Sarah M. Mccaffrey

Researchers and practitioners often emphasize the importance of effective community engagement around forest management projects to address possible barriers to implementation related to a lack of social acceptance. Using qualitative methods, we examined a public outreach program to understand the goals and perceptions of those providing and receiv...

Recent large wildfires in the USA have exposed millions of people to smoke, with major implications for health and other social and economic values. Prescribed burning for ecosystem health purposes and hazardous fuel reduction also adds smoke to the atmosphere, in some cases affecting adjacent communities. However, we currently lack an appropriate...

At a fundamental level, smoke from wildland fire is of scientific concern because of its potential adverse effects on human health and social well-being. Although many impacts (e.g., evacuations, property loss) occur primarily in proximity to the actual fire, smoke can end up having a significant social impact far from the source. This dynamic, com...

Managed wildfires, i.e., naturally ignited wildfires that are managed for resource benefits, have the potential to reduce fuel loads, minimize the effects of future wildfires, and restore critical natural processes across many forest landscapes. In the United States, the 2009 federal wildland fire policy guidance was designed to provide greater fle...

Numerous wildfire management agencies and institutions rely primarily on simple risk approaches to wildfire that focus on technical risk assessments that do not reflect the complexity of contemporary wildfire risk. This review paper argues that such insufficiently complex conceptualizations of risk, which do not account for the social and ecologica...

Dangerous wildfire conditions continue to threaten people and ecosystems across the globe and cooperation is critical to meeting the outsized need for increased prescribed burning in wildfire risk reduction work. Despite the benefits of using prescribed fire to mitigate wildfire risks, prescribed fire implementation is still challenging. Collaborat...

There is increasing discussion in the academic and agency literature, as well as popular media, about the need to address the existing deficit of beneficial fire on landscapes. One approach allowable under United States federal wildland fire policy that could help address this condition is by deliberately managing wildfire with a strategy other tha...

Despite the increasing challenges wildfires are posing around the globe, and the flourishing production of high-quality wildfire scientific knowledge, the ability of fire science to impact knowledge on the ground, for people, society, economy, and the environment, in a way that facilitates change in the current wildfire management system has been l...

As wildfires occurring at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) continue to become more severe, there is an increasing need to understand human behavior in these situations, and evacuation decision-making in particular. To contribute to this understanding, an online survey (using both mail and online sampling methods) was disseminated to households im...

The realm of wildland fire science encompasses both wild and prescribed fires. Most of the research in the broader field has focused on wildfires, however, despite the prevalence of prescribed fires and demonstrated need for science to guide its application. We argue that prescribed fire science requires a fundamentally different approach to connec...

Evacuation is the preferred method in the U.S. for preserving public safety in wildfire. However, alternatives such as staying and defending are used both in North America and Australia. Dangerous delays in the decision to evacuate are also common. One contributor to the evacuation decision is attachment to the home, however, little research has ex...

Increasingly, scholars have sought to understand the role of collective action across property boundaries to address natural resource management challenges. Although the growing focus on collective action for natural resource management has led to many new and potentially useful insights for governance and outreach, we suggest that researchers and...

In 2009, new guidance for wildland fire management in the United States expanded the range of strategic options for managers working to reduce the threat of high-severity wildland fire, improve forest health and respond to a changing climate. Markedly, the new guidance provided greater flexibility to manage wildland fires to meet multiple resource...

A significant amount of research has examined what motivates people living in fire-prone areas to mitigate their wildfire risk (i.e. engage in activities that reduce vulnerability and the effects of a wildfire on an individual’s property). However, drawing overarching conclusions from this research is difficult because of the myriad of ways researc...

Strategies for coping with normal wildfires are everywhere inadequate in the case of intense, fast-moving ones and much more in the face of extreme wildfire events. After a detailed analysis of wildfires fatalities, the chapter proposes a new adaptive approach to cope with wildfires and possible actions to be undertaken before, during and after a f...

The failure of the "War on Fire" (WoF) model to address the increasing social impacts of extreme wildfires highlights the need to look for new ways of thinking. Although a range of perspectives have been proposed, none of them considers the full array of challenges that inform outcomes, particularly when considering Extreme Wildfire Events (EWE). I...

