Wildfire Evacuations Prompt Increased Support for Wildfire Mitigation Policies in Pima County, Arizona

While environmental disasters like wildfires have grown in frequency and impose significant recovery costs, policymakers often under-invest in cost-effective disaster mitigation policies. Disasters sometimes act as “focusing events” that can capture public attention and increase public support for disaster mitigation, yet not all disasters have a meaningful effect on public attitudes, and the mechanisms behind attitude differences remain underexplored. Drawing on the Values-Beliefs-Norms framework, we propose that disasters influence support for mitigation policies by altering peoples’ underlying beliefs about disasters if and when those disasters directly threaten something that people value. Using a post-wildfire online choice experiment survey in Pima County, Arizona, we assess how wildfire exposure affects support for local wildfire risk reduction and preferences for referendum policies. Results showed that those who personally knew evacuees were more likely to vote “yes” for referendum policies, were less sensitive to program costs, and favored policies that prioritize homes over ecological goals.