Community wildfire protection planning in the American West: homogeneity within diversity?

Abstract

As large wildfires have become common across the American West, federal policies such as the Healthy Forests Restoration Act have empowered local communities to plan for their own wildfire protection. Here, we present an analysis of 113 community wildfire protection plans from 10 western states where large fires have recently occurred. These plans contain wide diversity in terms of specific plan elements and dimensions, yet less diversity in the paradigms underlying their fire protection approaches. These patterns held true across both plans constructed solely by local actors as well as those constructed with the help of outside consultant expertise.

Keywords:

• wildfire
• collaborative planning
• devolved governance
• consultants
• community planning

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under grant number 2011-67023-30695. We would also like to acknowledge the important contributions to this project made by Robert Parker, Josh Bruce, Balpreet Singh, and the students and staff associated with the Community Service Center at the University of Oregon.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, and Washington.

2. Because actual cost data were not available for wildfires that occurred between 2009 and 2011 at the time of the research, we used estimated costs generated from National Interagency Situation Reports. 2004–2008 costs were derived from the US Forest Service's accounting systems.

Additional information

Funding

USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture [grant number 2011-67023-30695].