Session 1. 8. B.

Elinor Ostrom discussed several types of resource management: open access, commons, private property, and government control. Here, I discuss how fire has been applied or managed within these different systems, specifically, the use of fire to manage fire. A useful distinction is between those who are immersed in nature, immersed in the ecosystems they are managing, and those who are not. Those who are immersed in nature, especially characteristic of commons ownership, tend to manage fire in ways that are based on experience, i.e., flexible, small-scale, and generally speaking successful at reducing the likelihood of catastrophic fire. Open access systems have no management to speak of, yet there is surprisingly little evidence for harmful effects of anthropogenic fire in such systems. Possibly this reflects that the use of fire in such systems also tends to be small-scale, because those engaging in open access do so for only short periods of time and only over part of the territory. In contrast, governments and sometimes private property owners are separated from the resources they attempt to manage. This has tended to lead to policy that is founded upon theory, based on scientific understanding or misunderstanding, with often unfortunate effects. These points are illustrated and elaborated upon with examples from the rich history of fire in California. The recent increase in catastrophic fires in central and northern California reflects the fact that governments and NGO’s that are not immersed in nature, and do not understand fire ecology, are the main drivers of fire policy.

Fire is an essential tool in tropical subsistence agriculture but results in escaped fires when not adequately controlled. Specifically, the southern Peruvian Andes has a long history of anthropogenic fires, which have shaped the natural landscape over millennia. While the ecological role of fire is increasingly examined, research on how humans interact with fire is almost nonexistent in this region, and the government response is limited to fire suppression and burning prohibition. This research evaluated two Quechua communities and their collaborating external actors in the following aspects: (1) local perspectives on current and recent changes in community-based fire management; and (2) perceptions of key actors (farmers, firefighters, researchers, nonprofit organizations, protected areas, and government agents) of the role of fire and fire management strategies. Targeting three wildfire seasons (2021 to 2023), I employed participant observation, Q methodology, semi-structured interviews, and participatory methods. Over the past decade, both communities have adapted their responses to escaped fire incidents through collective learning and the incorporation of firefighting brigades, sanctions, and land use restrictions, often in collaboration with external actors. I also found different viewpoints among key actors on the role of fire ranging from emphasizing the negative impacts of fire on ecosystem services to acknowledging some benefits of fire on rural wellbeing. Regarding key actor viewpoints on fire management, they ranged from top-down fire suppression to community-based fire management. Participatory research methodologies were instrumental in facilitating dialogue and reflection on fire management and governance strategies among community members and external actors. This research underscores the importance of collaboration and community engagement in developing effective fire management practices tailored to local contexts.

Wildfires continue to impact people and landscapes across the U.S. and beyond - with no sign of letting up, and leaving devastation behind in many cases. However increasing "Good Fire," (prescribed or cultural burning) & more not only reduces the risks of catastrophic wildfires, but is a critical component to managing fire-adapted forests and grasslands across the U.S. Millions of acres of forestland and other natural lands are privately owned by individuals, families, small businesses, tribal nations and more. However, these landowners may not have the knowledge or confidence to conduct prescribed fires on their own, despite favorable laws. A nationwide network of outreach (Cooperative Extension) professionals work to promote good fires through outreach and training for these landowners and have successfully increased the adoption of good fire. Learn more about these programs that include extensive resources, curriculum, etc.. Programs include creating and supporting prescribed burn associations where landowner members can learn from their peers and have support for their burns. "Learn and Burn "learn and burn" events in which landowners learn in the classroom and then spend the afternoon conducting a burn. In addition to these outreach efforts, there are also consortiums that translate the science of prescribed burning for practitioners, policymakers, regulators and more. These consortiums then connect scientists to practitioners, so they can learn about additional questions and opportunities. Despite these resources, efforts and collaborations, there is still room for improvement, but many of these programs and resources could be adapted for other parts of the world.

Wildfire protection strategies (WPS) afford mitigation planners a diverse set of tools to reduce risk to households and communities before, during, and after a wildfire event. However, ex-post effectiveness of WPS are poorly understood. Since the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act, Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPP) have become a standard planning and mitigation tool to prevent loss from wildfire events in the United States. Although efforts have been made to document CWPPs and analyze some key aspects of these documents, there remains limited insight into which how CWPPs are developed, which WPS these plans contain, and how effective they have been in preventing wildfire loss. There is also no generalizable, national effort to assess this, which leaves communities without evidence-based research to refine and improve existing and novel plans. This paper proposes an innovative approach to improving our understanding of WPS effectiveness by studying CWPPs at a national level over the full history of these plans. First we build upon the national-level CWPP database to achieve greater spatiotemporal coverage. Then we derive WPS variables from CWPPs using recent advances in natural language processing. Next we build a unique dataset to understand the development and effectiveness of WPS in CWPPS effectiveness by utilizing open source data on wildfire hazard, event characteristics, and environmental context. We then design a series of statistical models to assess CWPPs under various spatiotemporal and treatment effect specifications. Lastly we analyze how trends in CWPP policy and implementation responds to wildfire events and interact with the effectiveness inferred from our statistical models.

Our study uses a context-mechanism-outcome approach to highlight how trust diversity emerges in wildfire collaborative archetypes and how it impacts collaborative environmental, social and process outcomes. Using survey data from wildland collaboratives, we identify three distinct collaborative archetypes arising from landscape and property rights heterogeneity, stakeholder distributions and value diversity and collaborative mission orientations. We characterize four distinct trust types of these collaborative groups including affinitive trust, dispositional trust, rational trust and procedural trust. We find that collaborative process mechanisms such as trust types, development and maintenance differ across collaborative archetypes. We also find that the contexts and mechanisms differentially influence outcome achievement with partial achievement of social and environmental outcomes but substantial gains in process outcomes depending on trust diversity and archetype group. Ultimately, understanding the mechanisms of operation in different contexts can help guide improved decision-making, navigate conflict and create more equitable participation in collaborative wildfire management.

To mitigate the potential impacts of wildfire, communities across the United States (US) are increasingly engaging in collaborative wildfire planning. Planning involves identifying a set of goals or objectives, developing management strategies to get to that goal, and codifying the goals and objectives in a written document. This paper focuses on the goals and objectives codified in wildfire management plans as a mechanism to understand what communities value and therefore how they are managing their commons. However, there are tensions between having values tailored to match local context and values that reflect national policy priorities. On one hand, the concept of socio-ecological fit argues that governance structures are most effective when they match the scale and context of a specific socio-ecological system. In this perspective, values should match the specific types of wildfires that occur and the characteristics of the impacted communities in a particular place. Locally-determined values are also likely to incorporate local ecological knowledge gathered through extended time spent in a place. On the other hand, national governments have substantially more capacity than local communities. Their policy priorities are more likely to reflect the newest updates in science as well as growing concerns like climate change or environmental justice. Community-driven management may be slow to incorporate these changes, leading to slower adaptation of the system overall.