Reimagining 2025: Living with Fire Design Challenge
Celebrating our Impact 2021––2023
Aim
The aim of the Reimagining 2025: Living with Fire Design Challenge was to center the voices of diverse young and emerging scholars in ongoing discussions on wildfire risk management. Launched in 2021, the Living with Fire Design Challenge enabled student-led teams to closely engage with communities in processes of reimagining inclusive, just, and equitable pathways to living with fire.
Awards
Over three years and two cohorts (2021 and 2022-2023), the Living with Fire Design Challenge supported seven teams in conducting reimagining exercises with communities across California, Colorado, Oregon, and nation-wide. The projects were completed over a period of 6–12 months. The teams consisted of at least three students, one faculty advisor, and one community partner. Each team received an award of up to USD $20,000, access to a highly experienced mentor network, and pathways to further opportunities.
Method
The Living with Fire Design Challenge method is based in futures-focused thinking. It seeks to create an empowering framework to identify reimagined pathways for living with fire in inclusive, just, and equitable ways. Aligned with this objective, the Living with Fire Design Challenge teams were encouraged to:
All Living with Fire Design Challenge teams facilitated community-led structural analysis and scenario building to identify reimagined pathways to living with fire. Projects reflected on values, amenities, social and environmental justice goals, with due attention to other locally relevant issues. Outputs included an identification of ‘projected state/s’ and ‘reimagined state/s’ of living with fire.
A ‘projected state’ can be defined as a ‘business as usual’ scenario based on the current trajectory of wildfire risk reduction efforts in a community. In contrast, a ‘reimagined state’ can be defined as a process of reimagining ideal or desirable future/s by collaboratively envisioning diverse new possibilities. A ‘projected state’ can help forecast how we will live with fire in 2025 if we continue to do what we’re doing right now or do more of the same. A ‘reimagined state’ can enable a community to back cast how to get to reimagined future state/s by choosing new pathways, sometimes building on.
Teams developed ‘projected state/s’ and ‘reimagined state/s’ using indicators, maps, graphs, and other visualization tools. It is expected these outputs, see below, will contribute to a more robust characterization of what fire adapted communities look like across social geographies, while back casting diverse pathways to get there.
Impact
The Living with Fire Design Challenge celebrates the following impact across three years and two cohorts:
Future directions
Read Wonder Labs' call for a new research and practice agenda to reimagine the forestry and fire workforce in caring, equitable, and just ways here, and see our call for research submissions to the Fire Journal's Special Issue on 'Reimagining the future of living and working with fire', here.
2022-2023 Cohort Projects
Reimagining Community Wildfire Protection Planning in Nederland, Colorado
This project facilitated community-wide visioning exercises to inform an inclusive update to Nederland’s 2011 Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The project will engage with the lived experiences, values, and perspectives of teens and young adults, indigenous people, unhoused people, and older adults. For details on this project, see here.
Reimagining forestry and fire career pathways for justice-impacted people in the Bay Area, California
This project brought together an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty advisors, and community partners to reimagine a workforce-led and community-centered transition to living and working with fire in California’s landscape. The project considers how workforce development and training programs can better serve justice-involved and systems-impacted people while meeting growing demands on the forestry and fire workforce. For details on this project, see here.
Reimagining fire governance to engage and partner with diverse young people nationwide
The FireGeneration Collaborative brings together diverse underrepresented young people to reimagine roles and partnerships for wildfire risk management in ways that are inclusive, equitable, just, and future ready. The project works to bridge the gap between next-generation fire practitioners and government agencies, by elevating diverse young people’s voices and experiences in federal and state wildland fire risk management policy, strategies, and decision-making, see website here.
2021 Cohort Projects
Reimagining Community Wildfire Protection Planning in Ventura County, California
A team from the University of California Santa Barbara in partnership with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council focused on the meaningful inclusion of socially vulnerable communities in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) process for Ventura County. The team’s Story Map presents ecological data and diverse community feedback, to visualize “projected” and “reimagined” states of living with fire in just and inclusive ways in Ventura County, California. For details on their project see here.
