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Keeping It Local: How Federal Wildfire Policy Is Implemented at the Local Level

In the past, forest managers always put out wildfires. More recently, forest managers have discovered that fire can be a good thing for some ecosystems. Wildfires are now sometimes allowed to burn rather than always be put out. When a wildfire is threatening human communities, however, it is put out. The Federal Government passed the law to encourage communities to develop a Community Wildfire Protection Plan which included the wildland-urban interface (WUI). The scientists wanted to learn about the communities that made the WUI part of their plan.

Keeping It Local: How Federal Wildfire Policy Is Implemented at the Local Level

Meet the Scientists

Stephanie Grayzeck-Souter

Social Scientist

Kristen Nelson

Environmental Sociologist

Pamela Jakes

Forester

Daniel Williams

Social Scientist

Thinking About Science

Social scientists study what people think, do, and believe. One way they discover this is to conduct interviews with the people about what they want to learn. Interviews are like conversations, except that the scientists try to guide the conversation so they find out specific information. They ask questions that can be well defined or that can be open-ended. A well-defined question might be: “How many brothers and sisters do you have?” An open-ended question asks something general. An example of an open-ended question is: “Tell me about the first time you fell off of your bicycle and got hurt.”

The scientists try not to share any of their own opinions. In a good interview, the scientist rarely says much except to ask for more information. By interviewing different people using the same questions, scientists can learn about all the different ways in which people think about a topic.

Interviews are usually recorded. Later, while listening to the recording, the scientist types the interview, word for word. Then, the scientist organizes and summarizes what was said. Interviews can be done in person, over the phone, or even on the Internet. In this study, the scientists interviewed people in four towns in the Eastern United States.

Thinking About the Environment

Some people live in or near large areas of forests. Often, people build homes near the edges of State or Federal public land. State lands include State parks and forests. Federal lands include national parks and national forests. When people build close to or within large areas of forest, they raise the chance of having their homes damaged or destroyed by wildfire. They also increase the chance that a fire will burn into the forest, as most forest fires in the East are started by people.

The Federal Government has defined communities that occupy land near or within these large natural areas as the wildland urban interface, or WUI. The WUI is an area where houses either meet or mix with wildland vegetation, including forests, prairies, or other natural areas. To help protect these communities from wildfires, the Federal Government has encouraged people living in the WUI to plan for wildfires. The Government wants people in these communities to think about ways to discourage wildfires and what they can do to protect their homes if a wildfire burns in their community.

Introduction

The first strategy is to reduce fuel so if a wildfire threatens a community it has nothing to burn. Forest managers reduce fuels in two main ways. First, they might purposely burn small areas of land in a controlled manner to remove the fuel (figure 1). These fires burn cooler than wildfires, and only burn near the ground. Forest managers only start these controlled fires if the weather will help them manage the fire.

A controlled fire in a forest along a pathway — **Figure 1**. A controlled fire. Photo by Terry Tompkins, courtesy of Forest Service Northern Region Archives.

If a wildfire occurs in these areas, there is less material to burn, and the wildfire can be controlled or put out more easily. Forest managers may also use machines to cut and remove the brush and other vegetation (figure 2). Another strategy
used to control the damage from wildfires is to help homeowners protect their home and property from fires. For example, people are urged to remove trees and other plants that burn easily that are touching their home.

People removing broken limbs and branches in the forest onto a truck — **Figure 2**. Residents remove hazardous fuels during a Windcliff Work Day near Estes Park, Colorado. Photo by Bud Durya.

In 2003, the Federal Government made it easier for WUI communities to protect themselves from wildfire (See “Thinking
About the Environment”). If a WUI community prepares a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, the Federal Government will
work with the community to reduce wildfires on everyone’s property. In addition, in a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, local communities can have a say in how wildfires are managed on nearby public lands.

The Federal Government also urged WUI communities to describe their own WUI and draw boundaries that identify where their WUI is located. This area represents the land that the community values and wants to protect from wildfire.

If communities can agree on the definition and location of the WUI, they can more easily agree on the best way to reduce their risk from wildfires. Past research has shown that communities who do this are better prepared for wildfires. The WUI also shows public land managers where the community would like them to work to reduce wildfire risk.

When the Federal Government passed the law to encourage communities to develop a Community Wildfire Protection Plan, they thought that communities would want to define and locate their WUI so they could show the area they wanted protected from wildfire. But many communities do not do this. The scientists wanted to learn about the communities that made the WUI part of their plan.

Reflection Section

Methods

The scientists decided to do four case studies. A case study is a detailed examination of one example. Social scientists might study one individual, one group, or one event. The scientists identified four WUI communities in the Eastern United States (figure 3). They traveled to each of these communities and interviewed people. The people they interviewed were all involved in the preparation of a Community Wildfire Protection Plan. They included people working in fire departments and local governments, forest managers, and homeowners.

