Adaptation measures and fire-hazard mapping

摘要

Regardless of the surrounding ecosystem conditions, all communities can better coexist with fire by taking several steps: retrofitting homes against ember attack, effectively managing fuels around homes, developing household and community plans for evacuation compared with stay-and-defend decisions, and participating in risk awareness continuing education. For existing high-hazard wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas, landowners may need to take primary responsibility for pursuing the optimal combination of adaptation measures, based on their local vulnerabilities and wildfire exposure. For development of new communities in high-hazard WUI areas, governments need to take a leadership role in planning. Regardless of responsibility, however, all of these efforts will be guided by better mapping of the fire hazard itself.