United States Department of Agriculture

Forest 

Service

General Technical 

Report NRS-152

Northern 

Research Station June 2015

Wildland Fire Management Futures: 

Insights from a Foresight Panel
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Abstract

Wildland fire management faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century: the 

increasingly apparent effects of climate change, more people and structures in the wildlandurban interface, growing costs associated with wildfire management, and the rise of highimpact fires, to name a few. Given these significant and growing challenges, conventional 

fire management approaches are unlikely to be effective in the future. Innovative and 

forward-looking approaches are needed.

This study explored wildland fire management futures by using methods and diverse 

perspectives from futures research. To gain foresight for wildland fire management, we 

convened a foresight panel consisting of seven leading academic and professional futurists 

outside of the wildfire community and two wildfire professionals. We engaged the panelists 

in a series of structured online discussions to elicit their insights and perspectives on the 

future of wildland fire management.

There are five broad areas where the foresight panel members were in full agreement. (1) 

The level of uncertainty about external developments and future conditions that will set the 

context for wildland fire management is significantly greater than is recognized in current 

planning. (2) As conditions change, the traditional fire prevention and suppression approach 

to wildfire management will prove unsustainable. (3) A new fire resilience approach 

is emerging as an alternative to traditional viewpoints and practices. (4) All the major 

strategies needed to implement this approach are already familiar to wildfire managers. 

(5) There are strong short-term barriers to adopting the fire resilience approach, but the 

panelists believe its adoption is nearly inevitable between now and mid-century.

The use of trade, firm, or corporation names in this publication is for the information 

and convenience of the reader. Such use does not constitute an official endorsement 

or approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Forest Service of any product 

or service to the exclusion of others that may be suitable. 

Quality Assurance

This publication conforms to the Northern Research Station’s Quality Assurance 

Implementation Plan which requires technical and policy review for all scientific publications 

produced or funded by the Station. The process included a blind technical review by at least 

two reviewers, who were selected by the Assistant Director for Research and unknown to 

the author. This review policy promotes the Forest Service guiding principles of using the 

best scientific knowledge, striving for quality and excellence, maintaining high ethical and 

professional standards, and being responsible and accountable for what we do.
About the Authors

ROBERT L. OLSON is a senior fellow at the Institute for Alternative 

Futures, 2331 Mill Road, Suite 100, Alexandria, VA 22314, 

bobolson2020@gmail.com.

DAVID N. BENGSTON is a research social scientist with the U.S. 

Forest Service, Northern Research Station, 1992 Folwell Avenue, 

St. Paul, MN 55108, dbengston@fs.fed.us.

LEIF A. DeVANEY recently received his Ph.D. in conservation biology 

from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN.

TREVOR A.C. THOMPSON is a futurist at the Institute for Alternative 

Futures and a graduate student at Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Wildland Fire Management Futures: 

Insights from a Foresight Panel

General Technical Report NRS-152

This study was funded in part by the Joint Fire Science Program

Robert L. Olson, David N. Bengston, 

Leif A. Devaney, and Trevor A.C. Thompson
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Contents

Executive Summary ................................................................................1

Introduction............................................................................................4

Methods.................................................................................................5

Key Areas of Agreement.......................................................................10

Facilitating the Shift to Fire Resilience..................................................17

Institutionalizing Foresight in Wildland Fire Management...................24

Conclusions ..........................................................................................25

Literature Cited.....................................................................................27

Appendix 1: Previous Wildfire Futures Efforts......................................32

Appendix 2: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members.........................36

Appendix 3: Three Scenarios for Wildfire Futures................................40

Appendix 4: New Paradigm of Wildfire Management 2050.................44
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1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Wildland fire management faces unprecedented 

challenges in the 21st century: the increasingly apparent 

effects of climate change, more people and structures 

in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), soaring costs 

associated with wildland fire management, and the 

rise of high-impact fires, to name a few. Given these 

significant and growing challenges, conventional fire 

management approaches are unlikely to be effective in 

the future. Innovative and forward-looking approaches 

are needed.

This study explored wildland fire management futures 

by using methods and diverse perspectives from 

futures research. To gain foresight for wildland fire 

management, we convened an expert foresight panel 

and engaged the panelists in a series of structured online 

discussions. Most panelists in this study were outside 

of the wildland fire community. The seven academic 

and professional futurists and two wildfire professionals 

provided their insights and perspectives on the future of 

wildland fire management.

Key Areas of Agreement

There are five broad areas where the foresight panel 

members were in full agreement.

1. The level of uncertainty about the external 

developments and future conditions that will set the 

context for wildland fire management is significantly 

greater than is recognized in past Quadrennial Fire 

Reviews (QFRs) and current planning.

For example, the latest report by the United Nations 

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 

2014) estimates that if the world continues down 

its current carbon-emitting course, average global 

temperatures could rise by anywhere from 2.6 °C (4.7 

°F) to a staggering 4.8 °C (8.6 °F) by the end of the 

century. On anything near this course, wildland fire 

management would soon become much more difficult, 

expensive, and dangerous to firefighters than managers 

are anticipating today. Changes in the economy, energy 

prices and availability, technology, and other factors 

make very different conditions possible over the decades 

ahead.

Given such large uncertainties, the foresight panel 

members organized their conversations around a set 

of three scenarios that embrace the span of future 

conditions they believe are plausible. They range from 

an image of economic decline and political dysfunction 

(scenario 1) to a business-as-usual image (scenario 2) 

and an image of rapid technical and social innovation, 

more efficient government, and an unprecedented 

mobilization to deal with climate change (scenario 3).

2. As conditions change, the traditional fire 

prevention and suppression approach to wildland fire 

management will prove unsustainable.

