Trial by Fire: Support for Mitigation and Adaptation Policy after the 2020 Oregon Wildfires

The September 2020 Oregon wildfires were unprecedented in terms of their geographic scope and the number of communities affected by smoke and wildfire. Though it is difficult to directly attribute the event to climate change, scientists have noted the strong connection between warmer and drier conditions in the Western U.S. – conditions that are linked to climate change – and increasing wildfire risk. These wildfires thus had the potential to act as a “focusing event,” potentially strengthening public support for climate change policy. Political ideology is a well-known driver of public support for climate change mitigation policies in the U.S., but few studies have examined adaptation policy support. Moreover, other factors shaping post-event support for the two “pillars” of climate change policy—adaptation and mitigation—have rarely been compared. We conducted a survey of Oregonians within 6 months of the 2020 wildfires (n=1,308) to understand post-event support for climate mitigation and adaptation policies. We found that the magnitude of the association between political ideology and policy support was lower for adaptation policies than mitigation policy and there was no association with support for forest management changes. In contrast, selected socio-demographic characteristics played a more important role in support for selected adaptation policies than mitigation policy.