Interpreting federal policy at the local level: the wildland - urban interface concept in wildfire protection planning in the eastern United States

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie A. Grayzeck-Souter ◽  
Kristen C. Nelson ◽  
Rachel F. Brummel ◽  
Pamela Jakes ◽  
Daniel R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Local Response ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Fuels Reduction ◽  
Eastern Usa ◽  
Healthy Forests Restoration Act

In 2003, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) called for USA communities at risk of wildfire to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) requiring local, state and federal actors to work together to address hazardous fuels reduction and mitigation efforts. CWPPs can provide the opportunity for local government to influence actions on adjacent public land, by establishing local boundaries of the wildland–urban interface (WUI), the area where urban lands meet or intermix with wildlands. The present paper explores local response to the HFRA and CWPPs in the eastern USA, specifically if and how communities are using the policy incentive to identify the WUI. We conducted document reviews of eastern CWPPs, as well as qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with participants in four case studies. We found tremendous variation in local response to HFRA, with plans completed at multiple scales and using different planning templates. The WUI policy incentive was not used in all CWPPs, suggesting that the incentive is not as useful in the eastern USA, where public land is less dominant and the perceived fire risk is lower than in the West. Even so, many communities in the East completed CWPPs to improve their wildfire preparedness.

scholarly journals Multiple-Scale Relationships between Vegetation, the Wildland–Urban Interface, and Structure Loss to Wildfire in California

Fire ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Alexandra D. Syphard ◽  
Heather Rustigian-Romsos ◽  
Jon E. Keeley
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Climatic Variability ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Multiple Scale ◽  
Local Scale ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface

Recent increases in destructive wildfires are driving a need for empirical research documenting factors that contribute to structure loss. Existing studies show that fire risk is complex and varies geographically, and the role of vegetation has been especially difficult to quantify. Here, we evaluated the relative importance of vegetation cover at local (measured through the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and landscape (as measured through the Wildland–Urban Interface) scales in explaining structure loss from 2013 to 2018 in California—statewide and divided across three regions. Generally, the pattern of housing relative to vegetation better explained structure loss than local-scale vegetation amount, but the results varied regionally. This is likely because exposure to fire is a necessary first condition for structure survival, and sensitivity is only relevant once the fire reaches there. The relative importance of other factors such as long-term climatic variability, distance to powerlines, and elevation also varied among regions. These suggest that effective fire risk reduction strategies may need to account for multiple factors at multiple scales. The geographical variability in results also reinforces the notion that “one size does not fit all”. Local-scale empirical research on specific vegetation characteristics relative to structure loss is needed to inform the most effective customized plan.

Organizing Diversity: Scales of Demographic Change and Neighborhood Organizing in St Paul, MN

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 1091-1112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah G Martin ◽  
Steven R Holloway
Keyword(s):  
Inner City ◽  
Demographic Change ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Racial Diversity ◽  
Residential Areas ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
District Council ◽  
Ethnic And Racial Diversity

Neighborhood involvement in urban governance remains a pressing goal in an era of globalization. Cities have instituted a variety of structures to facilitate this involvement, including quasi-formal neighborhood or district councils. At the same time, urban populations are changing rapidly because of multiple dynamics operating at multiple scales. Immigration, for example, continues to transform inner-city neighborhoods despite the emergence of suburban immigrant enclaves. Existing research inadequately addresses the interaction between efforts to organize neighborhood political involvement and the dynamic nature of urban populations. We examine St Paul, Minnesota—a locale with a well-established neighborhood district-council system and a vibrant and rapidly growing immigrant community. Indeed, immigrants from Southeast Asia and East Africa are moving into neighborhoods that up until the early 1990s were predominantly white. Using a multimethod empirical analysis, we argue that the district-council system, while recognizing and empowering local-level organization, fails to provide adequate resources for neighborhoods to address social dynamics that operate at much broader scales. An index of ethnic and racial diversity computed with census data shows that St Paul experienced a significant overall increase in diversity during the 1990s. Although inner-city neighborhoods remained the most diverse, residential areas developed after World War 2 also diversified considerably. Interviews with neighborhood organizers based in part on tabular and cartographic displays revealed a wide variety of strategies and responses to changing ethnic and racial diversity. Predominant, however, was a mismatch between the scale at which demographic change occurs, and the scale of ‘neighborhood’ action embedded within the district-council system.

scholarly journals Impact of Land Use Changes and Habitat Fragmentation on the Eco-epidemiology of Tick-Borne Diseases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria A Diuk-Wasser ◽  
Meredith C VanAcker ◽  
Maria P Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Sensu Stricto ◽  
Resource Provisioning ◽  
Host Community ◽  
Landscape Configuration ◽  
Eastern United States

