Citation

Meldrum JR, Barth CM, Goolsby JB, Olson SK, Gosey AC, White JB, Brenkert-Smith H, Champ PA, Gomez J. Fire (Basel) 2022; 5(1): e24.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publications Institute)

DOI

10.3390/fire5010024

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Parcel-level risk (PLR) describes how wildfire risk varies from home to home based on characteristics that relate to likely fire behavior, the susceptibility of homes to fire, and the ability of firefighters to safely access properties. Here, we describe the WiRē Rapid Assessment (RA), a parcel-level rapid wildfire risk assessment tool designed to evaluate PLR with a small set of measures for all homes in a community. We investigate the relationship between 2019 WiRē RA data collected in the Columbine Lake community in Grand County, Colorado, and whether assessed homes were destroyed in the 2020 East Troublesome Fire. We find that the overall parcel-level risk scores, as well as many individual attributes, relate to the chance that a home was destroyed. We also find strong evidence of risk spillovers across neighboring properties. The results demonstrate that even coarsely measured RA data capture meaningful differences in wildfire risk across a community. The findings also demonstrate the importance of accounting for multiple aspects of PLR, including both hazards and susceptibility, when assessing the risk of wildfire to homes and communities. Finally, the results underscore that relatively small actions by residents before a fire can influence wildfire outcomes.

Language: en

Keywords

natural hazards; parcel-level risk; post-fire analysis; rapid assessment; risk assessment; risk mitigation