UC Merced

Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas foster high fire risk because of factors like vegetation type, abundance, distance from firefighting resources, and the facilitation of human proximity to forested areas. There has been a recent increase of California WUI areas becoming established; although some are attributed to migrations of advantaged populations, with the integration of ‘fire-adapted communities,’ not all are created as such. Areas of disadvantaged WUI communities, doubly vulnerable from confronting both social and bio-physical vulnerability, can result in uneven impacts of wildfire disaster. Even amongst neighboring property owners, “social fragmentation” – varying vulnerabilities- may increase overall wildfire disaster risks. Community vulnerability has been explored through the sociodemographic patterns of the communities affected, surrounding vegetation type and climatic variables, and mitigation performance of nearby wildfire protection entities. Here, we utilize wildfire fatality data to characterize community vulnerability to wildfire based on the conditions associated with fatal wildfires. We found that the largest percent of fatalities, due to deadly wildfires, came from fires ignited in October and November, despite most wildfires happening in the summer months. Also, almost half (45%) of California WUI fatalities occurred on National Interagency Fire Center (NICF) Preparedness Level 1 days, effectively the lowest wildfire activity days. WUI communities affected by fatal wildfires were characterized by higher poverty than the California state average (11.3%) and more citizens over 65 (5%). Finally, population density for specific vegetation types was not the causal factor of fatalities within that vegetation type, rather it was the vegetation type itself. These finding suggest that we can use fatality data can better identify vulnerability factors that can negatively impact California WUI communities and confirm wildfire disaster principals. We hope this research will be continues to foster the creation of targeted action plans, to address the inequities of vulnerable communities.