Wildfire Risk Human Perceptions and Management Implications

The continuing encroachment of human settlements into fire-prone areas and extreme fire seasons in recent years make it urgent that we better understand both the physical and human dimensions of managing the risk from wildfire. Wildfire Risk follows from our awareness that increasing public knowledge about wildfire hazard does not necessarily lead to appropriate risk reduction behavior. Drawing heavily upon health and risk communication, and risk modeling, the authors advance our understanding of how individuals and communities respond to wildfire hazard. They present results of original research on the social, economic, and psychological factors in responses to risk, discuss how outreach and education can influence behavior, and consider differences among ethnic/racial groups and between genders with regard to values, views, and attitudes about wildfire risk. They explore the role of public participation in risk assessment and mitigation, as well as in planning for evacuation and recovery after fire. Wildfire Risk concludes with a dedicated section on risk-modeling, with perspectives from decision sciences, geography, operations research, psychology, experimental economics, and other social sciences.

Section 1: Risk Perspectives 1. Introduction 2. Assessing Public Perspectives of Wildfire Risk Section 2: Community Perspectives 3. Wildfire Risk and Attribution: Viewpoints of Wildland-Urban Interface Residents 4. Collaborative Planning to Reduce Wildfire Risk: Linking Context and Outcomes 5. Altering Perceptions of Risk: Hazardous Fuel Reduction Strategies in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico 6. Integrative Healing: Lessons from Post-Fire Community Recovery Section 3: Individual Perspectives 7. Psychological Foundations for Socially Sustainable Wildfire Risk Management 8. What Motivates Homeowners to Protect Themselves from Risks? 9. Risk Perception, Adaptation and Behavior Change: Self-protective Behavior in the Wildland Urban Interface 10. An Exploration of Diversity in Southwesterners Views of Forest Service Fire Management Section 4: Decision Analytic & Economic Perspectives 11. Avoiding Unnatural Disasters: Lessons for Successfully Navigating the Risk Management Landscape 12. Walking the Talk: Building Public Participation into Science-Based Decision Support for Wildland Fire Management 13. Spatially Arranging Fuel Treatments to Manage Landscape-wide Fire Risk 14. Using Economic Experiments in Policy Evaluations: Exploration of Wildfire Risk Mitigation Decisions 15. Valuing the Health Effects of a Prescribed Fire Section 5: Overview & Summary 16. Summary Comments: Wildfire and Fuels Management: Risk and Human Reaction

Wade E. Martin is a professor of economics at California State University, Long Beach, and is editor of the journal Contemporary Economic Policy. Carol Raish is a research social scientist at the USDA Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station Albuquerque Lab. Brian Kent is project leader in Natural Resource Assessment and Analysis at the Rocky Mountain Research Station.