human dimensions

Background

Wildfire poses an increasing threat to communities in the Western US, driven by climate change and rising human settlement in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). It is imperative that communities in fire-prone areas become “fire-adapted” to safely manage their risk.

Background

Background

Background

Wildland firefighting requires exposure to long shifts and poor sleep, which may pose a risk to worker safety due to impaired cognitive function.

Aims

We investigated the associations between sleep, shift characteristics, and cognitive function in wildland firefighters.

Methods

Climate change and decades of fire suppression are increasing the risk of wildfire in many rural and remote communities across Canada. Yet limited research has been done to better understand how these communities experience wildfire risk.

Highlights

• Introduced an integrated housing-economic recovery framework that links post-wildfire housing stability to local employment conditions and economic diversity.
• Demonstrated how traditional vulnerability tools like SoVI overlook hidden and dynamic vulnerabilities, especially among renters, seasonal workers, and undocumented residents.

Smoke from extreme wildfires in Canada adversely affected air quality in many regions in 2023^1,2.

Communities can face significant risk from wildfire, often compounded by climate change and legacies of industrial forest management.

Effective interventions to prevent human-caused ignitions on public lands play a critical role in social and ecological adaption to wildfire. While wildfire prevention spending generates a high return on investment, funding and capacity to support such programing within federal, state, and local land and fire management agencies remains limited.