Research Database
Displaying 41 - 60 of 142
How Does Fire Suppression Alter the Wildfire Regime? A Systematic Review
Year: 2023
Fire suppression has become a fundamental approach for shaping contemporary wildfire regimes. However, a growing body of research suggests that aggressive fire suppression can increase high-intensity wildfires, creating the wildfire paradox. Whether the strategy always triggers the paradox remains a topic of ongoing debate. The role of fire suppression in altering wildfire regimes in diverse socio-ecological systems and associated research designs demands a deeper understanding. To reconcile these controversies and synthesize the existing knowledge, a systematic review has been conducted to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Use of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) for full suppression and managed fires within the Southwestern Region of the US Forest Service
Year: 2023
Background: United States federal wildland fire policy requires the use of formal decision support systems (DSS) for fire incidents that last for an extended time. However, the ways that wildfire managers use DSSs in decisions regarding fire management remain understudied, including how users engage with or utilise them to make strategic decisions. Aims: Researchers sought to understand how users engage with the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS), their view of its utilities and challenges, and their perspectives about WFDSS training. Methods: We present the results of thematic…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Drivers of California’s changing wildfires: a state-of-the-knowledge synthesis
Year: 2023
Over the past four decades, annual area burned has increased significantly in California and across the western USA. This trend reflects a confluence of intersecting factors that affect wildfire regimes. It is correlated with increasing temperatures and atmospheric vapour pressure deficit. Anthropogenic climate change is the driver behind much of this change, in addition to influencing other climate-related factors, such as compression of the winter wet season. These climatic trends and associated increases in fire activity are projected to continue into the future. Additionally, factors…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Big Lie: discursive risk analysis and wildland firefighter safety in the Western United States
Year: 2023
While increased length and intensity of wildfire seasons in many places have led to more concern about wildland firefighter safety, we believe ethnography has been underutilized as a method within this domain. In response, we begin building a shared idiom for ethnographic engagement with wildland firefighter safety and similar occupations. We draw on ethnographic approaches to late industrialism to develop a method called discursive risk analysis (DRA) as an initial stage in a broader collaborative and generative research practice. By collaborative, we mean cooperation among stakeholder,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Social science to advance wildfire adaptation in the southwestern United States: a review and future research directions
Year: 2023
Background. Social science that seeks to advance wildfire adaptation in the southwestern US states of Arizona and New Mexico remains underdeveloped in comparison with other regions in the USA. Aim. To identify key themes in the existing social science literature on wildfire in the Southwest and to determine future research needs that can inform more strategic adaptation across scales and contexts. Methods. This article presents an in-depth literature review, organising findings using the Fire Adapted Communities Framework. Key results. Research on social aspects of wildfire in the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Creating Fire-Adapted Communities Through Recovery: Case Studies from the United States and Australia
Year: 2023
Wildfires can be devastating for social and ecological systems, but the recovery period after wildfire presents opportunities to reduce future risk through adaptation. We use a collective case study approach to systematically compare social and ecological recovery following four major fire events in Australia and the United States: the 1998 wildfires in northeastern Florida; the 2003 Cedar fire in southern California; the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, southeastern Australia; and the 2011 Bastrop fires in Texas. Fires spurred similar policy changes, with an emphasis on education,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Measuring the long-term costs of uncharacteristic wildfire: a case study of the 2010 Schultz Fire in Northern Arizona
Year: 2023
Background
Wildfires often have long-lasting costs that are difficult to document and are rarely captured in full.
Aims
We provide an example for measuring the full costs of a single wildfire over time, using a case study from the 2010 Schultz Fire near Flagstaff, Arizona, to enhance our understanding of the long-term costs of uncharacteristic wildfire.
