wildfire management | AK Fire Science Highlights

A new study just published in Sustainability surveyed Fairbanks Northstar Borough and Kenai Peninsula Borough homeowners about their willingness to pay for types of fuelbreaks on their property, their neighbor’s property and how public land treatments nearby affected their choices. Molina et al. found that surveyed homeowners (n=358) had a greater willingness-to-pay for fire hazard reduction when a moderate number of neighbors (1-4 neighbors) engaged in property mitigation. They were less enthusiastic when nobody else was participating, or on the other hand–when they perceived too many neighbors were clearing fuels. Shaded fuel breaks–like thinning treatments–were preferred to clearcutting. Read the article (open access) here: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11754/htm

Molina A, Little J, Drury S, Jandt R. Homeowner Preferences for Wildfire Risk Mitigation in the Alaskan Wildland Urban Interface. Sustainability. 2021; 13(21):11754. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132111754

Tait Rutherford and Courtney Shultz just published the results from the social science part of their Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) funded study: Impacts of Climate and Management Options on Wildland Fire Fighting in Alaska—see full citation below. The paper seeks to understand strengths and weaknesses of the Alaska fire management process and how cooperating agencies are adapting to changes in the fire environment with warming climate. The data for the analysis came from 41 hour-long interviews with fire management decision-makers across Alaska, which were categorized and analyzed for common themes.

The authors note that “bridging” institutions can be “repurposed to meet new challenges” and can provide key assistance to more hierarchical federal and state agencies in adapting to new issues (including climate change). Examples of this in action at the national level were on display at the recent meeting of JFSP regional Fire Science Exchange Networks in Washington, DC. It was interesting how diverse the main business lines were in different regions. For example, Hawaii’s Pacific Fire Exchange focuses mainly on community protection and invasive species, several exchanges are deeply engaged in supporting training and workforce development to implement prescribed burns, and California Fire Science Consortium is gearing up efforts to help those already stricken by wildfire and looking into new closer working relationships with FEMA. Another example of “bridging” mentioned by several interviewees in Alaska was the Kenai Peninsula All-Lands All-Hands working group, which has been very instrumental in coordinating inter-agency fuelbreaks.

Rutherford, in summarizing manager’s views, notes that some challenges are enduring (like WUI protection) but a few emerging issues are also highlighted. For example, regarding subsistence use opportunities, participants indicated that the maintenance of wildlife habitat will require both using fire and fire suppression to support a diversity of age classes and forest cover types on the landscape. There is a growing recognition of the need for enhanced policy and management tools to support “point protection” of values like private lands and cabins, including improved data and interagency communication and efficient protection techniques. In short, the collection of viewpoints is very instructive about the “state of the art” of fire management as seen by the experts and executors of that art. A highlight of the paper is the Appendix, which includes 64 quotes from the interviews, allowing one to hear “from the horse’s mouth” about current priorities and challenges in Alaska fire management as well as potential future directions and requirements to meet new challenges.

Citation: Rutherford, T. K., and C. A. Schultz. 2019. Adapting wildland fire governance to climate change in Alaska. Ecology and Society 24(1):27.

Download is Open Access at: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol24/iss1/art27/