Agronomy and Horticulture Department

 

ORCID IDs

0000-0002-3763-7641

0000-0003-3901-5261

Date of this Version

2018

Citation

Fire 2018, 1, 52

Comments

© 2018 by the authors.

Open access

doi:10.3390/fire1030052

Abstract

Wildland fire science literacy is the capacity for wildland fire professionals to understand and communicate three aspects of wildland fire: (1) the fundamentals of fuels and fire behavior, (2) the concept of fire as an ecological regime, and (3) multiple human dimensions of wildland fire and the socio-ecological elements of fire regimes. Critical to wildland fire science literacy is a robust body of research on wildland fire. Here, we describe how practitioners, researchers, and other professionals can study, create, and apply robust wildland fire science. We begin with learning and suggest that the conventional fire ecology canon include detail on fire fundamentals and human dimensions. Beyond the classroom, creating robust fire science can be enhanced by designing experiments that test environmental gradients and report standard data on fuels and fire behavior, or at least use the latter to inform models estimating the former. Finally, wildland fire science literacy comes full circle with the application of robust fire science as professionals in both the field and in the office communicate with a common understanding of fundamental concepts of fire behavior and fire regime.

Share

COinS