Social and Community Impacts of Fire

Concerns about forest health and the threat of wildfire across the Western United States increasingly provide the impetus for communities to find land management solutions that serve multiple interests. Funding and procedural changes over the past decade have positioned federal agencies to put greater emphasis on multistakeholder partnerships and public outreach efforts.

On the order of Congress, the federal land and fire management agencies are collaboratively developing a “National Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy” (Cohesive Strategy).

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.

The increasing frequency and size of wildfires across the U.S. motivates the growing need to identify how affected communities can rebuild sustainably and resiliently. This study examines the jurisdictional decision-making process surrounding one important class of sustainability and resiliency decisions, focusing on energy and wildfire building codes for housing reconstruction.