The Influence of Home and Community Attachment on Firewise Behavior

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the influence of residents' attachment to their homes and community on their willingness to adopt Firewise recommendations. Our sample was drawn from a population residing in the wildland–urban interface where the threat of wildfire is acute. The Firewise recommendations concerned 13 activities affecting home design, construction and maintenance, landscaping, and community engagement. Consistent with the tenets offered by the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion and empirical evidence stemming from the place and community attachment literatures, we hypothesized that those most attached to their homes and community would be most inclined to adopt Firewise recommendations to protect these settings. For the most part, our findings were consistent with this hypothesis. We observed that the dimensions of home attachment were most strongly predictive of activities centered on and around the home, whereas community attachment was more strongly predictive of community-based activities.