Research perspectives on the public and fire management: a synthesis of current social science on eight essential questions

Abstract

As part of a Joint Fire Science Program project, a team of social scientists reviewed existing fire social science literature to develop a targeted synthesis of scientific knowledge on the following questions: 1. What is the public's understanding of fire's role in the ecosystem? 2. Who are trusted sources of information about fire? 3. What are the public's views of fuels reduction methods, and how do those views vary depending on citizens' location in the wildland-urban interface or elsewhere? 4. What is the public's understanding of smoke effects on human health, and what shapes the public's tolerance for smoke? 5. What are homeowners' views of their responsibilities for home and property protection and mitigation, e.g., defensible space measures? 6. What role does human health and safety play in the public's perceptions of fire and fire management? 7. What are the public's views on the role and importance of costs in wildfire incident response decisions? 8. To the extent that information is available, how do findings differ among ethnic and cultural groups, and across regions of the country?Despite limited fire research specific to the questions on costs, and human health and safety, common findings on all these interrelated topics are summarized in this document. Research has found that the public has a fairly sophisticated understanding of fire's ecological role and the environmental factors that can increase fire risk. The public obtains information on fire from a wide variety of sources, but findings consistently show that interactive information sources are both generally preferred and more effective than unidirectional sources. As a way to improve ecosystem health and reduce fire risk, active land management generally has greater citizen support than a no-action alternative. Most respondents accept the practice of prescribed fire for active forest management and tolerate the accompanying smoke; in contrast, smoke is a highly salient issue for households with health concerns. The public tends to see mitigating the fire risk as a shared responsibility with landowners, whether public or private, responsible for taking appropriate action on their own property. Cost figures in to citizens' decisionmaking about actions to protect property before a wildfire but may be less of a priority during incident response. Except for ethnicity or race, little evidence was found of meaningful variation in public response to fire management based on socio-demographic characteristics or geographic variation.

Examining the influence of biophysical conditions on wildland–urban interface homeowners’ wildfire risk mitigation activities in fire-prone landscapes

“…These findings appear to be consistent across geographic locations and different research methodologies (McCaffrey and Olsen 2012). However, many homeowners still do not take mitigation actions; hence, efforts to better understand what factors influence mitigation behavior continue.…”

Community Wildfire Preparedness: a Global State-of-the-Knowledge Summary of Social Science Research

“…There is also room for more work that improves transfer of the many useful findings of fire social science research to practitioners. 3 …”

“…However, as wildfires have had growing societal impacts, interest and funding for understanding the role of social factors in shaping fire management outcomes has grown markedly and a significant body of research has begun to develop. An initial synthesis of what could be learned from articles published between 2000 and 2008 was developed [2] and then refined into two longer syntheses based on the literature published between 2000 and 2010 [1,3]. This article builds on the findings from that work to take into account what has been learned from the fairly substantial number of articles that have been published since 2010.…”

“…Throughout this document, all references to work prior to 2011 are based on one or more of the three documents developed for the 2000 to 2010 synthesis[1][2][3]. For more information on key authors for this period, or for more detailed information on studies, see in particular the two general technical reports 2.…”

Theory and Practice of Wildland Fuels Management

“…Fuel treatment economics also may provide insights into how best to contend over time with existing backlogs in necessary treatments as well as fuel treatment-fire suppression tradeoffs that must be considered in evaluating treatment efficiency. Also, since government entities will likely be involved in treatment implementation on many lands, public trust, and acceptance [93] are critical. Table 4 provides a list of important themes requiring future attention, with focus on fuel treatments, treatment effects, and modeling.…”