Trying Not to Get Burned: Understanding Homeowners’ Wildfire Risk–Mitigation Behaviors

Abstract

Three causes have been identified for the spiraling cost of wildfire suppression in the United States: climate change, fuel accumulation from past wildfire suppression, and development in fire-prone areas. Because little is likely to be performed to halt the effects of climate on wildfire risk, and because fuel-management budgets cannot keep pace with fuel accumulation let alone reverse it, changing the behaviors of existing and potential homeowners in fire-prone areas is the most promising approach to decreasing the cost of suppressing wildfires in the wildland-urban interface and increasing the odds of homes surviving wildfire events. Wildfire education efforts encourage homeowners to manage their property to decrease wildfire risk. Such programs may be more effective with a better understanding of the factors related to homeowners' decisions to undertake wildfire risk-reduction actions. In this study, we measured whether homeowners had implemented 12 wildfire risk-mitigation measures in 2 Colorado Front Range counties. We found that wildfire information received from local volunteer fire departments and county wildfire specialists, as well as talking with neighbors about wildfire, were positively associated with higher levels of mitigation. Firsthand experience in the form of preparing for or undertaking an evacuation was also associated with a higher level of mitigation. Finally, homeowners who perceived higher levels of wildfire risk on their property had undertaken higher levels of wildfire-risk mitigation on their property.

Examining the influence of biophysical conditions on wildland–urban interface homeowners’ wildfire risk mitigation activities in fire-prone landscapes

“…This supports earlier work by Dickinson et al (2015) that suggested receiving fire-related information from "experts" was positively associated with both structural and vegetation mitigation behaviors. Others have found similar relationships between fire-related information sources and mitigation behavior (Hall and Slothower 2009, Brenkert-Smith et al 2012, while one team found that simply being familiar with http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss1/art21/ the Community Wildfire Protection Plan was enough to increase the likelihood of completing mitigation actions (Wolters et al, personal communication).…”

“…We received 532 responses, for a response rate of 31%. This response rate is in line with recent randomly sampled survey projects on wildfire topics (e.g., Kyle et al 2010, Brenkert-Smith et al 2012, McNeill et al 2013. To explore possible responder bias, we compared demographic variables from our sample to those from the three surveyed counties using U.S. Census Bureau (2015) facts.…”

“…Champ et al (2013), for example, suggest that homeowners' wildfire risk perceptions and mitigation decisions are jointly determined by a combination of characteristics pertaining to homeowners and their home sites. Research, however, has not found a consistent association between wildfire risk and actual mitigation behavior on private land, with some studies finding a positive association (e.g., Nelson et al 2004, Martin et al 2009, McCaffrey et al 2011, Brenkert-Smith et al 2012, McNeill et al 2013, Dickinson et al 2015 and others finding no association or better explanations using other variables (e.g., Nelson et al 2005, Hall and Slothower 2009, Schulte and Miller 2010). An explanation may be in the variety of ways that researchers have measured mitigation behavior, ranging from a yes/no question about whether homeowners have conducted mitigation activities generally, to separate measurements and analysis for several individual mitigation actions, including clearing brush near the home or using fire-resistant building materials (Table 1).…”

Objective and perceived wildfire risk and its influence on private forest landowners’ fuel reduction activities in Oregon’s (USA) ponderosa pine ecoregion

“…Although many conceptual frameworks of risk mitigation behaviour incorporate variables representing people's perceptions of their ability to mitigate a risk (e.g. self-efficacy) (Brenkert-Smith et al 2012), the combination of variables that represent capacity in our study arguably do so from more of an objective standpoint.…”

Where you stand depends on where you sit: qualitative inquiry into notions of fire adaptation

“…As such, research on the social system tends to be parsed into broad efforts to articulate the policy approaches that undergird the wildland fire dilemma (Steelman and Burke 2007) or more specific research efforts that identify behavioral response. Research on behavioral response generally focuses on shorter term coping behaviors before, during, and after stages of the disaster cycle, and includes mitigation activities and determinants of such hazard-related behaviors before an event (e.g., structural improvements, vegetation reduction around the home) (Martin et al 2009, Brenkert-Smith et al 2012, Dickinson et al 2015 and preparedness activities and their determinants (e.g., evacuation planning) (Cohn et al 2006, Jakes et al 2007, Paveglio et al 2010. And finally, limited work examines factors that influence the trajectories of recovery and likelihood of rebuilding after a disaster (Mockrin et al 2015) that may contribute to a shift from coping to adaptation.…”