Building Wildfire Resilience in Urban Areas of the Northeast

Part of the Green Infrastructure, Climate, and Cities Seminar Series hosted by the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast

November 5, 2025 - The swift and devastating impacts of the Los Angeles wildfires and the numerous wildfires that ignited more locally across the New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Metropolitan region has brought renewed awareness that urban areas, while highly developed, are not immune to wildfire risk. Effectively reducing such vulnerability, requires that wildfire policy, planning and management also extends from the wildlands into and within urban environments.  

So it was with significant enthusiasm that NAFSE accepted the invitation and opportunity to connect fire science to management specifically for urban planners, engineers, consultants and policy makers from Maryland to Quebec by participating in the Green Infrastructure, Climate, and Cities Seminar Series hosted by the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast.  Polly Weigand an Urban Ecologist and NAFSE’s Fire Science Program Manager, joined Arthur Pugsley, Senior Counsel at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control and Dr. Clarke Knight, Research Scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey to explore the connection between fire history, wildfire suppression and fire behavior and its growing and often unanticipated impacts in urban areas. A diversity of mitigation strategies, planning resources and management tools that could be incorporated into urban environs - ranging from indigenous burning practices, fire adapted community program development,  community wildfire protection planning, building code policy modifications and defensible were showcased as part of this two-hour seminar which can be viewed above.

Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast Urban populations and infrastructure have unique vulnerabilities to extreme weather events, and these vulnerabilities are projected to increase in the future.  The metropolitan areas of the Northeast United States are at the vanguard of resilience efforts, in part due to the involvement of CCRUN scientists in each city’s efforts.  However, preparation for the full range of weather and climate risks facing the region requires much more work. The primary challenge is to make these resilience efforts – both underway and planned – as successful as possible, and to scale them up to meet the scope of the need. This team, has a principal focus on urban settings and serves stakeholder needs in the Northeast by assessing and managing risks from climate variability and change.

Click Here to Visit the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast Website