Lessons from 2020’s wildfires in a pandemic — and how to prepare for what’s next

Communities across the western United States experienced profound disaster impacts in 2020. California recorded over 10,000 fires that burned through 4.2 million acres. Colorado recorded its three largest wildfires in history that together scorched about 625,000 acres. Yet, size isn’t everything.

It is also important to pay attention to the long-term social, ecological, and public health impacts of compound hazards, as experienced with the wildfire–pandemic interface in 2020. These impacts will be especially important to understand as communities again cope with compound hazards in 2021, such as, the SARS-CoV-2’s emerging variants, extreme heat, drought, wildfire risk, poor air quality, public safety power shutoffs, amid housing instability, food insecurity, racial injustice, and social isolation.

Our research report––Wildfire preparedness and evacuation planning in a pandemic––examines how institutions and communities in two case study locations — Nevada County in California and Larimer County in Colorado—coped with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic while responding to historic wildfires in 2020.

We consider what lessons can be learned from their experiences to help plan for what’s next––in 2021 and beyond. Our findings point to three key trends, and corresponding recommendations, explained as the social, ecological, and public health dimensions (also see explanatory figure below).

Social dimensions

The social dimensions of last year’s wildfire–pandemic interface were mainly experienced in the form of new methods of collaboration and modes of communication. Local institutions, community-based organizations, and volunteer networks adopted a range of innovative information, communication, and outreach technologies, including for evacuation warnings, alerts, and notifications.

However, the new reliance on technology meant that people who were not acquainted with or could not access these new modes of communication could get left out of community wildfire preparedness and evacuation planning efforts, such as virtual Town Hall meetings. Although, in some cases, virtual meeting formats had the opposite effect––of creating access for people who would not usually walk into a community wildfire preparedness day fair due to access and functional barriers.

Addressing the social dimensions of the wildfire-pandemic interface will require developing robust local relationships, community infrastructure, and adaptive capabilities. Some specific recommendations for 2021 include:

1. Institutions and communities can continue to rely on asynchronous collaboration tools and virtual modes of communication to strengthen multi-scalar relationships and interoperability.
2. Consider redesigning community outreach and local awareness campaigns so that people from diverse access, functional, and linguistic backgrounds can participate in community preparedness days, fuel reduction treatments, prescribed burn trainings, and evacuation drills. Explore virtual formats and Virtual Reality simulations.
3. Engage early with people who are likely to require assistance in interpreting alerts and safety messages, creating defensible space, preparing for Public Safety Power Shutoffs, planning for safe evacuations, accessing vaccinations and personal protective equipment (PPE).
4. Develop notification systems that are not entirely dependent on internet, phone or media connectivity, for example, Hi-Lo sirens.

Ecological dimensions

The ecological dimensions of implementing fuel reduction and forest restoration activities during the COVID-19 pandemic were marked by an overarching trend of urgency. In 2020, the states of California and Colorado considered fire hazard reduction work to be critical. As a result, forestry and fuel crews were defined as essential workers during the pandemic. This meant that most paid workers involved in fuels reduction projects could continue their work while following COVID-19 health and safety protocols.

Also, wildfires were generally perceived as a more significant concern than COVID-19. The perception was that COVID-19 rate of spread could be controlled by following personal hygiene and physical distancing guidelines whereas wildfire risk was perceived to be increasing at an insurmountable landscape scale. As a result, communities undertook defensible space, home hardening, fuel reduction, and restoration work with some sense of urgency. Of significance, during the pandemic, more people accessed public lands for recreational purposes, which generally increased the risk of wildfires sparked from campgrounds.

Addressing the ecological dimensions of the wildfire-pandemic interface will require the sustainable management of forest and watershed health, fuels, and carbon. Some specific recommendations for county-level actions in 2021 include:

1. Provide financial and training support to complete defensible space work on private land in physically distant ways. In the absence of local crews, create incentives for volunteers to help households in need of assistance, including mobile home parks.
2. Implement more fuel reduction projects, including thinning and prescribed burn trainings, on public and private lands, while following local COVID-19 related health and safety protocols.
3. Create community fuel breaks along residential, agricultural, and ranch lands to reduce WUI-related carbon emissions; protect soil and agricultural land from smoke, debris, and contaminants that may affect water and harvest quality.

Public health dimensions

The public health dimensions of the wildfire–pandemic interface took on a new significance in 2020. While past concerns have centered around how wildfire smoke affects public health, in 2020, communities grappled with additional concerns around how wildfire smoke may exacerbate COVID-19 vulnerabilities and symptoms, especially for people with pre-existing medical conditions.

Wildfire smoke can travel long distances thereby increasing the number of people exposed to particulate matter. Wildfire smoke can also linger for a long period, depositing particles and causing pollution within houses and structures. While the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) offer some guidance on wildfire smoke and indoor air quality, there is still insufficient guidance on environmental efficiency, structural mitigation, and retrofits (CDC 2020; EPA 2020). Communities currently do not have access to standards or guidance, beyond buying air purifiers and creating a ‘clean room’, which can have considerable equity and access implications.

Addressing the public health dimensions of the wildfire-pandemic interface will require the equitable management of air quality, COVID-19 related health and safety protocols including personal protective equipment, vaccines, and long-haul symptoms, and mental health. Some specific recommendations for 2021 include:

1. Subsidize the installment of clean air rooms, and make respiratory protective equipment including personal respirators and air filters easily accessible in socio-economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Protect the health of seasonal farm workers by making vaccinations and PPE easily accessible. Provide specialized services to residents in mobile home parks and people living in informal housing or on the streets.
2. Ensure people with COVID-19 long haul and disabilities, have equitable access to vaccinations, clean air rooms, power back-ups, PPE, meals on wheels, relevant and accessible emergency alerts and notifications, transportation for early evacuation, and continued access to personal care even during an evacuation.
3. Ensure people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds have equitable access to mental health and spiritual care support near where they live/ through culturally relevant telehealth providers.

Source: Wildfire preparedness and evacuation planning in a pandemic. (Lakhina et al., 2021: 28).

Recovery from the wildfire impacts of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic remain ongoing challenges for institutions and communities in both case study locations. There remains uncertainty around how these compound hazards will translate over the next years, especially for rural, aging, migrant, and low-income communities.

Findings from these two case studies can be of wider significance because so many counties across the western states experienced high wildfire risk and high COVID-19 rates of transmission, hospitalization, and deaths in 2020. As of the time of this writing in June 2021, the severity of the wildfire-pandemic interface still holds true, especially as the highly transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant/s surges in some counties, and socially vulnerable and unvaccinated communities grapple with the evolving wildfire-pandemic interface.

Going forward, it will be important to ground policy, funding, and programs in robust socio-economic and ecological change data to enable a better understanding of the systemic risks that will need to be addressed for communities to live with fire, amid compounding hazards––in 2021 and beyond.

Report citation:

Lakhina, S.J., Kocher, S., Lebeda, B., Gerber-Chavez, L., Kwok, A., Stannard, D., & Pozzi, T. (2021). Wildfire preparedness and evacuation planning in a pandemic: Case studies from California and Colorado. CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Group for Public Health and Social Science Research. Wonder Labs, California. Available online: https://www.wonder-labs.org/publications.html

About the CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Group for Public Health and Social Science Research

This CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Group effort was supported by the National Science Foundation- funded Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) Network and the CONVERGE facility at the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder (NSF Award #1841338). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, SSEER, or CONVERGE.

The Working Group is comprised of social science and public health researchers, representatives from public health agencies and non-profit organizations. Read more about us here: https://wildfirepandemic.wixsite.com/workinggroup