People, Fire, and Forests: A Synthesis of Wildfire Social Science

Years of drought and decades of aggressive fire exclusion have left North American forests at high risk for future catastrophic fires. Forest settings are a magnet for recreational opportunities and for rapidly growing residential development—putting an increasing number of citizens and their property into the path of wildfires. Recordsetting wildfires initiated the twentyfirst century and motivated the rise to prominence of wildfire on the political agenda, prompting important and farreaching new public policy initiatives. To be effective, these policies must be informed by science—but that requires more than just improved knowledge about the physical and biological dynamics of fire and forest ecosystems. Social values, socioeconomic factors, demographic trends, institutional arrangements, and human behavior must also be taken into consideration by the agencies and individuals responsible for wildland fire decision making. The first book to integrate the social science literature on the human dimensions of wildfire, People, Fire, and Forests reviews current studies from this broad, interdisciplinary field and synthesizes them into a rich body of knowledge with practical management implications. Chapters in the book highlight principal findings and common threads in the existing research and identify strengths and gaps. They cover such topics as public perception of wildfire risk, acceptability of fire management policies, and community impacts of wildfire. Designed to make relevant social science information more available and useful to wildfire risk managers and policy makers, People, Fire, and Forests is also intended to encourage and guide further research into wildfire. By exploring the theoretical and methodological issues surrounding human interactions with wildfire and describing the practical implications of this research, this volume provides an essential resource for students, scholars, and professionals.

More and more people want to live and recreate near fewer and fewer trees, and the result is often devastating wildfire. This set of a dozen interdisciplinary studies, intended for use by risk managers and policy makers, comprises the first text to integrate social science and the human dimensions of wildfire. Coverage includes an introduction to applying existing social science theories to wildfires, challenges to federal forest managers (whether the public will accept their practices, and cultural variations in that acceptance), critical initiatives prior to wildfire events and consequences during and after the fire, and socioeconomic and institutional factors within designs of wildlife migration, fuel reduction events, fire policy relating to race and rural communities, and international policy on wildlife fire migration. The editors introduce a matrix approach for understanding how people, fire and forests relate to one another. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

TERRY C. DANIEL is Professor of Psychology and Natural Resources at the University of Arizona.MATTHEW S. CARROLL is Professor of Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University.CASSANDRA MOSELEY is Director of the Ecosystem Workforce Program at the University of Oregon.CAROL RAISH is a Research Social Scientist at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Albuquerque, New Mexico.