We have initiated three new studies to better address the needs of vulnerable communities:
First, we are developing a Community Vulnerability to Wildfire assessment for the Deschutes focal study area. This assessment integrates data from multiple sources, including publicly available open datasets (wildfire exposure risk, ACS Community Survey) and purchased household-level data (vendor: Data Axle, demographic information.) We are currently developing the criteria and methodology for analysis, which will bring together biophysical and sociocultural dimensions to describe vulnerability at the household scale.
Second, we implemented an online survey of Wildfire and Smoke Preparedness in Oregon 2020-2021 to understand the impacts of extreme wildfire on different demographic groups and the sources of information they relied upon during the event. As of September 2021, we had received over 450 responses and continue to recruit participants. Data analysis with include both quantitative assessments as well as content analysis of open-ended responses.
Finally, the SES Fellows are performing a study of Twitter responses from Sept. 7-20, 2020 to understand how social networks generated or passed along information about the extreme Oregon wildfires. The Fellows have developed and implemented coding categories, and divided up coding responsibilities among the research team (6 students and 3 faculty). Our net captured approximately 300 Tweets and retweets, and led to numerous quote tweets that were added to our dataset.
We will update with results from these studies as they are available.