Rethinking resilience to wildfire

Record-breaking fire seasons are becoming increasingly common worldwide, and large wildfires are having extraordinary impacts on people and property, despite years of investments to support social–ecological resilience to wildfires. This has prompted new calls for land management and policy reforms...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature sustainability 2019-09, Vol.2 (9), p.797-804
Main Authors: McWethy, David B., Schoennagel, Tania, Higuera, Philip E., Krawchuk, Meg, Harvey, Brian J., Metcalf, Elizabeth C., Schultz, Courtney, Miller, Carol, Metcalf, Alexander L., Buma, Brian, Virapongse, Arika, Kulig, Judith C., Stedman, Richard C., Ratajczak, Zak, Nelson, Cara R., Kolden, Crystal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/158/2465
706/689/694/2739
Climate change
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecological adaptation
Environment
Flammability
Land management
Land use planning
Perspective
Records & achievements
Sustainable Development
Wildfires
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Summary:Record-breaking fire seasons are becoming increasingly common worldwide, and large wildfires are having extraordinary impacts on people and property, despite years of investments to support social–ecological resilience to wildfires. This has prompted new calls for land management and policy reforms as current land and fire management approaches have been unable to effectively respond to the rapid changes in climate and development patterns that strongly control fire behaviour and continue to exacerbate the risks and hazards to human communities. Promoting social–ecological resilience in rapidly changing, fire-susceptible landscapes requires adoption of multiple perspectives of resilience, extending beyond ‘basic resilience’ (or bouncing back to a similar state) to include ‘adaptive resilience’ and ‘transformative resilience’, which require substantial and explicit changes to social–ecological systems. Clarifying these different perspectives and identifying where they will be most effective helps prioritize efforts to better coexist with wildfire in an increasingly flammable world. Record-breaking fire seasons are becoming the new normal, prompting calls for land management and policy reforms. This Perspective clarifies different types of resilience to wildfire to prioritize efforts to better coexist with increasingly fire-prone conditions.
ISSN:2398-9629
2398-9629
DOI:10.1038/s41893-019-0353-8