Table Of ContentHazards and Disasters Series
Wildfire Hazards,
Risks, and Disasters
Volume Editor
Douglas Paton
School of Medicine (Psychology)
University of Tasmania
Launceston
Tasmania
Australia
Associate Editors
Petra T. Buergelt, Sarah McCaffrey
and Fantina Tedim
Series Editor
John F. Shroder
Emeritus Professor of Geography and Geology
Department of Geography and Geology
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Omaha, NE
AMSTERDAMlBOSTONlHEIDELBERGlLONDONlNEWYORKlOXFORD
PARISlSANDIEGOlSANFRANCISCOlSINGAPORElSYDNEYlTOKYO
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Contributors
J.AntonioAlloza,CEAM,ParqueTecnolo´gico, Ch.Darwin14,Paterna,Spain
Petra T. Buergelt, Charles Darwin University, School of Psychological & Clinical
Sciences, Darwin, Australia, University of Western Australia, Centre for Social
Impact and Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Australia & Joint
CentreforDisasterResearch,MasseyUniversity,MtCook,Wellington,NewZealand
Jan-Chang Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of Forestry, National Pingtung
UniversityofScience andTechnology,Pingtung,Taiwan
Chaur-TzuhnChen,Professor,DepartmentofForestry,NationalPingtungUniversity
ofScience andTechnology,Pingtung,Taiwan
WilliamJ.deGroot,NaturalResourcesCanadaeCanadianForestService,SaultSte.
Marie, ON,Canada
Michael D. Flannigan, Dept. of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB,Canada
MichaelFlannigan,FacultyofForestry,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,ON,Canada
ValeriIvanov,SiberianStateTechnologicalUniversity,pr.Mira,Krasnoyarsk,Russia
GuillermoJulio-Alvear,ForestFireLaboratory,UniversityofChile,Santiago,Chile
NikolayKorshunov,RussianInstituteofContinuousEducationinForestry,Pushkino,
Moscowobl.,Russia
Daniel Kraus, European Forest Institute (EFI), EFICENT Regional Office, Freiburg,
Germany
Vittorio Leone, University of Basilicata (retired), Department of Crop Systems,
ForestryandEnvironmentalSciences, Potenza,Italy
Sarah McCaffrey, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Evanston, IL,
USA
Bonita McFarlane, Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern
ForestryCentre,Edmonton,AB,Canada
TaraMcGee, Department ofEarth and AtmosphericSciences, Universityof Alberta,
Edmonton, AB,Canada
Douglas Paton, School of Medicine (Psychology), University of Tasmania, Launces-
ton,Tasmania, Australia
Evgeni I.Ponomarev, V.N. Sukachev Institute of Forest, Siberian Branch of Russian
Academy of Sciences, Akademgorodok, Krasnoyarsk, Russia; Siberian Federal
University,pr.Svobodnyi,Krasnoyarsk, Russia
ix
x Contributors
V.RamonVallejo,CEAM,ParqueTecnolo´gico,Ch.Darwin14,Paterna,Spain;Dept.
