Why Should We Incorporate Social Factors Into Wildfire Risk Assessments?

While wildfire risk assessments typically rely on traditional biophysical indicators, such as fuel, weather and geography, they does not consider the effects of social factors. This leaves socially vulnerable populations to be potentially underserved when it comes to protection, response, and recovery from wildfires.

How do we define social factors?
Social factors include demographic and socieconomic characteristics including (but not limited to):

Age
Income
Ethnicity
Education Level
Disability Status

Examples of how Social Factors Affect Wildfire Response and Recovery

How can we Incorporate Social Factors into Wildfire Risk?

Research by Davies et al. proposes a new measure of wildfire vulnerability that combines biophysical indicators with social factors.

Example Case Study: Lake, Marin, Sonoma, and Napa Counties

This chart shows Wildfire Hazard Potential (WHP), Adaptive Capacity, and Overall Vulnerability for all of the counties in California. Lake, Marin, Sonoma, and Napa counties are highlighted to start.

Try selecting different risk metrics to see how these counties' risk levels change. You can also explore other counties.

Wildfire Hazard Potential by CountySelect a Risk Metric from the drop-down. Scroll over the points to see more information. You can also click/drag to select counties and follow how they move across metrics.

Looking specifically at Lake, Sonoma, Napa, and Marin counties, we can see that Lake County's overall vulnerability is magnified by poor adaptive capacity, while the remaining counties' vulnerability to wildfires are tempered by greater social resilience.

Digging Deeper: Census Tracts in Marin County

We can zoom further into Marin County, which appears to have a strong adaptive capacity, and find that pockets of vulnerability still exist.

Can you find these pockets of vulnerability? Are they more swayed by wildfire hazard potential or adaptive capacity?

Wildfire Hazard Potential by Census Tract in Marin CountySelect a Risk Metric from the drop-down. Scroll over the map to see more information. You can also click/drag to select census tracts and see how they change across metrics.

Identifying these communities and providing additional help for them respond to wildfires will be important for a future of in which fire becomes an increasing part of the landscape.

Explore Wildfire Risk, Adaptive Capacity, and Overall Vulnerability Across CA

Now that you have a general idea of how social factors can affect wildfire vulnerability, you are ready to further explore and hopefully contribute more knowledge in this increasingly important space.

You can use these maps of California to get started!

Wildfire Hazard Potential by County and Census TractSelect a Risk Metric from the drop-down. Scroll over the map to see more information. You can also select counties to zoom into their census tracts and see how they change across metrics.