The relative impacts of vegetation, topography and spatial arrangement on building loss to wildfires in case studies of California and Colorado

Patricia M. Alexandre; Susan I. Stewart; Miranda H. Mockrin; Nicholas S. Keuler; Alexandra D. Syphard; Avi Bar-Massada; Murray K. Clayton; Volker C. Radeloff

doi:10.1007/s10980-015-0257-6

Treesearch

The relative impacts of vegetation, topography and spatial arrangement on building loss to wildfires in case studies of California and Colorado

Formally Refereed

Authors:

Patricia M. Alexandre, Susan I. Stewart, Miranda H. Mockrin, Nicholas S. Keuler, Alexandra D. Syphard, Avi Bar-Massada, Murray K. Clayton, Volker C. Radeloff

Year:

2015

Type:

Scientific Journal

Station:

Rocky Mountain Research Station

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0257-6

Source:

Landscape Ecology. 31: 415-430.

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Download (PDF 1.42 MB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/49091.pdf

Abstract

Wildfires destroy thousands of buildings every year in the wildland urban interface. However, fire typically only destroys a fraction of the buildings within a given fire perimeter, suggesting more could be done to mitigate risk if we understood how to configure residential landscapes so that both people and buildings could survive fire.

Keywords

WUI, building loss, wildfires, FRAGSTATS, logistic regression, best-subsets

Citation

Alexandre, Patricia M.; Stewart, Susan I.; Mockrin, Miranda H.; Keuler, Nicholas S.; Syphard, Alexandra D.; Bar-Massada, Avi; Clayton, Murray K.; Radeloff, Volker C. 2016. The relative impacts of vegetation, topography and spatial arrangement on building loss to wildfires in case studies of California and Colorado. Landscape Ecology. 31: 415-430.