Research Database
Displaying 21 - 40 of 115
A Dynamic Spatiotemporal Understanding of Changes in Social Vulnerability to Wildfires at Local Scale
Year: 2024
Research on wildfires and social vulnerability has gained significant importance due to the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires around the world. This study investigates the dynamic changes in social vulnerability to wildfires over a decade in Idaho, USA, utilizing GIS-based tools and a quasi-experimental design. We assess the evolving nature of social vulnerability at a local scale, emphasizing both spatial and temporal dynamics. Initially, we identified social vulnerability trends in relation to varying levels of wildfire risk. The research then employs propensity score matching…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Severity of a megafire reduced by interactions of wildland fire suppression operations and previous burns
Year: 2024
Burned area and proportion of high severity fire have been increasing in the western USA, and reducing wildfire severity with fuel treatments or other means is key for maintaining fire-prone dry forests and avoiding fire-catalyzed forest loss. Despite the unprecedented scope of firefighting operations in recent years, their contribution to patterns of wildfire severity is rarely quantified. Here we investigate how wildland fire suppression operations and past fire severity interacted to affect severity patterns of the northern third of the 374 000 ha Dixie Fire, the largest single fire in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Quantifying wildland fire resources deployed during the compound threat of COVID-19
Year: 2024
Fire agencies across the United States must make complex resource allocation decisions to manage wildfires using a national network of shared firefighting resources. Firefighters play a critical role in suppressing fires and protecting vulnerable communities. However, they are exposed to health and safety risks associated with fire, smoke inhalation, and infectious disease transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated these risks, prompting fire agencies to propose resource management adaptations to minimize COVID-19 exposure and transmission. It is unclear if and how the pandemic…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The geography of social vulnerability and wildfire occurrence (1984–2018) in the conterminous USA
Year: 2024
Wildfire is increasing in frequency, extent, and severity in many parts of the USA. Considering the unequal burden of natural hazards on socially vulnerable populations, we ask here, how are characteristics of social vulnerability associated with wildfire occurrence nationwide, at different scales and across differing levels of wildland–urban interface development? To answer this question, we first identify all non-urban census tracts in the USA that have experienced a wildfire since 1984. Using 26 different measures of social vulnerability, we compare these tracts to non-urban census tracts…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Factors Associated with Concurrent Tobacco Smoking and Heavy Drinking within a Women Firefighters’ Sample
Year: 2024
Studies showed that tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption frequently occur, and both are significant causes of preventable morbidity and mortality. Data were collected as part of a national online study of the health of women in the fire service. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to determine factors associated with smoking and drinking characteristics. A total of 2330 women firefighters completed questions regarding tobacco and alcohol use; 3.2% (n = 75) were concurrent users, 0.9% (n = 22) were smokers only, 49.4% (n = 1150) were heavy drinkers only, and 46.5% (n = 1083)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Metals in Wildfire Suppressants
Year: 2024
Frequent and severe wildfires have led to increased application of fire suppression products (long-term fire retardants, water enhancers, and Class A foams) in the American West. While fire suppressing products used on wildfires must be approved by theU.S. Forest Service, portions of their formulations are trade secrets.Increased metals content in soils and surface waters at the wildland-urban interface has been observed after wildfires but has primarily been attributed to ash deposition or anthropogenic impact from nearby urban areas. In this study, metal concentrations in several fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evidence of increasing wildfire damage with decreasing property price in Southern California fires
Year: 2024
Across the Western United States, human development into the wildland urban interface (WUI) is contributing to increasing wildfire damage. Given that natural disasters often cause greater harm within socio-economically vulnerable groups, research is needed to explore the potential for disproportionate impacts associated with wildfire. Using Zillow Transaction and Assessment Database (ZTRAX), hereafter “Zillow”, real estate data, we explored whether lower-priced structures were more likely to be damaged during the most destructive, recent wildfires in Southern California. Within fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Predicting daily firefighting personnel deployment trends in the western United States
Year: 2024
Projected increases in wildfire frequency, size, and severity may further stress already scarce firefighting resources in the western United States that are in high demand. Machine learning is a promising field with the ability to model firefighting resource usage without compromising dataset size or complexity. In this study, the Categorical Boosting (CatBoost) model was used with historical (2012-2020) wildfire data to train three models that calculate predicted daily counts of 1) total assigned personnel (total personnel), 2) assigned personnel that are at the fire (ground personnel), and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Social Inequity and Wildfire Response: Identifying Gaps and Interventions in Ventura County, California
Year: 2024
As climate change increases the frequency and severity of wildfires across the Western U.S., there is an urgent need for improved wildfire preparedness and responses. Socially marginalized communities are particularly vulnerable to wildfire effects because they disproportionately lack access to the resources necessary to prepare for and recover from wildfire and are frequently underrepresented in the wildfire planning process. As an exemplar of how to understand and improve preparedness in such communities, this research identified communities in Ventura County facing heightened…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Spatial and temporal analysis of vulnerability disparity of minorities to wildfires in California
Year: 2024
Wildfires typically have devastating impacts on communities, both in urban and rural areas, resulting in property loss, psychological distress, physical injuries, and loss of life. A notable gap in the literature is the spatial and temporal disproportionate impact of wildfires on underrepresented communities. This lack of attention is concerning, as these underrepresented populations are likely to be more vulnerable to the devastating consequences of wildfire disasters, exacerbating pre-existing social, economic, and environmental disparities. This study aims to address this gap by conducting…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Backfire: the settler-colonial logic and legacy of Smokey Bear
