NFPA Journal - Fall 2022 - 22

THE VIEW
Wildfire by Michele Steinberg
Stepping Up
A SUCCESSFUL PILOT PROGRAM PROVES THAT COMMUNITIES CAN TAKE THE
NECESSARY STEPS TO DRAMATICALLY REDUCE THEIR RISK FROM WILDFIRE
wo years ago,
T
seven
communities across the
country accepted a challenge
to see if they could
improve their resistance
to wildfire. The aim was to voluntarily
apply more rigorous criteria focused
on home preparedness across adjacent
properties, with the idea of reducing the
kind of home-to-home ignition that has
characterized recent community-scale
wildfire conflagrations. I'm happy to
report that, after a lot of guidance and
coordination and a bit of financial incentive,
these communities proved that this
kind of focused effort on wildfire risk
reduction is entirely achievable.
This is good news for anyone living
with wildfire, as well as for first responders,
local governments, insurers, and
nongovernmental organizations seeking
to improve fire and life safety in the many
locations exposed to wildfire threats. It's
clear that while parcel-level risk reduction
is important, community-wide ignition resistance is vital
to changing outcomes when wildfires impact the built environment.
NFPA's Firewise USA®
program was designed to achieve
community-wide safety improvements by educating and motivating
residents in high-risk areas to work collaboratively on
wildfire risk reduction. It was also intended to keep barriers
to participation low by making it easier for people to engage
with and ultimately adopt new safety behaviors. Yet recent
wildfire disasters, which have included numerous instances of
mass destruction of property across communities, has revealed
gaps in protection that include limited voluntary work toward
reducing home ignition risks. Changes intended to increase the
rigor of Firewise USA have also met with resistance.
That's why we created Sites of Excellence, a pilot program
designed to test the viability and acceptance of rigorous Firewise
guidelines set by residents and neighborhood groups. At each of
the pilot's seven volunteer sites-in Washington, Utah, Arizona,
Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, and Virginia-community leaders
22 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2022
identified up to 100 adjacent homes and
asked property owners to complete mitigation
tasks-based on individual risk
assessments-within a specific period.
The results were more than we could
Pilot participants
say NFPA can use
the findings to create
more ambitious
fire-resistance goals
for Firewise sites.
have hoped for. Dr. Rebecca Miller, a
postdoctoral scholar at the University
of Southern California, reviewed the
outcomes and interviewed local and
state leaders, compiling her findings in
a report for NFPA, available at nfpa.org/
firewise. She found that, prior to the pilot,
mitigation work had been completed in
common areas or adjacent lands in most
of the communities, but little had been
done in home ignition zones. As part of
the pilot, the required risk reduction
across adjacent parcels was completed
within the two-year time frame with a
participation rate between 60 and 90
percent. In addition to the motivation
provided by the Sites of Excellence challenge,
participants cited many practices
they felt factored into their success,
including organized efforts across homeowner associations, the
community cohesion that developed as part of neighborhood
workdays and direct engagement, and the relationships they
built with their state forestry agencies and local fire services.
Miller's interviews also revealed that more can be done. The
overwhelming opinion of those interviewed was that NFPA
ought to use this pilot to create more ambitious goals for
Firewise sites that want to achieve a greater level of wildfire
ignition resistance. Such an effort would help increase community
safety, and would provide an opportunity for wildfire safety
advocates and potential sponsors to take part in supporting
home retrofit and mitigation that benefits their missions and
financial bottom lines. Policymakers and elected officials should
also note that Firewise sites represent highly engaged advocates
for wildfire mitigation who continue to press for meaningful
measures that can prevent future wildfire disasters.
MICHELE STEINBERG is director of the wildfire division at NFPA.
FROM NFPA'S
WILDFIRE DIVISION
MICHAEL HOEWELER
http://www.nfpa.org/firewise http://www.nfpa.org/firewise
NFPA Journal - Fall 2022

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