Research Database
Displaying 81 - 100 of 162
Priorities and Effectiveness in Wildfire Management: Evidence from Fire Spread in the Western United States
Year: 2022
Costs of fighting wildfires have increased substantially over the past several decades. Yet surprisingly little is known about the effectiveness of wildfire suppression or how wildfire incident managers prioritize resources threatened within a wildfire incident. We investigate the determinants of wildfire suppression effort using a novel empirical strategy comparing over 1,400 historical fire perimeters to the spatial distribution of assets at risk. We find that fires are more likely to stop spreading as they approach homes, particularly when homes are of greater value. This effect persists…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Human- and lightning-caused wildland fire ignition clusters in British Columbia, Canada
Year: 2022
Wildland fire is a common occurrence in western Canada, with record-setting area burned recorded in British Columbia (BC) in the past decade. Here, we used the unsupervised machine learning algorithm HDBSCAN to identify high-density clusters of both human- and lightning- caused wildfire ignitions in BC using data from 2006 to 2020. We found that human-caused ignition clusters tended to occur around population centres, First Nations communities, roads and valleys, and were more common in the southern half of the province, which is more populated. Lightning-ignition clusters were generally…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Expanding wildland-urban interface alters forest structure and landscape context in the northern United States
Year: 2022
The wildland-urban interface (WUI), where housing intermingles with wildland vegetation, is the fastest-growing land use type in the United States. Given the ecological and social benefits of forest ecosystems, there is a growing need to more fully understand how such development alters the landscape context and structure of these WUI forests. In a space-for-time analysis we utilized land cover data, forest inventory plots, and housing density data over time to examine differences in forest characteristics of the northern US across three WUI change classes: (a) forest that has been in WUI…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The US Forest Service Life First safety initiative: exploring unnecessary exposure to risk
Year: 2022
In 2016, the US Forest Service initiated small-group safety discussions among members of its wildland firefighting organisation. Known as the Life First National Engagement Sessions, the discussions presented an opportunity for wildland firefighters to address systemic and cultural dysfunctions in the wildland fire system. The Life First initiative included a post-engagement survey in which more than 2600 Forest Service employees provided open-ended feedback. In that qualitative subset of results, survey respondents described four main situations in which wildland firefighters commonly…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Governing ecosystem adaptation: An investigation of adaptive capacity within environmental governance networks
Year: 2022
Climate change is impacting ecosystems in dynamic ways. In order to mitigate the risks brought about by these ecosystem changes, ecosystem management, which has historically focused on preservation and preventing change, must now be much more flexible and responsive. The capacity to adapt management approaches to current and future climate conditions is fundamentally a function of access to resources and social capital, both of which are considerably influenced by underlying socio-political conditions. While a growing body of research addresses the adaptive capacity of individuals,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The interactional approach to adaptive capacity: Researching adaptation in socially diverse, wildfire prone communities
Year: 2022
This article outlines an approach for understanding the ways that local social context influences differential community adaptation to wildfire risk. I explain how my approach drew from Wilkinson’s interactional theory of community during various stages of its evolution and describe a series of advancements developed while extending the theory to promote collective action for wildfire. Extensions of Wilkinson’s work include organizing a range of adaptive capacity characteristics that help document differential community capacity for wildfire adaptation, introduction of “community archetypes”…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Communicating with the public about wildland fire preparation, response, and recovery
Year: 2021
This literature review synthesizes empirical research about wildland fire communication to provide practitioners, such as land managers, public health and safety officials, community groups, and others working with the public, evidence-based recommendations for communication work. Key findings demonstrate that it is important to recognize communication as a context-specific and dynamic process, not a linear pathway or prescription, or one-size-fits-all approach. We found that practitioners engaging in this work may be most effective when they get to know their diverse publics, engage in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The importance of Indigenous cultural burning in forested regions of the Pacific West, USA
Year: 2021
Indigenous communities in the Pacific West of North America have long depended on fire to steward their environments, and they are increasingly asserting the importance of cultural burning to achieve goals for ecological and social restoration. We synthesized literature regarding objectives and effects of cultural burning in this region within an ecosystem services framework. Much scholarly literature focuses on why various species harvested from burned areas were important historically, while tribes and recent research increasingly stress a wide range of ecological and cultural benefits…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Assessment of Early Implementation of the US Forest Service’s Shared Stewardship Strategy
Year: 2021
In 2019, Colorado State University entered into a challenge cost-share agreement with USFS State and Private Forestry to conduct independent research on the implementation and development of Shared Stewardship efforts. The first phase of our work took place in 2020, when we interviewed agency and state employees and representatives of partner organizations in states in the West that had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU)with the USFS to formally pursue Shared Stewardship. Our primary goal was to understand the main factors affecting the early stages of Shared Stewardship efforts…
Publication Type: Report
Forest Restoration and Fuels Reduction: Convergent or Divergent?