BiologiaVegetal,UniversitatdeBarcelona,Diagonal 643,Barcelona, Spain
Saut Sagala, School of Architecture, Planning, and Policy Development, ITB,
Indonesia
RobertoGarfiasSalinas,ForestFireLaboratory,UniversityofChile,Santiago,Chile
Joachim Schmerbeck, TERI University Department of Natural Resources, Vasant
Kunj,NewDelhi,India
Bruce Shindler, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State
University,Corvallis,OR,USA
EfraimSitinjak,ResilienceDevelopment Initiative,Bandung,Indonesia
RalphSmith,DepartmentofFire&EmergencyServices,CockburnCentral,Western
Australia,Australia
MiguelCastilloSoto,Forest FireLaboratory,UniversityofChile,Santiago,Chile
Melanie Stidham, School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State
University,Columbus,OH,USA
Fantina Tedim, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Geography Department, Porto,
Portugal
Eric Toman, School of Environment and Natural Resources, The Ohio State Univer-
sity,Columbus,OH,USA
Cordy Tymstra, Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development,
Forestry and Emergency Response Division, Wildfire Management Branch,
Edmonton,AB,Canada
B.MichaelWotton,FacultyofForestry,UniversityofToronto,Toronto,ON,Canada
Gavriil Xanthopoulos, Hellenic Agricultural Organization “Demeter”, Institute of
MediterraneanForestEcosystemsandForestProductsTechnology,Athens,Greece
DodonYamin,ResilienceDevelopmentInitiative,Bandung,Indonesia
Editorial
Foreword
General hazards, risks, and disasters: In general, hazards are processes that
produce danger to human life and infrastructure. Risks are the potential or
possibilities that something bad will happen because of the hazards. Disasters
arethatquiteunpleasantresultofthehazardoccurrencethatcauseddestruction
oflivesandinfrastructure.Hazards,risks,anddisastershavebeencomingunder
increasing strong scientific scrutiny in recent decades as a result of a combi-
nationofnumerousunfortunatefactors,manyofwhicharequiteoutofcontrol
asaresultofhumanactions.Atthetopofthelistofexacerbatingfactorstoany
hazard,ofcourse,isthetragicexponentialpopulationgrowththatisclearlynot
possibletomaintainindefinitelyonafiniteEarth.Asourplanetiscoveredever
morewithhumans,anynaturalorhuman-caused(unnatural)hazardousprocess
is increasingly likely to adversely impact life and construction systems. The
volumesonhazards,risks,anddisastersthatwepresentherearethusanattempt
to increase understandings about how to best deal with these problems, even
whileweallrecognize the inherentdifficultiesofevenslowing downthe rates
ofsuchprocessesasothercompoundingsituationsspiralonoutofcontrol,such
as exploding population growth and rampant environmental degradation.
Some natural hazardous processes such as volcanoes and earthquakes that
emanatefromdeepwithintheEarth’sinteriorareinnowayaffectedbyhuman
actions, but a number of others are closely related to factors affected or
controlled by humanity, even if however unwitting. Chief among these, of
course, are climate-controlling factors, and no small measure of these can be
exacerbatedbythenowobviousongoingclimatechangeathand(Hay,2013).
Pervasive range fires and forest fires caused by human-enhanced or -induced
droughts and fuel loadings, megaflooding into sprawling urban complexes on
floodplainsandcoastalcities,biologicalthreatsfromlocustplagues,andother
ecological disasters gone awry; all of these and many others are but a small
part of the potentials for catastrophic risk that loom at many different scales,
from the local to planet girdling.
In fact, the denial of possible planetwide catastrophic risk (Rees, 2013) as
exaggerated jeremiads in media landscapes saturated with sensational science
stories and end-of-the-world, Hollywood productions is perhaps quite under-
standable, even if simplistically shortsighted. The “end-of-days” tropes pro-
motedbytheshaggy-mindedprophetsofdoomhavebeenwithusforcenturies,
mainlybecauseofBiblicalversewrittenintheearlyIronAgeduringremarkably
pacific times of only limited environmental change. Nowadays, however, the
xi
xii EditorialForeword
Armageddonenthusiastsappeartowanttheworsttovalidatetheirdeathdesires
andprovetheirholybooks.Unfortunatelyweareallenteringtimeswhenjusta
few individuals couldactually trigger societal breakdown by error or terror, if
MotherNaturedoesnotdoitforusfirst.Thusweentercontemporaneoustimes
ofconsiderableperilthatpresentneedsforcloseattention.
Thesevolumes we address here about hazards, risks, and disasters are not
exhaustivedissertationsaboutallthedangerouspossibilitiesfacedbytheever-
burgeoninghumanpopulations,buttheydoaddressthemorecommonnatural
perilsthatpeopleface,evenwhileweleaveaside(fornow)thethinkingabout
higher-level existential threats from such things as bio- or cybertechnologies,
artificial intelligence gone awry, ecological collapse, or runaway climate
catastrophes.
