Our final discussion reflects issues that have come up repeatedly in past classes--prescribed fire and smoke management. Both of these issues can be complex and nuanced influences on broader wildfire management. The have also enjoyed increased attention and notoriety in policy discussions.
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Please submit your comments by noon on Monday. That will give our discussion leads adequate time to prepare for their duties.
Huber-Stearns et al.:
ReplyDeleteThe paper identifies a number of roles performed by actors and bridging organizations, but I’m curious to understand in more depth how and at what points these roles get negotiated. For example, the paper says that many actors did not serve in “intentional” bridging roles, but were still important to the process of implementing prescribed fire. Does this mean that organizations were figuring out their roles in real time, on a case-by-case or project-by-project basis? If so, could there be some structure or framework in place to make everyone’s roles more “intentional” in an ongoing, more systematic way?
Weir et al.:
The authors suggest that liability insurance has perverse incentives and may not be useful, using the case from Texas as an example. But wouldn’t that outcome have been different if the policy was written/structured differently (e.g. with an “illegal activity” clause)? I’m not sure that liability insurance is the answer but I’m also not sure that the one case in Texas proves it can’t be useful, just because the policy was poorly written and the insurance company decided to settle and then drop coverage.
Dittrick and McCallum:
There is a lot in here and I’m not sure I understand all the calculations, etc. But I’m wondering, just generally, what the applications are for this kind of data. I’m thinking it’s probably not that useful to show people dollar amounts associated with the value of their lives to incentivize risk mitigation behavior. Do agencies look at economic cost estimates to weigh against the up-front costs of prevention? What do “willingness-to-pay” estimates tell us about people’s actual choices and behaviors, which are not necessarily based on numerical calculations or even rational decision-making processes?
Weir et al. 2019
ReplyDeleteI thought it was really interesting that they pointed out fatalities happening from wildfire management drastically exceeded those from prescribed fire implementation. Similar to Florida, Alabama is also a right to burn state. There is a strong presence of PBAs in the Southeast. There are additionally, readily available prescribed burn manager classes throughout the Southeast. I think that knowledge is key here. The better that information can be distributed to inform private landowners, the more likely there is to be receptiveness. Another aspect that draws my attention in relation to RX out west, the main burns that make the news are unfortunately the ones that have negative outcomes. Snodgrass’ court case for instance made huge headlines, but successful burns rarely make the news.
Dittrick and McCallum 2020
I had never heard of BenMAP-CE before. I am still uncertain of exactly what its usefulness and purpose is?
Huber-Stearns et al. 2021
Three major actor role themes were identified and discussed: 1) funding or resource sharing, 2) knowledge exchange and information brokering, and 3) coordination and administration. Which of the three is most important or the greatest limiting factor? The actor role description table was interesting and well-written. I was drawn to the prescribed burning expertise. So much of fire research like this is centered around individuals being trained and competent to successfully accomplish burn objectives. To what extent do you think it is possible to be a successful, expert burner without understanding the (WHY) fire ecology?
Huber-Stearn:
ReplyDelete"Another interviewee explained that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had their own burn program and therefore they didn’t share resources with each other." An individual who was interviewed during this study made the claim above. How often is this the case? Are tribal nationals always willing and open to collaborating especially when there are cultural burns? Is there often conflict between nations?
Weir:
"Numerous landowners and managers have suggested that access to lability insurance to alleviate liability risks from prescribed fire would result in a greater use of fire. However, when such insurance was made available in 2015, there was little demand for the product." Why do you think that after this was made available citizens still did not use it? Is there already such a fear for private citizens because of the legal and financial repercussions?
Dittrick and McCallum:
"BenMAP-CE is open-source Windows-based software created by the EPA. First developed in 2003 to analyze national-scale air quality policies, the proprietary version was replaced by an open-source tool in December 2013 named BenMAP- Community Edition. It allows the user to estimate economic benefits and cost to health due to air quality changes." I have never heard of this website or resource, how publicly known is this? Also, during wildfire events, are these websites provided to citizens in WEA's or Emergency Alert Notifications?
