WILDFIRE WOES:SOCIAL INEQUALITIES PRESENT IN VULNERABLE COMMUNITIES THREATENED BY WILDFIRES

As we have seen climate change presenting itself on a larger scale each year, we are seeing wildfires becoming more present and destructive, especially in our western states. It raised the question, "Do all people in these at-risk communities feel the impact of wildfires the same?" The answer quickly presented itself, "No". Which began the exploration to discover, what are these impacts, how are they affecting the varying people and communities, and what policy work can be done to begin to address any issues we find.

My work this summer was facilitated through the Geo-Launchpad internship program at UNVACO, a non-profit organization funded by the National Science Foundation, and completed in partnership with Western Resources Advocates (WRA), a non-profit working across seven states in the Interior West to protect our climate, land, air, and water. Here, research was completed with the Lands teams at WRA and began to assess the disproportion impacts wildfires have on various communities. As my research evolved it was narrowed to explore these main focal areas; disproportion impacts wildfires have on our already vulnerable and traditionally marginalized communities, the inequities they also face in wildfire mitigation and education, as well as recovery and rebuilding efforts. This research found that many of the identified negative impacts, built upon the already existing social inequalities faced by these communities.

The information from this research is critical in bringing forth more education and developing sustainable plans to address these issues, as climate change impacts increase each year, global inequality and wildfire prevalence are also sharply increasing. The goal of this research is to create a foundation that allows policy experts to strategize and implement policy recommendations that can be made for the states of Colorado and Montana. The intentions of these policies will be to help aid the disproportional community impacts and actively work to prevent them, to create overall more resilient communities.