Fire Social Science

Understanding the impact of wildfire is impossible without understanding its grounding among the people who live and work in environments that burn. The challenges of coexisting with fire span diverse temporal and spatial scales in a climatically and demographically altered world. They are also underpinned by a history of social, structural and systemic relationships that are often riven by inequity. It is therefore important to listen to and learn from diverse local, Indigenous and official experiences when seeking to understand perceptions of risk, drivers of policy and management practices, and the complex behavioural patterns of wildfire preparedness, response and recovery.