Facing a wildfire: What did we learn about individual and community resilience?

Resilience has become a significant concept to help understand the coping processes after adversity experienced by communities. This article reports on the perspectives of individual resilience by community stakeholders ( n = 20) and parents ( n = 19) who experienced a devastating wildfire. The findings show the links between individual and community resilience through our key themes—personality, physical environment, economy, attachment to place and social interactions—influenced the development of community resilience. Further exploration to determine the differences in the significance of these individual resilience characteristics and the ways in which they help individuals and communities deal with adversity is warranted. Finally, future research studies that illustrate an integrated examination of both individual and community resilience are warranted in order to more fully understand this concept.