Communities v. Wildfires
An interview with Prof. Stephen R. Miller
CLE Credit — Approved in 4 States
Tinder in the Wildland Urban Interface
Wildfire season in the United States is now longer, hotter, and fiercer. With more communities developing in areas that have historically been unoccupied and on the cusp of wildlands with vegetative fuels, the damage and costs of fighting wildfires have become astronomical. The federal government has borne the brunt of these costs, but local governments can do more to take responsibility for their built environment and construct fire-resistant communities. Professor Stephen R. Miller discusses one key framework, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), that allows local communities to meaningfully engage with wildfire management and collaborate with all levels of government to prioritize mitigation projects. Through the CWPP process, communities assess risks and outline strategies to address them, including regulatory tools like zoning and nuisance abatement laws and nonregulatory tools like insurance rebates and homeowners association covenants.
About Prof. Stephen R. Miller
“There is no silver bullet [to the wildfire crisis]. … The best way for people to contextualize it from the legal side or the policy side is to think about it as risk allocation.”
Stephen R. Miller is Professor of Law at the University of Idaho College of Law in Boise where he teaches courses on property, land use, state and local government law, and real estate. His numerous books, chapters, law review articles and editorials have been published by Cambridge University Press, the Harvard Environmental Law Review and the Harvard Journal on Legislation, among others. He is the co-author of a leading casebook, Land Use and Sustainable Development Law, and co-editor of a collection of essays on climate change. He is the editor-in-chief of the ABA Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law. He maintains a wide scope of community involvement at the local level and beyond. He has served as a consultant on United States’ land use governance for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and advised on local land use governance in Cambodia. He has also served as a commissioner on the Boise Planning & Zoning Commission and helped launch the Citizens Planning Academy. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and serves on the American Planning Association’s Amicus Curiae Committee. He has also received research grants from the U.S. Forest Service, the Idaho Department of Lands, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, and a sub-grant from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
