Communicating about Fire

Weather forecasts can help identify environmental conditions conducive to prescribed burning or to increased fire danger. These conditions are important components of fire management tools such as fire ignition potential maps, fire danger rating systems, fire behavior predictions, and smoke dispersion modeling.

Large, intense wildland fires have become more frequent across the United States in recent decades. Risks to responders and citizens, property losses, response and recovery costs, and threats to communities and landscapes have increased significantly as a result.

Federal fire management plans are essential implementation guides for the management of wildland fire on federal lands. Recent changes in federal fire policy implementation guidance and fire science information suggest the need for substantial changes in federal fire management plans of the United States.

Communication networks among responders are critical to effective coordination and information transfer across agencies active in a disaster response.

This planning guide is the outcome of an international collaboration of researchers and practitioners/field managers working in communities at risk of wildfire in three countries. Initially, the team of social scientists from Australia, Canada, and the United States utilized the collective research literature to examine factors that influence stakeholder trust.

The Dry Forest Zone (DFZ) is a five-year project to address common natural resource-based economic development challenges through increased networking and capacity building at a regional scale.

Fire-prone landscapes are not well studied as coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) and present many challengesfor understanding and promoting adaptive behaviors and institutions. Here, we explore how heterogeneity, feedbacks, and externaldrivers in this type of natural hazard system can lead to complexity and can limit the development of more adaptive approaches topolicy and management.

With more people than ever living in the vicinity of the wildland-urban interface, communicating wildland fire management activities and building trust with the public is paramount for safety.