Huber-Stearns et al.:
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to our discussion on the ICS system for wildfire response and disaster recovery, networks appear to be working together well across scales to accomplish prescribed fire. What is the difference here? Is it the planned nature of Rx? The fact that less homeowners are involved or put at risk than in a wildfire setting? Or that fewer “outsider” resources are present at a typical burn?
Weir et al.:
Is anyone familiar with what the burn manager certification process looks like for PBAs?
Also, as an anecdote: my dad (who is lacking knowledge of fire and scared of property loss) was wanting to have some land burned by a private Rx contractor in Texas. He found out they did not carry any form of liability insurance and lost interest in having the burn conducted. I think Weir et al. are absolutely right that fire has to be desensationalized. However, for an individual wanting to burn but lacking knowledge, lacking trust in burn personnel, and afraid of property damage, wanting insurance involved seems natural. Should we by trying to flip these perspectives or are they justified?
Dittrich and McCallum:
The article mentions the lack of research on the economic health cost of Rx. A large consideration in conducting prescribed fire in the southeast is the potential for smoke to impact roadways. Higher humidities in this region allow for the occasional formation of “superfog,” a combination of smoke and fog that leads to extremely low visibility and has historically led to fatalities and injuries from traffic accidents.
Example: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vOcY4r-0_HQ
It would be interesting to see more research on the economic health costs of Rx, and whether traffic accidents play a significant role in the statistics for the Southeast region.
Weir - If disturbances are part of keeping ecosystems healthy, how do we actually figure out when a disturbance helps nature versus when it causes real harm, and who gets to make that call?
ReplyDeleteIf every ecosystem has its own history of disturbance and recovery, can we really apply the same management strategies everywhere?
Dittrick and McCallum: This document offers a lot of information, but I find myself pondering the broader impacts of these findings. How might the calculated health costs associated with wildfire smoke inform public awareness campaigns or community education efforts? Are there strategies to effectively communicate these economic impacts to the general public to foster proactive behavior regarding wildfire mitigation?
Huber-Stearn: What specific mechanisms or approaches can federal land management agencies use to establish collaborative agreements with tribal governments for the incorporation of cultural burning practices into prescribed fire programs? The paper mentions the lack of partnerships with tribes, but does not detail the steps needed to facilitate these connections.
Dittrich:
ReplyDeleteThis paper reminded me of Dr. Kebziars work with the air quality in lung infections.
Huber-Stearns:
This paper highlighted that we are at a time where there is a lot of non-governmental aspects to resource management. This is really great, as long as the ones who are fully knowledgeable on the topic are helping steer the narrative into a positive and ecological sound light.
Weir:
I love the authors suggestion to change state statutes, and in doing that I think there should be a permitting process that is required for landowners to do prescribed burns. That permitting process will give them the education that they need, and it could be done on a local scale from local fire departments even local fire departments could help in the training process.
Weir et al. 2019
ReplyDeleteThe paper discusses how liability concerns are often a deciding factor in privately managed prescribed burns, as damages can be severe if burning does not go as intended. I was able to experience some of these perceptions first-hand. This past March I went out of state and participated with a private prescribed burn contractor. I was told that an upcoming burn was most likely going to be canceled due to liability concerns stemming from the contract signer. This put things into perspective for me and I think it may take the findings of the paper a step further, as even though another entity would be liable the signer still felt uneasy about conducting the prescribed burn.
Dittrich and McCallum 2020
The paper says that it is difficult to measure O3 leading to a lack of information regarding its impacts on health in comparison to PM. I think determining the variability in O3 measurements in junction with distinct prescribed burn parameters would be interesting. For instance, since O3 is generated via the photoreaction of NOx and VOCs, perhaps a single locale can be prescribed burned at the same increments where the fuel loading is nearly identical, on a day with more cloud cover versus a day with less cloud cover. Furthermore, if the O3 levels are significantly lower on a certain day due to fire weather, then maybe optimal prescribed burn days may be reconsidered. Thus, health impacts may be reduced.