In contemplating existential risk (Rossbacher, 2013), we have lately come
to realize that the new existentialist philosophy is no longer the old sense of
disorientation or confusion at the apparently meaninglessness or hopelessly
absurd worlds of the past, but instead an increasing realization that serious
changesbyhumansappeartobeafootthateventhreatenalllifeontheplanet
(Kolbert,2014;Newitz,2013).InthegeologicaltimesoftheLateCretaceous,
anasteroidcollisionwithEarthwipedoutthedinosaursandmuchotherlife;at
the present time, in contrast, humanity itself appears to be the asteroid.
Misanthropicviewpointsaside,however,anincreasedunderstandingofall
levels and types of the more common natural hazards would seem a useful
endeavortoenhanceknowledgeaccessibility,evenwhileweattempttofigure
out how to extract ourselves and other life from the perils produced by the
strongclimatechangesoobviouslyunderway.Ourintentinthesevolumesisto
show the latest good thinking about the more common endogenetic and exo-
genetic processes and their roles as threats to everyday human existence. In
this fashion, the chapter authors and volume editors have undertaken to show
you overviews and more focused assessments of many of the chief obvious
threats at hand that have been repeatedly shown on screen and print media in
recent years. As this century develops, we may come to wish that these ex-
amples of hazards, risks, and disasters are not somehow eclipsed by truly
existential threats of a more pervasive nature. The future always hangs in the
balance of opposing forces; the ever-lurking, but mindless threats from an
implacablenature,ortheheedlessbureaucraciescounteredonlysometimesin
small ways by the clumsy and often feeble attempts by individual humans to
improve our little lots in life. Only through improved education and under-
standingwillanyofushaveachanceagainstsuch strongodds;perhaps these
volumes will add some small measure of assistance in this regard.
Wildfire hazards, risks, and disasters: As a specific hazard, wildfires in
rangeland, bushlands, taiga-tundra, and temperate and tropical forests world-
wide are a great threat, especially where humans have built homes out into
them, as well as in these times of recurrent drought brought upon by climate
change. The results can be the horrendous near-annual fire events in places
EditorialForeword xiii
such as the Australian bushlands, in the southern California maquis (shrub-
land)vegetationinthevastsuburbs,andwhereverelseintheworldaregionis
extensively built up by human constructions into a seasonably flammable
environment. As human populations increase inexorably worldwide and the
needforevermorelanduponwhichtoliveleadsdirectlytoencroachmentinto
areas that have burned repeatedly in the past, so this wildfire hazard increas-
ingly looms ever larger to more and more people.
As Mockenhaupt (2014) has observed, the firefighters’ conundrum is how
besttobalanceriskinthegrowingwildlandeurbaninterface.Facedaswearein
thenaturalhazardlandscapewithvolcanoes,floods,tsunamis,orhurricanes,we
candolittlebuttoletnaturerunitscourse,trytolimitthedamage,andcleanup
theaftermath.Butwhenitcomestowildfire,wethinkthatwecanfightit,rather
than allowing small fires back into the landscape as they have existed forever
until natural human hubris imagined that wildfire could be banished forever.
Youngfirefightersdieeveryyear,eventhoughwerealizethatfiresuppressionis
abattlethatcanneverreallybewon,andthatinsomecasesshouldnotevenbe
fought. Instead our valiant firefighters battle ever-larger wildfires to protect
increasingnumbersofhomes.Theresultisacycleoftragicinevitability.
Because wildfire hazards have apparently increased so much in recent
yearsasthecombinedresultsoftheever-largerdroughts,increasedvulnerable
populations, and more pervasive reporting, so too have been the increased
numberofremedialmethodsindealingwithfires.Volumesonpreventionand
warning, remediation and revegetation, establishment of new procedures and
assessment processes provide assessments of fire hazard in many geographic
areas across the world. If people are concerned about the area in which they
live,areadingofthisvolumewillatleastgivethemenoughbasicinformation
andideasgermanetoassessingtheirownsituation,orinseekingtolearnmore.
The result might be an increase in their own factors of safety, which is a
potentially valuable addition to knowledge thereby. The reader is encouraged
to seek greater knowledge of their own local fire hazards.
John (Jack) Shroder
Editor-in-Chief
July 14, 2014
REFERENCES
Hay,W.W.,2013.ExperimentingonaSmallPlanet:AScholarlyEntertainment.Springer-Verlag,
Berlin,983p.
