Cal Poly Launches New Planning Tool to Strengthen Wildfire Mitigation in Urban Communities
Interdisciplinary researchers unveil a free, data-driven guidebook to help local governments move beyond suppression and build more resilient, wildfire-prepared cities.
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — A new guidebook to improve wildfire mitigation work in urban areas, developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Cal Poly’s Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Institute, is now available. It provides step-by step guidance to construct a policy driven scorecard focused on strengthening mitigation plans and actions.
The two-year effort to develop the tool, called the Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ (PIRS™) for Wildfire, was done in partnership with Texas A&M and is now available to all community planners, emergency managers and other administrators at no cost.
The guide will help local government and community groups to strengthen risk reduction strategies. “This is a tool that local governments can use to do better, more integrated mitigation planning,” said William Siembieda, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at Cal Poly. “Over the years, especially in California, suppression was the common approach and that is no longer the best path forward. This guide provides the tools needed for improvement.”
The frequency and severity of destructive wildfires in California is increasing, as is the risk to life and property of people living in wildfire-prone areas. As more frequent and severe wildfire and urban fire events are increasing losses of life, property, habitat and ecosystems in California, the United States and across the world, the Cal Poly WUI Fire Institute in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences is working on solutions through innovative research, training and education to create safer and more fire resilient communities in California and the West.
Cal Poly researchers and students from multiple colleges and disciplines partnered with Texas A&M’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center to tailor a technique used in the eastern U.S. for flood mitigation for wildfire mitigation. The unique approach integrates with municipal spatial mapping tools that provide key data points that can help city leaders better understand the risks. The research was funded by a grant awarded to the WUI Fire Institute by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
“The guidebook is a spatially derived tool for wildfire mitigation built on modern theory,” Siembieda said. “It uses physical analysis to determine which areas need mitigation by determining which areas score high for being protected or which areas score low, allowing city administrators to adjust local practices as needed and where they are needed.
“As a city develops, there are areas that need more need more wildfire protection — and this guide will allow them to look at existing policies to determine if they adequate to protect those areas.”
The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard™ for Wildfire provides an organized, vetted database of the community’s wildfire-risk-affecting policies from across the network of local plans, scored according to their likely effects and their geographic focus. Along with associated maps, derived from the scorecard results, this organization and novel perspective allow local staff to visually analyze areas in their community where policy guidance conflicts, and places that may require greater focus on wildfire resilience.
“Our team spent more than two years developing this plan in an effort to make a direct impact where it is most needed,” said Frank Frievalt, director of the WUI Fire Institute. “This novel approach offers a more holistic approach to the efforts that need to be made is assessing hazard vulnerability.”
Visit the WUI Fire Institute website at fire.calpoly.edu for information on how to obtain the guide.