Reimagining defensible space in Santa Barbara County, California
A team from the University of California Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden created science-informed recommendations on wildfire-centric plant maintenance, species selection, and placement. For details on their project see here.
Reimagining community resilience in Gold Hill, Boulder County, Colorado
A team from the University of Colorado Boulder in partnership with the CU Center for Sustainable Landscapes and Communities and the Boulder Watershed Collective engaged in creative programming for wildfire adapted forest ecosystems and communities using a 100-acre forest thinning/meadow restoration project in Gold Hill, CO. The team's Story Map presents "projected" and "reimagined" pathways for how the Gold Hill community can live with fire. For details on their project see here.
Inclusive evacuation planning for Marin County, California
In June 2021, Wonder Labs also awarded USD 5,000 for a Design Challenge submission received from a team at UC Berkeley. As part of this award, the UC Berkeley team completed a 6-week summer project with Zonehaven AWARE to augment inclusive evacuation planning efforts in Marin County, California. This summer project contributes to community-centered research and visual design for more inclusive evacuation planning. The team was mentored by advisors from UC Berkeley, Wonder Labs, Zonehaven, and Marin County partners. For details on their project, see here.
Learn more about the Living with Fire Design Challenge teams in the end of cohort presentations, see below!
The aim of the Reimagining 2025: Living with Fire Design Challenge was to center the voices of diverse young and emerging scholars in ongoing discussions on wildfire risk management. Launched in 2021, the Living with Fire Design Challenge enabled student-led teams to closely engage with communities in processes of reimagining inclusive, just, and equitable pathways to living with fire.
Awards
Over three years and two cohorts (2021 and 2022-2023), the Living with Fire Design Challenge supported seven teams in conducting reimagining exercises with communities across California, Colorado, Oregon, and nation-wide. The projects were completed over a period of 6–12 months. The teams consisted of at least three students, one faculty advisor, and one community partner. Each team received an award of up to USD $20,000, access to a highly experienced mentor network, and pathways to further opportunities.
Method
The Living with Fire Design Challenge method is based in futures-focused thinking. It seeks to create an empowering framework to identify reimagined pathways for living with fire in inclusive, just, and equitable ways. Aligned with this objective, the Living with Fire Design Challenge teams were encouraged to:
- Highlight the place-based context, needs, and capabilities of a community at high risk from wildfire impacts in the United States.
- Explain how the process of reimagining will be inclusive of the perspectives, experiences, and capabilities of diverse members of community.
- Address the historical and cascading social, economic, public health and environmental impacts of wildfires for the selected community.
- Demonstrate how the team will transcend disciplinary boundaries and organizational silos to adopt ethical, problem-focused, and solutions-based convergence research principles.
- Explore how a process of reimagining can bring together diverse ways of knowing, including indigenous and migrant perspectives, with 21st century technologies in respectful, just, and empowering ways.
All Living with Fire Design Challenge teams facilitated community-led structural analysis and scenario building to identify reimagined pathways to living with fire. Projects reflected on values, amenities, social and environmental justice goals, with due attention to other locally relevant issues. Outputs included an identification of ‘projected state/s’ and ‘reimagined state/s’ of living with fire.
A ‘projected state’ can be defined as a ‘business as usual’ scenario based on the current trajectory of wildfire risk reduction efforts in a community. In contrast, a ‘reimagined state’ can be defined as a process of reimagining ideal or desirable future/s by collaboratively envisioning diverse new possibilities. A ‘projected state’ can help forecast how we will live with fire in 2025 if we continue to do what we’re doing right now or do more of the same. A ‘reimagined state’ can enable a community to back cast how to get to reimagined future state/s by choosing new pathways, sometimes building on.
