Identifying Fire Risk by Mapping Human Development in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) in the Intermountain West

Wildfire processes are being dramatically altered via human expansion into the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). As the risk of wildfire exposure increases, analyzing the spatio-temporal relationship between wildfire regime and human development could create a layer of interaction practical in land management strategies, not only in the Intermountain West, but across the United States. Using QGIS, an open-source platform, we mapped development in the Teton and Owyhee counties of Idaho, which will be used to train satellite-based models of development, resulting in annual WUI maps across the Snake River Plain. The data will later be transcribed into a spatio-temporally explicit analysis of the development with an overlay of fire risk in the area. Through researching the interactions between wildfire and development across the urban-rural continuum, the factors that influence fire adaptation can be isolated and prevention strategies can be streamlined.