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| Wing-Yee Kelly Cheah; photos Alex Tat-Shing Chow |
Questions can focus on the substance of the papers, implications of findings for policy, applications of ideas to management, critiques of conclusions, inquiries about methods, etc. For
instance, think about posing some of your questions as the potential for
application to real-world settings, policy, or tools designed to improve the
management of wildfire risk. Explore particular issues, challenges, or
scenarios that you are facing or might face in the future given your career
goals. Consider how other stakeholders at risk from fire might approach or
perceive of these same topics. Or pose questions as someone who wants to learn
more about a way the wildfire management system works.
Remember that your comments and questions are due by noon on Monday before class. This provides enough time for our discussion leads to synthesize questions.
Wildfire Crisis Strategy 2022
ReplyDeletePondering the differences between forests and the array of ways professionals see forest management, there has been great debate about the use of distinct fire-severity models. This has been dependent on eons of climate records and vegetation data as well as photographs and personal accounts in recent history, among other sources. What are the management plans posed by the USFS primarily based upon and what guidelines do they follow?
Iglesias 2022
In addition to the changes mentioned in the study (i.e. infrastructure practices and increased prescribed burns) I think the government may be able to incentivize land owners to manage forests swaths they may own, do you think this can be done? A scenario where this may be vital focuses on a landowner whose property contains a section of forest that may increase the risk to a neighborhood in the event of a wildfire. Perhaps the landowner may receive a financial incentive in return for professionals managing the forest via prescribed fire or creating defensible space. I imagine this has to be less costly than a wildfire destroying the neighborhood.
Steelman 2016
In what ways do you think governance by distinct agencies (i.e. federal and state) can be better adapted to provide a more clear-cut way to reaching outcomes that are shared and desired by all?
1. From Steelman- Referencing Figure 1, do you feel like exogenous controls are ultimately a cumulative response to the response, mitigations, or lack thereof of the "fast" contributors/properties? Other than the "slow" factors, how else can we link the exogenous controls and the "fast" properties?
ReplyDelete2. From Iglesias- I had never heard of the idea of SETS (social-environmental-technical systems) before. Is there another category that you think is of 'equal' importance that should be included in this acronym? Is there one of the categories that you believe is more important than the others? What if you had to rank them?
3. From the Wildfire Crisis Strategy- The article talks about the factors contributing to exponentially increasing wildfire risk as fuel loading, expanding wildland urban interface, and climate change. Fuel loading theoretically on paper seems straightforward enough. Do fuels treatments, et. Climate change theoretically on paper seems straightforward enough. Do x,y,z. There are management plans for fuels treatments and policy worldwide on how to combat climate change. Granted, just because these "mitigations" are in place doesn't necessarily mean they are always working. BUT ANYWAY. The wildland urban interface (WUI) is an interesting dilemma. Aside from clearing woody/burnable debris from your house or using metals etc to build with, how do you manage this crisis? Can you tell people to stop building in certain areas? Can you enforce policy for those circumstances to have requirements for fire defense? Is policy trying to sneakily do this? For example, is the recent California insurance crisis of fire home insurance potentially not being available just the first step? Should WUI expansion be governed?
1. One of the conclusions identified by Iglesias, et al. (2022) is that “respecting and integrating local knowledge into planning and implementation strategies while empowering local communities to identify vulnerabilities, leverage situational expertise, build adaptive capacity, and carry out localized resilience strategies” is important to building a resilient fire governance strategy. My question is about mechanisms for achieving this: how can local knowledge be translated to planning authorities and what is the strategy for empowering and enabling communities to carry out localized projects? Also, what are the key challenges for achieving this? Are there individuals or organizations (government or nongovernment) that can be (or are) positioned to facilitate the transfer of local knowledge to planning entities and vice versa? How successful has this been so far and what are the opportunities for improving this process?
ReplyDelete2. Steelman (2016) notes that “it is important to understand that historical conditions upon which many models are built may not provide effective prediction for future events”, but it seems like many planning and research efforts still use predictive models based on (or incorporating) historical fire data. Is there over-reliance on predictive modeling to inform planning efforts?
3. Both articles and the Wildland Crisis Strategy reference the “WUI”: It is defined in the Crisis Strategy as “the private lands where homes adjoin or intersect with large areas of fire-adapted vegetation”, but given events like the LA wildfires I’m wondering if this definition remains useful, or if it is a somewhat arbitrary distinction that misrepresents some areas as being at less risk from fire than others?
1. Regarding Confronting the Wildfire Crisis: A Strategy for Protecting Communities and Improving Resilience in America’s Forests (USFS):
ReplyDeleteThis document had a very persuasive tone and used emotional language (“Crisis” “devastated” “answering the call”). I am curious if anyone else in the class noticed this. Who do you think is the intended target audience for this document? Why?
