- In response to mounting wildfire risks, land managers across the country will need to dramatically increase proactive wildfire management (e.g. fuel and forest health treatments). While human communities vary widely in their vulnerability to the impacts of fire, these discrepancies have rarely informed prioritizations for wildfire mitigation treatments. The ecological values and ecosystem services provided by forests have also typically been secondary considerations.
- To identify locations across the conterminous US where proactive wildfire management is likely to be effective…
Research Database
Displaying 21 - 40 of 97
Informing proactive wildfire management that benefits vulnerable communities and ecological values
Year: 2024
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring How Community Context Informs Variations in Local Perceptions of Forest Disturbance and Land Management in Colorado Over Time
Year: 2024
Placed-based socio-economic and biophysical context has been viewed as an essential driver in shaping perceptions of forest risks and land management. Growing evidence of the importance of diverse community context in forested landscapes sets the stage to further consider how people’s understandings of their local environment influence natural resource management preferences. However, research to date largely lacks considerations of how community context informs social responses to long-term environmental change over time. Using the mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreak in Colorado, we analyze…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Indigenous Fire Data Sovereignty: Applying Indigenous Data Sovereignty Principles to Fire Research
Year: 2024
Indigenous Peoples have been stewarding lands with fire for ecosystem improvement since time immemorial. These stewardship practices are part and parcel of the ways in which Indigenous Peoples have long recorded and protected knowledge through our cultural transmission practices, such as oral histories. In short, our Peoples have always been data gatherers, and as this article presents, we are also fire data gatherers and stewards. Given the growing interest in fire research with Indigenous communities, there is an opportunity for guidance on data collection conducted equitably and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evacuation decisions of tourists in wildfire scenarios
Year: 2024
This paper investigates the factors affecting evacuation behaviour of tourists in wildfire scenarios by conducting a scoping review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis approach - here using only its extension for scoping reviews. A total of 524 scientific papers were identified in the Web of Science and Scopus and 23 studies were fully reviewed. Key variables affecting the evacuation behaviour of tourists included property attachment, past experience and preparedness, safety culture, risk perception, individual and group socio-demographics, interaction…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evidence of increasing wildfire damage with decreasing property price in Southern California fires
Year: 2024
Across the Western United States, human development into the wildland urban interface (WUI) is contributing to increasing wildfire damage. Given that natural disasters often cause greater harm within socio-economically vulnerable groups, research is needed to explore the potential for disproportionate impacts associated with wildfire. Using Zillow Transaction and Assessment Database (ZTRAX), hereafter “Zillow”, real estate data, we explored whether lower-priced structures were more likely to be damaged during the most destructive, recent wildfires in Southern California. Within fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
External drivers of changes in wildland firefighter safety policies and practices
Year: 2024
Background: Firefighter safety is a top priority in wildland fire response and management. Existing explanations emphasise how land management agency initiatives to change organisational culture, usually inspired by fatality incidents, contribute to changes both in formal safety policies and informal safety practices. Aims: This paper identifies external factors that lead to changes in wildland firefighter safety policies and practices. Methods: This paper uses qualitative data from a long-term ethnographic research project. Data include…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Improving social resilience to forest fire from community perspective
Year: 2024
Recently, terms like social and community resilience have provided new ideas in reducing disaster risks especially in forest fire. However, a comprehensive and in-depth review of community social resilience concerning forest fires is lacking. There is little research investigate whether certain social or community resilience factors can initiate forest fires or whether forest fire prevention positively be influenced by them. To fill this gap, this paper aims to identify and discuss the factors influencing the occurrence of forest fires in the scope of community social resilience. It also…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Spatial and temporal analysis of vulnerability disparity of minorities to wildfires in California
Year: 2024
Wildfires typically have devastating impacts on communities, both in urban and rural areas, resulting in property loss, psychological distress, physical injuries, and loss of life. A notable gap in the literature is the spatial and temporal disproportionate impact of wildfires on underrepresented communities. This lack of attention is concerning, as these underrepresented populations are likely to be more vulnerable to the devastating consequences of wildfire disasters, exacerbating pre-existing social, economic, and environmental disparities. This study aims to address this gap by conducting…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring spatial heterogeneity in synergistic effects of compound climate hazards: Extreme heat and wildfire smoke on cardiorespiratory hospitalizations in California
Year: 2024
Extreme heat and wildfire smoke events are increasingly co-occurring in the context of climate change, especially in California. Extreme heat and wildfire smoke may have synergistic effects on population health that vary over space. We leveraged high-resolution satellite and monitoring data to quantify spatially varying compound exposures to extreme heat and wildfire smoke in California (2006–2019) at ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level. We found synergistic effects between extreme heat and wildfire smoke on daily cardiorespiratory hospitalizations at the state level. We also found spatial…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Assessing Conservation Readiness: The Where, Who, and How of Strategic Conservation in the Sagebrush Biome
Year: 2024
The sagebrush biome is rapidly deteriorating largely due to the ecosystem threats of conifer expansion, more frequent and larger wildfires, and proliferation of invasive annual grasses. Reversing the impacts of these threats is a formidable challenge. The Sagebrush Conservation Design (SCD) emphasized that limited conservation resources should first be used to maintain Core Sagebrush Areas (CSA), and then to grow such areas where possible. The SCD heightens the ecological importance of maintaining and strategically growing CSAs. However, the fact that these areas have been identified does not…
