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Code Descriptions for “Managed wildfire: A strategy limited by terminology, risk perception, and ownership boundaries.”
(University of Oregon, 2021) Davis, Emily Jane; Huber-Stearns, Heidi R.; Cheng, Antony S.; Deak, Alison; Evans, Alexander; Caggiano, Michael; McAvoy, Darren J.
Federal land managers in the United States are permitted to manage wildfires with strategies other than full suppression under appropriate conditions to achieve natural resource objectives. However, policy and scientific support for “managed wildfire” appear insufficient to support its broad use. We conducted case studies in northern New Mexico and southwestern Utah to examine how managers and stakeholders navigated shifting barriers and opportunities to use managed wildfire from 2018-2021. Use of managed wildfire was fostered through an active network of civil society partnerships in one case, and strong interagency cooperation and existing policies and plans in the other. In both, the COVID-19 pandemic, drought, and agency direction curtailed recent use. Local context shapes wildfire response strategies, yet centralized decision making and policy also can enable or constrain them. Future research could refine understanding of social factors in incident decision making, and evaluation of risks and tradeoffs in wildfire response.