Research Database
Displaying 61 - 72 of 72
Building community-agency trust in fire affected communities in Australia and the United States
Year: 2013
As a result of the increasing environmental and social costs of wildfire, fire management agencies face ever-growing complexity in their management decisions and interactions with the public. The success of these interactions with community members may be facilitated through building community–agency trust in the process of providing public input opportunities and community engagement and education activities. Without trust, the public may become frustrated in their interactions with the agency and withhold support for management decisions. This study takes a comparative case approach using…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mapping multiple forest threats in the northwestern United States
Year: 2013
US forestlands are increasingly subject to disturbances including wildfire, insects and disease, and urban and exurban development. Devising strategies for addressing these “forest threats“ depends on anticipating where individual disturbances are most likely and where they might occur in combination. However, many spatial data sets describing forest threats are produced at fine scales but are intended only for coarse-scale planning and policy purposes. We demonstrate one way to combine and display forest threat data at their appropriate spatial scales, using spatial data characterizing…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Living in a tinderbox: wildfire risk perceptions and mitigating behaviors
Year: 2013
The loss of homes to wildfires is an important issue in the USA and other countries. Yet many homeowners living in fire-prone areas do not undertake mitigating actions, such as clearing vegetation, to decrease the risk of losing their home. To better understand the complexity of wildfire risk-mitigation decisions and the role of perceived risk, we conducted a survey of homeowners in a fire-prone area of the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. We examine the relationship between perceived wildfire risk ratings and risk-mitigating behaviours in two ways. First, we model wildfire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Comparative Hazard Assessment for Protected Species in a Fire-Prone Landscape
Year: 2012
We conducted a comparative hazard assessment for 325,000 ha in a fire-prone area of southwest Oregon, USA. The landscape contains a variety of land ownerships, fire regimes, and management strategies. Our comparative hazard assessment evaluated the effects of two management strategies on crown fire potential and northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) conservation: (1) no action, and (2) active manipulation of hazardous fuels. Model simulations indicated that active management of sites with high fire hazard was more favorable to spotted owl conservation over the long term (75 years…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Communication of the Role of Natural Variability in Future North American Climate
Year: 2012
As climate models improve, decision-makers' expectations for accurate climate predictions are growing. Natural climate variability, however, poses inherent limits to climate predictability and the related goal of adaptation guidance in many places, as illustrated here for North America. Other locations with low natural variability show a more predictable future in which anthropogenic forcing can be more readily identified, even on small scales. We call for a more focused dialogue between scientists, policymakers and the public to improve communication and avoid raising expectations for…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Risk and cooperation: managing hazardous fuel in mixed ownership landscapes
Year: 2012
Managing natural processes at the landscape scale to promote forest health is important, especially in the case of wildfire, where the ability of a landowner to protect his or her individual parcel is constrained by conditions on neighboring ownerships. However, management at a landscape scale is also challenging because it requires cooperation on plans and actions that cross ownership boundaries. Cooperation depends on people's beliefs and norms about reciprocity and perceptions of the risks and benefits of interacting with others. Using logistic regression tests on mail survey data and…
Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Importance of Framing for Communicating Risk and Managing Forest Health
Year: 2012
Despite the importance of effective communication about forest and fuel management, little is known about how best to frame information to facilitate public understanding and increase support. The results presented here indicate that framing a fuel management plan as necessary to restore "lost" forest health (as opposed to maintaining or improving forest health) will increase the willingness of individuals to support options that pose some likelihood of failure (i.e. risk). Strategic framing of communication for public audiences is necessary because of the common biases in judgment that can…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Nontribal community recovery from wildfire five years later: The case of the Rodeo-Chediski fire
Year: 2011
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. There is less agreement about longer term impacts. We present results of a re-study of a set of communities affected by the largest wildfire in Arizona history. The re-study uses structuration theory to suggest that while local…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public and Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?
Year: 2010
Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’’—capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Citizen-Agency Interactions in Planning and Decisionmaking After Large Fires
Year: 2007
This report reviews the growing literature on the concept of agency-citizen interactions after large wildfires. Because large wildfires have historically occurred at irregular intervals, research from related fields has been reviewed where appropriate. This issue is particularly salient in the West where excess fuel conditions indicate that the large wildfires occurring in many states are expected to continue to be a major problem for forest managers in the coming years. This review focuses on five major themes that emerge from prior research: contextual considerations, barriers and obstacles…
Publication Type: Government Report
A Practical Guide To Citizen-Agency Partnerships: Public Outreach Strategies for Fire and Fuel Management
Year: 2005
This Practical Guide is a companion to the video program Communication Strategies for Fire Management: Creating Effective Citizen-Agency Partnerships. The video is designed to assist land management personnel in working collaboratively with citizens for community fire and fuel reduction strategies. The DVD uses real world examples from successful agency communication programs to highlight effective approaches. It examines essential attributes for developing partnerships and offers a set of organizing principles to initiate an outreach strategy or to improve an existing one. This guide goes…
Publication Type: Report
Forest structure and fire hazard in dry forests of the Western United States
Year: 2005
Fire, in conjunction with landforms and climate, shapes the structure and function of forests throughout the Western United States, where millions of acres of forest lands contain accumulations of flammable fuel that are much higher than historical conditions owing to various forms of fire exclusion. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act mandates that public land managers assertively address this situation through active management of fuel and vegetation. This document synthesizes the relevant scientific knowledge that can assist fuel-treatment projects on national forests and other public…
Publication Type: Report