Abstract
With the increasing occurrence and severity of wildfires in the U.S., and especially in the forests and rangelands of the western U.S., it is important to know which wildfire information sources are trusted by households and the amount of trust placed on natural resources agencies to manage for wildfire. The Theory of Motivated Reasoning suggests that people will trust and use those information sources that conform to their own value and ideological orientations. Similarly, trust in natural resource agencies’ ability to manage wildfire may also be the result of cultural traits. This study uses Cultural Theory as a theoretical perspective to determine those value systems, and how cultural traits motivate people to use and trust various wildfire information sources and the agencies tasked with managing wildfire. Using random sample surveys of Wildland-Urban-Interface (WUI) households in fire-prone Deschutes County in central Oregon, the study finds that egalitarians are significantly more likely than those with other cultural traits to use and trust natural resource agency information sources, while individualists are more likely to use and trust family members and neighbors for their information. Similarly, egalitarians are trusting of natural resource managers to use prescribed fire, manage naturally ignited fires, and to thin forests to reduce fuels. Individualists are less trusting of government agencies to use the same approaches to reduce fuels. The study concludes with some suggestions for how wildfire policy makers and managers can use these findings to communicate more effectively important wildfire information to audiences with differing cultural traits and differing levels of natural resource agency trust.
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Notes
“What is your age in years?” with an open-ended response option.
“Are you…” with the response options: female, male, other, prefer not to say.
“What is the highest level of education you have completed?” with the response options: 1 = junior high or less, 2 = some high school, 3 = high school or GED, 4 = associates degree, technical school, or some college, 5 = bachelor’s degree, 6 = master’s, doctoral, or professional degree.
“What is your annual household income before taxes?” with the response options: 1 = less than $15,000, 2 = $15,000 to $24,999, 3 = $25,000 to $49,999, 4 = $50,000 to $74,999, 5 = $75,000 to $99,999, 6 = $100,000 or more.
“Wildfire may create concerns for some people. Please indicate how concerned you are about the possible effects of wildfire in central Oregon? Damage to your private property” with the response options: 1 = not a concern, 2 = slight concern, 3 = moderate concern, 4 = great concern.
Survey 2021: “Considering the forests immediately around your home, what is the chance of wildfire of any severity in the next 5 years” with the response option scale of 0 percent to 100 percent; Survey 2023: “We are interested in your perceptions about the future risk of wildfires and the possible need of taking greater action to reduce future wildfires. Please circle the number that indicates the level of risk you perceive for future fires in Central Oregon—Wildfire threat to your residence or property” with the response options: 1 = no risk, 2 = low risk, 3 = moderate risk, 4 = high risk.
Survey 2021: “Within the last five years, have any of the following occurred on your property or nearby public or private lands?” with the response options of “in my neighborhood, 1 = yes, 0 = no.”
Survey 2021: How close is your home in Central Oregon to a wildland area (either forest or rangeland)? With the response options: 1 = live within a wildland area, 2 = adjacent to a wildland area, 3 = between 100 and 300 yards, 4 = more than 300 yards but less than a mile, 5 = between 1 and 3 miles, 6 = more than 3 miles.
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Acknowledgements
The study “Public attitudes toward wildfire: A survey of homeowners in central Oregon” was approved by the Oregon State University’s Institutional Review Board on March 30, 2021 (study number: IRB-2021-1031). Data are available with compliance with Oregon State University Institutional Review Board policy.
Author Contributions
BSS planned and designed the study, conducted the analyses, and helped draft the manuscript. NPL and JCP helped draft the manuscript.
Funding
Funding for this study was provided by the School of Public Policy, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA. The survey was implemented by the Oregon Policy Analysis Laboratory, Oregon State University. The study supports the National Science Foundation (Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems Program) study “Developing adaptive capacity in wildfire-prone regions, ”Grant #1922866.
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Steel, B.S., Lovrich, N.P. & Pierce, J.C. Cultural Theory, Wildfire Information Source, and Agency Public Trust: A Central Oregon Case Study. Environmental Management 73, 579–594 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01909-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01909-7