Year: 2021
For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests. Perhaps the vital element in the compatibility of these treatments is that both need to incorporate the salient characteristics that frequent fire produced—variability in vegetation structure and composition across landscapes and the inability to support large patches of high-severity fire. These characteristics can be achieved with both fire and mechanical treatments. The possible key…
Publication Type: Journal Article
“Us versus Them;” Local Social Fragmentation and Its Potential Effects on Building Pathways to Adapting to Wildfire
Year: 2021
As the need for wildfire adaptation for human populations in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) intensifies in the face of changes that have increased the number of wildfires that exceed 100 thousand acres, it is becoming more important to come to a better understanding of social complexity on the WUI landscape. It is just as important to further our understanding of the social characteristics of the individual human settlements that inhabit that landscape and attempt to craft strategies to improve wildfire adaptation that are commensurate with local values, management preferences, and local…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The "strings attached" to community difference and potential pathways to fire adaptiveness in the wildland urban interface
Year: 2021
This article identifies specific social characteristics in two wildland urban interface communities that may have significant impacts on the ability of those communities to adapt to wildfire. Researchers used a mixed-methods approach to triangulate results to identify potential views and motives surrounding three important behaviors and values related to crafting potential strategies to mitigate wildfire risk. The analysis of quantitative data in the form of responses to Likert-type questions and qualitative data in the form of responses to questions asked during focus group sessions yielded…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Contrasting the role of human- and lightning-caused wildfires on future fire regimes on a Central Oregon landscape
Year: 2021
Climate change is expected to increase fire activity in many regions of the globe, but the relative role of human vs. lightning-caused ignitions on future fire regimes is unclear. We developed statistical models that account for the spatiotemporal ignition patterns by cause in the eastern slopes of the Cascades in Oregon, USA. Projected changes in energy release component from a suite of climate models were used with our model to quantify changes in frequency and extent of human and lightning-caused fires and record-breaking events based on sizes of individual fires between contemporary (2006…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Roles and experiences of non-governmental organisations in wildfire response and recovery
Year: 2021
Local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play critical roles in providing immediate relief resources and long-term recovery support for communities after a disaster. Drawing on interviews with NGO representatives involved in three Northern California wildfires in 2017 and 2018, this study identifies challenges and opportunities for NGOs supporting wildfire relief and recovery. Across fires and NGOs, NGO management and wellbeing, coordination and disaster experiences emerge as common barriers and enablers of relief and recovery. In many cases, local NGOs’ participation in wildfire relief…
Publication Type: Journal Article
After the fire: Perceptions of land use planning to reduce wildfire risk in eight communities across the United States
Year: 2020
Wildfire losses are increasing across the United States, and yet land use planning to reduce wildfire risk is not federally mandated and is rarely used by local jurisdictions. We examined local government staff and leaders’ perceptions of land use planning and regulations to reduce wildfire risk, in a range of communities, after wildfire risk had been made evident with the loss of homes due to wildfire. Although policy after fire was largely unchanged we found local leaders had devoted substantial attention to the subject of land use planning. Communities were dealing with a number of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Tribes & Climate Change
Year: 2020
Native Americans rely on tribally important ecosystem services such as traditional foods, hunting, timber production, non-timber forest resources (recreation, water), and cultural resources. Unfortunately, many of these resources may be highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. A research team sought to answer the question: Where and which tribally-important ecosystem services will be affected by climate change in the Pacific Northwest? They used projections from climate and vegetation models and stakeholder input to demonstrate a generalizable approach for assessing possible…
Publication Type: Web project page
Walking through a "phoenix landscape": hiker surveys reveal nuanced perceptions of wildfire effects
Year: 2020
Public opinion of wildfire is often perceived to be negative and in support of fire suppression, even though research suggests public opinions have become more positive over the past few decades. However, most prior work on this topic has focused on homeowners in forested regions. In this study, we shift the lens to hikers in a chaparral- and oak-savannah-dominated landscape that burned at high severity in 2015. We surveyed hikers before and after their hike about their familiarity and perceptions of local fire, and wildfire in the nation at large. We found hikers were familiar with topics…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Potential COVID-19 Outbreak in Fire Camp: Modeling Scenarios and Interventions
Year: 2020
The global COVID-19 pandemic will pose unique challenges to the management of wildlandfire in 2020. Fire camps may provide an ideal setting for the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virusthat causes COVID-19. However, intervention strategies can help minimize disease spread andreduce the risk to the firefighting community. We developed a COVID-19 epidemic model tohighlight the risks posed by the disease during wildland fire incidents. Our model accounts forthe transient nature of the population on a wildland fire incident, which poses unique risks to themanagement of communicable diseases in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Put Fire to Work
Year: 2020
Put Fire to Work is a prescribed fire outreach toolkit for partners and practitionersin Washington and the Pacific Northwest. We invite you to explore, engage and collaborate, and play an active role in bringing good fire back home. This has been put together by the Washington Prescribed Fire Council in collaboration with numerous partners. It has several tools and resources for communication with public and partners about prescribed fire.
Publication Type: Website
Wildfire recovery as a “hot moment” for creating fire-adapted communities
Year: 2020
Recent decades have witnessed an escalation in the social, economic, and ecological impacts of wildfires worldwide. Wildfire losses stem from the complex interplay of social and ecological forces at multiple scales, including global climate change, regional wildfire regimes altered by human activities, and locally managed wildland-urban interface (WUI) zones where homes increasingly encroach upon wildland vegetation. The coupled nature of the human-ecological system is precisely what makes reducing wildfire risks challenging. As losses from wildfire have accelerated, an emerging research and…
Publication Type: Journal Article