Kolbert, E., 2014. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. Henry Holt & Company, NY,
319p.
Mockenhaupt,B.,June2014.Fireonthemountain.TheAtlantic,72e86.
Newitz,A.,2013.Scatter,Adapt,andRemember.Doubleday,NY,305p.
Rees,M.,2013.Denialofcatastrophicrisks.Science339(6124),1123.
Rossbacher,L.A.,October2013.Contemplatingexistentialrisk.Earth,GeologicColumn58(10),64.
Chapter 1
Wildfires: International
Perspectives on Their
e
Social Ecological Implications
Douglas Paton
SchoolofMedicine(Psychology),UniversityofTasmania,Launceston,Tasmania,Australia
Petra T. Buergelt
CharlesDarwinUniversity,SchoolofPsychological&ClinicalSciences,Darwin,Australia,
UniversityofWesternAustralia,CentreforSocialImpactandOceansInstitute,Universityof
WesternAustralia,Australia&JointCentreforDisasterResearch,MasseyUniversity,MtCook,
Wellington,NewZealand
Fantina Tedim
FacultyofArts,UniversityofPorto,GeographyDepartment,Porto,Portugal
Sarah McCaffrey
NorthernResearchStation,USDAForestService,Evanston,IL,USA
ABSTRACT
Thischapterintroducesthefactthatoftheseveralnaturalhazardscontemporarycom-
munitiesmayencounter,thecomplexinterdependenciesthatexistbetweenpeopleand
theforestsourcesofwildfirehazardsmakewildfireauniquehazard.Itthenproceedsto
provideanoverviewofhowhistoricalpatternsofinterdependencebetweenpeopleand
forestscoupledwithrecenttrendsinpopulationgrowthandtheirencroachmentonforest
environments forlifestyleandrecreation areincreasing risk. Next,itoutlinesasocial-
eecological approach to framing and managing wildfire risk and discusses environ-
mental,ecological,andsocialfactorsthatplaycomplementaryrolesinthedevelopment
and thus the management of wildfire risk. The chapter introduces international case
studiesthatdiscussthehistorical,social,cultural,andecologicalaspectsofwildfirerisk
management in countries with a long history of dealing with this hazard (e.g., United
StatesandAustralia)andincountries(e.g.,Taiwan)wherewildfirehazardsrepresenta
newandgrowingthreattothesocialandecologicallandscape.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Amongthevarious natural hazards thatcontemporarycommunities mayhave
tocontendwith,wildfiresareunique.Wildfireattainsthisuniquecharacteristic
WildfireHazards,Risks,andDisasters.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-410434-1.00001-4
Copyright©2015ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved. 1
2 WildfireHazards,Risks,andDisasters
asaresultofthecomplexinterdependenciesthatexistbetweenpeopleandthe
forest sources of wildfire hazards. For millennia, forests have delivered fuel
andbuildingmaterialstopeople,providedcontextsforagricultural,livelihood
and hunting, and they are increasingly sought out for their lifestyle and
amenity values as people choose to live in close proximity to forests or use
themforrecreationalpurposes. Further,forestandothernaturalenvironments
also play crucial roles in sustaining human well-being (Clayton and Opotow,
2003). These factors have influenced how people think about and act toward
thesourceofthehazard.Thisrelationshiphasalsoresultedinpeople’sactions,
increasingtheirrisk.Consequently,peoplehavearelationshipwiththesource
of the hazard that is not generally shared with any other natural hazard.
This long-standing interdependence between people and forests (as ame-
nity and hazard) has resulted in many populations, particularly indigenous
peoples, developing sustainable ways of relating to forests and the hazards
they periodically create. Fire has been a prominent part of ecosystems for
millennia, and ecosystems have evolved through people working with fire
ratherthanagainstit(seeChapters2,3,5,and7).Thus,asignificantpointof
departurebetweenwildfireandothernaturalhazardsisthatfireservesasboth
a development tool and a hazard. This interdependence has implications for
developing comprehensive conceptualizations of wildfire risk.
