— Updated: For communities land use planning is more effective than logging on federal lands to reduce future wildfire disasters.
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Kelly Pohl
Wildfire
As wildfires become more extensive and severe, the costs and risks are rising–largely due to continued home development in fire-prone landscapes. Changing where homes are built can reduce dangers, damages, and costs.
Communities Utilize Land Use Planning to Reduce Wildfire Risks and Costs
— Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire (CPAW) is helping communities reduce wildfire risks and costs. Four new communities join 26 others this coming year.
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Building a Wildfire-Resistant Home: Codes and Costs
— A new home built to wildfire-resistant codes can be constructed for roughly the same cost as a typical home.
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San Luis Valley Wildfire Risk
— Explore interactive maps of watersheds, wildfire, and the wildland-urban interface in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.
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Kelly Pohl
Wildfire, Watersheds, and the Wildland-Urban Interface in the San Luis Valley
— Partners in Colorado’s San Luis Valley are working to better understand the impacts of wildfire to communities, watersheds, and quality of life.
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Austin Wildfire and Vulnerable Populations Tool
— Identify neighborhoods where overlapping wildfire threats and socioeconomic vulnerabilities may make people disproportionately susceptible to wildfire.
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New Montana Homes Increase Wildfire Risks
— The number of western Montana homes in areas with high wildfire hazard has doubled, outpacing development rates in areas with low wildfire hazard.
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Full Community Costs of Wildfire
— Almost half of the full community costs of wildfire are paid for at the local level, including homeowners, businesses, and government agencies.
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Communities Threatened by Wildfire, 2000-2017
— The interactive map identifies frequently threatened towns and cities, including the different sizes and distances of wildfires from nearby communities.
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Communities Threatened by Wildfires, 2000-2017
— Explore all communities threatened by wildfires from 2000 to 2017.
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Wildland-Urban Interface: The Problem, Trends, & Solutions (slides)
— Slide show: Wildfires are bigger, burn longer, cause more damage, and kill more people than before.
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Communities Threatened by Wildfire, 2000-2017: Sortable Table
— The sortable table identifies frequently threatened towns and cities, including the different sizes and distances of wildfires from nearby communities.
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Assessing Wildfire and Populations at Risk
— A new tool helps the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico assess wildfire and populations at risk.
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Communities Reduce Wildfire Risk Through Land Use Planning
— Updated: The Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program now helps 30 communities reduce wildfire risk through improved land use planning.
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Planning Tools to Reduce Montana’s Wildfire Risk
— County governments, fire districts and service areas, and landowners have many opportunities to reduce wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface through land use planning tools and strategies, though challenges in Montana’s regulatory framework remain.
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Kelly Pohl
Fire & Flood: Lessons from Hurricane Harvey for Wildfire
— A lack of land use planning amplified the devastation from Hurricane Harvey. Wildfire-prone communities should take note.
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Resilient Taos County: Living with Wildfire
— This story map provides Taos County residents with information about the ecological role of fire, the region’s wildfire risk, forest restoration projects, and emergency preparedness.
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Wildfire Experts’ Paper Informs Effective Policy
— Wildfire experts outline key science insights important to inform policy discussions and development while reducing future risks and costs.
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Kimiko Barrett, Ph.D.
Tennessee Wildfires: Now Is the Time to Plan
— The wildfires that burned the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park devastated nearby communities and underscore the need to reduce the risks and costs of future catastrophic events.
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Does Insurance Affect Home Development on Wildfire-Prone Lands?
— It is unlikely that insurance rates and policies alone will determine whether or not a landowner decides to build a new home on wildfire-prone land.
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Kimiko Barrett, Ph.D.
Identifying Communities at Risk to Wildfire
— Mapping and understanding communities at risk from wildfires just became easier with a new interactive tool generated by Headwaters Economics.
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Summary: Wildfire Costs, New Development, and Rising Temperatures
— This summary highlights the major research Headwaters Economics has conducted concerning controlling fire suppression costs, state case studies, and the growth of homes in the WUI.
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Kimiko Barrett, Ph.D.
Rising Wildfire Costs Encourage Better Land Use Planning
— Five urban areas in the West and Southwest are taking steps to mitigate wildfire risks and costs through the perspective of land use planning.
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Land Use Planning to Reduce Wildfire Risk
— Case studies show how five urban areas in the West are using innovative land use planning tools to adapt to the increasing risks from wildfires.
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Home Construction in the High Divide
— The High Divide region, recognized as one of the most intact biological areas in the lower 48 states, is attracting many new residents and home construction is changing the landscape.
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Wildfire Increasingly an Urban Issue
— Wildfires increasingly are threatening urban areas—often repeatedly—putting more homes, lives, infrastructure, and other resources at risk.
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Reducing Wildfire Risk to Communities
— This report outlines a number of solutions to alter the pace, scale, and pattern of future development in the Wildland-Urban Interface.
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Better Planning to Reduce Wildfire Risk: A Summit County Case Study and Lessons for Other Communities
— Wildfires pose a growing threat to many communities. As more development occurs near wildfire-prone lands, there is a growing need to reduce risk through improved land use policies and tools.
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Lessons for Wildfire from Federal Flood Risk Management Programs
— This paper reviews the experience of national floodplain management programs to draw lessons for new approaches to reduce the costs and risks posed by wildfire to properties in the Wildland-Urban Interface.
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Ray Rasker, Ph.D.
Wildfire Budget, Incentives, and Missed Opportunities
— The failure of Congress to pass wildfire disaster funding is a missed opportunity for two reasons: one to stop 'fire borrowing' and second to reduce risks and costs to homeowners and the taxpayer.
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Study Finds No Evidence Firewise Lowers Suppression Costs
— Study finds no evidence of a relationship between wildfire suppression costs and Firewise participation, suggesting policies should focus on other solutions to lower future expenditures, such as preventing development in high risk areas.
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Local Responses to Wildfire Risks Are Limited
— This study reviews how western communities are addressing wildfire risk, how they have responded to recent major fires, and useful lessons and public policy insights for the future.
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The Rising Cost of Wildfire Protection
— This report describes how the protection of homes in the Wildland-Urban Interface has added to wildfire costs and concludes with a discussion of solutions that may help control escalating risks and expenses.
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As Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Develops, Firefighting Costs Will Soar
— Fighting wildfires costs have averaged more than $3 billion per year, and home protection contributes substantially to this amount. The majority of the WUI in the West is currently undeveloped, but building on these lands will significantly drive up costs.
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Oregon Home Building, Higher Temperatures Drive Price Tag Ever Higher
— This Headwaters Economics study analyzes the impact of housing and climate on the costs of fighting forest fires in National Forests of Oregon.
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Northern California, Homes, and Cost of Wildfires
— This Headwaters Economics study analyzes the impact of housing and climate on the costs of fighting forest fires in the twelve national forests of the Sierra Nevada.
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Missoula County Homes at Risk in Flood and Wildfire Areas
— These two slideshows and related information use Missoula County and Western Montana to show how many homes have been built in flood and wildfire hazard areas, which are vulnerable to larger and more frequent floods and fires.
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— The Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire program works with many communities across the U.S.
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High Divide Home Construction: 1900 – 2023
— Explore maps showing homes built in the High Divide from 1900 - 2013 plus a 2023 forecast.
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Montana Wildfire Cost Study- Technical Report
— This report examines how residential development adds to the costs of fighting wildfires, using Montana as a case study.
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Wildfires: Development and Temperature Impact Cost and Safety
— Headwaters Economics has studied wildfires across the West, analyzing how more homes near forests and increasing temperatures will significantly increase future costs and safety risks.
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