There is broad recognition that fire management in the United States must fundamentally change and depart from practices that have led to an over-emphasis on suppression and limited the presence of fire in forested ecosystems. In this paper, we look at competing problem definitions in US Forest Service policy for fire management, the presence of go...

This chapter examines recovery of residents and communities affected by a wildfire disaster by reviewing relevant academic literature. Existing literature shows that residents follow the honeymoon, disillusionment, and reconstruction recovery phases identified in the FEMA/SAMHSA phases of disaster collective reactions model. At the community level,...

The causes of increased wildfire risk and human exposure around the world vary geographically and across socioeconomic gradients as both wildfire risk and potential adverse social outcomes are contingent on the specific local context. Ultimately, there is no consistent explanation for what has led to extreme fire danger in a given location. Therefo...

This research examines how trustworthy wildfire management agencies are perceived to be in five wildfire-prone communities. Trust was most often expressed in the context of agency abilities or competence (calculative trust), whereas distrust was framed in the context of intentions or the belief that the agency is not acting in the best interest of...

Resilience has become a common goal for science-based natural resource management, particularly in the context of changing climate and disturbance regimes. Integrating varying perspectives and definitions of resilience is a complex and often unrecognized challenge to applying resilience concepts to social-ecological systems (SESs) management. Using...

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) requires collaboration through implementation and monitoring, domains where US Forest Service staff have little prior experience to draw on for guidance. Simultaneously, the CFLRP does not change the fundamental authority and responsibility of the agency for implementation on the lands...

This Occasional Paper is the result of a large collaborative effort by fire scientists and practitioners who believe that learning to co-exist with changing fire activity is not only possible but necessary if we, as a global society, are to adapt to climate change and keep our natural and cultural landscapes healthy, resilient, and safe for the nex...

Prescribed fire is an important management tool on US federal lands that is not being applied at the necessary or desired levels. We investigated the role of policy barriers and opportunities for prescribed fire application on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the western United States. We conducted 54 semi-structured intervi...

Wildfires have significant effects on human populations worldwide. Smoke pollution, in particular, from either prescribed burns or uncontrolled wildfires, can have profound health impacts, such as reducing birth weight in children and aggravating respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Scarcity in the measurements of particulate matter responsib...

We are conducting a project investigating policies that limit managers’ ability to conduct prescribed fire on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the 11 Western states. Our primary objectives are to: 1) Identify current perceived policy barriers to implementing prescribed fire and how these vary across the West, and 2) Characte...

Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The con...

The Netherlands has a growing threat of wildfires due to warmer and drier weather patterns. The purpose of this study was to identify public perceptions towards wildland fire preparedness in the forested Veluwe region of the country to aid those managers who would be affected by wildland fires to better plan for and manage fire events. Over 500 sur...

As climate change has contributed to longer fire seasons and populations living in fire-prone ecosystems increase, wildfires have begun to affect a growing number of people. As a result, interest in understanding the wildfire evacuation decision process has increased. Of particular interest is understanding why some people leave early, some choose...

Wildfires have significant effects on human populations, economically, environmentally, and in terms of their general well- being. Smoke pollution, in particular, from either prescribed burns or uncontrolled wildfires, can have significant health impacts. Some estimates suggest that smoke dispersion from fire events may affect the health of one in...

The importance of knowledge transfer between researchers, policy makers and practitioners is widely recognized. However, barriers to knowledge transfer can make it difficult for practitioners to apply the results of scientific research. This paper describes a project that addressed barriers to knowledge transfer by involving wildfire management pra...

This chapter introduces the fact that of the several natural hazards contemporary communities may encounter, the complex interdependencies that exist between people and the forest sources of wildfire hazards make wildfire a unique hazard. It then proceeds to provide an overview of how historical patterns of interdependence between people and forest...

The rising number of acres burned annually and growing number of people living in or adjacent to fire-prone areas in the United States make wildfire management an increasingly complex and challenging problem. Given the prominence of social issues in shaping the current challenges and determining paths forward, it will be important to have an accura...

