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Counter-narratives to dominant development discourses are made possible using research methods designed to elicit marginalized voices. In this article, we propose a new analytical framework called the interpretive schema for drawings for analyzing visual narratives. The interpretive schema for drawings consists of five themes or interpretive lenses ( scale, centrality, inclusion, connections, and relationality) that were generated from maps of fuelwood collection in rural India. We suggest that the interpretive schema reflects and animates a range of spatialities that are central to geographic studies of human–environment dynamics. Using the interpretive schema for drawings in this way enables us to emphasize emic socio-spatial perspectives, and offers a critical research avenue through which everyday realities can be represented, understood, and validated. While other image-based research approaches, critical cartographies and participatory mapping exercises may encourage the expression of alternative knowledges, our proposed interpretive schema for drawing presents a specific set of guidelines for interpreting and making sense of visual narratives through explicit socio-spatial analysis.

Much of India contains complex and ambiguous post-colonial environmental histories. Within the international clean cookstove development discourse, it is assumed that fuelwood collection for cooking is a significant factor in the overexploitation of forest biomass. This brand of storytelling is certainly applied in India where a series of programs have long targeted household fuelwood collection activities as a way of reversing rates of deforestation. This essay outlines the enigmatic and peculiar environmental histories of two distinct regions in South India. Based on oral histories, interviews and field surveys our findings indicate that many pressures other than fuel collection have helped alter vegetation and reduce fuel availability, particularly the expansion of commercially cultivated land in recent years. Moreover, a variety of historical contingencies, such as mass displacement from dam construction and the deliberate seeding of an invasive species complicate one-dimensional or reductive explanations of landscape change — a discursive environmental rendering referred to here as a ‘disingenuous nature’. Through retrospective analysis, we describe how this land use narrative, like so many other sustainable development discourses premised on incomplete and misleading information, is the byproduct of a ‘multi-scale narrative repurposing and sector coalescence’ process. This characterization signals how environmental narratives are repurposed and recycled uncritically by actors in distinct yet discursively compatible development sectors.

In this paper, CSS’s Christine Eriksen, Florian Roth, Linda Maduz and Tim Prior propose a re-examination of the dynamic relationship between affluence and vulnerability —a complex association defined as the Affluence–Vulnerability Interface (AVI). A more nuanced understanding of the AVI can (1) problematize the notion that increasing material affluence necessarily has a mitigating influence on social vulnerability, (2) extend analysis of social vulnerability beyond low-income regions to include affluent contexts and (3) improve understanding of how psychosocial characteristics influence people’s vulnerability. In diesem Papier schlagen die CSS Forscher Christine Eriksen, Florian Roth, Linda Maduz und Tim Prior eine erneute Untersuchung der dynamischen Beziehung zwischen Wohlstand und Verwundbarkeit vor — eine komplexe Verbindung, die als Affluence-Vulnerability Interface (AVI) definiert wird. Ein nuancierteres Verständnis der AVI kann (1) die Vorstellung problematisieren, dass zunehmender materieller Wohlstand notwendigerweise einen mildernden Einfluss auf die soziale Verwundbarkeit hat, (2) die Analyse der sozialen Verwundbarkeit über einkommensschwache Regionen hinaus auf wohlhabende Kontexte ausdehnen und (3) das Verständnis dafür verbessern, wie psychosoziale Merkmale die Verwundbarkeit von Menschen beeinflussen. ISSN:0165-0009 ISSN:1573-1480

This book investigates the ongoing politics, folly, and avarice shaping the production of increasingly widespread yet dangerous suburban and exurban landscapes. The 1991 Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire is used as a starting point to better understand these complex social-environmental processes. The Tunnel Fire is the most destructive fire—in terms of structures lost—in California history. More than 3,000 residential structures burned and 25 lives were lost. Although this fire occurred in Oakland and Berkeley, others like it sear through landscapes in California and the American West that have experienced urban growth and development within areas historically prone to fire. The book blends environmental history, political ecology, and science studies to closely examine the Tunnel Fire within a broader historical and spatial context of regional economic development and natural-resource management, such as the widespread planting of eucalyptus trees as an exotic lure for homeowners and the creation of hillside neighborhoods for tax revenue—decisions that produced communities with increased vulnerability to fire. The book demonstrates how in Oakland a drive for affluence led to a state of vulnerability for rich and poor alike that has only been exacerbated by the rebuilding of neighborhoods after the fire. Despite these troubling trends, the text illustrates how many popular and scientific debates on fire limit the scope and efficacy of policy responses. These risky yet profitable developments (what the book refers to as the Incendiary), as well as proposed strategies for challenging them, are discussed in the context of urbanizing areas around the American West and hold global applicability within hazard-prone areas.

