As evidenced over the past decade, Canada has been profoundly shaped by wildfire. Over the past five years, almost fifteen million hectares have burned – twice the size of the province of New Brunswick – with grave consequences for communities at the wildland urban interface. During this time, significant knowledge has been produced in the natural sciences and engineering about how to protect communities from wildfire. There is comparatively little understanding, however, of the social and behavioral dimensions of this challenge. In other words, why is it that – despite knowing how, technologically speaking, to protect homes from wildfire – adoption rates of these techniques and technologies remain low? This research project will improve our understanding of individual socio-behavioral barriers (for instance, lack of education, motivation, or community support) to wildfire preparedness.

FireSmart neighbourhood programs play a critical role in reducing wildfire loss, however they have not seen the level of national uptake desired. This project focuses on exploring the motivations and barriers to programmatic engagement in formal programs like FireSmart, including the demographic diversity and championing of these programs. This project is driven by the question, What motivates individuals to become and remain involved in the neighbourhood recognition program?

The primary objective of this project is to help accelerate and scale the uptake of wildfire risk mitigation measures by local governments across Canada. Our project partners (FireSmart, Ontario’s AFFES, and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction) help to collaboratively identify foundational knowledge research needs that would help to improve programs and better achieve a whole-of-society approach to wildfire risk mitigation.

This project is driven by four major objectives: 

1. Investigating barriers to local government adoption of mitigation efforts;

2. Working with our partners to support the creation of interventions to overcome these barriers and improve the scalability of fire mitigation efforts across Canada;

3. Refining these interventions with our partners to encourage both long-term adoption and adaptation over time by local governments to ensure their continuing impact;

4. Developing strategies for monitoring and evaluating partnerships with local governments and adopting a continuous improvement approach to these partnerships.