Stakeholder Understandings of Wildfire Mitigation: A Case of Shared and Contested Meanings

Abstract

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.

Places where wildfire potential and social vulnerability coincide in the coterminous United States

“…Federal wildfire management planning efforts seek to incorporate evaluations of selected social conditions (Wildland Fire Executive Council 2014). Policy targeting and implementation ideally must be flexible and cognizant of community-level differences in order to encourage and facilitate the adoption and implementation of sustainable strategies and plans (Grayzeck-Souter et al 2009;Champ et al 2012;Williams et al 2012;Olsen and Sharp 2013;Fischer et al 2014). A process of identifying those places most vulnerable to wildfire would support developing tailored and context-specific policies at different jurisdictional levels.…”

The Science of Firescapes: Achieving Fire-Resilient Communities

“…Accordingly, the risk to human populations that helps drive what many call the “wicked problem” must be understood as a complicated merger of two distinct components: (1) the shared human population values affected by wildfire (Champ et al. 2012 , Breakwell 2014 ) and (2) the biophysical risk that is often measured by the probabilities of occurrence and the severity of impacts (Calkin et al. 2014 ).…”

Navigating the Wildfire–Pandemic Interface: Public Perceptions of COVID-19 and the 2020 Wildfire Season in Arizona

“…A vast body of wildfire social science literature documents divergent perceived and actual mitigation efforts between full-time and part-time residents [14,[50][51][52]. Our data suggest that opportunities for social conflict associated with this divergence may be further exacerbated by COVID-19, given that part-time residents were more likely to report that COVID-19 had prevented them from conducting mitigation on their properties.…”