Story of Decline, a Narrative Policy Framework Examination of Oregon鈥檚 Wildfire Risk Map
Abstract:
Oregon's legislature passed Senate Bill 762 on the heels of the state's most devastating wildfires during Labor Day weekend 2020. These fires claimed over 4,000 structures and burned over 1.2 million acres. Among the provisions of SB762 was a mandated statewide wildfire risk map to guide mitigation efforts and protect communities across Oregon. However, the map faced intense public backlash, leading to its withdrawal just six weeks after its release. By the 2025 legislative session, the legislature entirely repealed the map's provisions through Senate Bill 83, completing a striking policy trajectory from adoption to abandonment in less than four years.
This dissertation examines how competing narratives shaped Oregon's wildfire policy from 2021 to 2025, using the wildfire risk map as a case study. 爆料瓜ing the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), this research empirically analyzes how policy actors and coalitions mobilized different stories about the map's purpose and impact. Over the span of three legislative sessions, the map's role in the policy narrative evolved. Initially, the map was framed as an objective, evidence-based tool for strategic investment and community protection. As the policy narrative evolved, opponents reframed the map from a neutral planning tool to a villainous threat to property insurance availability and affordability.
Using qualitative content analysis of legislative testimony, this study analyzes how narrative strategies, evidence types, and character construction influenced policy outcomes across three distinct legislative sessions. Specifically, this study examines how narrative components unfolded over time, what types of evidence appeared in policy narratives, and how that evidence manifested in advocacy efforts.
This case study offers rare insight into a complete policy cycle compressed into a short timeframe, demonstrating how technical risk communication tools can become contested political objects. The findings contribute to NPF scholarship by illuminating how narrative elements and evidence types influence policy change in crisis-driven contexts. For wildfire management practitioners, this research highlights the critical importance of narrative framing in risk communication and the challenges of translating scientific risk assessment into public policy when competing advocacy coalitions mobilize counter-narratives about unintended consequences.