Policy and Communication for Wildfire Resilience
Over 27 million Californians live in coastal shrublands, grasslands, and oak woodlands threatened by increasingly frequent and destructive wildfires. However, compared to more remote, forested areas like the Sierras, these regions of California receive little attention and funding. As a result, scientists, policymakers, fire specialists, and residents know less about predicting wildfires and protecting communities in these ecosystems. The Building Resiliency to Wildfire Project (BRW), funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, bridges this knowledge gap through a series of prescribed burns. Prescribed burns — sometimes called controlled burns, intentional fires, or even good fires — are set by land managers deliberately to achieve a management goal. By conducting prescribed burns in the coastal foothills, researchers learned more about how fighting fire with fire can reduce wildfire risk, improve habitat, improve rangelands, or achieve a cultural purpose.
Over the summer, Katie and Izzy developed and executed a communications and dissemination plan to communicate the project’s preliminary findings and implications for communities. Communication materials — policy briefs, an article, and an article pitch — highlighted how prescribed burning can improve California’s coastal foothills’ resilience to wildfires. Additionally, the fellows outlined strategies for further research on prescribed burns, including the benefits of interdisciplinary research on fire, as well as how to scale up prescribed fire in other similar ecosystems. The main audience for the communication materials were California policymakers at the State and local levels, in addition to researchers, educators, students, and the general public.
Katie and Izzy’s Impact:
- Interviewed key researchers in the BRW project to inform communication and policy materials as well as to document exciting findings, opportunities to scale prescribed burning research, and topics in need of future research.
- Developed and disseminated two policy briefs to advocate for increased funding to support prescribed burns and interdisciplinary research projects on prescribed burns in the coastal foothills of California.
- Developed article content about the benefits of prescribed burns and the success of the BRW’s interdisciplinary project, especially in building resilient community relationships in the face of wildfires. (Published article here.)
- Created a library of information for future communications and policy materials that will support the BRW project for years to come when communicating with The Moore Foundation, future funders, media outlets, and policymakers.
Image Credit: Ethan Turpin