ESR15 Project

As we move into the Pyrocene, increasingly extreme wildfires impact people’s safety and wellbeing, ways of living, and the global environment–a veritable example of socioenvironmental injustice. Within this context,there are calls for alternative visions to how we –humankind –relate to, and deal with, wildfire. Such alternative visions, like Living with Fire, not only include different understandings of wildfires, but also how we communicate about these.

However, communication for the prevention and mitigation of wildfire disasters (usually understood as ‘Risk Communication’), largely continues to be informed by the current Fire Suppression paradigm, and important limitations deriving from it might hamper the wayt owards Living with Fire. Hence, one way of supporting the socioecological transformation towards Living with Fire, is by identifying and exploring alternative communicative approaches. The literature shows diverse approaches in the context of wildfire risk, and this research focusses specifically on ‘community-based communication’to complement current Risk Communication efforts, by creating more inclusive communicative approaches on wildfireand fully engage with wildfire disasters as long-term, complex, processes.

Through a combination of mixed methods, used both during fieldwork in Spainand with secondment institutions from the USA and Germany, this research aims to support a socioecological transformation towards Living with Fire, by exploring ‘community-based communication’ and itsrole in addressing extreme wildfires.

Keywords: Extreme wildfires, Communication, Community-based, Socio-environmental justice, Socio-ecological transformation

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