Preparing for wildfire evacuation and alternatives: Exploring influences on residents’ intended evacuation behaviors and mitigations

Understanding residents\u27 intended evacuation behaviors is an increasingly important component of managing complex wildfire events in the United States and elsewhere. Growing evidence suggests that local populations consider a range of potential evacuation behaviors during fire events, yet fewer efforts explore rural residents\u27 evacuation intentions or their relationship to wildfire mitigations that reduce risk or aid in fire suppression. This study explores evacuation intentions among wildland-urban interface residents in Pend Oreille County, Washington, USA. We explore how mitigation performance (e.g., fuel reduction efforts, structure improvements, active firefighting preparation) differs across three emergent categories of evacuation intentions and evaluate whether a range of factors correlate with participants’ evacuation intentions. Our results suggest that a relatively high proportion of residents in the study area intend to stay and defend their property from a wildfire, with smaller proportions intending to evacuate or shelter in place. Individuals who intend to stay and defend are more likely to implement fuel reduction and property mitigation strategies when compared to those intending to evacuate or shelter in place. We found that elements of residency status, sex, age, presence of children in the home, and perceptions of personal efficacy and whether the property was prepared enough to not need firefighting were significant influences on group affiliation. For instance, part-time residency was significantly correlated with intending to evacuate, while full-time residents were more likely to stay and defend. Greater agreement that firefighting was not needed because a property was well-prepared was significantly related to staying and defending over evacuating

Exploring the Influence of Local Social Context on Strategies for Achieving Fire Adapted Communities

There is a growing recognition that the social diversity of communities at risk from wildland fire may necessitate divergent combinations of policies, programs and incentives that allow diverse populations to promote fire adapted communities (FACs). However, there have been few coordinated research efforts to explore the perceived utility and effectiveness of various options for FACs among residents, professionals, and local officials in disparate communities with different social contexts. The research presented here attempts to systematically explore the combination of local social factors that influence support for coordinated wildfire risk management across locations. We conducted 19 interactive focus groups across five communities spanning five Western U.S. states using a mixed-method design that allowed for the collection of quantitative and qualitative data. Results indicate a number of significant differences in effectiveness ratings for adaptation approaches across communities, including requirement of vegetation mitigations on private properties, fostering Firewise communities, and zoning efforts in fire-prone areas. We used qualitative data to help explain the differences between communities as a function of unique local social context operating in each location. We also compare our results with existing frameworks promoting community “archetypes” to evaluate their continued use in wildfire management planning or response