OUTCOME: Community Health and Safety

Problem

Even with much-needed prevention and preparedness efforts, North Coast communities will continue to be negatively affected by wildfire. Community recovery after a wildfire is hindered by a lack of advance planning and adequate resources and capacity.

Solution

Post-Fire Community Recovery - Facilitate community-level post-fire recovery planning to increase resilience to wildfire and other extreme events.

Background and Context

Across California, over 2.7 million people live in very high fire risk areas, and in over 75 communities more than 90% of residents live in very high fire risk areas (Karlamangla 2021, Sacramento Bee). This has contributed to more wildfire loss in recent years. Even with much-needed prevention and preparedness efforts, for the foreseeable future wildfires will continue to negatively affect communities in the North Coast region, damaging homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure. Community recovery from wildfire is complex because it is often multifaceted, spans multiple jurisdictions, and requires addressing both immediate and long-term impacts. A 2018 survey of experts and community representatives across the western US cited a need for both immediate and long-term funding as well as the importance of having a post-fire plan and coordination between federal, state, and local response agencies.

Community wildfire recovery challenges include damaged infrastructure, housing shortages, insurance challenges, debris removal, and removal of hazardous materials from debris and underlying soil. Recovery is especially difficult for socially and economically vulnerable populations and communities with limited resources. In rural areas, when wells are contaminated or septic and leach fields are destroyed, landowners with limited resources may be unable to rebuild their homes. Rural landowners often turn to programs offered by the state to reduce costs of cleaning up hazardous materials. But in recent fires in rural areas, contractors performing the work were over-zealous in clearing trees that were not hazardous that the landowners could have retained to help minimize financial losses from the fire. Towns with limited tax bases often struggle to rebuild critical infrastructure, as in Paradise following the 2018 Camp Fire. In small, rural towns, recovery may be constrained by limited local capacity, as in Weed after the 2014 Boles Fire (Richards, 2019).

Recommendations

Communities that prepare for recovery before a disaster happens will be better able to rebound when a disaster does occur. Wildfire recovery preparedness can include assessing community vulnerability and the range of possible impacts, having a recovery plan, preemptively developing recovery programs, and increasing recovery capacity within Tribes, local government, agencies, and community organizations. To ensure that recovery planning addresses all aspects of wildfire impacts, communities must also understand the full financial toll a wildfire can impose.

NCRP will seek funding to evaluate the costs of negative wildfire impacts on communities in the North Coast region and explore ways to reduce financial risk. NCRP will assist North Coast communities and Tribes in developing comprehensive and scalable pre-disaster recovery plans that incorporate community input. NCRP will also seek funding to support the development of wildfire recovery programs and sponsor trainings to increase the disaster recovery capacity of local Tribes, agencies, and organizations. In addition, NCRP will seek funding to develop a Best Practice guide for community recovery, facilitate cooperative agreements between agencies, and advocate for policies and funding that support community recovery and minimize further economic loss to individual landowners. This Solution focuses on community recovery. For strategic actions related to ecosystem recovery, see Ecosystem Conservation & Restoration – Post-Fire Recovery Solution.

Actions

Evaluate the full financial impact of destructive wildfires on local communities, including Tribal communities, and propose tools and mechanisms to reduce financial risk and impact.

Evaluate whether assistance is needed to ensure proof of home ownership on Tribal lands and for mobile home owners, and in other socially vulnerable populations where a lack of standard ownership documents may hinder recovery assistance during a federally declared disaster.

  • Be developed with community input.
  • Ensure the inclusion of bilingual case managers, Tribal liaisons, and other resource navigators to assist community members in providing input.
  • Assess existing capacity and vulnerabilities and projected impacts.
  • Address affordable housing, disaster relief housing, and assistance for vulnerable groups.
  • Consider basic services that may be lost in a disaster, such as food banks and community centers.
  • Link to hazard mitigation plans and countywide CWPPs.
  • Be scalable and include priorities, roles and responsibilities, and specific protocols and actions.
  • Establish leadership positions and define necessary operations, including local Community Liaisons.
  • Establish procedures for post-disaster decision making that ensure meaningful community and resident participation.

Facilitate the development of continuity plans, MOUs, mutual aid agreements, etc. between Tribes, local governments, state agencies, FEMA, and other agencies to lay the groundwork for coordinated response.

Develop a regional best practices guide for community post-fire recovery.

  • Increase post-fire recovery training opportunities.
  • Ensure sharing of knowledge between agencies and communities by creating a collaborative peer-to-peer network for fire recovery planning.
  • Support Tribes and CBOs in developing post-fire recovery programs.
  • Facilitate coordination between Tribal, federal, state, and local response groups.

  • Articulate need for more flexibility across jurisdictions.
  • Articulate need for immediate funding after a disaster.
  • Assess barriers to residents accessing state and federal recovery programs and advocate for changes that address these barriers.
  • Smooth transition between IMTs and post-fire agency teams (e.g., FEMA Cal OES, Cal Recycle), with meaningful community participation.

Support emergency planner use of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Emergency Assessment of Post-Fire Debris-Flow Hazards Maps that depict the likelihood of debris-flow generation and estimates of flow volume/magnitude in locations where debris flows initiate. 

Advocate for the expansion into the North Coast region of the NOAA and USGS demonstration flash-flood and debris-flow early-warning system for recently burned areas developed for southern California. The demonstration project utilizes the National Weather Service’s Flash Flood Monitoring and Prediction system, which identifies when both flash floods and debris flows are likely to occur based on comparisons between radar precipitation estimates and established rainfall intensity-duration threshold values.

References and Resources

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