Embedded Files
Wildfire Risk Management in Northern Utah’s Wasatch Region
Wildfire Risk Management in Northern Utah’s Wasatch Region
February 2020
February 2020
Cody Evers & Max Nielsen-Pincus
Cody Evers & Max Nielsen-Pincus
Thank you to the more than 200 people who participated in the Phase 1 online questionnaire on wildfire risk management in Northern Utah’s Wasatch Region in 2019!
Initiatives such as the Catastrophic Wildfire Risk Reduction Plan, the 2016 Utah legislative fire policy updates, Shared Stewardship, and the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy have convened a diversity of stakeholders from different agencies, jurisdictions, organizations, and interests, and envision a new future for wildfire risk management. Participation in this research directly supports the aims of these state and federal initiatives by systematically mapping the diverse range of individuals, organizations, and agencies that are working to reduce wildfire risk in the region; assessing strategic alignment between practitioners; documenting how information and resources are shared; and identifying what and where additional resources may be needed.
Respondents to the 2019 survey had extensive experience, with nearly three-quarters reporting more than a decade of experience with wildfire. Nearly a fifth of those we surveyed indicated wildfire was the main focus of their job, while about 60% reported that wildfire was one of several major issues in their jobs. Professional roles included education, public awareness, program administration, risk mitigation, emergency management, response, recovery, and research.
Network of Practitioners
In the Phase 1 questionnaire participants identified over 400 individuals affiliated with 180 organizations, including state agencies, local cities and counties, federal agencies, non-profit organizations, and the private sector. Respondents included land managers, fuels specialists, fire chiefs and firefighters, WUI coordinators, elected officials across local, state, and federal government, researchers, planners, professors, business owners, advocates and local sparkplugs, among others. The practitioner network shown below (Figure 1) was built using the information participants in the Phase 1 online questionnaire provided.
Figure 1 - Practitioner network in Northern Utah showing more than 400 individuals. Each circle represents an individual and each line a professional connection. The size of each circle is based on each individuals’ number of professional connections.
The density of these connections illustrates the degree of collaboration and coordination occurring in Northern Utah’s Wasatch Region and why the region has emerged as a national hotspot of innovation. Some respondents emerged as particularly important for spanning boundaries between organizational affiliations (Figure 2). Boundary spanning individuals are commonly described as influencers because their position in the network allows them to combine different perspectives, transfer ideas between groups, make introductions, and negotiate between different interests. These qualities give boundary spanners important leverage and power in a network.
Boundary spanners may be in a good position to bridge collaborative work with the USFS, other federal agencies, state and local agencies, tribes, non-governmental organizations and the private sector when and where laws and policies allow. The boundary-spanning role of the state demonstrates the result of deliberative state investments in managing wildfire. For instance, in Figure 2, state WUI coordinators were not only some of the most connected individuals in the management network, but were also those that tended to bridge under-connected parts of the network.
Figure 2 - Highly connected individuals, including those that bridge disconnected parts of the network.
Geographic Focus of Work
Participants in the Phase 1 online questionnaire also helped us identify more than 500 different locations where practitioners work on the ground. We are already finding interesting patterns where different organizations focus their work. The maps below (Figure 3) give an early look at where wildfire management efforts are concentrated.
Figure 3 - Locations where Phase 1 questionnaire respondents had worked to address wildfire risk from 2013 to 2018 (left), and working geographies of four primary organizational types (center and right). Areas colored in each of the working geography maps share characteristics similar to those locations where respondents from each organization group reported working.
The wildland urban interface (WUI) -- areas where homes and other structures are built among or adjacent to forest and shrubland -- has been the focus of wildfire risk management work for many respondents. Seventy-five percent of work locations were within 2.5 miles of the WUI as defined in the federal register despite the WUI only comprising about 7% of the landscape.
We used reported locations to draw maps that correspond to areas across the landscape where different groups of respondents were most likely to work (Figure 3, center and right panels). These maps show substantial overlap of wildfire risk management interests among different groups of practitioners in many parts of the region, and particularly the foothills and mountains west of Salt Lake City. The overlaps may show potential for collaborative wildfire risk management and shared stewardship across organizational boundaries.
Next Steps: Phase 2 of the Survey
This research update helps launch Phase 2, which asks questions designed to better understand the collaborative behaviors and beliefs of different network members, how different management cultures influence who works with whom, and what drives different understandings of wildfire risk. Answers to these questions are important for encouraging the collaborative engagement and coordination needed to strategically and programmatically align wildfire management goals across organizations.
We hope you will choose to participate in the Phase 2 online questionnaire. Please click the link in the email invitation you received. If you would like to participate, but did not receive an email invitation, please contact Andy McEvoy: mcevoy2@pdx.edu | (207) 798-9811.
Finally, we heard from many of you that you would like to see the results in a format other than a standard research report. Although we are in the process of producing a report, we are working with partners to develop other ways to communicate the results to local practitioners, including a website and local presentations. Some members of our project team will be in the Wasatch Region over the coming months to present results and have more detailed discussions about the challenges and successes in managing wildfire risk. If you would like to be notified as new products of this research are produced, please contact Andy so that he can add you to our contact list.
Learn more about the
Report abuse