Wildfire recovery as a “hot moment” for creating fire-adapted communities

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed an escalation in the social, economic, and ecological impacts of wildfiresworldwide. Wildfire losses stem from the complex interplay of social and ecological forces at multiple scales,including global climate change, regional wildfire regimes altered by human activities, and locally managedwildland-urban interface (WUI) zones where homes increasingly encroach upon wildland vegetation. Thecoupled nature of the human-ecological system is precisely what makes reducing wildfire risks challenging. Aslosses from wildfire have accelerated, an emerging research and management objective has been to create fireadaptedcommunities where ecologically functional levels of wildfire are preserved but risks to human lives andproperty are minimized. Realizing such a vision will require widespread and decentralized action, but questionsremain as to when and how such a transformation could take place. We suggest that the period following adestructive wildfire may provide a “hot moment” for community adaptation.Drawing from literature on natural hazard vulnerability, disaster recovery, and wildfire ecology, this paperproposes a linked social-ecological model of community recovery and adaptation after disaster. The modelcontends that changes during post-wildfire recovery shape a community’s vulnerability to the next wildfireevent. While other studies have highlighted linked social-ecological dynamics that influence pre-fire vulnerability,few studies have explored social-ecological feedbacks in post-fire recovery. This model contributes tointerdisciplinary social science research on wildfires and to scholarship on community recovery by integratinghazard vulnerability reduction with recovery in a cyclical framework. Furthermore, it is adaptable to a variety ofhazards beyond wildfire. The model provides a basis for future empirical work examining the nature andeffectiveness of recovery efforts aimed at long-term vulnerability reduction.

Citation

Schumann, R.L., Mockrin, M., Syphard, A., Whittaker, J., Price, O., Johnson Gaither, C., Emrich, C.T. and Brennan-Kane, T. 2019. Wildfire Recovery as a “Hot Moment” for Creating Fire-Adapted Communities. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2019.101354.