This intervention suggests the need to closely examine uncritical uses of 'regions' in both geographical research and resource management contexts. In particular, I argue that regions are frequently leveraged in a manner that is often indistinguishable from, and thus analytically similar to, other concepts connoting connections and relationships across space. The US Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program is briefly described to illuminate the process and implications of using simplistic and erroneous regional designations (configured around the 100th Meridian) to inform resource management policy. I proffer several ways in which regions 'do work' analytically, discursively and materially, and argue that it is precisely the performative nature of regions that warrants its utility and sustained application in scholarly and policy-making environments. Finally, I suggest that the analytic toolkit possessed by political ecologists makes us uniquely equipped to assess, reconfigure, and employ regions and regional designations in our research; applications that will hopefully inform more accurate, nuanced and socially just policies. Key words: 100th Meridian, conservation reserve program, political ecology, regions, environmental management

Across the globe, wildfires are increasing in frequency and magnitude under a warming climate, impacting natural resources, infrastructure, and millions of people every year. At the same time, human encroachment into fire-prone areas has increased the potential for ignition, as well as risks and damages to human communities. In an era of intensifying human activities on Earth – the “Anthropocene” – societal interactions with post-fire landscapes are becoming commonplace. Yet, theories regarding post-fire impacts derived from individual disciplines no longer apply in cases where human interactions are intense. A holistic approach that accounts for interactions between natural and human systems is necessary to understand the altered dynamics of post-fire landscapes. Focusing on the intersection of fire, water, and society, this paper explores an integrative research framework to couple post-fire fluvial and human processes. We review trends in wildfires and growing impacts on humans, how fluvial processes and systems are altered by wildfires, and the potential hazards for human settlements. This review forms a basis for integrating societal concerns, such as vulnerability, economic impacts, and management responses. We then link disciplinary questions into broad interdisciplinary research through an integrative framework. The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire (Colorado, USA) provides an illustrative case with intense human interactions, both during and after the fire, to formulate critical questions within the integrative framework. Utilizing emergent integrative conceptual frameworks and tools will assist scholars in meeting the challenges and opportunities for broad collaboration, which are necessary to understand and confront wildfires characteristic of the “Anthropocene.”

This paper examines vulnerability in the context of affluence and privilege. It focuses on the 1991 Oakland Hills Firestorm in California, USA to examine long-term lived experiences of the disaster. Vulnerability is typically understood as a condition besetting poor and marginalized communities. Frequently ignored in these discussions are the experiences of those who live in more affluent areas. This paper seeks to more closely explain vulnerability at its interface with affluence. The aim is to challenge uncritical explanations of vulnerability. We also offer alternative ways of conceptualizing vulnerability as a material condition and social construct that acknowledges broader cultural, ecological, and economic conditions, which may offset, maintain or deepen true risk exposure. Drawing on in-depth interviews with residents and emergency service managers, the paper presents a suite of vulnerability categories that intersect to create two concomitant and competing conditions. First, vulnerability is variegated between households within communities, including those in more affluent areas. Second, household vulnerability is collectively altered, and oftentimes reduced, by the broader affluent community within which individual households reside. By paying closer attention to the Affluence–Vulnerability Interface the paper reveals a recursive process, which is significant in the context of building more disaster resilient communities.

Pandemics have accelerated in frequency in recent decades, with COVID-19 the latest to join the list. Emerging in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, the virus has spread quickly through the world, affecting billions of people through quarantine, and at the same time claiming more than 800,000 lives worldwide. While early reflections from the academic community have tended to target the microbiology, medicine, and animal science communities, this article articulates a viewpoint from a perspective of human interactions with Earth systems. We highlight the link between rising pandemics and accelerating global human impacts on Earth, thereby suggesting that pandemics may be an emerging element of the “Anthropocene.” Examples from Denver, Colorado, USA, show how policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic changed human-environment interactions and created anomalous landscapes at the local scale, in relation to the quality of air and patterns of acquiring and consuming food. In recognizing the significance of novel infectious diseases as part of understanding human-landscape interactions in the Anthropocene, as well as the multi-scale interconnectedness between environment and health, this viewpoint converges toward an urgent need for new paradigms for research and teaching. The program required extends well beyond the already broad interdisciplinary scholarship essential for addressing human-landscape interactions, by integrating the work of health scientists, disease specialists, immunologists, virologists, veterinarians, behavioral scientists, and health policy experts.

