2026 Spring Seminar Series Seminar: Deserai Anderson University of Colorado Denver

Disaster Policy Subsystems and the Role of Focusing Events: Wildfire Policy Dynamics in Colorado

Abstract: As natural disasters become more frequent and severe, the policy debates surrounding disasters also expand. In the wildland-urban interface (WUI) – the area where human development meets wildland fuels – the number, frequency, and magnitude of wildfires is increasing and communities across the U.S. face increased wildfire risk. As experiences with wildfires become more widespread, the stakeholders who have an interest in addressing wildfire-related issues have also grown and become more widespread. The role of these wildfire disasters as potential focusing events is important in understanding policy change, but also in as much as they help us understand how disaster policy subsystems change over time as problems become more severe. Drawing on insights from two studies, this presentation and discussion will tackle the relationship between focusing events and the policy subsystems within which disaster policies are debated.

Wildfires have become increasingly common and more destructive in Colorado since the turn of the 21st Century. State of Colorado fire data show that all 20 of the 20 largest wildfires on record have happened since 2001 and 4 of the 5 largest wildfires have happened since 2018. Alongside these fires, state legislators introduced 101 bills related to wildfires. As the wildfire problem in Colorado has grown over the past 25-years, so has the policy subsystem, salience, and agenda attention to wildfire issues. Drawing on legislative, lobbyist, and media data, the first study traces the evolution of the statewide wildfire policy subsystem in Colorado.  

In Los Angeles, Ca, Lahaina, HI, and in Boulder County, Colorado, catastrophic wind-driven fires have ripped through suburban and urban neighborhoods, destroying lives and livelihoods, along with many thousands of homes. The Marshall Fire, outside of Boulder, Colorado, is the focus of the second study that draws on public comments and Narrative Policy Framework analysis of wildfire-related discussions in the years after the fire to understand how the wildfire disaster diffused to other policy domains within local policy processes.