Assessing and Managing Social Risks in Incident Networks

1. Assessing and Managing Social RisksBranda Nowell and Toddi Steelmannorth Carolina state universitybranda.nowell@ncsu.edu 919 513 1768 Toddi.steelman@usask.ca CA Fire Leadership Meeting Sacramento, CA April 4, 2014

2. Social Risk Assessment and Management of Incident Networks • Rising expectations about who will be involved in a complex wildfire incident • Cohesive strategy goals– • Efficient and effective response to shared-jurisdiction wildfire • Pre-fire planning for multiple jurisdictions • Metrics include pre-season agreements and annual operating plans, integrated wildfire response scenarios, and sharedtraining • More holistic and system focus regarding both WHO we consider part of incident response and WHAT we consider as part of incident response

3. Fire management

4. Fire management Road Closures

5. Fire management Evacuations Road Closures

6. Fire management Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures

7. Fire management Public Information Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures

8. Fire management Interagency Communications Public Information Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures

9. Fire management Interagency Communications Public Information Cost Share Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures

10. Fire management Interagency Communications Public Information Cost Share Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures Politicians

11. Incident Performance for Fire Season 2013:How did we do? • Type 1 and Type 2 WUI Fires • ID, OR, WA, and MT (+ one pilot in CO) • Total of 22 incidents • Network Performance scale (Nowell & Steelman, 2012) • 28 items • Interview and observation data from three incidents: • GC Complex (OR) , Elk (ID), and Beaver Creek (ID) fires

12. 2013 incident Performance by Domain 1= strongly disagree 3 = neither agree/disagree 5 = strongly agree Lower Performance Strongest Performance

13. Whole Network as part of Performance 36%

14. Fire management Interagency Communications Public Information Cost Share Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures Politicians

15. Social Risk Assessment and Management Within Incident Networks • Relationships critical VAR • More complex array of responders = greater risk • How do we understand and manage these relationships and these risks?

16. How do we assess and manage greater social risk? • Need tools to help gain better situational awareness and mental maps for assessing and managing social risk

17. Mental Map: understanding incident response networks

18. A Brief Introduction to Social Networks What is a network?

19. Fire management Interagency Communications Public Information Cost Share Evacuations Sheltering & Mass Care Road Closures Politicians

20. THE WHO: Wildfire Incident Response as a Network Response IMT

21. Whole Network as part of Performance 36%

22. Need To Think ABOUT an Incident in terms of the entire responder network IMT

23. IMT Performance

24. Evolution of imt role and local relationships

25. How did IMTS DO? • IMT performance scores overall were good • Range between “A little room for improvement” to “Some room for improvement”

26. What areas did cooperators and host agencies view IMTs performing the best? Good Team Player • Acknowledging Cooperation • Sharing Credit with Your Agency • Staying in Their Lane Positive ambassador • Serving as a Positive Ambassador in Interactions Accessible • Being Accessible to You

27. Where did local cooperators and host agencies see the most room for improvement for IMT performance? Appreciating local context • Valuing local knowledge and local input • Being sensitive to the local community • Incorporating information about local values • Obtaining and utilizing information about the local context Pro-active communication • Including your agency in info dissemination • Getting your agency the info you need Early engagement of affected jurisdictions • Engaging affected jurisdictions from the beginning Flexibility • Being flexible in adapting their fire management strategy

28. IMT Performance Currently in a coordinating model, but getting a signal from other groups that they would like a more collaborative model

29. Host Agency as network broker IMT Local Community Host Agency

30. How did Host Agencies DO in 2013? • Host performance scores overall were very positive

31. Host Unit Performance • Best Performance • Providing effectively –engaged Agency Administrators • Providing up to date information on all pertinent media contacts • Demonstrating familiarity with how IMTs operate • Greater Room for Improvement • Good maps of values at risk • Contact information for pertinent local cooperators • Locations of residential populations that could be at risk

32. Key Finding: The better the host agency performs as a broker – the better the incident outcomes!

33. Social Risk Assessment and Management: Tools you can use • Watch Out Situations • SOCIAL WATCH OUTS

34. Watch Out Situations: What Did We learn? • Need to watch out for situations indicative of social risk • 2012/13 Interviewed 24 Fire Managers across 10 states • 646 years of large wildfire experience • 824 Type 1 Fires • 2013 AC/IC participants evaluated list • 2013 fire season surveyed for watch outs on 22 fires

35. FINDINGS 2013:Key Watch Out SituationsSituations that > 50% of respondents identified as present on their incident

36. #1: Problematic Community Dynamics

37. #2: Agency administrator challenges

38. #3: Missing Cooperators

39. Assessing Social Risk: Considering IMT social capital

40. Key Take Aways • Importance of developing broader situational awareness of incident response networks • Utilizing metrics for performance on incidents that tap into management of networks and mitigation of social risk through pro-active communication and coordination • Recognizing the critical role of host agencies in helping to bridge between the IMT and the local community • Watch out for Watch out situations • Watch out clusters– some kinds of risks happen together, • Think about watch outs in relation to IMT social capital

41. Discussion • What to do with this information • Training? • Venues for communication?