Planning: FIRE-PLAN: Stakeholder-driven Challenges and Opportunities for Wildfire Mitigation and Preparedness

Wildland fire events have particularly significant impacts on communities and ecosystems in rural areas. Many residents in these areas lack the financial resources to cope with and mitigate the impacts of wildland fire events. This context is particularly the case in much of the Southern United States where social and cultural contexts present unique challenges for disaster response and mitigation. This project develops plans to investigate the impacts of wildland fire in the growing wildland-urban interface (WUI) in the Southern United States and contributes to the understanding of the unique dynamics in this critical zone. This research provides both scientific and practical insight to advance the discourse on wildland fire events as a mechanism to enhance community resilience. The project uses a stakeholder driven approach to collate data and resources as a foundation for continued scientific investigation of increasingly prominent yet still insufficiently understood issues surrounding wildfire hazards and human settlement. This project involves convening and moderating conversations among a range of researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders to discuss wildland fire risk and explore key issues for successfully mitigating, managing, and living with wildland fire hazards in the Southern U.S. The research team gathers information on current wildfire plans, regulations, and administrative and communications structures in the region to better understand governance as related to wildland fire risk and investigate potential risks of wildfire to the built environment, response systems, and the health of responders and local communities. The research objectives are to: (1) identify key challenges to wildland fire mitigation in the South through practitioner and academic discussions; (2) assess the integration of wildland fire risk management in plans and regulations in the Southern United States; and (3) understand community resilience through preparedness and response planning and coordination of public-private stakeholders to enhance healthcare access before, during and after a wildfire. The geographic focus on the U.S. South reflects the researcher team’s broader intent to augment wildfire-related knowledge and capabilities of understudied and potentially underprepared regions as climate change amplifies risk and uncertainty. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.