Researchers have sought to understand why wildland urban interface areas continue to expand in the United States despite increasing riskand loss to those areas.
People living in the Pacific Northwest confrontrisks associated with environmental hazards such as wildfire. Vulnerability to wildfire hazard is commonly recognized as being spatially distributed according to geographic conditions that collectively determine the probability of exposure. For example, exposure to wildfire hazard is higher for people living in rural, forested settings than in a strictly urban neighborhood because rural housing is built in close proximity to the threat source, e.g., flammable landscapes such as forests and chaparral. Yet, even if levels of exposure are held constant, not all people are equally susceptible to wildfire events. In other words, some people are more vulnerable to harm than others.
Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) is the area where human development and the natural world meet or intermingle. Read more at Fire Facts: What is? WUI.