As human interactions with Earth systems continue to intensify, understanding the complex relationships among human activity, landscape change, and societal responses to those changes becomes increasingly important. Interdisciplinary research centered on the theme of “feedbacks” in human–landscape systems serves as a promising focus for unraveling these interactions. This paper examines the specific case of the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire of Colorado, where human responses after the fire to perceived threats of hydro-geomorphological hazards included construction of tall fences at the base of a burned watershed. These actions prompted feedbacks that promoted further landscape change that ultimately increased those hazards, rather than dampening the hydro-geomorphological effects of fire. Geomorphic analysis showed that the fences trapped particles that would naturally move through the system by flows with recurrence intervals greater than 3.3 years. With the particles blocked by the fences, the channel downstream became erosive, because it was devoid of large particles that produce substantial hydraulic resistance. Channel incision prompted a second human response to pave the eroding channel, which led to further incision downstream. This cycle of positive feedbacks between human decision-making and landscape change eventually led to a complete channelization of the stream channel downstream of the fences. The explanation for the transformation of the post-fire landscape therefore lies in the interacting human impacts and feedbacks, rather than the expected post-fire hydro-geomorphological adjustments. An initial agent-based model, capable of integrating social and hydro-geomorphological data, simulates these interacting impacts and feedbacks. Further refinement with more complete data input, especially pertaining to human decision making at individual or local levels, is required to fully demonstrate the utility and promise of this tool for application to geomorphic analysis.

Diverse groups in the American West extract profits and surplus value from fire-prone areas at the urban periphery while inserting considerable social risks and costs back onto the landscape. To better excavate these drivers of increased risk (referred to here as ‘the Incendiary’), this chapter suggests a Critical Physical Geography approach to fire that shifts our focus from the study of wildland-urban interface areas to the study of affluence-vulnerability interface processes. This approach is particularly important because reckless resource management and planning practices are de-politicized and obscured behind a series of scientific framings and policy debates. Suburban areas and their injurious and costly wildfires are ‘spun’ as strangely natural and inevitable. A second process of re-politicization supports this de-politicization by filling the debate arena with other distracting ideological disputes and micro-scale controversies.

Vulnerability-in-production is offered as a theoretical construct to highlight two interrelated aspects of vulnerability: a process where landscapes are altered and developed in a manner that retains their productivity for property owners and other stakeholders and a recursive and relational process that is always in production and inscribed unevenly over time and space. The 1991 Oakland Hills (Tunnel) Firestorm remains the largest conflagration—in terms of numbers of dwellings destroyed—in California's history. Using the Tunnel Fire as a starting point for analysis, this article argues for the dedicated application of spatial history analysis to vulnerability. A first spatial history section highlights how land development strategies from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s contributed to the production of vulnerable conditions in Oakland. A second section describes how conservative homeowner politics and state tax restructuring spanning the 1950s to the 1980s further generated vulnerabilities throughout th...

This paper examines the recent integration of cookstove dissemination activities into the global carbon economy. The concepts mutually supported impediments and obligatory passage points are used to advance our understanding of win–win outcomes at the climate–technology–development interface. Focusing on the recent integration of cookstove dissemination activities into the global carbon economy, these concepts provide a theoretical foundation for advancing geographical perspectives on the spatial allocation of control over technology-based development projects. Each concept highlights household cooking spaces as informal sites for activating alternative development potentials under carbon financing. Given that programme success – in both development and climate objective areas – ultimately rests on the willingness of female stove-users to adopt improved cooking technologies and commit to their long-term use, this paper articulates a clear framework that emphasises the need for close and substantive dialogue between project officers, local manufacturers and targeted households; hence the need for diverse programme decision makers to 'get into the kitchen' when generating strategies that improve both household-scale development and carbon-reduction outcomes.

