Fire management and risk perception through an organizational lens

Abstract

Acting as a relentless flame, increasing wildfire risk has left a scorched trail of devastation across the globe. Based on the most recent National Climate Assessment, this threat is only projected to climb as climate change increases the prevalence of warm temperatures and dry conditions (USGCRP, 2023). In response to fuel and land management changes, human activity, and climate change, the amount of acreage burned by high-severity wildfires in the West has increased eightfold since 1985. Not unique to the West, 16 megafires also blazed across the landscape of the Southern Great Plains between 2000 and 2018 (USGCRP, 2023). By February of 2024, that same region experienced the largest wildfire in contiguous U.S. history, having burned over one million acres across the Texas Panhandle and into far western Oklahoma, resulting in a major loss of livestock, infrastructure, and life (Henson, 2024).

Responding to such events and managing the potential for future catastrophic wildfire events are fire managers at various organizational levels. Fire management organizations operate within their own unique decision-making processes, informed by their perception of wildfire risk. To better address the looming threat of wildfires, researchers, funding agencies, fire managers, and stakeholders need to understand how fire managers make decisions, what pressures and challenges influence their decisions, and how they perceive climate change and wildfire risk. To answer these questions among the different organizational levels, I surveyed federal, state, and regional fire managers (FSR) across the United States and conducted five focus groups with local fire managers throughout Oklahoma. The robust amount of data that was gathered, coded, and analyzed, provides extensive insights that are compared across organizational levels.

Among the key findings are acknowledgement by fire managers at all organizational levels that wildfire risk and its severity are increasing, and that experience and trust play a significant role in shaping those risk perceptions. When relating risk to climate change, there were different levels of acceptance and concern, with more recognition at the FSR level than the local level. Impacts and challenges associated with fuel and land management, human activity, the wildland-urban interface, and population growth were thought to be the primary causes and challenges associated with wildfire risk. In addition, among the most influential decision-making pressures were staffing and funding for FSR managers, and public and landowner perception and influence at the local level. Given staffing and funding limitations, there is a lack of climate change consideration in long-term planning, general planning processes, and related policy at all fire management levels. To address ongoing challenges and pressures, staffing and funding need to be stabilized, and there needs to be a strong push in public communication and education on wildfire risk and fuel and land management.

These results provide a better understanding of what shapes and influences risk perception and decision-making across federal, state, regional, and local fire management levels. Such insights can inform and help prioritize areas of focus within organizations to improve organizational function and processes in response to the wildfire threat. In addition, the results underscore knowledge gaps that can be better connected between researchers, fire managers, and funding sources, as well as between fire managers and the public. While ample room exists for additional research on the various factors and nuances of fire management risk perception, as well as policy development and implementation, this research establishes a strong foundation and starting point.