Research Database
Displaying 21 - 40 of 132
Preventing Human-Caused Wildfire Ignitions on Public Lands: A Review of Best Practices
Year: 2025
Effective interventions to prevent human-caused ignitions on public lands play a critical role in social and ecological adaption to wildfire. While wildfire prevention spending generates a high return on investment, funding and capacity to support such programing within federal, state, and local land and fire management agencies remains limited. One avenue for ensuring that available funding and staffing for prevention is used to strategically maximize impact is the documentation of best practices, grounded in empirical data, that can provide indicators for effective intervention with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mental health risk for wildland firefighters: a review and future directions
Year: 2025
Wildland fire is increasingly a consequence of the climate crisis, with growing impacts on communities and individuals. Wildland firefighters are critical to the successful management of wildland fire, yet very limited research has considered mental health in this population. Although a wealth of research in mental health risk and associated risk and protective factors exists for structural firefighters, unique demands of wildland firefighting such as the seasonal nature of work, the length and intensity of shifts, and the often geographically isolated working conditions, among other factors…
Publication Type: Journal Article
COVID‐19 Fueled an Elevated Number of Human‐Caused Ignitions in the Western United States During the 2020 Wildfire Season
Year: 2025
The area burned in the western United States during the 2020 fire season was the greatest in the modern era. Here we show that the number of human-caused fires in 2020 also was elevated, nearly 20% higher than the 1992–2019 average. Although anomalously dry conditions enabled ignitions to spread and contributed to record area burned, these conditions alone do not explain the surge in the number of human-caused ignitions. We argue that behavioral shifts aimed at curtailing the spread of COVID-19 altered human-environment interactions to favor increased ignitions. For example, the number of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring Wildfire Preparedness, Perceptions, and Responses in Western Canada: Insights from Valemount, British Columbia
Year: 2025
Climate change and decades of fire suppression are increasing the risk of wildfire in many rural and remote communities across Canada. Yet limited research has been done to better understand how these communities experience wildfire risk. For this research, conducted prior to the catastrophic wildfire season of 2023 in British Columbia, we interviewed 20 key informants living in the village of Valemount in the Robson Valley, British Columbia, about their perceptions of wildfire risk, lived experiences, and management approaches. We further explored barriers to and opportunities for future…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Spatiotemporal Synchrony of Climate and Fire Occurrence Across North American Forests (1750–1880)
Year: 2025
Aim: Increasing aridity has driven widespread synchronous fire occurrence in recent decades across North America. The lack of historical (pre-1880) fire records limits our ability to understand long-term continental fire-climate dynamics. The goal of this study is to use tree-ring reconstructions to determine the relationships between spatiotemporal patterns in historical climate and widespread fire occurrence in North American forests, and whether they are stable through time. This information will address a major knowledge gap required to inform projections of future fire.Location: North…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Insights into how Community Wildfire Protection Plans act as drivers of wildfire preparedness
Year: 2025
Wildfire poses an increasing threat to communities in the Western US, driven by climate change and rising human settlement in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). It is imperative that communities in fire-prone areas become “fire-adapted” to safely manage their risk. Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) constitute an approach by the federal government to enable communities to collaboratively plan for, and adapt to, wildfire. How well these plans have enabled at-risk rural Colorado communities to become “fire-adapted” since their development is still debated. Through interviews with key…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Trajectories of community fire adaptation: Social diversity, social fragmentation and the temporal evolution of wildfire action
Year: 2025
There is increasing acknowledgement that the unique characteristics (i.e., social contexts) of human communities influence variable means for adapting to the growing risks posed by wildland fire. However, there has been less work documenting how community social contexts evolve over time, and the ways they might influence collective mitigations pursued in partnership with professionals when addressing wildfire planning. We conducted 73 semi-structured interviews with 112 residents, emergency management professionals, government officials and members of community organizations in two Nevada…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Review of thermal behaviour of firebrands and their role in fuel bed and structure ignition
Year: 2025
Firebrands or embers are a crucial phenomenon in wildfire behaviour. Firebrands – small, burning or smouldering pieces of wood or other flammable materials – can be carried by wind considerable distances, leading to ignition of new fires ahead of the main fire front. This process, called spotting, significantly contributes to the rapid spread of fires, particularly in wildland–urban interface (WUI) areas. Spot fires pose a severe threat to people and properties. Better understanding the thermal behaviour of firebrands and their ability to ignite various natural fuel beds and structural…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Outcome efficacy and responsibility as correlates of household wildfire adaptation action in Boulder, CO
Year: 2025
Growing wildfire risks are increasing losses and damages to wildland-urban interface households in the American West. In Colorado, the December 2021 Marshall Fire destroyed over 1000 suburban homes and became the most destructive fire in the state's history and the 10th costliest in US history. Fortunately, homeowner adaptation action can play a significant role in preventing structural damage or loss that can come from a wildfire. Yet, action is more effective when coordinated across a community, since the nature of wildfire as a hazard means that one homeowner's wildfire risk is informed…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Understanding rural adaptation to smoke from wildfires and forest management: insights for aligning approaches with community contexts
Year: 2025
Background: Rural communities are increasingly impacted by smoke produced by wildfires and forest management activties. Understanding local influences on smoke adaptation and mitigation is critical to social adaptation as fire risk continues to rise.Aims: We sought to determine the role of local social context in smoke adaptation and gauge interest in adaptation strategies that might reduce exposure.Methods: We conducted 46 semi-structured interviews with 56 residents and professionals in Parks, Arizona, USA, a rural community adjacent to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fine Particulate Matter From 2020 California Wildfires and Mental Health–Related Emergency Department Visits
Year: 2025
Importance: A growing body of research suggests that exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5; particle size 2.5 microns or smaller) may be associated with mental health outcomes. However, the potential impact of wildfire-specific PM2.5 exposure on mental health remains underexplored.Objective: To investigate whether wildfire-specific PM2.5 exposure may be associated with emergency department (ED) visits for mental health conditions, including all-cause and for psychoactive substance use, nonmood psychotic disorders, anxiety, depression, and other mood-affective disorders during the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire branding: Why do new residents make a burn scar their home?
Year: 2024
Researchers have sought to understand why wildland urban interface areas continue to expand in the United States despite increasing riskand loss to those areas. Using the case of the Camp Fire in northern California, which destroyed the town of Paradise and surrounding communities in the fall of 2018, this article explores how new arrivals to this area interact with rebuild institutions to evaluate their risk of future wildfires. The paper builds off of concepts of “disaster machine” (Pais and Elliott in Soc Forces 86(4):1415–1453, 2008) and “resilience gentrification” (Gould and Lewis, 2021…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Informing proactive wildfire management that benefits vulnerable communities and ecological values
Year: 2024
- 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…
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
Limited availability of health risk communication related to community smoke exposure from prescribed burns in the United States: a review
Year: 2024
Prescribed burns are used to maintain wildland ecosystems and decrease fuel loads and associated wildfire hazard. Prescribed burns may produce enough smoke to cause adverse health outcomes. The aim of this review is to understand what communication materials exist for disseminating health risk information related to prescribed burn smoke and challenges to developing such communication. We examined United States peer-reviewed literature from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases and conducted an environmental scan of grey literature including materials from federal, and several US state…
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