Understanding unmet needs during community wildfire recovery: A case study of smoke damage impacts after the 2021 Marshall Fire

Efforts to understand, assess, and address diversifying recovery needs have growing relevance as wildfires continue to impact communities. However, little is known about social experiences navigating gaps in assistance funding and support or “unmet needs” in post-fire spaces, particularly for indirect impacts like smoke damage. Determining how affected residents access available information and make decisions related to unmet needs can aid the development of resources and programs that support rapid identification of, and response to, emergent or undocumented impacts during recovery processes. This study explores household experiences with smoke damage as an unmet need during recovery following the 2021 Marshall Fire in Boulder, Colorado, USA. Semi-structured interviews with residents and professionals who dealt with smoke damage revealed a wide spectrum of impacts. Decisions to act on smoke damage were heavily influenced by risk perceptions and personal capacity to undertake self-guided recovery in the absence of a formalized process for navigating remediation. These experiences underscored a distinct absence of scientific and management expertise, legal protections or standards, and assistance related to smoke damage identification and remediation, catalyzing distrust in officials and ambiguity regarding whether smoke damaged homes could ever be safe again. Together, these conditions created cascading uncertainties for residents with smoke damaged homes that motivated long-term health concerns. Unmet needs after wildfire appeared to emerge because of misconceptions about impact severity, limited professional capacity, and adherence to rigid recovery structures that restrict professionals’ ability to identify and include non-traditional impacts into existing processes. Findings informed suggestions for improving smoke damage recovery processes, inviting consideration of policy and more inclusive assistance to support recovery from indirect wildfire impacts. • Unmet needs during community wildfire recovery are diversifying. • Interviews explored smoke damage recovery after the 2021 Marshall Fire. • The absence of a process for smoke damage recovery caused cascading uncertainty. • Findings provide a process for identifying and addressing unmet recovery needs. • Broadening understandings of “loss” supports more inclusive wildfire recovery.