David Flores’s research while affiliated with Wageningen University & Research and other places

Background As fire regimes are changing and wildfire disasters are becoming more frequent, the term megafire is increasingly used to describe impactful wildfires, under multiple meanings, both in academia and popular media. This has resulted in a highly ambiguous concept. Approach We analysed the use of the term ‘megafire’ in popular media to determine its origin, its developments over time, and its meaning in the public sphere. We subsequently discuss how relative the term ‘mega’ is, and put this in the context of an analysis of Portuguese and global data on fire size distribution. Results We found that ‘megafire’ originated in the popular news media over 20 years before it appeared in science. Megafire is used in a diversity of languages, considers landscape fires as well as urban fires, and has a variety of meanings in addition to size. What constitutes ‘mega’ is relative and highly context‐dependent in space and time, given variation in landscape, climate, and anthropogenic controls, and as revealed in examples from the Netherlands, Portugal and the Global Fire Atlas. Moreover, fire size does not equate to fire impact. Conclusion Given the diverse meanings of megafire in the popular media, we argue that redefining megafire in science potentially leads to greater disparity between science and practice. Megafire is widely used as an emotive term that is best left for popular media. For those wanting to use it in science, what constitutes a megafire should be defined by the context in which it is used, not by a metric of one‐size‐fits‐all.

Increasing wildfire activity, decreasing workforce capacity, and growing systemic strain may result in an interagency wildfire-response system less capable of protecting landscapes and communities. Further, increased workloads will likely increase hazards to fire personnel and amplify existing problems with recruitment and retention. In the face of elevated risks and degraded capacity, it is imperative that the wildfire-response system operate efficiently. Viable solutions are urgently needed that enable the system to do more with less and that manage not only for landscapes and communities but also the health and wellbeing of the fire personnel on whom the system relies. Achieving this will likely require rethinking how the interagency wildfire-response system can more adaptively and intelligently deploy fire personnel by leveraging enhanced logistics, operations, and proven fire analytics. Study Implications: As society grapples with increasing wildfire damage to landscapes and communities, the capacity of the interagency system in the USA designed to protect landscapes and communities from wildfires is degrading. A stressed system will be less capable of protecting life, property, and resources, and increased workloads will likely increase hazards to fire personnel and amplify existing problems with recruitment and retention. We argue that solutions are attainable through increased attention to performance and through more anticipatory, adaptive, and intelligent deployment of fire personnel across fire incidents and around the country.

In 2016, the US Forest Service initiated small-group safety discussions among members of its wildland firefighting organisation. Known as the Life First National Engagement Sessions, the discussions presented an opportunity for wildland firefighters to address systemic and cultural dysfunctions in the wildland fire system. The Life First initiative included a post-engagement survey in which more than 2600 Forest Service employees provided open-ended feedback. In that qualitative subset of results, survey respondents described four main situations in which wildland firefighters commonly accepted unnecessary exposure to risk, related to driving, mop up, aviation and communication. Findings reveal how firefighters experienced social, political and economic pressures upon and within the wildland fire system. They shared that these perceived pressures and their mission-oriented work culture interacted, transforming otherwise unremarkable work operations into situations of unnecessary exposure to risk.