Roof renewal disparities widen the equity gap in residential wildfire protection.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39774145.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-55705-w and PMC identifier 11707273.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Wildfires are having disproportionate impacts on U.S. households. Notably, in California, over half of wildfire-destroyed homes (54%) are in low-income areas. We investigate the relationship between social vulnerability and wildfire community preparedness using building permits from 16 counties in California with 2.9 million buildings (2013-2021) and the U.S. government's designation of disadvantaged communities (DACs), which classifies a census tract as a DAC if it meets a threshold for certain burdens, such as climate, environmental, and socio-economic. Homes located in DACs are 29% more likely to be destroyed by wildfires within 30 years, partly driven by a gap in roof renewals, one of several important home hardening actions. Homes in DACs have 28% fewer roof renewals than non-DACs and post-wildfire, non-DAC homes have more than twice the increase in renewals (+17%) compared to DAC homes (+7%). Our research offers policy insights for narrowing this equity gap in renewals for wildfire-prone areas. We recommend increasing financial support for roof renewals and targeted awareness campaigns for existing programs which are not sufficiently emphasized in wildfire strategies, particularly in DACs.