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Social Acceptance of Fuel Treatments
Understanding how WUI residents perceive fire and specific fuels management approaches (FMAs) is essential to land managers' success in negotiating mutually acceptable fire management plans. FMAs may include prescribed burning, mechanical fuels reduction, defensible space ordinances and others. Successful implementation of fuels management necessarily involves two types of behavior change among WUI residents. Land managers seek support for FMAs from those who may not currently be supporters. Land managers also want WUI residents to invest in fire-safe landscaping and building practices. During our studies in communities, across the United States, we are listening to WUI residents who tell us why they did or did not approve of specific FMAs. Based on what we hear, and on the relevant social scientific literature, we have, and continue to, develop models of WUI residents' decision making related to FMA acceptability and participation/compliance. What emerges from this research are the common and unique factors associated with social acceptability of, and compliance with, FMAs.
The Fuel SAF-T project combines the approaches and results of three completed and two ongoing studies.
Recently completed:
Demographic and Geographic Approaches to Predicting Public Acceptance of Fuel Management at The Wildland-Urban Interface1
Predicting Public Acceptance of Fuel Management at the Lake States Forest Interface2
Social Assessment of Mark Twain NF Ranger Districts Following the Blowdowns Associated with April 24, 2002 Tornadoes3
Ongoing:
Individual response to voluntary and involuntary incentives to mitigate fire hazard: What works and what doesn't?4
A Panel Study Of Michigan Homeowners: Examining Perceptions Of Wildfire Risks & Fuels Management Over Time5
Our research objectives are to provide land managers with a standardized decision support tool that enables them to assess public acceptance and understanding of fuel treatments at the wildland urban interface (WUI), and to discover those factors associated with acceptance of and compliance with WUI fuels management strategies.
1Funding from the Joint Fire Science Program in cooperation with USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station and University of California Berkeley
2Funding from USFS North Central Research Station in cooperation with Michigan State University
3Funding from USFS North Central Research Station in cooperation with Michigan State University
4Funding from the Joint Fire Science Program in cooperation with USFS North Central Research and Michigan State University
5Funding from USFS North Central Research Station in cooperation with Michigan State University
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This site was designed and is maintained by Chris Coffin Design
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