Bureaucratic Design and Cross-Boundary Governance in Addressing Wildfire Resilience

Institutional design and bureaucratic structure have long been recognized as central to organizational performance. These features remain highly relevant today, particularly for understanding complex natural hazards and resource management challenges where fragmented bureaucratic arrangements can hinder coordination across ecological and jurisdictional boundaries. Wildfire management exemplifies this problem. States vary widely in how they organize themselves around wildfire and its inherently complex, cross-boundary nature. In this study, we offer a comparative framework for assessing state-level wildfire governance based on three dimensions: administrative proximity to the governor, integration between forestry and fire management functions, and the span of control of these administrative units. We apply this framework to analyze the organizational structures and cross-boundary coordination mechanisms in eleven western U.S. states. By highlighting how bureaucratic structure can enable or constrain collaborative wildfire management, this research provides insights that may help states strengthen interagency coordination and enhance overall wildfire resilience.