Baptism by Wildfire? Wildfire Experiences and Public Support for Wildfire Adaptation Policies

• Date: 01 January 2022
• Published date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211023926
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 50(1) 108 –116

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211023926

American Politics Research

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211023926

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Article

Introduction

In recent years, wildfires have ravaged the landscape in

many Western American states, especially California.

According to CALFire statistics, in 2018 alone, there were

7,948 California wildfire incidents that burned about

1,975,086 acres of land, destroyed 24,226 structures, and

claimed the lives of at least 100 people. In 2020, the number

of incidents increased to 9,639, with 4,177,856 acres of land

burned and over 30 fatalities. If global warming accelerates

as predicted (IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, 2014; Karl &

Trenberth, 2003), wildfires will become more frequent and

intense (Diffenbaugh et al., 2017; Easterling et al., 2000;

Planton et al., 2008). At the same time, increasing numbers

of people continue to move into California’s fire-prone wild-

land-urban interface areas, increasing the risks of human-

caused ignitions, property loss, and deaths (Fried et al., 2004;

Goss et al., 2020; Hurteau et al., 2014; Westerling & Bryant,

2008; Westerling et al., 2011). Making matters worse, the

massive emissions from these fires have undermined

California’s ambitious efforts at decarbonization.

But will these horrific wildfire experiences increase pub-

lic support for climate change resilience measures? Many

studies have explored whether and how personal weather

experiences affect the public’s attitudes about climate

change, with very mixed results to date (see Howe et al.,

2019). Some of them utilized subjective reports of personal

experiences and weather perceptions (Egan & Mullin, 2012;

Hamilton & Stampone, 2013; Howe et al., 2013; Li et al.,

2011), while others employed objective contextual measures

of extreme weather (Hamilton et al., 2016; Howe et al., 2014;

Konisky et al., 2016). However, neither approach consis-

tently finds a relationship between extreme weather experi-

ences and climate change beliefs.

To date, there have been fewer studies exploring the con-

nection between personal experience with extreme weather

and climate adaptation policies (Demski et al., 2017). If the

scientific projections are correct, communities in California

and other Western states will need to take more proactive steps

to protect themselves from heightened wildfire threats. Will

they be able to do so given the strong partisan divide over cli-

mate change issues? One recent paper using precinct-level

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APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211023926American Politics ResearchHui et al.

research-article

2021

1Stanford University, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Iris Hui, Stanford University, Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki Environment

& Energy Building, 473 Via Ortega, First Floor, Stanford, CA 94305-4121,

USA.

Email: irishui@stanford.edu

Baptism by Wildfire? Wildfire

Experiences and Public Support

for Wildfire Adaptation Policies

Iris Hui1, Angela Zhao1, Bruce E. Cain1,

and Anne M. Driscoll1

Abstract

In recent years, wildfires have ravaged the landscape in many Western American states, especially California. But will these

horrific wildfire experiences increase public support for wildfire adaptation measures? We conducted an individual-level

survey in California in 2019. Combining survey data with geocoded information about a respondent’s proximity to wildfire

events and exposure to wildfire smoke, we assess whether respondents’ experiences increased support for several wildfire

adaptation policies. We also control for party affiliation. We find that Californians generally oppose restrictive resilience

policies and view the decision to take adaptive steps as a matter of personal choice. Republicans are generally more opposed

than Democrats to spending public funds to incentivize resilience measures, but proximity to wildfires lessens their opposition

to using public funds to encourage homeowners to upgrade their properties for increased protection from wildfires and

encourage relocation to safer places. Although exposure to wildfire smoke is extensive and harmful to health, we found that

its main impact on policy preferences was statistically insignificant.

Keywords

wildfire, wildfire smoke, personal experience, climatic event, partisan bias, environmental attitudes