A comprehensive conceptualization of wildfire risk requires two inputs:
Thefirstrelatestoforestecology.Thesecondisconcernedwithunderstanding
thedeterminantsoftheabilityofpeople,communities,andsocietiestobeable
to coexist harmoniously with all facets of the amenity and hazardous aspects
oftheforestenvironment.Thatis,itisimportanttobringasocialeecological
perspectivetobearonthetaskofunderstandingandmanagingwildfirerisk.It
is thus becoming increasingly important to consider the contributions to risk
emanating from environmental, ecological, and social domains as well as the
interdependencies between them (Buergelt and Paton, 2014; Paton, 2006;
Paton et al., 2006). The contents of this volume focus primarily on the
socialeecological contributions to wildfire as a hazard.
Before proceeding to introduce the content and its socialeecological
implications,abriefnoteonnomenclatureiswarranted.Thetermwildfirewill
beusedpredominantlyinthisvolume.However,whilethistermpredominates
in North America, the terms bushfire and forest fire are used in Australia and
Europe, respectively. The terms bushfire and forest fire are used where
appropriate. Whatever the term used to describe the phenomenon, the risk
wildfire poses is increasing and will continue to do so for the foreseeable
future.
1.2 CHANGES IN THE WILDFIRE HAZARD SCAPE
It is undeniable that wildfire presents a growing risk to many countries. The
contributionstothisvolumeillustratethiswithrespecttowhatishappeningin
Chapter j1 Wildfires: International Perspectives 3
Northand South America, Australasia, India, Europe, and Russia. In addition
to this increased risk emanating from the ubiquitous influence of climate
change on the fundamental environmental and ecological sources of wildfire
risk(e.g.,hottertemperaturesoverlongerperiodsoftime),socialchange(e.g.,
population growth in the wildlandeurban interface (WUI)) is making a
contemporaneous contribution to increasing the scale, consequences, and
duration of the ecological, economic, and social consequences that will
continue to arise from wildfire events. These factors, in turn, interact to
conspire to create ever-more complex disaster risk reduction (DRR), disaster
recovery, and restoration challenges in countries susceptible to experiencing
wildfire hazards.
While wildfire risk management issues are most immediately apparent in
North America, Southern Europe, and Australia, wildfires are increasingly
makingtheirpresencefeltinmanyothercountries.Societiesandcommunities
susceptibletoexperiencingwildfirehazardscanexpectnotonlymorefrequent
large-scale, damagingwildfire hazard eventsbutalsofires ofgreater intensity
and duration. The potential scale of this emerging threat is reflected in the
increasing occurrence of megafires (Adams, 2013). Megafires deserve special
attentioninbothfiremanagementandpostfirerestoration(seeChapters5and
12).Thepotentialoccurrenceofmegafireshighlightsthepotentialforwildfire
to create global impacts through the emissions of greenhouse gases and
particles to the atmosphere.
Climate change will influence the patterns of wildfire risk and their
distribution(e.g.,NichollsandLucas,2007).Countrieswherethishazardwas
infrequentcanexpectmore,andsomecountrieswillfindthemselveshavingto
add wildfire to their national hazard scapes for the first time. Even if not
directly affected, wildfire hazard consequences can readily transcend national
borders and create impacts on a global scale.
Locally, wildfire consequences affect air quality, ecosystems and land-
scapes,andthebuiltenvironment.Secondaryconsequencescanbecreatedby
the impact of fire hazards on soil and water quality. These, in turn, can affect
food and water insecurities. Globally, wildfires create large-scale problems
through their contribution to atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases and
particles. These can create direct damage to vegetation and fauna, direct
and indirect impacts on soils through heat release and ash deposition, and
contribute to postfire environmental degradation (see Chapter 12). Global
impactsareincreasinglyevidentfromthewaysinwhichwildfiresmoke(e.g.,
from Indonesian firesdsee Chapter 6) transcends national borders and can
affect whole regions.
The contents of this book review the findings of substantive research
programs on the socialeecological dimensions of wildfire risk. The contrib-
utorsbringtheirconsiderableexpertiseandexperienceofresearchingwildfire
to discuss the personal, social, societal, environmental, and ecological factors
that need to be accommodated in wildfire risk management. By drawing on
