PYROGANDA: Creating New Terms and Identities for Promoting Fire Use in Ecological Fire Management

Much of the language used by the wildland fire community and news media has implicit anti-fire bias that perpetuates anti-fire attitudes. In order to promote greater fire use for ecological fire management, new words need to be created; existing words should be redefined; and new identities for fire management workers must be developed. FUSEE presents some examples of the new words, symbols, and slogans it uses in its public education and policy advocacy work to nurture pro-fire attitudes and help support a paradigm shift in fire management. This paper argues that other agencies, organizations, and institutions in the wildland fire community will have to engage in an explicit pro-fire “pyroganda” campaign to help counter its historic anti-fire propaganda and inspire necessary changes in consciousness and behavior in the public and fire management workforce. As part and parcel of this effort, FUSEE proposes renaming wildland firefighters as fire rangers.