Year: 2024
Since the 1940s, the United States Forest Service’s (USFS) national fire suppression efforts have been bolstered by a public-facing ad campaign led by the Ad Council, most notably through the iconic rise of Smokey Bear. The consequences of decades of strict fire suppression, promulgated and solidified by this highly successful campaign, have been ecologically disastrous, and especially detrimental for fire-dependent Indigenous communities and ecosystems. Scholars have examined the Smokey campaign’s racialized, nationalist discourse, yet none have grappled with the campaign’s settler colonial…
Publication Type: Journal Article
External drivers of changes in wildland firefighter safety policies and practices
Year: 2024
Background: Firefighter safety is a top priority in wildland fire response and management. Existing explanations emphasise how land management agency initiatives to change organisational culture, usually inspired by fatality incidents, contribute to changes both in formal safety policies and informal safety practices. Aims: This paper identifies external factors that lead to changes in wildland firefighter safety policies and practices. Methods: This paper uses qualitative data from a long-term ethnographic research project. Data include…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Visibility-informed mapping of potential firefighter lookout locations using maximum entropy modelling
Year: 2024
BackgroundSituational awareness is an essential component of wildland firefighter safety. In the US, crew lookouts provide situational awareness by proxy from ground-level locations with visibility of both fire and crew members.AimsTo use machine learning to predict potential lookout locations based on incident data, mapped visibility, topography, vegetation, and roads.MethodsLidar-derived topographic and fuel structural variables were used to generate maps of visibility across 30 study areas that possessed lookout location data. Visibility…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Rethinking cost-share programs in consideration of economic equity: A case study of wildfire risk mitigation assistance for private landowners
Year: 2024
Public agencies and organizations often deliver financial assistance through cost sharing, in which recipients contribute some portion toward total costs. However, cost sharing might raise equity concerns if it reduces participation among populations with lower incomes. Here, we revisit a past study using a richer dataset (n=1,689) to assess whether stated income levels affect survey respondents' willingness to participate in a cost share program for vegetation reduction to mitigate wildfire risk in western Colorado. Results show that residents with lower incomes are less likely to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Association of social vulnerability factors with power outage burden in Washington state: 2018–2021
Year: 2024
Major power outages have risen over the last two decades, largely due to more extreme weather conditions. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the distribution of power outages and its relationship to social vulnerability and co-occurring hazards. We examined the associations between localized outages and social vulnerability factors (demographic characteristics), controlling for environmental factors (weather), in Washington State between 2018–2021. We additionally analyzed the validity of PowerOutage.us data compared to federal datasets. The population included 27 counties served by 14…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Multiple social and environmental factors affect wildland fire response of full or less-than-full suppression
Year: 2024
Wildland fire incident commanders make wildfire response decisions within an increasingly complex socio-environmental context. Threats to human safety and property, along with public pressures and agency cultures, often lead commanders to emphasize full suppression. However, commanders may use less-than-full suppression to enhance responder safety, reduce firefighting costs, and encourage beneficial effects of fire. This study asks: what management, socioeconomic, environmental, and fire behavior characteristics are associated with full suppression and the less-than-full suppression methods…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mental Health and Traumatic Occupational Exposure in Wildland Fire Dispatchers
Year: 2024
Wildland fire dispatchers play a key role in wildland fire management and response organization; however, to date, wildland fire studies have largely focused on the physical hazards and, to a lesser extent, mental health hazards of wildland firefighting operational personnel, and dispatcher studies have primarily focused on 911 and police dispatchers. Studies of other dispatchers have provided some limited insight into potential strains impacting this workforce, including work-related fatigue, burnout, and traumatic exposure. However, the specific job hazards that are faced by wildland fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A systematic scoping review of the Social Vulnerability Index as applied to natural hazards
Year: 2024
Social vulnerability approaches seek to identify social, economic, and political drivers that exacerbate environmental risks, and inform adaptation strategies that redress uneven vulnerabilities. Social Vulnerability Indices (SVIs), one such approach, have exponentially increased in use since their inception in 2003. This paper contributes the most comprehensive and rigorous systematic assessment of SVIs to date, as applied in hazard and disaster contexts. We evaluate how 246 peer-reviewed articles, published online between 2003 and 2021, conceptualized, constructed, and applied SVIs across…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Use of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) for full suppression and managed fires within the Southwestern Region of the US Forest Service
Year: 2023
Background: United States federal wildland fire policy requires the use of formal decision support systems (DSS) for fire incidents that last for an extended time. However, the ways that wildfire managers use DSSs in decisions regarding fire management remain understudied, including how users engage with or utilise them to make strategic decisions. Aims: Researchers sought to understand how users engage with the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS), their view of its utilities and challenges, and their perspectives about WFDSS training. Methods: We present the results of thematic…
Publication Type: Journal Article
How Does Fire Suppression Alter the Wildfire Regime? A Systematic Review
Year: 2023
Fire suppression has become a fundamental approach for shaping contemporary wildfire regimes. However, a growing body of research suggests that aggressive fire suppression can increase high-intensity wildfires, creating the wildfire paradox. Whether the strategy always triggers the paradox remains a topic of ongoing debate. The role of fire suppression in altering wildfire regimes in diverse socio-ecological systems and associated research designs demands a deeper understanding. To reconcile these controversies and synthesize the existing knowledge, a systematic review has been conducted to…
Publication Type: Journal Article