U.S. fire administration develops new WUI awareness tools

The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) has launched two new tools designed to enhance awareness of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas across the United States.

As reported by the USFA, these tools aim to help local fire services and community stakeholders understand the locations of WUI areas and their potential susceptibility to wildfires.

The two tools are the WUI Fire Property Awareness Explorer and the WUI Fire Community Awareness Explorer.

The USFA developed these tools in response to the increasing number of structures destroyed and areas burned due to wildfires, as well as the expanding WUI areas caused by new building developments and climate change.

These tools will aid in the implementation of community risk reduction, code adoption, enforcement, mitigation, and planning efforts.

WUI fire property awareness explorer

The WUI Fire Property Awareness Explorer allows users to search addresses or communities to understand their proximity to WUI areas and vegetative fuels.

This tool provides data on a location’s structure density and proximity, which are crucial for creating fire-adapted communities and developing mitigation plans.

According to the USFA, this tool helps residents to “know where you live” in relation to fire-prone areas.

The goal is to raise awareness as the first step, encouraging residents to take action in preparing for and mitigating risks at the individual and property levels.

WUI fire community awareness explorer

The WUI Fire Community Awareness Explorer offers a quick snapshot of counties or places in the U.S.

and their potential exposure to wildfire hazards for structures in the WUI.

This dashboard enables users to identify vulnerable structures or areas in the WUI, informing community risk reduction planning and targeted outreach efforts.

The USFA emphasises that these tools are designed to increase awareness rather than measure or convey risk.

Encouragement for community use

The USFA encourages local fire services and community stakeholders to utilise these new WUI fire awareness tools.

By doing so, they can focus their mitigation and risk reduction efforts on building more resilient, fire-adapted communities.

The tools are intended to provide consistent data that can be applied to community risk reduction, code adoption, enforcement, and planning efforts.