The Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (FAC Net) staff and members talk about fire adapted communities (FAC) a lot, and we often get asked for resources to help explain the FAC concept to other practitioners and partners. As network members and other fire adaptation practitioners have expanded their efforts, the scope of FAC as a framework for community wildfire resilience has evolved and grown. FAC Net members—recognizing this evolution—requested additional tools to support sharing the range of FAC concepts.
After field testing a draft version of this graphic for several months (thank you to the many folks that gave us feedback!), FAC Net is excited to release the graphic and facilitator’s guide to help practitioners explain FAC concepts to partners, residents and other practitioners.
Want to see the full graphic and accompanying layers? Click here to access the resource page and download it!
The graphic can be used in multiple parts and gives examples of components that make up the FAC framework. Because community context matters, and every community approaches their specific actions and programs slightly differently, this is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all or comprehensive graphic. It is designed to help explain the complexity of FAC, while leaving room for people to interpret how FAC applies in their community.
The graphic and facilitator’s guide are housed in FAC Net’s resource library, free, for anyone to use.
As FAC practitioners, we know that communicating about our work can be challenging. Our hope is that this graphic and accompanying facilitator’s guide will help illuminate the suite of possible activities and initiatives that reduce wildfire risk and increase community resilience.
We envision that this will be a living graphic and that we will revisit and update it as the field continues to expand and grow. Have ideas for the graphic or want to suggest additional ideas for useful materials, graphics or resources? Please contact us.
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This is comprehensive, thank you! For those who would like to work this resource into a strengths-based approach to FAC (asset-based community engagement), it may be rewarding to start the discussion or workshop by asking their partners/community members to talk among themselves about what these components look like in their location and then to offer examples (rather than our familiar “show and tell”). That often supports the internal relationship-building that communities depend on for the long-term.
I look forward to hearing stories about how this is working!
Thanks, Jana! We have actually done something like that at one or two of our workshops with affiliates and state networks. Michelle can refresh my memory but she has done something where she opens the FAC discussion with an empty wheel and has folks add to it (I thinks she’s also done one where they have a handout and add or take out things as they see fit) and then go in to the whole typical “what is FAC” ppt. I love the idea of a resource blog post around creative ways people engage others around FAC… thanks for prompting that! – Emily