Rating telecommunication towers by social importance and physical vulnerability to wildfire

Abstract. Telecommunication infrastructure and the service it provides is vital for notifying threatened populations during wildfire events to ensure timely and safe evacuations. Much of the telecommunication infrastructure in the province of Alberta, Canada, is situated in fire-prone regions, with over 600 individual cell tower sites within the Forest Protection Area (FPA). Proactive measures such as fuel reduction treatments can reduce risk to communication infrastructure and support community resilience, but with limited resources available, there is a need to prioritize the most important and vulnerable towers for protective action. This study presents a structured framework for rating telecommunication infrastructure based on multiple factors of vulnerability. We developed an index that combines indicators of social importance (network redundancy, robustness, and intersection with developed lands and transportation infrastructure) and indicators of physical vulnerability to wildfire (fire exposure, directional vulnerability, slope, and suppression capability) to rate telecommunication towers in Alberta's FPA. In total, 34 telecommunication towers were identified as having both high social importance and high physical vulnerability to wildfire, with almost a quarter located in a single region, the Grande Prairie Forest Area. Potential applications of our Social Importance and Physical Vulnerability (SIPV) Index for informing protection and mitigation decisions are discussed.