Teams developed ‘projected state/s’ and ‘reimagined state/s’ using indicators, maps, graphs, and other visualization tools. It is expected these outputs, see below, will contribute to a more robust characterization of what fire adapted communities look like across social geographies, while back casting diverse pathways to get there.
Impact
The Living with Fire Design Challenge celebrates the following impact across three years and two cohorts:
- 8 core community partners supported and over 25 regional, community, and local organizations engaged across California, Colorado, Oregon, and nation-wide
- 37 undergraduate and masters students from 7 universities trained in social science research methods and supported with stipends
- Over 2500 community members engaged through planning surveys, focus group discussions, qualitative research interviews, and visioning workshops in 11 distinct locations across the western United States
- 6 projects established and sustained from the Design Challenge seed grants, including 2 Community Wildfire Protection Plans, 2 neighborhood wildfire mitigation projects, a regional workforce development program, and a nation-wide action research collaborative
Future directions
Read Wonder Labs' call for a new research and practice agenda to reimagine the forestry and fire workforce in caring, equitable, and just ways here, and see our call for research submissions to the Fire Journal's Special Issue on 'Reimagining the future of living and working with fire', here.
2022-2023 Cohort Projects
Reimagining Community Wildfire Protection Planning in Nederland, Colorado
This project facilitated community-wide visioning exercises to inform an inclusive update to Nederland’s 2011 Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP). The project will engage with the lived experiences, values, and perspectives of teens and young adults, indigenous people, unhoused people, and older adults. For details on this project, see here.
Reimagining forestry and fire career pathways for justice-impacted people in the Bay Area, California
This project brought together an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty advisors, and community partners to reimagine a workforce-led and community-centered transition to living and working with fire in California’s landscape. The project considers how workforce development and training programs can better serve justice-involved and systems-impacted people while meeting growing demands on the forestry and fire workforce. For details on this project, see here.
Reimagining fire governance to engage and partner with diverse young people nationwide
The FireGeneration Collaborative brings together diverse underrepresented young people to reimagine roles and partnerships for wildfire risk management in ways that are inclusive, equitable, just, and future ready. The project works to bridge the gap between next-generation fire practitioners and government agencies, by elevating diverse young people’s voices and experiences in federal and state wildland fire risk management policy, strategies, and decision-making, see website here.
2021 Cohort Projects
Reimagining Community Wildfire Protection Planning in Ventura County, California
A team from the University of California Santa Barbara in partnership with the Ventura Regional Fire Safe Council focused on the meaningful inclusion of socially vulnerable communities in the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) process for Ventura County. The team’s Story Map presents ecological data and diverse community feedback, to visualize “projected” and “reimagined” states of living with fire in just and inclusive ways in Ventura County, California. For details on their project see here.
Reimagining defensible space in Santa Barbara County, California
A team from the University of California Santa Barbara in partnership with the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden created science-informed recommendations on wildfire-centric plant maintenance, species selection, and placement. For details on their project see here.
Reimagining community resilience in Gold Hill, Boulder County, Colorado
A team from the University of Colorado Boulder in partnership with the CU Center for Sustainable Landscapes and Communities and the Boulder Watershed Collective engaged in creative programming for wildfire adapted forest ecosystems and communities using a 100-acre forest thinning/meadow restoration project in Gold Hill, CO. The team's Story Map presents "projected" and "reimagined" pathways for how the Gold Hill community can live with fire. For details on their project see here.
Inclusive evacuation planning for Marin County, California
In June 2021, Wonder Labs also awarded USD 5,000 for a Design Challenge submission received from a team at UC Berkeley. As part of this award, the UC Berkeley team completed a 6-week summer project with Zonehaven AWARE to augment inclusive evacuation planning efforts in Marin County, California. This summer project contributes to community-centered research and visual design for more inclusive evacuation planning. The team was mentored by advisors from UC Berkeley, Wonder Labs, Zonehaven, and Marin County partners. For details on their project, see here.
Learn more about the Living with Fire Design Challenge teams in the end of cohort presentations, see below!