A map of the eastern half of the U.S. with a star on each of the communities in the study — **Figure 3**. The four communities were located across the Eastern United States.

The scientists interviewed 58 people in the 4 communities (figure 4). They recorded each interview. Later, they typed each interview word for word. One of the scientists organized and summarized all of the interviews.

Figure 4. The number of people interviewed in each community.
Community name	Number of people interviewed
Lake County, Minnesota	16
Barnes and Drummond, Wisconsin	13
High Knob, Virginia	18
Taylor, Florida	9

Reflection Section

Findings

Three of the four communities identified the WUI in their plan. These were the communities of Lake County, Minnesota; Barnes and Drummond, Wisconsin; and Taylor, Florida. Three things were most important to these communities as they identified their WUI (figure 5).

Figure 5. Things people considered as they described their own WUI.
Hazards	How much fuel is available to burn; how often wildfires occurred; how many fires were caused by humans; not enough planning by the community.
Values	What people feel is important to them; the value of their homes and other buildings; the importance of having forests for wood products.
Physical locations	Local fire departments; public land boundaries; distance from fire stations; the condition of the roads.

Although people understood the general definition of the WUI, each community defined the WUI that was important to them. In some communities, people working for Federal agencies helped the local people define their WUI. Federal workers did not have to be involved but, when they were, they were able to help people understand the risk of fire in their WUI. Federal workers also helped people understand what they could do to reduce that risk. Members of fire departments and other professionals also affected the way the WUI was identified and described.

The case studies showed that it is important to include local homeowners when describing the WUI. These people are familiar with the area and can help identify problems and opportunities. Also, when local people are involved in planning for an activity (like reducing the items that can burn close to their homes), they are more likely to do the activity.

The scientists discovered that when the local WUI is described as a part of the Community Wildfire Protection Plan, people with different opinions must come to an agreement. The description of the local WUI, therefore, is a community definition that everyone shares, and it helps local communities to better prepare for a possible wildfire.

Reflection Section

Discussion

The Eastern United States is different from the Western United States in many ways. For one thing, most of the land in the East
is privately owned, primarily by citizens and corporations. Another difference is that human communities are found almost everywhere. In addition, there is a lot of forested land in the East. Because of this, much of the land in the East can be considered as a kind of WUI. This makes it more challenging for communities in the East to identify the WUI as an area separate from everywhere else—the WUI is everywhere!

In spite of these challenges, there are advantages to defining and describing a local WUI. When communities get together and
define and describe the local WUI, they come to an agreement about the hazards, values, and resources in the community. This helps them develop a better plan to protect the community from a possible wildfire. It also helps them work with public land managers to protect forests across the landscape.

Reflection Section

Adapted from Grayzeck-Souter, S. A.; Nelson, K.; Brummel, R.; Jakes, P.; and Williams, D. 2009. Interpreting federal policy at the local level: The wildlandurban interface concept in wildfire protection planning in the eastern United States. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 18: 278–289. http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/33049.

Part Of

Wildland Fire 2 - Vol. 13 No. 1

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Standards addressed in this Article:

What Is a Natural Inquirer Journal?

Three Natural Inquirer journal covers with NI bee

A Natural Inquirer journal is a collection of 4-8 articles on a related science topic. Journals are written for a middle school audience, but they can also be adapted for both high school students and advanced upper elementary students. Some journals are particularly suited to high school students; you can find our grade level recommendations in the tags on the product page or by filtering journals by grade level.

Journals include:

Four to eight articles based on published, peer-reviewed research papers; the articles keep the research paper format (see more below) but are written in language students can understand.
A FACTivity for each article, which is an activity to complete after reading the article. The FACTivity helps reinforce major science concepts from the article. These activities are designed to be easy to implement, with few material requirements and options for adapting them for your audience or available resources. Some articles in a journal may have two FACTivities.
A short “Welcome to the journal” article about key background information and science concepts that unify the articles included in the journal
A glossary of new terms for each article and the introductory materials.
A list of related Natural Inquirer publications for each article as well as outside references.
Standards correlations, including Next Generation Science Standards, addressed in the articles and the FACTivities.

Journals may also include additional essays (called spotlights), other activities (like crossword puzzles or vocabulary challenges), and more.

A screenshot of the article resource tile for "A Flame Changer" showing the three different format option buttons.

