The Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool: Facilitating Social Learning and a Science of Practice

Wildfire science, policy, and practice lack systematic means for “tailoring” fire adaptation practices to socially diverse human populations and in ways that aggregate existing lessons. This article outlines the development and initial operationalization of the Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool, an inductive set of processes that help facilitate dialogue about needs and priorities for wildfire adaptation strategies across ownership boundaries or partners. We outline the stages and considerations organized by the tool, including how its components build from decades of social science and practitioner experience facilitating fire adaptation choices among communities spanning the United States. We then outline examples for how the pathways tool provides opportunities to reflect and respond to the needs of diverse human populations implementing fire adaptation in distinct places. Finally, we discuss how the tool can help advance a “science of practice” for wildfire adaptation by promoting social learning or gathering monitoring information at multiple scales. Study Implications: The pathways tool provides a series of empirically informed processes, choices, and engagement tactics designed to foster shared agreement about the best practices for wildfire adaptation across site-specific local conditions. We outline how the tool can advance adaptation processes for a variety of users, including (1) a community oriented planning process that will help reinforce or catalyze collective action about fire management, (2) a systematic approach for monitoring differential progress toward development of fire-adapted communities, and (3) a potential feedback mechanism that informs programmatic foci or allocation of future resources across potential actions designed for diverse social conditions.