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by Deserai A. Crow, Lydia A. Lawhon, Elizabeth Koebele, Adrianne Kroepsch, Rebecca Schild, and Juhi Huda
Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy
Vol. 6, No. 1
States in the American West are experiencing significant population growth and exurban development, in addition to a longer fire season and a changing climate. These factors contribute to the increasing difficulty of managing wildfire in the Wildland–Urban Interface. Using data collected through a survey of fire professionals, this research investigates the strategies that agencies use to promote wildfire mitigation on private property within the WUI, fire professionals’ sense of the effectiveness of those strategies, and support among fire professionals for various regulatory approaches to wildfire mitigation. The findings indicate that fire professionals are keenly aware of the constraints imposed by the political context and acceptability of some tools that they could use to promote more aggressive mitigation on private property. Recommendations based on these findings suggest that fire professionals should consider capitalizing on citizen network approaches to outreach in order to build trust between agency personnel and homeowners and to cope with limited support for regulatory mandates for wildfire mitigation. Read more …