Methods
We conducted a partial remeasurement of a 2013 study on the costs of the Schultz Fire by updating government and utility expenditures, conducting a survey of affected homeowners, estimating costs to ecosystem services and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool: Facilitating Social Learning and a Science of Practice
Year: 2023
Wildfire science, policy, and practice lack systematic means for “tailoring” fire adaptation practices to socially diverse human populations and in ways that aggregate existing lessons. This article outlines the development and initial operationalization of the Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool, an inductive set of processes that help facilitate dialogue about needs and priorities for wildfire adaptation strategies across ownership boundaries or partners. We outline the stages and considerations organized by the tool, including how its components build from decades of social science and…
Communicating about Fire, Public Perceptions of Fire and Smoke, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Modeling Wildland Firefighters’ Assessments of Structure Defensibility
Year: 2023
In wildland–urban interface areas, firefighters balance wildfire suppression and structure protection. These tasks are often performed under resource limitations, especially when many structures are at risk. To address this problem, wildland firefighters employ a process called “structure triage” to prioritize structure protection based on perceived defensibility. Using a dataset containing triage assessments of thousands of structures within the Western US, we developed a machine learning model that can improve the understanding of factors contributing to assessed structure defensibility.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Assessment of wildland firefighter opinions and experiences related to incident medical providers
Year: 2023
Background. Medical services for wildland fire incidents are vital and fire personnel need to be comfortable seeking care and have adequate access to care. Aims. The aim of this study was to examine wildland firefighters’ (WLFFs) attitudes towards, opinions of and experiences with the medical services on fire assignments. Methods. A survey was used to collect information from WLFFs. The survey covered: (1) demographics, (2) injury descriptions, (3) trust/respect toward medical personnel, and (4) perceived impact of injury treatment on individual and team deploy- ability. Analysis used…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Effectiveness of fitness training and psychosocial education intervention programs in wildland firefighting: a cluster randomised control trial
Year: 2022
Critical to effective fire management is the protection and preparedness of highly trained wildland firefighters who routinely face extreme physical and psychological demands. To date, there is limited scientific evidence of psychosocial education intervention effectiveness in this context. The objective of the current study is to utilise a cluster randomised control trial study design to evaluate fitness training and psychosocial education intervention programs across a wildland fire season. Wildland firefighters (n = 230) were randomly assigned by their work location to one of four…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Community Engagement With Proactive Wildfire Management in British Columbia, Canada: Perceptions, Preferences, and Barriers to Action
Year: 2022
Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) are increasingly threatening lives and livelihoods. These growing impacts have prompted a paradigm shift toward proactive wildfire management that prioritizes prevention and preparedness instead of response. Despite this shift, many communities remain unprepared for wildfires in the WUI due to diverse individual and social-political factors influencing engagement with proactive management approaches. The catastrophic fire seasons of 2017, 2018, and 2021 in British Columbia (BC), Canada, highlighted just how vulnerable communities continue to be…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Lifestyle and environmental factors may induce airway and systemic inflammation in firefighters
Year: 2022
Health status depends on multiple genetic and non-genetic factors. Nonheritable factors (such as lifestyle and environmental factors) have stronger impact on immune responses than genetic factors. Firefighters work is associated with exposure to air pollution and heat stress, as well as: extreme physical effort, mental stress, or a changed circadian rhythm, among others. All these factors can contribute to both, short-term and long-term impairment of the physical and mental health of firefighters. Increased levels of some inflammatory markers, such as pro-inflammatory cytokines or C-reactive…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Minimize the bad days: Wildland fire response and suppression success
Year: 2022
• Effective wildland fire response and suppression are critical for reducing the size of frequent and severe wildfires, thereby reducing the risk of post-fire conversion to invasive annual grass-dominated plant communities. • Wildland firefighter safety and strategic deployment of resources are paramount for timely initial attack to prevent incidents from escalating. • By mobilizing a timely and safe initial response, early detection technologies, strategic networks of fuel breaks, and Rangeland Fire Protection Associations help “minimize the bad days” on the fireline and improve suppression…
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
Cultivating Collaborative Resilience to Social and Ecological Change: An Assessment of Adaptive Capacity, Actions, and Barriers Among Collaborative Forest Restoration Groups in the United States
Year: 2022
Collaboration is increasingly emphasized as a tool to realize national-level policy goals in public lands management. Yet, collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) are nested within traditional bureaucracies and are affected by internal and external disruptions. The extent to which CGRs adapt and remain resilient to these disruptions remains under-explored. Here, we distill insights from an assessment of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) projects and other CGRs. We asked (1) how do CGRs adapt to disruptions? and (2) what barriers constrained CGR resilience? Our…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring relationships between perceived suppression capabilities and resident performance of wildfire mitigations
Year: 2022
Increased wildfire activity has led to renewed interest in enhancing local capacity to reduce wildfire risk in residential areas. Local fire departments (LFDs) are often the first responders to rural wildfires. However, LFDs may also struggle to address service demands in the growing wildland urban interface, including increasing numbers of wildfire incidents and changes in area socio-demographics (e.g., aging populations) or culture (e.g., decreasing volunteerism, new residents). We used a mixed-mode survey (n = 770) to explore rural perceptions of various fire service organizations (FSOs),…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Extreme fire spread events and area burned under recent and future climate in the western USA
Year: 2022
Aim: Wildfire activity in recent years is notable not only for an expansion of total area burned but also for large, single-day fire spread events that pose challenges to ecological systems and human communities. Our objectives were to gain new insight into the relationships between extreme single-day fire spread events, annual area burned, and fire season climate and to predict changes under future warming. Location: Fire-prone regions of the western USA. Time period: 2002–2020; a future +2°C scenario. Methods: We used a satellite-derived dataset of daily fire spread events and gridded…
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
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