Science Source
The unequal vulnerability of communities of color to wildfire
- Develops a social-ecological approach for characterizing fire vulnerability and applies it to >70,000 census tracts across the United States
- Incorporates both the wildfire potential of a landscape and socioeconomic attributes of overlying communities
- Finds that:
- Over 29 million Americans live with significant potential for extreme wildfires, a majority of whom are white and socioeconomically secure
- Within this segment, however, are 12 million socially vulnerable Americans for whom a wildfire event could be devastating
- Wildfire vulnerability is spread unequally across race and ethnicity, with census tracts that were majority Black, Hispanic or Native American experiencing ca. 50% greater vulnerability to wildfire compared to others
- Concludes that embracing a social-ecological perspective of fire-prone landscapes allows for the identification of areas that are poorly equipped to respond to wildfires
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