Abstract
Increasing wildfire risk poses a significant challenge to human communities in wildfire-prone areas and the organizations tasked with protecting private property and lives from fire. This dissertation focuses on local capacities to deal with wildfire risk through fire service organizations and private property mitigations. The first chapter explores the establishment and functioning of a citizen-based wildland fire suppression organization typically established in a public-land dominated setting (i.e., Rangeland Fire Protection Associations (RFPA)) that was recently implemented in a socially heterogeneous and fragmented landscape. The study examines reasons for RFPA formation in the mosaic context, individuals’ reasons for joining the RFPA, and the impact of the socially heterogenous landscape on interactions with other fire service organizations (FSOs) and actions taken during cooperative wildfire response. Results suggest that the RFPA idea was still a useful tool for the natural resource-based community to adapt to changing fire circumstances in a mosaic landscape, but that it had to be adapted to the local circumstances. Rural fire departments were apprehensive about accepting the RFPA into cooperative wildfire management due to the perception that RFPAs were receiving preferential treatment from state and federal partners and concerns about competing with the RFPA for volunteer firefighter funding and resources. Once concerns were addressed, the RFPA was largely welcomed into cooperative wildfire response and considered by partners to play a key role in buffering residential areas from wildland fire risk. However, RFPA members were concerned about this perception and were hesitant to be considered a wildland fire response entity that would engage wildfires alone. The second chapter uses a mixed-mode survey to explore rural residents’ perceptions of their FSOs with a particular emphasis on local fire department (LFD) capacity and capabilities. I explore the influence of these perceptions, resident characteristics, and parcel characteristics on resident performance of wildfire risk mitigation actions on their property with a particular focus on mitigation actions (1) performed on and in the 0-5 foot space around the home where fires transition to the structure or can start from embers and (2) that can support firefighting efforts and firefighter safety. The results indicate that individuals largely agreed that their LFD did not have the capacity or capability to deal with wildfire events in the area, but agreed that they trusted the LFD to respond to a fire event on individual parcels. Significant relationships between our independent variables and mitigation action performance were highly variable, corroborating existing literature that performance of wildfire mitigation actions is impacted by different circumstances. The final chapter examines a rural populations’ intended evacuation behaviors (i.e., evacuate, stay and defend, or shelter in place) and the wildfire mitigations group members performed. Results show that a large portion of the population intended to stay and defend their property, and that individuals who intended to stay and defend were more likely to perform vegetation mitigations (e.g., space trees and shrubs at least 10 feet apart) and to implement actions that support fire suppression (e.g., establish a water supply) than other evacuation behavior groups.