Abstract The incidence of tick-borne diseases has increased in recent decades and accounts for the majority of vector-borne disease cases in temperate areas of Europe, North America, and Asia. This emergence has been attributed to multiple and interactive drivers including changes in climate, land use, abundance of key hosts, and people’s behaviors affecting the probability of human exposure to infected ticks. In this forum paper, we focus on how land use changes have shaped the eco-epidemiology of Ixodes scapularis-borne pathogens, in particular the Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto in the eastern United States. We use this as a model system, addressing other tick-borne disease systems as needed to illustrate patterns or processes. We first examine how land use interacts with abiotic conditions (microclimate) and biotic factors (e.g., host community composition) to influence the enzootic hazard, measured as the density of host-seeking I. scapularis nymphs infected with B. burgdorferi s.s. We then review the evidence of how specific landscape configuration, in particular forest fragmentation, influences the enzootic hazard and disease risk across spatial scales and urbanization levels. We emphasize the need for a dynamic understanding of landscapes based on tick and pathogen host movement and habitat use in relation to human resource provisioning. We propose a coupled natural-human systems framework for tick-borne diseases that accounts for the multiple interactions, nonlinearities and feedbacks in the system and conclude with a call for standardization of methodology and terminology to help integrate studies conducted at multiple scales.

scholarly journals Developing Fire Behavior Fuel Models for the Wildland–Urban Interface in Anchorage, Alaska

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Cheyette ◽  
T. Scott Rupp ◽  
Sue Rodman
Keyword(s):  
Bark Beetle ◽  
Forest Type ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Inventory Data ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Fuels Reduction ◽  
Spruce Bark Beetle ◽  
Spruce Bark ◽  
Modeling Systems ◽  
Fuel Models

Abstract Fire behavior modeling systems are playing an increasingly important role in identifying areas of the wildland–urban interface (WUI) that could support intense and fast-moving wildfires. The modeling systems also can be used to prioritize areas for fuels reduction treatments. We used forest inventory data to create custom fire behavior fuel models for the Anchorage, Alaska, WUI—an area strongly impacted by a recent spruce bark beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) infestation. Eight custom fuel models were developed including a custom fuel model for a spruce bark beetle impacted forest type. NEXUS simulations indicate that the custom fuel models better describe forest structure and predict fire behavior than do parameterized standard fuel models previously used by local fire managers. Rate of spread and fireline ranged from 1–321 chains/hour and 1–2,549 Btu/ft per second, respectively, for the custom fuel models compared with 1–70 chains/hour and 1–7,929 Btu/ft per second, respectively, for the parameterized standard fuel models. Our study shows that it is both possible and feasible to create custom fuel models directly from fuels inventory data. This achievement has broad implications for land managers, particularly managers of the boreal forest, a region that is susceptible to wildfires but also home to a growing human population and increasing amounts of development.

scholarly journals Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (18) ◽  
pp. 4582-4590 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Schoennagel ◽  
Jennifer K. Balch ◽  
Hannah Brenkert-Smith ◽  
Philip E. Dennison ◽  
Brian J. Harvey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Fuels Reduction ◽  
New Era ◽  
Fuels Management ◽  
Residential Communities ◽  
Adaptive Resilience ◽  
Key Aspects

Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. Although many plants, animals, and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming. Policy and management have focused primarily on specified resilience approaches aimed at resistance to wildfire and restoration of areas burned by wildfire through fire suppression and fuels management. These strategies are inadequate to address a new era of western wildfires. In contrast, policies that promote adaptive resilience to wildfire, by which people and ecosystems adjust and reorganize in response to changing fire regimes to reduce future vulnerability, are needed. Key aspects of an adaptive resilience approach are (i) recognizing that fuels reduction cannot alter regional wildfire trends; (ii) targeting fuels reduction to increase adaptation by some ecosystems and residential communities to more frequent fire; (iii) actively managing more wild and prescribed fires with a range of severities; and (iv) incentivizing and planning residential development to withstand inevitable wildfire. These strategies represent a shift in policy and management from restoring ecosystems based on historical baselines to adapting to changing fire regimes and from unsustainable defense of the wildland–urban interface to developing fire-adapted communities. We propose an approach that accepts wildfire as an inevitable catalyst of change and that promotes adaptive responses by ecosystems and residential communities to more warming and wildfire.

scholarly journals Managing the Wildland–Urban Interface in the Northeast: Perceptions of Fire Risk and Hazard Reduction Strategies

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Blanchard ◽  
Robert L. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Hazard ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Pine Barrens ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Hazard Reduction ◽  
Mechanical Removal ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Wildland Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Hazard Reduction

Abstract Much of the recent work in reducing wildland fire danger has occurred in the western and southeastern United States. However, high-risk areas do exist at the wildland–urban interface areas in the Northeast and very little work has been done to understand the fire management issues in this region. Therefore, this study used a survey of residents and landowners within the Plymouth Pine Barrens of southeastern Massachusetts to assess community members' perceptions of wildland fire risk and hazard reduction strategies. The research results indicate that residents have a low perception of wildland fire risk but support the use of fire hazard reduction strategies, including prescribed fire, mechanical removal of trees and brush, and construction of firebreaks. Previous experience with wildland fire was a major factor influencing respondents' perception of fire risk. Furthermore, participants' knowledge about specific fuel treatments positively influenced their support for those treatments. Overall, respondents believe that actions should be taken to reduce fire hazard within the study area and would like to be involved in the development of fire hazard reduction plans.

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