Resilience has become a common goal for science-based natural resource management, particularly in the context of changing climate and disturbance regimes. Integrating varying perspectives and definitions of resilience is a complex and often unrecognized challenge to applying resilience concepts to social–ecological systems (SESs) management.

Fire refugia are landscape elements that remain unburned or minimally affected by fire, thereby supporting postfire ecosystem function, biodiversity, and resilience to disturbances.

Massive tree mortality has occurred rapidly in frequent-fire-adapted forests of the Sierra Nevada, California. This mortality is a product of acute drought compounded by the long-established removal of a key ecosystem process: frequent, low- to moderate-intensity fire.

For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests.

Wildfires burn over 7 million US acres annually, according to the US Forest Service. Little is known regarding which subpopulations are more vulnerable to health risks from wildfire smoke, including fine particles.

Climate change is expected to increase fire activity in many regions of the globe, but the relative role of human vs. lightning-caused ignitions on future fire regimes is unclear. We developed statistical models that account for the spatiotemporal ignition patterns by cause in the eastern slopes of the Cascades in Oregon, USA.

Costs of fighting wildfires have increased substantially over the past several decades. Yet surprisingly little is known about the effectiveness of wildfire suppression or how wildfire incident managers prioritize resources threatened within a wildfire incident.

This article outlines an approach for understanding the ways that local social context influences differential community adaptation to wildfire risk. I explain how my approach drew from Wilkinson’s interactional theory of community during various stages of its evolution and describe a series of advancements developed while extending the theory to promote collective action for wildfire.

Human communities in forested areas that are expected to experience climate-related changes have received little attention in the scholarly literature on vulnerability assessment. Many communities rely on forest ecosystems to support their social and economic livelihoods. Climate change could alter these ecosystems.