Fueling Adaptations: Wildfire Governance and Community Adaptations in Fire-Prone Landscapes of the Western U.S.

Presented by Miranda Mockrin, Research Scientist, and Lindsay Campbell, Research Social Scientist

Fueling Adaptations is an interdisciplinary social science team examining how federal investments leverage and enhance existing capacities and governance networks in support of community wildfire adaptation. We present results of landscape-wide surveys and semi-structured interviews with practitioners from two Wildfire Crisis Strategy priority landscapes: the Colorado Front Range and Southwest Idaho. Our results show that in addition to resources and funding, it takes time and trust to build the collaborative capacity required to achieve desired wildfire risk reduction outcomes, and further, that no two landscapes are exactly alike.

Analyzing Social Media Comments: Case Studies from Two Wildfire Events

Presented by Erin Belval, Research Forester/Economist

This study examines the temporal interplay between incident management communications and community responses during two prominent wildfire events in Southwest Oregon: the 2017 Chetco Bar Fire and the 2018 Klondike Fires. Leveraging novel machine learning techniques and qualitative methods, we analyzed social media data to capture personalized sentiments and reactions. This research explores how wildland fire characteristics, incident response, and community composition collectively shape local community reactions and outcomes.