Abstract
Public concern over the consequences of forest fire to wildland interface communities has led to increased resources devoted to fire suppression, fuel treatment, and management of fire events. The social consequences of the decisions involved in these and other fire-related actions are largely unknown, except in an anecdotal sense, but do occur at a variety of temporal and social organizational scales. These consequences are not limited to the fire event itself. Preparation for the possibility of a fire, actions that suppression agencies take during a fire, and postfire decisions all have consequences, if unknown currently. This article presents an “event-based” approach that can be useful for constructing and systematizing discussion about the consequences of wildland fire to human communities. For each of the three major periods within this approach, agencies, communities, and individuals make decisions and take actions that have consequences. The article presents an integrated, temporally based process for examining these consequences, which is similar to others developed in the natural hazards and disaster management literature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Here we define “community” in spatial terms.
Literature Cited
Arno S. F., S. Allison-Bunnell. 2002. Flames in our forest: Disaster or renewal? Island Press, Washington, D.C., 227 p
Arno S. F., C. E. Fiedler. 2005. Mimicking nature’s fire: Restoring fire-prone forests in the West. Island Press, Washington D.C., 243 p
Bonnicksen T. M., R. G. Lee. 1979. Persistence of a fire exclusion policy in southern California: A biosocial interpretation. Journal of Environmental Management 8:277–293
Burchfield, J. A., T. A. Miller, and L. P. Queen. 2002. Investigation of geospatial support of incident management. The University of Montana, National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, Missoula, MT
Burns, M. R., J. G. Taylor, and J. T. Hogan. 2004. Integrative healing: The importance of collaboration efforts in post-fire community recovery. Paper presented at workshop on wildfire and fuels management: Risk and human reaction. Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1–3 December 2004
Butry D. T., D. E. Mercer, J. P. Prestemon, J. M. Pye, T. P. Holmes. 2001. What is the price of catastrophic wildfire? Journal of Forestry 99(11):9–17
Carroll M. S., P. J. Cohn, D. N. Seesholtz, L. Higgins. 2005. Fire as a galvanizing and fragmenting influence on communities: The case of the Rodeo-Chediski Fire. Society and Natural Resources. 18(4):301–320
Carroll, M. S., A. J. Findley, K. A. Blatner, S. R. Mendes, S. E. Daniels, and G. B. Walker. 2000. Social assessment for the Wenatchee National Forest wildfires of 1994 targeted analysis for the Leavenworth, Entiat, and Chelan Ranger Districts. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland, Oregon, 114 pp
Cohen, J. D. 1999. Reducing the wildland fire threat to homes: Where and how much? Pages 189–195 in Proceedings of the Symposium on Fire Economics, Planning and Policy: Bottom Lines. General Technical Report PSW-GTR-173. USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, Ogden, Utah
Cohen J. D. 2000. Preventing disaster: Home ignitability in the wildland urban interface. Journal of Forestry 98(3):15–21
Coombs W. T. 1999. Ongoing crisis communication, planning, managing, and responding. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California, 192 p
Cortner H. J., R. D. Gale. 1990. People, fire, and wildland environments: Population and Environment. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 11(4): 245–257
Couch S. R., J. S. Kroll-Smith. 1985. The chronic technical disaster: Toward a social scientific perspective. Social Science Quarterly. 66(3):564–575
Daniel, T. C., E. Weidmann, and D. Hines. 2002. Assessing public trade-offs between fire hazard and scenic beauty in the wildland–urban interface. Pages 36–44 in Homeowners, communities, and wildfire: Science findings from the national fire plan. General Technical Report NC-231. USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station, St. Paul, Minnesota
Daniels S. E., G. B. Walker, M. S. Carroll, K. A. Blatner. 1996. Using collaborative learning in fire recovery planning. Journal of Forestry 94(8): 4–9
Drabek T. E. 1986. Human system responses to disaster: An inventory of sociological findings. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY, 509 p
Drabek, T. E. 1994. Disaster evacuation and the tourist industry. Program on Environment and Behavior, Monograph No. 57. University of Colorado, Institute of Behavioral Science, Boulder, Colorado, 268 pp
Duncan F. 1997. How a community heals: Lessons learned from Buffalo Creek. Fire Management Notes 57(3):11–14
