Between June 2023 and June 2024, Marin Wildfire contracted with Fairpath Solutions LLC to design and conduct a Wildfire Risk Perceptions survey, focused on communities traditionally underrepresented in mainstream online and telephone surveys, including those form lower income communities, communities of color, older adults and those with access and functional needs. The intention was to build community partnerships through a co-design process and inform Marin Wildfire's member agencies programming needs.
One important aspect of this work was the relationship between perception of risk and actual risk, as Marin Wildfire pursues a data-driven prevention strategy to maximize impact.
The co-design process was led by Josh Dimon, Principal Investigator and Founder of Fairpath Solutions LLC, and led to collaboration with the following community-based organizations:
Using a stratified random sample, these organizations, with the help of the FIRE Foundry recruits and defensible space inspectors, collected over 1100 responses to a survey of over 50 questions between November 2023 and March 2024.
The results of this survey are detailed in the final report.
The data collected through this process is immensely valuable to Marin Wildfire, its member agencies, and the community-based organizations who participated. It was later integrated in the 2026 Marin County Community Wildfire Prevention Plan (CWPP) (see appendix C) and informs the CWPP's recommendations around several dimensions, including but not limited to the need for needs-based grants programs, accompanied by additional education campaigns promoted through community-based organizations. Alerts and evacuations programming initiatives include outreach campaigns for facilitate the formation of evacuation pre-plans for socially vulnerable groups, and help them understand potential evacuation scenarios in their communities; test alerts and neighborhood evacuation drills, amongst others.
Marin Wildfire member agencies and community-based organizations have the opportunity to partner to submit funding proposals to implement these and other recommendations.
