Researchers have sought to understand why wildland urban interface areas continue to expand in the United States despite increasing riskand loss to those areas.
In recent decades, there has been an increased emphasis on, and application of, collaborative and adaptive forms of environmental governance as a means to address complex social-ecological problems that cannot be achieved alone and support sustainable resource management.
Major power outages have risen over the last two decades, largely due to more extreme weather conditions. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the distribution of power outages and its relationship to social vulnerability and co-occurring hazards.
Fire agencies across the United States must make complex resource allocation decisions to manage wildfires using a national network of shared firefighting resources. Firefighters play a critical role in suppressing fires and protecting vulnerable communities. However, they are exposed to health and safety risks associated with fire, smoke inhalation, and infectious disease transmission.
Recently, terms like social and community resilience have provided new ideas in reducing disaster risks especially in forest fire. However, a comprehensive and in-depth review of community social resilience concerning forest fires is lacking.
Quantitative wildfire risk assessments increasingly are used to prioritize areas for investments in wildfire risk mitigation actions. However, current assessments of wildfire risk derived from fire models built primarily on biophysical data do not account for socioeconomic contexts that influence community vulnerability to wildfire.
As the frequency and intensity of power line-induced wildfires increase due to climate-, human- , and infrastructure-related risk drivers, maintaining power system resilience and reducing environmental impacts become increasingly crucial.
Background
Situational awareness is an essential component of wildland firefighter safety. In the US, crew lookouts provide situational awareness by proxy from ground-level locations with visibility of both fire and crew members.
Aims
Prescribed burns are used to maintain wildland ecosystems and decrease fuel loads and associated wildfire hazard. Prescribed burns may produce enough smoke to cause adverse health outcomes. The aim of this review is to understand what communication materials exist for disseminating health risk information related to prescribed burn smoke and challenges to developing such communication.