We studied the relationship between psychological distress and relative resource and risk predictors, including loss of solace from the landscape (solastalgia), one year after the Wallow Fire, in Arizona, United States. Solastalgia refers to the distress caused by damage to the surrounding natural environment and it has not been examined for its re...

This article builds on findings from a synthesis of fire social science research that was published from 2000 to 2010 to understand what has been learned more recently about public response to wildfires. Two notable changes were immediately noted in the fairly substantial number of articles published between 2011 and 2014. First, while over 90 % of...

The Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), established in 2009, encourages collaborative landscape scale ecosystem restoration efforts on United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Although the USFS employees have experience engaging in collaborative planning, CFLRP requires collaboration in implementation, a domain where littl...

The impacts of escalating wildfire in many regions — the lives and homes lost, the expense of suppression and the damage to ecosystem services — necessitate a more sustainable coexistence with wildfire. Climate change and continued development on fire-prone landscapes will only compound current problems. Emerging strategies for managing ecosystems...

The majority of social science research is cross-sectional in nature, with data collected at a single point in time. However, social systems are dynamic and many of the variables of interest to social scientists may change over time. Longitudinal research methods enable data collection at two or more points in time among a population of interest to...

Wildland fire affects both public and private resources throughout the United States. A century of fire suppression has contributed to changing ecological conditions and accumulated fuel loads. Managers have used a variety of approaches to address these conditions and reduce the likelihood of wildland fires that may result in adverse ecological imp...

Within the wildland–urban interface (WUI), wildfire risk contains both individual and collective components. The likelihood that a particular home will be threatened by wildfire in any given year is low, but at a broader scale the likelihood that a home somewhere in the WUI will be threatened is substantially higher. From a risk mitigation perspect...

Fuels reduction decisions are made within a larger context of resource management characterized by multiple objectives including ecosystem restoration, wildlife management, commodity production (from timber to nontraditional forest products), and provision of recreation opportunities and amenity values. Implementation of fuels treatments is strongl...

The communication system through which information flows during a disaster can be conceived of as a set of relationships among sources and recipients who are concerned about key information characteristics. The recipient perspective is often neglected within this system. In this article, we explore recipient perspectives related to what information...

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Recent years have seen growing interest within the United States fire management community in exploring alternatives to the standard approach of evacuating entire populations that are threatened by a wildfire. There has been particular interest in what can be learned from the Australian approach, whereby residents choose whether or not to evacuate...

More than 90% of wildfires are caused by human activity, but other causes include lighting, drought, wind and changing weather conditions, underground coal fires, and even volcanic activity. Wildfire Hazards, Risks, and Disasters, one of nine volumes in the Elsevier Hazards and Disasters series, provides a close and detailed examination of wildfire...

As societies evolve, often the most appropriate response to the hazard must also evolve. However, such shifts in appropriate response to a hazard, whether at the individual or at the societal level, are rarely straightforward: Closing the gap between desired practice and current practice requires effective communication. Although there is a signifi...

This paper examines whether evacuees from two wildfires displayed different information seeking behavior than non-evacuees. Findings are the results of a mail survey sent to residents affected by wildfires outside Flagstaff, Arizona and Boulder, Colorado in 2010. We found evacuees sought information more actively than non-evacuees and placed a grea...

As with other aspects of natural-resource management, the approach to managing wildland fires has evolved over time as scientific understanding has advanced and the broader context surrounding management decisions has changed. Prior to 2000 the primary focus of most fire research was on the physical and ecological aspects of fire; social science re...

We leverage economic theory, network theory, and social network analytical techniques to bring greater conceptual and methodological rigor to understand how information is exchanged during disasters. We ask, “How can information relationships be evaluated more systematically during a disaster response?” “Infocentric analysis”—a term and approach we...

With the focus of the National Fire Plan on decreasing fire risk in the wildland-urban interface, fire managers are increasingly tasked with reducing the fuel load in areas where mixed public and private ownership and a growing number of homes can make most fuel reduction methods problematic at best. In many of these intermix areas, use of prescrib...

The use of woody biomass is being promoted across the United States as a means of increasing energy independence, mitigating climate change, and reducing the cost of hazardous fuels reduction treatments and forest restoration projects. The opportunities and challenges for woody biomass use on the national forest system are unique. In addition to ma...