2. In the risk equation proposed by Iglesias et al., do you think hazard, exposure, and social vulnerability should all be given equal weight? Do you see any problems with this equation?
3. Knowing federal fire expenditures (reactive spending and borrowing) and current budget constraints, do you think fire response should be further decentralized, with more responsibility for WUI response and funding placed on state and local resources? What are some advantages of the current federal fire response?
Confronting the Wildfire Crisis
ReplyDeleteo How can communication within communities about fire improve community resilience? What can be done to create a more inclusive conversation to a diverse community that is potentially threatened?
Iglesias 2022
o How can building fire resistant infrastructure positively affect the WUI? Are corporations more dangerous than private citizens in regard to potential ignition?
Steelman 2016
o How would you be able to create an inclusive mutually reinforcing policy at the local, state, and federal level? Would having this structure positively or negatively impact on the effectiveness of departments?
“Fires that mater: reconceptualizing fire risk to include interactions between humans and the natural environment”
ReplyDelete1.- How can cultural differences influence perceptions of fire risk and management practices in diverse communities?
“U.S wildfire governance as social-ecological problem”
2.- In what ways can we ensure that diverse perspectives, particularly from marginalized communities, are included in the decision-making process for wildfire management?
“Confronting the Wildfire Crisis”
3.- How can local communities without substantial funding or resources contribute meaningfully to implementing these treatments?
1) How can we ensure that the objectives and guidelines outlined in the USFS Wildfire Crisis Strategy are actually followed through and carried out in both planning and ground operations? (As someone who has worked extensively in prescribed fire and fuels planning and implementation, plans such of these seem great in theory but often fail in follow-through efforts when it comes to getting things done on the ground and adequately supported by District and Forest management.)
ReplyDelete2) What are some ways we can better educate the public about the "wildfire crisis" in regards to fuel accumulation, increasing climate change, and further expansion of the WUI (besides solely relying on firesafe councils, etc.)? Additionally, how can we reframe the terminology surrounding this to better portray what is actually happening rather than fueling panic, political fire, etc?
3) In Iglesias et al 2022, a risk factor is proposed that includes fire and smoke hazard, exposure, and vulnerability as a method to identify 'fires that matter' ie that have potentially devastating impacts to our communities, but how is this any different from what is already talked about by fire management? Though it currently isn't formalized into the standard risk assessment process, this is already often incorporated into fire managers' decision-making and therefore already exists and isn't necessarily a "new" proposal....
1) Regarding the “Confronting the Wildfire Crisis”- I currently live in an area that lacks major funding specifically talking about the environmental conservation sector. That said, how are areas like mine going to be able to Thoroughly implement these treatments when they’re already lacking funding and resources?
ReplyDelete2) I’m also wondering who is going to make sure that these objectives and guidelines that the USFS is putting forth are always going to be carried out to a” T”? The plans seem solid, but it’s the execution I’m concerned about.
3) How do you feel the current Palisades wildfires in CA could be factored into the point in the “U.S. Wildfire governance as a social-ecological problem”? To me it sure seems like several balls (protocols) were dropped.
1) In "Confronting the Wildfire Crisis" they talk about the inclusion of multi-agency input to come to a sustainable strategy, what was the goal previously? Were the stakeholders picked/consulted based on economic benefit(s) instead of environmental/community benefits?
ReplyDelete2) In the article "U.S. wildfire governance as social-ecological problem" it describes the inability of governance structure to match the ecological changes and the negative outcomes if we continue on the current path. Yet, many of the problems discussed in this 2016 paper are still up for debate. How can we come to an agreeance on many of these issues if there are some who will not acknowledge their existence?
3)In the article by Iglesias et al. (2022), they discussed that there are fire-resistant materials that can be used when building homes that costs about the same as the traditional materials. With the understanding that the development into the WUI will continue to increase, in conjunction with climate change, why not use said materials? Especially in areas of California, where they are no longer offering fire insurance.
1) As discussed in Steelman (2016), wildfire governance has attempted to generate fire-adapted communities and reduce hazardous fuels since 1995. Yet, recurring barriers and limitations for large-scale attempts have produced a negative feedback in wildfire governance. Thus, I wonder what distinguishes the Wildfire Crisis Strategy from past attempts?
ReplyDelete2) Iglesias (2022) acknowledges that land managers "are poorly equipped to integrate procedural and distributed justice." Aside from their reasonings, how might hazardous fuel reduction efforts be more equitable? Is it genuinely unfeasible - or is the proposed policy just inadequate?
3) Steelman (2016) addresses wildfire governance's temporal and spatial disconnects. From what has been presented on the news thus far, how might the LA fires further exemplify this misalignment?