Rethinking resilience to wildfire
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Extreme wildfire events and cascading disastrous consequences on water ecosystem services have been experienced in Australia, Western North America, and elsewhere.
“like those experienced in Australia, Western North America, and elsewhere (Khan et al., 2015; Martin, 2016; McWethy et al., 2019; Robinne et al., 2018).”
From Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply (2021) · cites this paper as McWethy et al., 2019
Cites
Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–ecological Systems
Walker, B., Holling, C. S., Carpenter, S. R., & Kinzig, A. P. (2004) · Ecology and Society · doi:10.5751/es-00650-090205 · Cited by 7,821 · see citing works
Learning to coexist with wildfire
Moritz, M. A., Batllori, E., Bradstock, R. A., Gill, A. M., Handmer, J., Hessburg, P. F., Leonard, J., McCaffrey, S., Odion, D. C., Schoennagel, T., et al. (2014) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature13946 · Cited by 1,169 · see citing works
Self-citationWildfire risk as a socioecological pathology
Fischer, A. P., Spies, T. A., Steelman, T. A., Moseley, C., Johnson, B. R., Bailey, J. D., Ager, A. A., Bourgeron, P., Charnley, S., Collins, B. M., et al. (2016) · Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment · doi:10.1002/fee.1283 · Cited by 218 · see citing works
Schoennagel, T., Nelson, C. R., Theobald, D. M., Carnwath, G. C., & Chapman, T. B. (2009) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0900991106 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
Self-citationSwitching on the Big Burn of 2017
Balch, J. K., Schoennagel, T., Williams, A. P., Abatzoglou, J. T., Cattau, M. E., Mietkiewicz, N. P., & St. Denis, L. A. (2018) · Fire · doi:10.3390/fire1010017 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
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Roos, C. I., Swetnam, T. W., Ferguson, T. J., Liebmann, M. J., Loehman, R. A., Welch, J. R., Margolis, E. Q., Guiterman, C. H., Hockaday, W. C., Aiuvalasit, M. J., et al. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2018733118 · Cited by 145 · see citing works
Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply
Robinne, F., Hallema, D. W., Bladon, K. D., Flannigan, M. D., Boisramé, G., Bréthaut, C. M., Doerr, S. H., Di Baldassarre, G., Gallagher, L. A., Hohner, A. K., et al. (2021) · Hydrological Processes · doi:10.1002/hyp.14086 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
“Therefore, investing in risk prevention and literacy, as well as stakeholder preparedness through transparent communication, will help devise locally appropriate responses towards risk reduction (Boisramé et al., 2019; Kinoshita et al., 2016; McWethy et al., 2019).”
BackgroundInnovative wood use can enable carbon-beneficial forest management in California
Cabiyo, B., Fried, J. S., Collins, B. M., Stewart, W., Wong, J., & Sanchez, D. L. (2021) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2019073118 · Cited by 54 · see citing works
- Authors
- McWethy, D. B., Schoennagel, T., Higuera, P. E., Krawchuk, M., Harvey, B. J., Metcalf, E. C., Schultz, C., Miller, C., Metcalf, A. L., Buma, B., Virapongse, A., Kulig, J. C., Stedman, R. C., Ratajczak, Z., Nelson, C. R., & Kolden, C.
- Affiliations
- Montana State University (US)
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- University of Montana (US)
- Oregon State University (US)
- University of Washington (US)
- Colorado State University (US)
- US Forest Service (US)
- University of Colorado Denver (US)
- University of Lethbridge (CA)
- Cornell University (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- University of Idaho (US)
- Corresponding author
- McWethy, David B.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Sustainability
- Published
- 2019-08-19
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 797-804
- ISSN
- 2398-9629 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2968405830
- Cited by
- 318
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 46 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 65 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 53 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 2
- FWCI
- 64.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
- Keywords
- wildfire resilience, social-ecological resilience, adaptive resilience, transformative resilience, fire season, land management, fire behavior, climate change, fire-prone landscapes
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