Article history:Received 30 August 2013Revised 27 February 2014Accepted 27 February 2014Available online xxxxKeywords:Carbon financeCookstovesDevelopmentHousehold air pollutionImpact financeSubsidies Theinternationalcleancookstovesectorhasundergonec onsiderablegrowthoverthepastdecade.Weusethiscrit-ical juncture – where program priorities and strategies are formal ized and converted into institutional norms andpractices – to review current debates and areas for future research. We focus our review on four important areasand suggest industry participants expand and re fine efforts to (i) balance technical stove performance with imple-mentation needs and stove user compatibility; (ii) understand the trade-offs associated with local and importedproduction methods; (iii)determine asuitable role for direc tsubsidiesfor purchasing stoves andindirectsubsidiesforresearch,institutional developmentanddistr ibution ofstoves;and(iv)developanappropriate financestrategyto support dissemination amidst carbon market uncertainties. Given the complex and interdisciplinary nature ofthe clean cookstove sector, we hope our appraisal of these four issues will inform innovation and invite newinsights.© 2014 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A recent opinion piece rekindled debate as to whether geography’s current interdisciplinary make-up is ahistorical relic or an actual and potential source of intellectual vitality. Taking the latter position, we arguehere for the benefits of sustained integration of physical and critical human geography. For reasons bothpolitical and pragmatic, we term this area of intermingled research and practice critical physical geography(CPG). CPG combines critical attention to power relations with deep knowledge of biophysical science ortechnology in the service of social and environmental transformation. We argue that whether practiced byindividuals or teams, CPG research can improve the intellectual quality and expand the political relevance ofboth physical and critical human geography because it is increasingly impractical to separate analysis ofnatural and social systems: socio-biophysical landscapes are as much the product of unequal power relations,histories of colonialism, and racial and gender disparities as they are of hydrology, ecology, and climatechange. Here, we review existing CPG work; discuss the primary benefits of critically engaged integrativeresearch, teaching, and practice; and offer our collective thoughts on how to make CPG work.Keywords: physical geography, critical human geography, transdisciplinarity, anthropoceneIntervention en geographie physique critiqueUn article d’opinion paru recemment est a l’origine de la relance d’un debat qui pose la question a savoir si lefondement interdisciplinaire actuel de la geographie serait une relique historique ou une source reelle etpotentielle de vitalite intellectuelle. En prenant la defense de la seconde position, nous militons en faveur desbenefices decoulant de l’integration soutenue de la geographie physique et de la geographie humaine critique.Pour des raisons a la fois politiques et pragmatiques, nous avons nomme ce domaine de recherche et depratique enchevetre la geographie physique critique (GPC). C’est au service de la transformation sociale etenvironnementale que la GPC integre un regard critique sur les relations de pouvoir a la connaissanceprofonde de la science ou de la technologie biophysique. Que se soient des individus ou des equipes qui lapratiquent, les travaux de recherche en GPC peuvent contribuer a l’amelioration de la qualite intellectuelle et al’elargissement de la pertinence politique de la geographie humaine critique et geographie physique, comptetenu que la separation de l’analyse des systemes naturels et des systemes sociaux pose des difficultes d’ordrepratique. A l’origine des paysages sociobiophysiques se trouvent autant les relations inegales de pouvoir, leshistoires de colonialisme et les disparites raciales et entre les sexes que l’hydrologie, l’ecologie et leschangements climatiques. Dans cette partie de l’article, nous passons en revue les travaux actuels en GPC,nous engageons une discussion sur les principaux avantages des approches integratives et veritablementcritiques en recherche, dans l’enseignement et dans la pratique, et nous proposons nos reflexions collectivessur la facon d’appliquer la GPC.Mots cles : geographie physique, geographie humaine critique, transdisciplinarite, anthropocene

