Evacuation of rural communities threatened by wildfires is occurring more often, particularly in the western United States. Residents, public safety officials, community leaders, and public land managers are facing the issues and problems of this new experience. We used semi-structured interviews to elicit the evacuation experience from the viewpoint of evacuees and public safety officials in three case studies of wildfire evacuations in the western United States during 2000 and 2002. (Our interviews were conducted only with Teller County residents and officials.) We identify and describe the stages of the evacuation process as experienced by evacuees, and the dynamics and dilemmas associated with each stage. We analyze these perceptions and dynamics using the sociological lenses of social construction of meaning and structuration. The results indicate that evacuees and public safety officials have different perceptions and concerns about the evacuation process. We derive lessons learned from these three cases for use in planning future wildfire evacuations.
Fire officials are dismayed when victims of wildfire blame fire fighters and others responsible for fire management for damage resulting from uncontrolled fires. This is in spite of the fact that wildfire damage is a consequence of dynamic interactions among natural factors (wind, temperature, location of wildfire, topography, etc.) and human factors (past land management, promptness of firefighting activities, extent of homeowners' defensible space, etc.). Fire and land managers do not typically understand why and how the victims arrive at such oversimplified, and in some cases inaccurate, conclusions about wildfire causation. Attribution theory in social psychology provides a framework for understanding the mechanisms of these blaming processes. In this study, both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used to explore how people who live in wildfire hazard zones and experienced wildfire, perceive the causes of wildfire damage. In the spring of 1999, a prefire survey was conducted in the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, an area where numerous wildfires are recorded nearly every year. This was followed by a postfire survey in two communities that actually experienced a fire that season. In addition, qualitative interviews were carried out in these two affected communities. Results suggest that people who experienced wildfire tended to attribute the cause of wildfire damage to factors associated with fire officials and nature and did not attribute fire damage to their own actions (or inactions). The implications of these attributions are discussed as are recommendations for future fire education and communication. West. J. Appl. For. 19(3):184–194.
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