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We reviewed, annotated, and organized recent social science research and developed a framework for addressing the wildland fire social problem. We annotated articles related to three topic areas or factors, which are critical for understanding collective action, particularly in the wildland-urban interface. These factors are collaborative capacity, problem framing, and mutual trust. The integration of these is a prerequisite of collective action to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans, reduce vegetative fuels, enhance public safety and preparedness, and/or create defensible space. Collective action requires partnerships, common goals, and a common language. Understanding the inter-relationships between the factors that enable collective action is important to collaborative partnerships, forest managers, and social science researchers as they work together to address the wildland fire social problem. Cover art designed by Pam Froemke.You may order additional copies of this publication by sending your mailing information in label form through one of the following media. Please specify the publication title and series number. Publishing ServicesTelephone (970) Executive SummaryThis report is an annotated literature review of recently published social science articles and papers. We annotated research that examined collaborative capacity, problem framing, and mutual trust. We suggest that an integration of these factors is prerequisite to collective management of today's wildland fire social problem.Understanding the relationships and interactions between these factors is important to collaborative partnerships, on-the-ground forest managers and practitioners working in the wildland-urban interface, and social science researchers who are planning new research projects to better understand the wildland fire social problem.From an organizational perspective, collaborative capacity means having a clear vision and strategy to enable collective thinking, adaptive planning, and implementation beyond money, personnel, skills, and equipmentalthough these are important aspects of overall capacity to collaborate. A collaborative entity or partnership, with self-organization, established relationships, an attitude of confidence, and a coherent frame of reference may have the capacity to act in ways to improve problem situations.Problem framing involves the different ways that stakeholders see or define, the problem-public understandings plural. Forest ecologists studying the wildland-urban interface would most likely frame the problem differently than residents. Likewise, this report provides a social science/human dimensions frame of reference. Given the many ways to define and approach this dynamic problem, we do not put forth a succinct definition of the wildland fire social problem in the report.Mutual trust includes positive public relations and respect for different frames of reference. Mutual trust develops through inclusive, interactive communication and co-learning processes, not top-down, one-way pers...

This article identifies and compares meanings of wildfire risk mitigation for stakeholders in the Front Range of Colorado, USA. We examine the case of a collaborative partnership sponsored by government agencies and directed to decrease hazardous fuels in interface areas. Data were collected by way of key informant interviews and focus groups. The analysis is guided by the Circuit of Culture model in communication research. We found both shared and differing meanings between members of this partnership (the "producers") and other stakeholders not formally in the partnership (the "consumers"). We conclude that those promoting the partnership's project to mitigate risk are primarily aligned with a discourse of scientific management. Stakeholders outside the partnership follow a discourse of community. We argue that failure to recognize and account for differences in the way risk mitigation is framed and related power dynamics could hamper the communicational efforts of the collaborative partnership and impact goals for fuels reduction. We recommend ways that both groups can capitalize on shared meanings and how agency managers and decision makers can build better working relationships with interface communities and other external stakeholders.

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