Reading Modes

Journals are available in three different formats:

Hard copies can be ordered from the website and shipped, all free of charge.
PDF versions of the printed journal can be downloaded free on the website. The PDF version directly replicates the content and layout of the printed version. You can also download individual articles as pdfs.
The “Read Distraction Free” option allows the individual articles to open in their own window, without the rest of the website being visible. These articles can be found under the “Articles” tab. This version allows readers to scroll to particular sections of the article using the sidebar menu on the left side of the screen. This version also has interactive Reflection Sections and Number Crunches. Students can enter their answers, submit them, and then receive the correct answers to double-check their work. Submitted answers are not saved on the website and will disappear once the window is closed.

What's in a Natural Inquirer Article?

Here, we'll go into more detail about the parts of a Natural Inquirer article and give you some ideas about how they can be used.

Meet the Scientists
This section introduces the scientists (and others) who worked on the study. In their own words, they each share a memorable science experience, a favorite research project, or something they learned during the course of their education or research.

Use this section to:
- Introduce kids to the variety of people who work in science
- Introduce kids to the variety of scientific fields and give brief descriptions of science-related jobs
- Explore ways that people interact with science every day
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) applications:
- Science and Engineering Practices
- Crosscutting Concepts: Influence of Science, Engineering, and Technology on Society and the Natural World
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

Many of the scientists and engineers featured in this section are also featured on our collector cards. Learn more about their work, how they got interested in their fields, and interesting projects they worked on. Cards can be printed as posters, too.
Thinking About Science
This section briefly describes a concept about science or scientific research. This overview can touch on topics like
- study type (longitudinal study, quantitative vs. qualitative data),
- behaviors of scientists (conducting literature reviews, collaborating with other specialists, replicating earlier studies),
- the practice of science (the scientific method, engineering design, data collection, randomization, controls and variables),
- or other aspects of science (bias, correlation vs. causation).
Use this section to:
- Reinforce steps in the scientific method and the process of science
- Encourage students to think about the practice of science and what it can and cannot tell us
- Consider the many types of scientific study and what information each type can provide
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Science and Engineering Practices
- Life Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

You can use key words to search for other or related scientific topics on our website (e.g. “longitudinal study,” “bias,” or “sampling”).
Thinking About the Environment
This section provides a brief overview of a topic or concept in environmental/life science. The topic or concept is directly related to the research study that follows. Examples of topics include the carbon cycle, the water cycle, habitat fragmentation, phenology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.

Use this section to:
- Provide important background information to help students understand the research study
- Serve as a quick reference during reading or class instruction
- Connect the research article with other activities or media on the same topic
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Life Science and some Earth Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

You can use key words to search for more resources on life or earth science topics on our website (e.g. “habitat,” “carbon,” or “genetics”).
Introduction
This section begins the scientific article format. Much like the published, peer-reviewed study this article is based on, the introduction provides background information for the study – what is currently known and what remains unknown. The introduction culminates in the question(s) the study hopes to answer.

The introduction is also the first section with a Reflection Section. This section includes two or three questions to help kids reflect on what they’ve just learned in the Introduction. If they are using the online distraction-free reading mode, they can answer these questions directly on the website.

Use this section to:
- Review important background information that kids need to understand the study
- Connect the study to the concepts addressed in the Thinking About Science and Thinking About the Environment sections
- Understand research questions and hypotheses, including generating their own hypotheses given what they already know
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Life Science and some Earth Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

Use one of the guided reading lesson plans to help kids follow the format of a scientific paper.
Methods
This section is the nuts and bolts of the study design – the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the research. Contained within the Methods section are usually maps of the study location or the set-up of study plots, as well as details about what data was collected and how.

The Methods section also ends with a Reflection Section – two or three questions to help students think through what they just read. These questions are interactive on the distraction-free reading mode.

Use this section to:
- Show students how experiments and studies are designed and carried out
- Explore sampling methods and randomization
- Introduce various data collection tools (e.g. camera traps, surveys, insect collection tools, weather stations, etc.)
- Explain bias and how studies are designed to remove bias
- Help students gain experience with map reading
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Life Science and some Earth Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

Many Methods and Findings sections contain Number Crunches, which are simple math exercises designed to help students interact with the data from the study.
Findings
This section summarizes the data collected during the study. The Findings section usually includes data tables or graphs and highlights the significant data points from the study. This section often mentions statistical analysis or the use of computer programs to model or analyze the data, though these methods are only discussed generally.

The Findings section also ends with a Reflection Section – two or three questions to help students think through what they just read. These questions are interactive on the distraction-free reading mode.

Use this section to:
- Have students practice reading and interpreting graphs and tables
- Compare results between variables and controls
- Explain the concept of statistical significance
- Discuss how no data or negative results still provide valuable information
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Life Science and some Earth Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

Search the website for “map” or “graph” to find activities where students can practice making and reading maps and graphs.
Discussion
This section concludes each article. In it, we summarize the main findings of the scientists’ study. Additionally, we present the scientists’ ideas about the limitations of their study, the big-picture impacts of their research, and the scientists’ plans for future study or action.

