A groundbreaking new wildfire risk assessment tool developed by Oregon State University researchers has identified 459 communities across the Pacific Northwest that face substantially greater risk than traditional hazard models have captured — largely because previous assessments failed to account for the social and economic vulnerabilities that determine whether communities can actually survive and recover from a fire.
The New Approach
The OSU research, published in Environmental Research Letters, integrates a social vulnerability index with a quantitative wildfire risk assessment — a combination that paints a more complete and sobering picture of where fire poses the greatest threat to human communities.
The researchers applied the tool to 1,005 communities across Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Nearly half — 459 communities — were shown to be at greater risk than conventional assessments indicated. The discrepancy arises because standard risk models primarily measure physical exposure: how close a community is to flammable vegetation, its topography, and historical fire frequency. But they do not account for whether residents have the resources to prepare, evacuate, and rebuild.
Social Vulnerability Matters
Researcher Daniel McEvoy, who helped develop the tool, explained the core finding: "There are some communities that are both in high hazard regions, but also experiencing relatively high degrees of social vulnerability. And this analysis sort of highlights them as potential priorities for investment in the future, in the way that they have not been in the past."
Social vulnerability factors include income levels, access to transportation, housing quality, language barriers, age demographics, and the presence of residents with disabilities — all of which affect a person's ability to receive warnings, evacuate quickly, or access assistance after a disaster.
Specific Communities Flagged
Among the communities identified as high-risk under the combined assessment are Warm Springs, Oregon — home to the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs — and Goldendale, Washington. Both are rural, relatively low-income communities situated in fire-prone landscapes east of the Cascades.
Many of the newly identified high-risk sites share a common profile: dry, rural settings with fewer than 5,000 structures, limited local emergency management capacity, and limited financial resources for infrastructure hardening or rapid recovery after a disaster.
Implications for Resource Allocation
The research comes at a critical time, as federal and state agencies make decisions about where to allocate fire preparedness resources — decisions complicated this year by funding delays affecting Community Wildfire Defense Grants and other federal assistance programs.
The OSU tool could help guide more equitable investment toward communities that are doubly disadvantaged: exposed to high physical fire risk and least equipped to respond. Researchers are encouraging state agencies in Oregon and Washington to incorporate the combined vulnerability framework into their planning and funding decisions ahead of the 2026 fire season.
The full research is available through Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and has been covered by OPB and multiple regional outlets since its publication in early May.