Huber-Stearns et al. 2021
The paper discusses how identified cooperative actors operate at small and large geographic scales. For example, one part of the text states that 47% operated at the local scale, 15% at the state scale, and 38% at the national or regional scale. These numbers appear to vary based on the number of cooperative actors at each study site. From this information, it really puts organization influence into perspective for me as it may not always be the larger organization having more say over the little organization (i.e. national v. local) as the amount of allocated resources may differ, just like interviewee affiliations. With this in mind, how can better collaboration be fostered to account for this variability? Is it possible to have one plan to ensure better collaboration? Or just like the distinct study sites the researchers chose, it will have to be tailored towards a case by case basis?
1) How can we push past the fire culture we’ve referenced in previous weeks when in the context of prescribed fire and working with more agencies, entities, and as described in Huber-Stearns et al. 2021, actors? We’ve touched on this culture as it relates to the public, suppression, etc. but not in the context of prescribed fire where sometimes the fire culture unexpectedly catches people off guard when all “fighting the same battle “ and rears its head when folks are exposed to a mixing pot of diverse knowledges and background when coming together to implement prescribed fire on the landscape- firefighters, retired suppression folks, volunteers, prescribed fire experts, cultural fire practitioners, community members, students, researchers, elders, agencies and contractors,, etc. This plays into so many different skillsets, knowledges, traditions, norms, etc and informs priorities, tactics, etc. for that burn and all the associated ongoing relationships.
ReplyDelete2) It might be interesting to expand upon the findings of the Dittrich and McCallum paper and examine calculated health costs from wildfire smoke in comparison to prevention costs in that same area or that of an area with a more active prevention program to justify what is “better” or more “worth it” for the public in the grand scheme of things. Or perhaps the same type of comparison study but that of wildfire smoke health costs as compared to estimated fuels reduction/prescribed fire work in that same area to mitigate said smoke exposure from wildfire. A phrase we hear often is “some smoke now (referring to prescribed fire) or lots more later (from wildfire)” but it has been shown that prescribed fire is actually worse impact/health-wise in the long term from prolonged exposure and factors from smoke dispersal, weather, etc. How might we be able to utilize findings like this to make a case for prescribed fire to benefit both the public’s and firefighters’ health along with landscape-level forest health when the effects themselves negatively impact our health? How might we combat arguments like these?
3) Coming from someone who is a burn boss, liability is huge. Yes, we want to get landscape-level stewardship implemented, but also, I want to make sure I’m not personally going to be arrested for trying to act in the best interest of that landscape and on behalf of agencies who, to be quite honest, don’t really care/won’t necessarily back me as an employee/burn boss if something were to go wrong (through fault of my own or not). That being said, most of us who act as burn bosses carry our own personal liability insurance for this reason. It is the same reason that many other wildland firefighters I know refuse to become certified burn bosses- they don’t want liability. Folks newer to fire think this whole concern started after the burn boss arrest and trial in the Northwest a few years ago, but this has always been a concern, just one brought more to the forefront and in the public eye due to negative attention from media. If media instead negated to catastrophize all fire and instead highlighted positive effects, instances, and examples of fire (both prescribed and wildfire), the public’s perception of it as a whole would look very, very different.
ReplyDeleteWeir et al.
ReplyDeleteThe authors note that there is greater risk in driving a car or being in a chemistry lab than letting students participate in prescribed burn applications. There is also a low percentage of escaped fires when looking at burn records. With that being said, perceptions still lean towards there being a greater risk for prescribed burns. To combat this we have talked in previous weeks about showing success stories but would it be beneficial if we illustrated the amount of fires sparked through electrical failures?
Huber-Stearns et al.
The authors discuss how redundancy within a network can allow for more resiliency when crises occurs but how do we create redundancy to promote resiliency without causing issues along the way? In my mind, the creation of redundancy could potentially create more bureaucracy that inhibits resiliency.
One aspect that was interesting was the fact the interviewees acknowledged that there was no partnership between the case study units and Tribal governments. One interviewee claimed that the Bureau of Indian Affairs just does things differently because they don't need a lot of resources and they do not think that the lack of cooperation was due to a strain in relationships. I wonder if the interviewee based this on previous experiences or if they directly interacted with the Tribal governments?