The Discussion section ends with a Reflection Section – two or three questions to help students think through what they just read, especially general take-aways from the study. These questions are interactive on the distraction-free reading mode.

Use this section to:
- Discuss what conclusions can and cannot be drawn from the available data
- Explain the difference between correlation and causation
- Explore study limitations and opportunities for further study
- Brainstorm ways the study findings could be applied to real-world situations
Next Generation Science Standards applications:
- Life Science and some Earth Science Disciplinary Core Ideas (depending on topic)
- Most Crosscutting Concepts (depending on topic)
Note that specific standards for this particular monograph are linked on this educator guide tab.

Other resources:

Use the “Designing Your Own Study” resource page for videos of scientists discussing their own research studies. The page also includes educator resources to help students plan their own scientific studies.

Additional Resources on the Website

A screenshot of the product tabs for an NI monograph On the website, we pair each journal with a variety of other resources, as well. Use the tabs on the product page to browse through the following:

Related activities, including the FACTivity for each article
An “About” essay that gives some larger context for the research the scientists conducted or more information about the science topic from the journal
A glossary of all boldfaced terms from the journal
A “Scientists and Collaborators” page that lists the people involved in the studies in the journal; click on a researcher to reach their bio page and see what other articles they might be featured in
A “Related Content” page that lists both Natural Inquirer resources about similar topics and also outside reference materials

Article Selection and Review

Natural Inquirer partners with the USDA Forest Service, so we source research studies by Forest Service scientists that have been peer-reviewed and published in reputable journals. Some of our articles have also been created in collaboration with scientists from other Federal agencies, such as U.S. Geological Survey and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, universities, and other non-profits.

All journal articles are reviewed by scientists who conducted the original research study to verify scientific accuracy. Journals are also reviewed by student editorial review boards of middle or high school students before publication. Additionally, all journals are reviewed by the Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture before publication.

A screenshot of the citation for "Lights, Camera, Tracks" Every journal article includes a citation of its source study. Many educators pair the original research paper with our article to help more advanced students learn how to read formal research papers. The journal article then serves as adapted primary literature, bridging the two articles.

Lessons

In small groups (or individually), students will read a Natural Inquirer or Investi-gator article and write a letter to the scientist, asking for clarification on at least four questions. This...
Lesson Plan – Letter to a Scientist
In small groups (or individually), students will read a Natural Inquirer or Investi-gator article and write a letter to the scientist, asking for clarification on at least four questions. This...
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Wildland Fire 2 - Vol. 13 No. 1
The purpose of this lesson plan is to give students a chance to reflect on their reading and create poems to express what they have learned. The lesson plan is...
Lesson Plan – Forest Poems
The purpose of this lesson plan is to give students a chance to reflect on their reading and create poems to express what they have learned. The lesson plan is...
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- Download Lesson Plan (PDF)
- Explore Lesson Plan
- Download Lesson Plan (PDF)
Part Of

Wildland Fire 2 - Vol. 13 No. 1
This lesson plan introduces students to the different sections of a Natural Inquirer article. Additionally, it helps the students understand the content of the article through the use of graphic...
Lesson Plan – Reading a Natural Inquirer Article – FACELook
This lesson plan introduces students to the different sections of a Natural Inquirer article. Additionally, it helps the students understand the content of the article through the use of graphic...
- Explore Lesson Plan
- Download Lesson Plan (PDF)
- Explore Lesson Plan
- Download Lesson Plan (PDF)
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FACELook! Exploring the Relationship Between Carbon, Photosynthesis, and the Roots of Trees

Education Files

Project Learning Tree

If you are a trained Project Learning Tree educator, you may use “Loving It Too Much,” “Pollution Search,” “Talking Trash, Not!,” and “Every Drop Counts” as additional resources.

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Journals & Monographs

Collector Cards

Readers

Coloring and Activity Books

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FACTivity – Keeping It Local

Glossary

ecosystem

forest manager

professional

public land

resource

vegetation

Stephanie Grayzeck-Souter

Kristen Nelson

Pamela Jakes

Daniel Williams

Standards addressed in this Article:

What Is a Natural Inquirer Journal?

Reading Modes

What's in a Natural Inquirer Article?

Meet the Scientists

Thinking About Science

Thinking About the Environment

Introduction

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Additional Resources on the Website

Article Selection and Review

Lessons

Lesson Plan – Letter to a Scientist

Lesson Plan – Forest Poems

Lesson Plan – Reading a Natural Inquirer Article – FACELook

Education Files

Project Learning Tree