This paper seeks to clarify and refine the assertion that vulnerability exists as both a material, condition and discursive construct. Building off of previous scholarship analyzing the production of, vulnerabilities, we present a conceptual framework that illuminates how material vulnerabilities are translated into political vulnerabilities and ossified in the policy realm. We argue that specifying components of, and relationships between, the material and political aspects of vulnerability will result in a more sophisticated articulation of vulnerability as a recursive process. In order to achieve this level of analysis we propose a spatial–historical analytic approach that blends point-in-time and, empirically driven analysis with robust historical and political economic analysis. We use the largest urban wildfire – in terms of dwellings lost – in California's history to show how the persistent disconnection between material and political forms of vulnerability has, over time, resulted in contradictory landscapes where homes are intentionally placed in landscapes vulnerable to wildfires with reduced fire protection. Spatial historical analysis of the Tunnel Fire reveals how representations of vulnerability oftentimes deviate from lived experiences, engendering responses of exploitation, ignorance, mobilization and resistance. This framework also recognizes how these responses can create new vulnerabilities while also maintaining, deepening and diminishing existing material conditions. Finally, relational analysis illuminates how factors generating vulnerability in fire areas also contribute to and reinforce vulnerabilities within other parts of cities like Oakland, California.

Leave No Trace (LNT) is a United States government educational program guiding outdoor recreationist behavior on public lands. The program consists of seven principles imploring outdoor enthusiasts to “enjoy the outdoors responsibly.” This essay employs a political ecology framework, comprised by critical consumption research and political economic analysis, to engage the LNT program across temporal and spatial scales. We illustrate, first, the impossibility of ’leaving no trace’ even when adhering to the program’s principles. Second, we describe how LNT minimizes local environmental impacts by displacing them to distant locations. Third, we illustrate how LNT obscures connections between the uses of outdoor products and their production and disposal impacts. Along with challenging notions of responsible recreation and ethical consumerism, a close examination of Leave No Trace reveals four mechanisms that produce and maintain program contradictions: the development of private-nonprofit alliances; the indirect enclosure of public conservation areas; the perpetuation of truncated notions of environmental citizenship; and the cultivation of ethical consumer subjects that shop at retail outlets like Recreation Equipment Incorporated (REI).

This chapter presents three cases that illustrate how the underlying drivers of wildland-urban interface (WUI) wildfires frequently mischaracterize the relative role of ecological and social structures of influence. The first case explores the rather unscientific origins of the term firestorm and the credibility it is afforded as a legitimate fire classification through its normative use and acceptance in mainstream fire discourse. This process diminishes the very social and profitable origins of the WUI fire problem and naturalizes these areas as a hazardous by-product of larger, exogenous, and inviolable environmental forces such as climate change. The second case examines recent efforts to study and explain the relationship between mountain pine beetles and fire activity in the western United States. The third case describes the deeply political and protracted process of challenging the economically powerful wood shingle and cedar shake industry. Collectively all three cases illustrate how contemporary discourses on fire tend to truncate the scope of what counts (or is allowed to be brought to the debate table) as an underlying driver of increased fire activity in the West.

This chapter provides a more nuanced depiction of vulnerability in the Tunnel Fire area. The Oakland Hills like many suburban and fire-prone areas of the West comprises residents that may not appear at first glance to be very vulnerable. The oftentimes affluent nature of these communities raises questions about what it actually means to be vulnerable given the presence of vulnerability-offsetting resources (such as insurance); the fact that risks are assumed by homeowners when buying their homes; and the possibility for homeowners to see significant property value increases over time. In light of these circumstances it is not surprising that some hold a less than sympathetic view toward residents in fire-susceptible areas. The chapter argues for the presence of variegated vulnerabilities comprised in a landscape of residents, each with unique sensitivities, resources, finances, psychologies, and family histories. Interviews with residents and fire survivors shed light on diverse expressions of risk and loss that vary from one individual and household to the next. Efforts to trivialize or ignore these risks amount to bad political ecological analysis. The chapter also highlights precise ways affluent communities collectively leverage their financial privileges to minimize or even offset certain risks.

The 1991 Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire is perhaps the most significant urban wildfire in United States history. Located in northeastern Oakland, California, and stretching northward into the city of Berkeley and east into neighboring Contra Costa County, the Tunnel Fire destroyed more than three thousand dwelling units and killed twenty-five people over a twenty-four-hour period. In adjusted 2012 dollars, the fire is estimated to have generated $2.5 billion in losses. Across the region, nation, and even internationally, the Tunnel Fire (or “Oakland Hills Firestorm” or “East Bay Hills Firestorm” depending on who is reporting) remains the urban wildfire reference point in U.S. history. This chapter describes the importance of an affluence-vulnerability interface analytic approach as a complement to more conventional wildland-urban interface analysis. It also presents important background information on the book's primary case study thread—the Tunnel Fire.

