Wildfire risk science facilitates adaptation of fire- prone social-ecological systems to the new fire reality (Dunn et al., 2020)

Full Citation: Dunn CJ, et al. 2020. Wildfire risk science facilitates adaptation of fire- prone social-ecological systems to the new fire reality. Environmental Research Letters 15.

Abstract: Large and severe wildfires are an observable consequence of an increasingly arid American West. There is increasing consensus that human communities, land managers, and fire managers need to adapt and learn to live with wildfires. However, a myriad of human and ecological factors constrain adaptation, and existing science-based management strategies are not sufficient to address fire as both a problem and solution. To that end, we present a novel risk-science approach that aligns wildfire response decisions, mitigation opportunities, and land management objectives by consciously integrating social, ecological and fire management system needs. We use fire-prone landscapes of the US Pacific Northwest as our study area, and report on and describe how three complementary risk- based analytic tools—quantitative wildfire risk assessment, mapping of suppression difficulty, and atlases of potential control locations—can form the foundation for adaptive governance in fire management. Together, these tools integrate wildfire risk with fire management difficulties and opportunities, providing a more complete picture of the wildfire risk management challenge. Leveraging recent and ongoing experience integrating local experiential knowledge with these tools, we provide examples and discuss how these geospatial datasets create a risk-based planning structure that spans multiple spatial scales and uses. These uses include pre-planning strategic wildfire response, implementing safe wildfire response balancing risk with likelihood of success, and alignment of non- wildfire mitigation opportunities to support wildfire risk management more directly. We explicitly focus on multi-jurisdictional landscapes to demonstrate how these tools highlight the shared responsibility of wildfire risk mitigation. By integrating quantitative risk science, expert judgement and adaptive co-management, this process provides a much-needed pathway to transform fire-prone social ecological systems to be more responsive and adaptable to change and live with fire in an increasingly arid American West.

Key Excerpts: “Counterproductive wildfire management decisions not only exacerbate the adverse consequences of wildfires, but also forgo wildfire benefits. Relative to high-severity fire, low-severity fire typically has benign or positive effects on ecosystem resilience, water quality, community smoke exposure, and responder exposure to in situ and post-fire hazards (Rodriguez y Silva et al 2014, Bladon 2018, Dunn et al 2019, Schweizer et al 2019). Low-severity fires also inhibit fire occurrence (Parks et al 2016), spread (Collins et al 2009, Parks et al 2015), and severity (Parks et al 2014, Larson et al 2013), while enhancing containment opportunities (Thompson et al 2016b; Beverly 2017). A shift from maladaptive to adaptive feedbacks that minimize adverse fire consequences while maximizing fire benefits remains an elusive practice at scales commensurate with need.”