Hannah Brenkert-Smith was invited to summarize some of the WiRe team’s recent research on how social dynamics can encourage community actions for the Firewise Communities’ How-To Newsletter. Four times a year, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) publishes this newsletter and distributes it to residents of Firewise Communities/USA recognized sites and other interested parties. In this article, we provide some research-based insights into the value of neighbor-to-neighbor interactions and participation in community groups.
A few of the points highlighted in the article include:
…research across different kinds of communities shows that social dynamics encourage wildfire risk reduction by spreading information, knowledge, and know-how across fire-prone communities.
…the “keeping up with the Joneses” phenomenon may occur in the context of wildfire risk mitigation.
… where (or from whom) individuals get wildfire-related information matters.
Read more on p. 5 of the Winter 2015 edition of the newsletter.