Fischer H. W. 1998. Response to disaster: Fact versus fiction and its perpetuation: The sociology of disaster. 2nd ed. University Press of America, Lanham, 244 p
Fishbein M., I. Ajzen. 1975. Belief, attitude, intention, and behavior: An introduction to theory and research. Addison-Wesley Publishing, Reading, Massachusetts, 578 p
Graham, R., M. Finney, J. D. Cohen, and many others. 2003. Hayman fire case study. RMRS-GTR-114. USDA Forest Servicee, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, Colorado, 396 pp
Halvorson, S. J. 2002. The fires of 2000: Community response and recovery in the Bitterroot Valley, Western Montana. Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center, Boulder, Colorado
Hesseln H. 2000. The economics of prescribed fire burning: A research review. Forest Science 46(3):332–334
Kalabokidis K. D., P. N. Omi. 1998. Reduction of fire hazard through thinning/residue disposal in the urban interface. International Journal of Wildland Fire 8(1):29–35
Kumagai, Y. 2001. Causal reasoning of wildfire damage. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Forest Resources, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, 98 pp
Kumagai Y., J. C. Bliss, S. E. Daniels, M. S. Carroll. 2004A. Real-time research on causal attribution of wildlfire: An exploratory multiple methods approach. Society and Natural Resources 17(2):113–127
Kumagai Y., S. E. Daniels, M. S. Carroll, J. C. Bliss. 2004B. Social-psychological reactions to wildfire: Implications for agency–community interactions and communication strategies. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 19(3):184–194
Levine, J. S., T. Bobbe, N. Ray, R. G. Witt, and A. Singh. 1999. Wildland fires and the environment: A global synthesis. United Nations Environment Programme, Nairobi, Kenya
Manfredo M. J., M. Fishbein, G. E. Haas, A. E. Watson. 1990. Attitudes toward prescribed fire policies. Journal of Forestry 88(7):19–23
McCool, S. F., J. Burchfield, D. R. Williams, M. S. Carroll, P. Cohn, Y. Kumagai, and T. Ubben. 2005. Wildland fire and communities: A state of knowledge synthesis. General Technical Report NC-269. USDA Forest Service, North Central Research Station, St. Paul, Minnesota, 60 pp
Monday J. L. 2002. Building back better: Creating a sustainable community after disaster. Natural Hazards Informer 3:1–11
Passerini E. 2000. Disasters as agent of social change in recovery and reconstruction. National Hazards Review 1(2):67–72
Perry R. W. 1994. A model of evacuation compliance behavior. Pages 85–98 in R. Dynes and K. Tierney (eds.), Disasters, collective behavior and social organization. University of Delaware Press, Newark, Delaware
Petty R. E., J. T. Cacioppo. 1986. Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. Springer Verlag, New York, NY, 262 p
Pyne S. J. 1982. Fire in America: A cultural history of wildland and rural fire. Princetion University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 654 p
Pyne S. J., P. L. Andrew, R. D. Laven. 1996. Introduction to wildland fire. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 808 p
Rodriguez S. M., M. S. Carroll, K. A. Blatner. 2003. Smoke on the hill: A comparative study of wildfire and two communities. Western Journal of Applied Forestry 18(1):60–70
Rogers E. M. 1995. Diffusion of innovations. Free Press, New York, NY, 518 p
Taylor, J. G., S. C. Gillette, R. W. Hodgson, and J. L. Downing. 2005. Communicating with wildland interface communities during a wildfire. USGS Open-File Report 2005-1061. Available at: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/products/publications/21411/21411.pdf [Accessed February 15, 2005]
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. 2003. Lessons learned from AAR rollups. Available at: http://www.wildfirelessons.net/Lessons.htm [Accessed June 30, 2004]
Williams, D. R., and D. W. Lime. 2001. Recreation, tourism, and social science research needs and issues. Pages 53–60 in W. J. Mattson, and D. S. Shriner (eds.), Northern Minnesota Independence Day storm: A research needs assessment. General Technical Report NC-216. USDA Forest Service North Central Research Station, St. Paul, Minnesota
Acknowledgments
The research on which this manuscript is based was funded in part from the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. The authors thank the reviewers for their constructive comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McCool, S.F., Burchfield, J.A., Williams, D.R. et al. An Event-Based Approach for Examining the Effects of Wildland Fire Decisions on Communities. Environmental Management 37, 437–450 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-005-0054-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-005-0054-0