Social and Community Impacts of Fire

Recent literature suggests that natural disasters such as wildfires often have the short-term effect of ‘‘bringing people together’’ while also under some circumstances generating social conflict at the local level. Conflict has been documented particularly when social relations are disembedded by nonlocal entities and there is a perceived loss of local agency.

Wildfire represents a serious challenge to communities in the rural West. After decades of fire suppression, land managers now perceive a greater role for wildfire in the ecosystem.

This annotated bibliography is collected from professional journals in natural resource management and sociology, conference proceedings, and technical reports.