16-2 Wildfire and Human Behavior Before, During, and After

Session: Wildland Fire: An Agent of Geomorphic, Ecologic, and Societal Change

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Wildfires comprise multiple hazards with varying effects over varying time spans. Fire behavior can be generalized but each fire is driven by ambient conditions, fuel, and topography. Human impact is similarly site-specific, but humans ultimately control where and how we develop and thus our hazard exposure and sensitivity.

Wildfire pre-planning must recognize not only the lack of hazard uniformity, but warning and evacuation windows ranging from minutes to hours, limited evacuation route options, and the prospect of planned or fire-driven power and communication outages. Fires are not unique in creating hazardous conditions for evacuees, responders, and support personnel; the uncommon aspect is the insidious nature of some of those hazards, e.g., carbon monoxide. In addition, wildfire smoke can constitute a stand-alone hazard thousands of miles from its source. Post-fire conditions can create a new suite of hazards, including flooding, debris flows, degraded water and air quality, and contaminated soil, water, and built surfaces.

As with most hazards, wildfire recovery begins during active response and can extend for months or – more commonly – years. Pre-disaster recovery planning increases the likelihood of effective recovery by identifying needs and prioritizing specific projects, ideally incorporating hazard mitigation. The post-incident window of opportunity for hazard mitigation implementation is narrow – if it exists at all. The most effective forms of mitigation, land use (where we build) and building codes (how we build), also tend to be the hardest to enact and thus are among the least commonly used. Expensive homes at risk may receive disproportionate attention, but the destruction of affordable housing, along with other short- and long-term effects on those with the fewest options, is a common thread across multiple hazards and actual incidents.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-7060

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