As part of a Joint Fire Science Program project, a team of social scientists reviewed existing fire social science literature to develop a targeted synthesis of scientific knowledge on the following questions: 1. What is the public’s understanding of fire’s role in the ecosystem? 2. Who are trusted sources of information about fire? 3. What are the...

Conventional wisdom within American federal fire management agencies suggests that external influence such as community or political pressure for aggressive suppression are key factors circumscribing the ability to execute less aggressive fire management strategies. Thus, a better understanding of external constraints on fire management options is...

In recent years, altered forest conditions, climate change, and the increasing numbers of homes built in fire prone areas has meant that wildfires are affecting more people. An important part of minimizing the potential negative impacts of wildfire is engaging homeowners in mitigating the fire hazard on their land. It is therefore important to unde...

The appeal of biomass utilization grows as the need for wildfire risk reduction, economic development, and renewable energy generation becomes more pressing. However, uncertainty exists regarding the factors necessary to stimulate use. We draw on in-depth interviews with local industry, agency, community, and tribal representatives from 10 study si...

Fuel management decisions are made within a larger context of resource management characterized by multiple objectives including ecosystem restoration, wildlife management, commodity production (from timber to less traditional forest products), and provision of recreation opportunities and amenity values. Implementation of fuel treatments is strong...

Wildland fires and resulting effects have increased in recent years. Efforts are under way nationwide to proactively manage vegetative conditions to reduce the threat of wildland fires. Public support is critical to the successful implementation of fuels reduction programs, particularly at the wildland–urban interface. This study examines public ac...

Wildfire evacuations are inherently stressful and homeowners have reported in previous studies that uncertainty over what is happening is perhaps one of the most stressful aspects. Although many difficult elements of evacuation cannot be mitigated and lives will certainly be disrupted, fire-management agencies can significantly reduce residents' un...

Many of the common descriptions of public opinion of fire management, such as“Smokey taught the public to think that all fire is bad,” are based on conventional wisdom – an accepted truth or a story that has been repeated so frequently it is accepted as fact. In reality, such conventional wisdoms may or may not be an accurate reflection of public o...

Recently enacted federal and state policies provide incentives, including financial assistance, for local jurisdictions to manage risks associated with wildland fire. This has led to an array of local-level policies designed to encourage homeowners to create fire-safe landscapes. This qualitative study collected data from focus group interviews wit...

The idea of offsetting the costs of wildfire hazardous fuels reduction treatments by selling the biomass removed is appealing. There are however challenges to biomass utilization that impedes progress. For instance, the lack of biomass processing capacity may impede progress in some regions, while in other regions an inconsistent supply of biomass...

In the United States, the increasing costs and negative impacts of wildfires are causing fire managers and policymakers to reexamine traditional approaches to fire management including whether mass evacuation of populations threatened by wildfire is always the most appropriate option. This article examines the Australian “stay and defend or leave e...

Relative to the western United States, where fire and fuel management programs have received greater emphasis, few community-based studies have focused on the Great Lakes region. The present paper describes public opinion research from counties surrounding National Forests in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. Survey data address citizen perspectiv...

The prevalence of large wildfires has increased in recent years. In many cases, agency personnel have little prior experience to draw from to organize their postfire response to uncharacteristically large events. However, local residents look to resource managers to provide the necessary leadership to work through these difficult decisions. In part...

Land managers need timely and straightforward access to the best scientific information available for informing decisions on how to treat forest fuels in the dry forests of the western United States. However, although there is a tremendous amount of information available for informing fuels management decisions, often, it is in a form that is diffi...

A century of fire suppression has created heavy fuel loads in many U.S. forests, leading to increasingly intense wildfires. Addressing this problem will require widespread fuels treatments, yet fuels treatment planners do not always have access to the current scientific information that can help guide their planning process. The Fuels Planning: Sci...

Signifi cant advances in social science-based wildfi re research have occurred in the past fi ve years. Managers, policy makers, and researchers have worked to better understand the perspectives of homeowners, residents, tourists, and recreationists on fi re and fuels management and how to better involve them in the planning process. This research...