This chapter establishes a conceptual justification for the implementation of an affluence-vulnerability interface analytic approach to manage current and prospective suburban landscapes—indeed a major characteristic of the West is the immense amount of land currently still eligible for suburban and exurban conversion. Along with this important land characteristic, it provides a synoptic view of the rapidly transforming West more generally through a discussion of recent suburbanization, climatic, and fire activity trends. Most importantly “the Incendiary” is introduced as a metaphor for treating the suburban West like a troubled patient (an arsonist) with deeply held and engrained behaviors and characteristics. The chapter suggests that engaging the West as merely a flammable landscape is to confront symptoms of the Incendiary, while confronting the Incendiary itself is to treat the essential character and core mechanisms driving growth and social-environmental changes in high fire risk landscapes at the urban fringe.

This chapter uses radio communication transcripts from the Tunnel Fire to illuminate specific challenges experienced by residents and responders alike at the time of the event. Based on these first-hand accounts, several important issues emerge concerning water, road, and power infrastructure. A review of reconstruction efforts in each area of concern demonstrates that progress toward reconciliation has been mixed. Capital improvements were driven largely by private property considerations and residents seeking to leverage the disaster in pursuit of neighborhood enhancements and estate-based wealth accumulation. Upgrades to water and power line equipment were lobbied and partially paid for by residents who used their positions of privilege to engage in collectivized risk reduction. In these instances the community was willing and able to supplement beleaguered city budget capacities and help pay for municipal upgrades. This presented a win-win for residents and the city of Oakland alike. However, when private benefits were less evident (or simply not attainable)—as was the case with road-widening initiatives—residents were less apt to back such recovery efforts. As a result, the pursuit of win-win outcomes unraveled.

This chapter focuses on government retrenchment, conservative homeowner politics, and state tax restructuring spanning the 1950s to 1980s. It highlights the scalar dimensions of vulnerability-in-production. In the face of a postwar suburban growth politics—culminating in the overthrow of conventional structures of taxation—metropolitan core areas like Oakland experienced tax reduced revenue growth rates, as well as depleted operating budgets within tax-dependent city fire services leading to reduced fire department budgets up to and during the Tunnel Fire. In order to generate new sources of tax revenue, city officials pursued large housing developments within high fire risk areas. The gradual increase in exposure to wildfires in the Tunnel Fire area is thus deeply intertwined within California's broader tax-revolt political movement. The chapter challenges spatially and temporally truncated explanations of fire vulnerability that fail to grapple with complex socioeconomic factors undergirding the placement of homes in areas that are already susceptible to wildfire. It ends by illustrating how factors generating vulnerability and affluence in the Tunnel Fire area also contribute to the production of vulnerabilities throughout the rest of Oakland.

This chapter illuminates how the production of vulnerability proceeds through—and is supported by—interconnected economic development and resource use activities across city and regional scales. It explores the connection between lucrative resource extraction, realty speculation, reforestation, and home construction activities in the Tunnel Fire area. These Oakland Hills Tunnel Fire activities and resulting forms of vulnerability are linked to the development of the San Francisco Bay Area. The historically resource-rich Oakland Hills “countryside” played a crucial role in shaping and facilitating San Francisco's post-Gold Rush economic ascendance. These resource-provisioning activities generated roadways that several decades later fell under the speculative eye of housing developers in search of suburban homes and vacation retreats for the region's new elite. This transition from resource extraction to real estate speculation was instantiated in the landscape, as several logging paths in Oakland became arterial roads populated by municipal infrastructure, flammable tree cover, and eventually a vast collection of new home developments in high fire risk areas.

This chapter presents two debates that illustrate how key decision-makers become mired in ideologically contentious disagreements, and how these issues distract nearly all parties from directly addressing the systemic causes of fire risk at the wildland-urban interface. A first example explores contemporary debates over eucalyptus management in the Oakland and Berkeley hills. Disagreements over the flammability of eucalyptus and their nonnative status divert attention away from broader social processes: mechanisms of development that actually drive fire vulnerability (and the premise of these very debates) in the first place. A second case explores yet another ideological battleground, this time pitting private property rights advocates concerned with controlling their own fire protection against those advocating for greater public agency involvement. City fire mitigation fees have produced a contentious proxy debate that forestalls other important discussions, such as whether to build more homes at all and whether to shift fire mitigation efforts from adaptation to growth minimization.