Climate warming, land use change, and altered fire regimes are driving ecological transformations that can have critical effects on Earth's biota. Fire refugia—locations that are burned less frequently or severely than their surroundings—may act as sites of relative stability during this period of rapid change by being resistant to fire and supporting post-fire recovery in adjacent areas.

Severe wildfire is altering the natural and the built environment and posing risks to environmental and societal health and well-being, including cascading impacts to water systems and built water infrastructure. Research on wildfire-resilient water systems is growing but not keeping pace with the scale and severity of wildfire impacts, despite their intensifying threat.

Wildfires have played an increasing role in wreaking havoc on communities, livelihoods, and ecosystems globally, often starting in remote regions and rapidly spreading into inhabited areas where they become difficult to suppress due to their size and unpredictability.

Due to the associated fire risk, the wildland–urban interface (WUI) has drawn the attention of researchers and managers from a range of backgrounds. From a land management point of view, it is important to identify the WUI to determine areas to prioritise for fire risk prevention.

Public land management agencies in the US are committed to using science-informed decision making, but there has been little research on the types and topics of science that managers need most to inform their decisions.