Misconceptions Around Strategy: Managing fire response and public communication to support risk-based decisionmaking

Listen to an audio reading of the Science You Can Use titled Misconceptions Around Strategy: Managing Fire Response and Public Communication to Support Risk-Based Decisionmaking.

The 2021 Tamarack Fire in California, started by lightning in a national forest wilderness area, burned nearly 70,000 acres and eventually destroyed 24 structures. Because properties were damaged, the public and media scrutinized the fire management response. This fire exemplifies not only the challenges of fire management in land and resource management, but also how shortcomings in the fire response reporting system can make way for misperceptions to dominate the public narrative.