Publication Type: Journal Article
How bureaucracies interact with Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS): a conceptual framework
Year: 2024
BackgroundIndigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS) is contested within settler-colonial contexts, where its development is shaped by complex and dynamic socio-cultural, legal, and political factors. This manuscript draws from the policy sciences to sketch out a “zone of interaction” between IFS and the state’s wildfire policy system. Drawing from the strategies of bureaucracies, our goal is to illustrate the patterns in this “zone of interaction,” and to identify the implications for IFS, as well as for Indigenous Peoples and landscapes.ResultsDrawing insights from the Australian and Canadian…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The influence of wildfire risk reduction programs and practices on recreation visitation
Year: 2024
Background: The increasing extent and severity of uncharacteristic wildfire has prompted numerous policies and programs promoting landscape-scale fuels reduction. Aims: We used novel data sources to measure how recreation was influenced by fuels reduction efforts under the US Forest Service Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) Program. Methods: We used posts to four social media platforms to estimate the number of social media user-days within CFLR landscapes and asked: (1) did visitation within CFLR Program landscapes between…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Coexisting with wildfire: strengthening collective capacity by changing the status quo
Year: 2024
This article is the fuller written version of the invited closing plenary given by the author at the 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. The article provides a consideration of our capacity to cope, care, and coexist in a fiery world from a social and structural point of view. It focuses on privilege as the root cause of a long and troublesome history within the wildfire profession of not valuing all generational knowledge equally, not treating all cultures with the same respect, not embracing diversity and inclusion, and not affording the same status to all…
Publication Type: Conference Proceedings
Socially vulnerable US Pacific Northwest communities are more likely to experience wildfires
Year: 2024
Quantitative wildfire risk assessments increasingly are used to prioritize areas for investments in wildfire risk mitigation actions. However, current assessments of wildfire risk derived from fire models built primarily on biophysical data do not account for socioeconomic contexts that influence community vulnerability to wildfire. Research indicates that despite accounting for only a small proportion of high wildfire hazard areas, communities with fewer socioeconomic resources to devote to wildfire prevention and response may experience outsized exposure and impacts. We examined the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Occupational and environmental factors influencing morale of United States federal wildland firefighters
Year: 2023
Background
Wildland firefighters have physically and psychologically demanding jobs that can result in social, economic and health-related stress. Previous studies have examined the physiological and physical effects of a career in wildland fire, but fewer studies have addressed psychological effects, and to date, none have directly analysed the hiring and work experiences of wildland firefighters.
Aims
We surveyed work experiences, health and well-being, and morale of wildland firefighters, explored factors that can improve recruitment and retention, and summarised broad patterns.…
Fuels and Fuel Treatments, Public Perceptions of Fire and Smoke, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Making choices: prioritising the protection of biodiversity in wildfires
Year: 2023
Biodiversity is in chronic decline, and extreme events – such as wildfires – can add further episodes of acute losses. Fires of increasing magnitude will often overwhelm response capacity, and decision-makers need to make choices about what to protect. Conventionally, such choices prioritise human life then infrastructure then biodiversity. Based on shortcomings revealed in the 2019–20 Australian wildfires, we propose a series of linked steps that can be used to identify and prioritise biodiversity assets (including their priority relative to other types of assets), enhance and implement…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire-driven animal evolution in the Pyrocene
Year: 2023
Fire regimes are a major agent of evolution in terrestrial animals. Changing fire regimes and the capacity for rapid evolution in wild animal populations suggests the potential for rapid, fire-driven adaptive animal evolution in the Pyrocene. Fire drives multiple modes of evolutionary change, including stabilizing, directional, disruptive, and fluctuating selection, and can strongly influence gene flow and genetic drift. Ongoing and future research in fire-driven animal evolution will benefit from further development of generalizable hypotheses, studies conducted in highly responsive taxa,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Lizards' response to the sound of fire is modified by fire history
Year: 2023
Highlights • Lizards surviving wildfires are more alert to fire sound than those in unburned areas. • Lizards living in urban areas reacted to fire sound similarly to wildfire survivors. • Both natural and human-driven disturbances can shape the behaviour of animals. • Fires are likely to be an important selective pressure on animal behaviour. Many animals survive wildfires; however, the mechanisms used to detect and respond to fire have been poorly studied. Sensory cues like sight and sound are used to recognize threats (e.g. predators) and elicit escape responses in prey. Similarly, these…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A firebreak placement model for optimizing biodiversity protection at landscape scale
Year: 2023
A solution approach is proposed to optimize the selection of landscape cells for inclusion in firebreaks. It involves linking spatially explicit information on a landscape’s ecological values, historical ignition patterns and fire spread behavior. A firebreak placement optimization model is formulated that captures the tradeoff between the direct loss of biodiversity due to the elimination of vegetation in areas designated for placement of firebreaks and the protection provided by the firebreaks from losses due to future forest fires. The optimal solution generated by the model reduced…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Acorn woodpecker movements and social networks change with wildfire smoke
Year: 2023
Climate change has contributed to increased wildfires. Wildfire smoke exposes wildlife to hazards and mortality from particulate matter on a scale larger than the area impacted by fire. Using automated radiotelemetry, we illustrate how smoky conditions are associated with changes in behavior of acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus), a…
Publication Type: Journal Article