leverage WiRē data to inform the collaborative process. The research team, study community partners, and collaborative partners are also developing better and new metrics of success.

Consistent across WiRē’s research, this project utilizes a co-productive approach that yields social science results that can guide practitioner action. A co-productive approach that is built in collaboration ensures that the effort is tailored to examine questions important to practitioners and committed to strengthening community resilience to wildfire and partnerships that support sustainable forest management practices. The co-productive nature of the work allows the research to inform practice and practice to inform the research. An essential aspect of co-productive work is maintaining methodological flexibility without compromising scientific integrity.

Photo Credit

USDA photo by Sharon Hood

Project Significance

This project allows for place-specific understandings of community wildfire risk. The WiRē team provides information to agencies, which they can use to capitalize on existing momentum to grow social acceptance of ongoing wildfire mitigation efforts (e.g., fuels treatments), build trust with community members, and create targeted education efforts to advance community preparedness. Further, results from social surveys contribute representative data about community member perspectives. This is especially valuable when building cross-boundary fuels treatment efforts. Currently, managers rely on comments during community meetings and NEPA processes to gauge public acceptability around fuels treatments. However, meetings and other forums to gather public input often attract the most opinionated community members and can overrepresent a vocal minority. In conjunction with those comments, results from this WiRē project and others provide managers a more nuanced and accurate snapshot of resident perspectives. Finally, in line with WiRē's goal to expand programming to underserved communities, this project encourages a more diverse group of engaged actors. 

Objectives

• Support education efforts about wildfire risk in the two communities participating in the study.
• Provide social data relevant to nearby cross-boundary collaboratives.
• Refine and innovate metrics of success.

Project Implementation

Results from a literature review about public acceptability of fuels treatments to reduce wildfire.

Background work

• An initial literature review on public acceptability of fuels treatments on public lands. This summary of the literature provides context and shapes this project.
• Development of a framework of where and how WiRē data can be leveraged in cross-boundary collaborative processes to support fire mitigation and forest restoration planning. A meeting with relevant stakeholders was held to introduce and update the framework. The first in-person WiRē Community of Practice workshop convened in October 2023 and focused on ways to leverage WiRē data in cross-boundary planning.

Methodological Steps

1. Identify two study communities. The team selected two study areas with partners working in landscapes designated by the USDA Forest Service as high risk for wildfire. The key criterion they used to select study locations—one community in each priority landscape—was the community’s proximity to efforts taking place to coordinate collaboration across community boundaries within the high-risk landscape.
2. Collect data. The WiRē Approach is a systematic process that includes two data collection efforts:
   • A rapid wildfire risk assessment of each private property parcel. Trained local practitioners visit each property, and from the road they visually assess things like building materials, vegetation near the home, background fuels and topography, and access for the fire department to the parcel.
   • Social surveys of the residents of the assessed parcels to investigate homeowners’ perceptions of wildfire risk, actions they’ve taken to mitigate risk on their properties, and how they respond to incentives to mitigate risk.
3. Analyze results. This starts with pairing the rapid wildfire risk assessment with the social data. In this project, the analysis includes a deeper dive into the survey responses related to acceptability of fuels treatment and wildfire risk on nearby public lands.
4. Share and discuss results. The WiRē team summarizes, shares, and discusses results with partners. These engagements create opportunities to identify areas of most interest for additional analyses and potential needs for support with outreach and broader dissemination of results.
5. Develop products for partners. The WiRē team provides data products to their partners, and the team presents and discusses results with leaders of local cross-boundary collaborative efforts.
6. Develop metrics of success and tracking tools.
7. Publish results. With project partners, the team will co-author two peer-reviewed journal articles. 

Expected Project Results

Expected Outputs

Project-level deliverables to community partners

• Data collection tools and training materials for Rapid Assessment and household surveys
• Data products, including: Rapid Assessment dataset, geodataset, and summary; household survey dataset and summary; and paired dataset and comparison
• Outreach materials to disseminate locally specific research results in each community
• Community presentations
• Two Rocky Mountain Research Station “Living with Wildfire” research notes detailing the results for the study communities
• Interactive map with WiRē data and other data
• ArcGIS Hub website

Deliverables to federal and state agencies and broader research community

• Evaluation and engagement with underserved communities in wildfire risk mitigation and disaster preparedness
• Integration of WiRē results with landscape level wildfire risk assessments (e.g., Community Wildfire Protection Plans, Potential Operational Delineations planning efforts)
• Comparison of high-risk fireshed project results to WiRē communities in other firesheds
• At least two peer-reviewed journal articles
• RMRS outreach products such as Science You Can Use
• Conference presentations to share research findings

Expected Outcomes

Support project partners’ efforts toward community-level fire adaptation 

The WiRē team will develop an interactive map that includes data from this project alongside other, landscape scale risk assessments (e.g., Community Wildfire Protection Plan) as deemed appropriate by the study partner. The parcel risk assessments are completed from the perspective of the local wildfire practitioner and are used to inform local wildfire education efforts. The social data shed light on how residents evaluate wildfire risk on their parcel of land. Pairing these two perspectives reveals any gaps between the perspectives of practitioners and residents and helps diagnose problem areas within a community. The social data also provide information about barriers to home mitigation, information sources, and preferred information sources. 

Project partners gain understanding of how wildfire risk is distributed and perceived across the private land parcels within their community, and they can use this knowledge to address issues revealed through the data and analyses. Partners also use the data to apply for grants, shape conversations with their community and community leaders, and prioritize and advocate for improvements to community wildfire resilience, such as additional evacuation routes, building codes, and wildland urban interface codes.

Support cross boundary collaboration and planning

Involvement in collaboration and planning across communities builds on WiRē’s established approach and therefore represents an exploratory aspect of the project. It also represents a response to partner requests that WiRē be more involved in collaboration efforts across multiple communities. Throughout this project, the WiRē team is gathering input from stakeholders and community partners about how to develop and apply research results to collaboration and planning in these landscapes.