GNAR communities’ proximity to natural lands are part of their appeal, but that proximity also comes with an increased risk of wildfire. While wildfires come with significant risks to persons and property, they are also a normal ecological process and are valuable to the continued health of these areas. In this way, it is important to find a balance between the needs of the built environment and those of the surrounding natural areas.
For decades, the fire community has been hard at work to improve communities’ ability to mitigate fire risks, respond to fire situations, and recover should a fire occur. This toolkit links communities to resources to help them in their fire resiliency efforts.
Think we're missing something or have feedback for us? Please reach out to liz.sodja@usu.edu.
Resources & Tools
NFPA’s Wildfire Division provides resources to planners, residents and stakeholders to help ensure that everyone living at risk from wildfire has the information, knowledge, and tools to reduce their risk.
This site includes ways to prepare homes for wildfire, their intergovernmental approach to wildfire mitigation policy, as well as examples of community codes and standards. They also offer a free online training about reducing wildfire risk to property.
The Firewise USA program, a program of NFPA, provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community and to reduce wildfire risks at the local level. Any community that meets a set of voluntary criteria on an annual basis and retains an “In Good Standing Status” may identify itself as being a Firewise® Site.
Fire Safe Marin is a non-profit and initiative out of Marin County, CA, whose mission is "dedicated to reducing fire hazards, promoting fire safety awareness, and helping residents prepare for wildfires in Marin County, California." Started after the Oakland Hills fire in 1991, they're one of the oldest fire-centered community non-profits in the country, and have done a number of public education initiatives and campaigns over the decades.
Their clean and easy-to-use web interface is a great example that communities could replicate to share resources with their local community members.
The U.S. Fire Administration is the lead federal agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research and fire service training. Their Wildland Urban Interace (WUI) site provides a great variety of WUI specific materials to educate and prepare communities who live close to and are surrounded by natural landscapes. Similar to NRFP, they have guides to help communities become a "fire-adapted community", including guides on how to create an assessment of community fire risks and identify actionable steps.
The Fire Adapted Communities Network allows people and communities working on wildfire resiliency the opportunity to connect. Amongst many things this site provides support with partnership and community engagement, community safety/evacuation, and plans/regulation/policy (many of which are available in both English and Spanish). It also has resources to help guide communities applying for wildfire defense grants.
CPAW provides communities with land use planning solutions to better manage their wildland-urban interface. Their program assists with land use planning, hazard assessments, capacity building, in addition to their collaborative research with Headwaters Economics.
Our personal favorites were their report on cost of building Wildfire-Resistant Homes, and their analysis of community costs of wildfire.
Ready.gov provides guidance for individual community members wishing to improve their wildfire readiness with resources on preparation, what to do during, and what tot do after a fire. This is something leaders can share with community members to help them improve their individual fire resiliency. Ready.gov also has other resource that can useful for other natural disasters as well, such as flooding, extreme heat, etc.
The Division of Forestry Fire and State Lands (FFSL) is responsible for forest health, responding to wildland fires and managing sovereign lands in Utah. The Division responds to wildfires on state and private land ensuring that communities, watersheds, rangelands and wildlife habitats don’t suffer catastrophic losses.
This website has numerous resources from FFSL for both communities and individual citizens. The safety of the citizens of any community is a shared responsibility between the citizens; the owner, developer, or association; and the local, county, state, and federal governments. Homeowners and property owners can find a wide variety of information on how to prepare your homes, property, and lives for wildfire on this website.
Utah State University’s Forestry Extension has created a list of firewise landscaping for Utah that could also be used across the Intermountain West. This report includes an overview of how fire can approach and impact homes, then provides firewise plant selection lists, landscaping and maintenance suggestions, and other property suggestion to better understand wildfire and its risk to property.
Stanford has done numerous webinar series and symposiums over the years related to wildfire through their School of the Environment, Stanford Data Sciences and the Bill Lane Center for the American West programs.
The above link goes to their most recent Data Science webinar series, however some additional sessions we feel could be of value to GNAR communities include:
In January 2022, the USDA Forest Service released Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests. The Forest Service is working to develop a “living” 10-year Implementation Plan for working with partners across jurisdictions to change the trajectory of wildfire risk. To assist in developing the plan, the National Forest Foundation convened virtual roundtable events in the nine Forest Service regions. Discussions at each of the roundtables were distilled into reports that will inform the implementation plan moving forward. Roundtable participation was by invitation, but the topics and discussion questions covered during the roundtable can be found here.
Research & Case Studies
Close but No Cigar: How a Near-miss Wildfire Event Influences the Risk Perceptions and Mitigation Behaviors of Residents Who Experienced a Recent, Nearby Wildfire - The Institute of Outdoor Recreation & Tourism (2019)
We administered a drop-off pick-up survey to residents living in Durango, Colorado, a community heavily impacted by the 416 fire in the spring and summer of 2018. The survey, completed by 195 residents, solicited information about wildfire mitigation behaviors taken before and after the 416 fire. This research contributed to the broader literature by identifying how perceptions and mitigation behaviors change after experiencing a near-miss wildfire event, and to local wildfire management efforts by providing insights into specific mitigation actions to incentivize through local assistance programs.
Wildfire Adapted Missoula - The National Forest Foundation
In an effort to address fire risk to communities, the Missoula Ranger District of the Lolo National Forest is working to develop an all lands focused fuels and forest resiliency project called Wildfire Adapted Missoula, or WAM. In anticipation of the formal analysis and public comment process in late 2019, the Missoula District asked the National Forest Foundation to assist in convening discussions with neighborhood residents, non-governmental organizations, community leaders, local fire leadership, businesses, and the media. These “Learning Labs” aimed to improve community understanding and also provided opportunities to share why uncharacteristically severe wildfire has become a regular part of our summers in the 21st century, as well as strategies to reduce fire risk and improve forest resiliency and natural patterns.