Wildfire Risk

by Martin, Wade E.; Raish, Carol; Kent, Brian

• ISBN13: 9781933115511
• ISBN10: 1933115513
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-12-01
• Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

Summary

Wildfire Risk follows from an increasing awareness among fire experts that relying on fire behavior models from the physical sciences to design a risk management program is no longer sufficient -- and that simply increasing public knowledge related to wildfire hazard does not necessarily lead to appropriate risk reduction behaviors. Public land managers, property developers, landowners, and politicians must ask more about the social and psychological factors that motivate people to respond appropriately to risk. Thus far, the majority of research and applied work about human responses to wildfire mitigation has been directed toward individuals rather than communities. Drawing heavily upon health and risk communication, the contributors highlight the ways that communities compared with individuals respond to wildfire risk. They discuss how outreach and education can influence community and individual behavior, and they explore differences among ethnic/racial groups and between genders with regard to values, views, and attitudes about wildfire risk and management. They explore the role of public participation in each stage of wildfire 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 the decision sciences, geography, operations research, psychology, experimental economics, and other social sciences.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. vii
Contributors	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Community Perspectives	p. 7
Understanding Public Perspectives of Wildfire Risk	p. 11
Wildland-Urban Interface Residents' Views on Risk and Attribution	p. 23
Collaborative Planning to Reduce Risk	p. 44
Addressing the Mitigation Paradox at the Community Level	p. 64
Integrative Healing: The Importance of Community Collaboration in Postfire Recovery and Prefire Planning	p. 81
Individual Perspectives	p. 99
Managing Individual Response: Lessons from Public Health Risk Behavioral Research	p. 103
Making the Decision to Mitigate Risk	p. 117
The Effects of Risk Perception and Adaptation on Health and Safety Interventions	p. 142
Diversity in Southwesterners' Views of Forest Service Fire Management	p. 156
Risk-Modeling Perspectives	p. 171
Improving Management Decisions	p. 173
Integrating Science and Community into Decision Support	p. 194
Managing Risk with Chance-Constrained Programming	p. 212
Using Economic Experiments in Evaluating Mitigation Decisions	p. 226
Valuing the Health Effects of a Prescribed Fire	p. 244
Epilogue	p. 263
References	p. 267
Index	p. 299
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