We use a variety of research tools including field interviews, participant observation, a statewide survey and document analysis to bring the voices of a diversity or agricultural operators into the public conversation about how to respond to wildfires. Our research and wider program is also a tool for funneling resources to community-based organizations and to agricultural operators and workers themselves.

The first goal of this project is to address the research and extension gaps at the intersection of wildfires and agriculture. We do this through a multi-sited comparative analysis of the impacts and response strategies of producers confronting wildfires, and will extend the findings to practitioners through our training programs. We expect to uncover and elucidate precautions that farmers can take to reduce their wildfire risk. We also expect to find critical gaps that agricultural professionals, disaster response personnel, institutions, and government can fill.The research is driven by two questions (1) What types of agronomic, economic and social impacts are farmers experiencing during and after wildfires? (2) What are the characteristics of farmers who have been most and least impacted by wildfires? What are their strategies, resources, social contexts, and networks?

Our second goal is to equip farmers and farming communities with practical tools to increase their resilience to wildfire and to demonstrate the ways in which agricultural producers, as fuel load managers, support our regional ability to co-exist with wildfire.  Finally, we’ll develop the Farming Through Wildfire Season Workbook, and then we will extend our findings in training sessions in high fire-risk regions.