Tools to Help Managers Understand Public Knowledge and Attitudes

The National Fire Plan encourages managers to solicit community participation in wildfire mitigation and fire risk reduction programs in the wildland urban interface (Burns, Sperry, and Hodgson 2002).  Managers can capitalize on educational resources and pockets of higher civic engagement to shape attitudes towards fire.  Land management professionals can benefit from a more accurate understanding of people’s knowledge and attitudes about fire.  It is important to assess the judgments that people make about fire and fuels management because they influence the policies that land and fire managers must follow. A better understanding of knowledge and attitudes will lead to a more accurate assessment of citizens’ actions in relation to the land and fire.  Fire prevention educators and technology transfer agents will be able to craft more effective outreach materials if they understand the opinions and beliefs of their audience. 

Educational materials and direct experience with prescribed fire can positively affect people’s attitudes and increase their knowledge about fire (Loomis and others 2001; Monroe, Babb, and Heuberger 1999; Vogt, Winter, Fried 2002).  Many fire education campaigns are trying to teach people about the social and ecological benefits of fire in order to improve public opinion about it (Thorsen and Kirkbride 1998).  Several studies suggest that people who oppose prescribed burning as a means to reduce fuels, have incorrect or partial knowledge of the aesthetic and ecological impacts of fire (McCaffrey and Stephens 2003).  Other people may oppose thinning as a fuels treatment method because it is a new and therefore unfamiliar concept that conflicts with their values (Cheng 2002).  Recent studies have indicated that agency trust, and support for prescribed fire and mechanical methods of fuel reduction, can be increased with active education and public relations efforts (Loomis and others 2001; Winter and others 2002).  Willingness to pay (WTP) for fuels reduction using mechanical removal, chemical application, or prescribed fire can be increased with educational information (Loomis and others 2000).  In other words, people who are taught about the goals and techniques for reducing flammable materials in the landscape are more willing to spend the money that is necessary for reducing fuels.

Live fire demonstrations are an effective method for educating the general public. For example, residents of Haile Plantation – a wildland urban interface zone near Gainesville, Florida – were taken to demonstration burns and were given educational materials to 1) test the effectiveness of these methods for educating homeowners and 2) solicit support for fuels reduction activities in the fire-adapted longleaf pine ecosystem where Haile Plantation is located (Monroe, Babb, and Heuberger 1999).  Haile residents scored higher on a test measuring their knowledge about prescribed fire and longleaf pine ecology after the demonstration fires (when 39% of their answers were correct) than before the fire (when 27% of their answers were correct).  After the educational campaign, 84% of Haile residents were in favor of using prescribed fire in some areas around Haile Plantation.  Live fire demonstrations have been to be found effective for achieving the following educational goals:

• Provide evidence to homeowners that prescribed fire works in the local ecosystem.
• Help people learn why an area is burned, how fire is managed, and how plants regenerate after fire.
• Attract the attention of nearby residents and the media to the importance of fuels management and the benefits of prescribed fire.
• Cause people to remember messages about fuels management and prescribed fire.

Some simple measures that land managers can take prior to a controlled burn to increase public support (Winter and others 2002) are:

• involve stakeholders in the planning process
• make sure the procedure is cost-effective compared to other methods
• mitigate reduction of air quality and aesthetic impacts
• make sure that adequate resources will be available to complete the burn safely
• inform people of burn locations, times, objectives and expected fire effects (Shelby and Speaker 1990)
• ensure the public that prescription conditions will be met or the fire will be postponed or cancelled
• ensure the public that personnel are competent in the task

Managers can increase support for mechanical fuels treatment (Winter and others 2002) with the following measures:

• include stakeholder involvement in the planning process
• reduce aesthetic impacts
• make sure the procedure is cost-effective compared to other methods