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Doug Green, a program manager for the Community Planning Assistance Wildfire Program at Headwaters Economics, agrees that wildfire risk can be lowered and worked with the city and the county in years past to try and develop local codes and regulations.

“We can’t address this by just treating the forest. If we’re wanting to address the entire Wildland Urban Interface, then we must very strategically and deliberately invest in the urban as much as we are in the wildland,” said Kimiko Barrett, the wildfire research and policy lead at Headwaters Economics.

On the contrary, local governments depend on new development to bring in more property-tax revenue. “If I’m a county commissioner, why would I care if that house burns down?” Kimi Barrett, a policy analyst at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit research group, tells the authors. “Because I’m not going to pay for it.”

Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire researcher with Headwaters Economics, said there are several reasons people live — and are moving to — these locations, including out of necessity.

“We as a culture must fundamentally rethink wildfire and what it means to coexist with increasing risk,” said commission member Kimiko Barrett, of Montana-based Headwaters Economics.