Larger and more damaging fires are becoming more 

common, and panel members see this situation 

worsening with no end in sight under the current 

approach to wildland fire management. Constant fire 

suppression causes the buildup of fuels, so we are selfselecting for fires that we cannot control and that do the 

greatest damage.

3. A new fire resilience approach is emerging as an 

alternative to traditional viewpoints and practices.

The emerging approach is based on an appreciation of 

the self-regulating processes in nature and an aspiration 

to “go with the flow” of those processes. It accepts 

fire as a natural part of the landscape with important 

ecological functions and emphasizes learning to live with 

fire rather than waging war against it. The central goal 

of this approach is to create fire-resilient communities, 

both ecological and human. The new fire resilience 

paradigm is based on the notion of comanagement of 

risk, with individuals, communities, governments, and 

other organizations learning together what they can 

each do to create a sustainable approach to wildland fire 

management.
2

4. The major strategies needed to implement this fire 

resilience approach are already familiar to wildland 

fire managers.

Becoming fire-resilient requires well-known strategies 

such as communities protecting structures with building 

codes and buffer zones, requiring ignition-resistant 

landscaping, and designating evacuation routes and 

safe zones in the community. As communities move 

toward fire resilience, adjacent areas and back-country 

lands would be thinned and treated with fire to make 

them fire-resilient as well. These measures and related 

strategies are familiar to wildland fire managers and 

there are programs to encourage them, but not on the 

needed scale. Fire resilience strategies would apply not 

just to places where people already live, but also to new 

development in the 84 percent of the WUI across the 

western United States that has not yet been developed. 

Once communities, adjacent lands, and back-country 

areas have been made fire-resilient, sustainable wildland 

fire management would then involve maintaining this 

pattern over time.

5. There are strong short-term barriers to adopting 

the fire resilience approach, but panel members 

believe its adoption is nearly inevitable between now 

and mid-century.

If the future unfolds along the lines of scenario 1, with 

government budgets cut to the bone, the war on fire 

would end by force of necessity. Communities that 

become fire-resilient would survive fires without much 

harm; others would suffer more damage. If future 

conditions evolve to be more like scenario 3, with ample 

resources, a commitment to sustainability, and openness 

to innovation, panelists believe the fire resilience 

approach would be readily adopted. Resistance to the 

fire resilience approach would persist the longest in the 

business-as-usual conditions of scenario 2, but would 

eventually crumble as landscapes are devastated by more 

and more catastrophic fires.

Facilitating the Shift Toward Fire 

Resilience

Panel members used the scenarios to focus discussion on 

measures for facilitating the shift toward fire resilience 

likely to be workable across a broad range of future 

conditions. This put the focus on low-cost, easy-tomanage measures that might be possible even in the 

conditions of scenario 1. Many of these ideas are already 

being implemented and need only to be strengthened or 

continued. Recommended efforts are:

•	 Cultivate an adaptive leadership stance where 

the leader does not have all the answers and 

where a central leadership task is to span 

organizational boundaries and facilitate 

people learning together, experimenting, and 

cooperating to solve problems.

•	 Use awards, certifications, and fire resilience 

design competitions to reward and encourage 

innovation, such as with a certification program 

for fire-resistant homes similar to the Leadership 

in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 

program.

•	 Create an ongoing and innovative public 

relations effort highlighting the fire resilience 

approach.

•	 Connect wildland fire management to larger 

global concerns for sustainability and security 

with low-cost steps such as encouraging studies 

by organizations like the Worldwatch Institute.

•	 Conduct additional social science research to 

more fully understand the human dimensions 

of a fire resilience approach.

•	 Provide additional “how to do it” information 

on becoming fire-resilient in many forms and 

through many different channels.

•	 Use “serious games” and playable simulations to 

train first responders and engage communities, 

homeowners, and children.

•	 Help educate the political community about the 

true nature of wildland fire problems.

•	 Support the development of a new fire 

economics that incorporates long-term thinking 

and the value of life-supporting ecosystem 

services.

•	 Start an ongoing dialogue between the wildland 

fire management community and the insurance 

industry to discuss strategies for encouraging 
3

communities to become more fire-resilient, 

such as supporting efforts to develop more fireresistant structures and helping policy holders 

understand what they can do to mitigate fire risk.

If more resources are available, many of these actions 

could be strengthened and many additional actions 

could be possible, such as rapid expansion of fuel 

treatment programs or a program to finance fireresistant home improvements modeled after existing 

weatherization programs.

If conditions evolve so that strong federal leadership 

is possible, the federal government could pursue a 

comprehensive approach, helping to create a new system 

of firesheds across the country. Each fireshed would 

have a council responsible for all aspects of wildland 

fire including fuels treatment, preparedness planning, 

suppression response, fire rehabilitation and recovery, 

and promotion of fire-resilient land use building codes 

and zoning. The federal government could provide 

incentives to these councils, prioritizing investment 

based on risk ranking and community performance.

Institutionalizing Foresight in 

Wildland Fire Management

Our panelists agreed that the development of foresight 

must be ongoing and institutionalized into routine 

planning and policy-making to have a lasting effect. 

A single foresight exercise like this one, or even 

periodic efforts like the QFRs, quickly loses its value 

no matter how skillfully done and widely embraced. 

Institutionalizing foresight capacity in wildland fire 

management would help identify emerging issues, 

driving forces of change, potential wild cards (events 

with low probability and high impact), and a range 

of plausible scenarios that can help provide the broad 

context for fire management planning.

Panel members identified two main strategies 

for institutionalizing foresight into wildland fire 

management. An in-house strategy would involve 

creating an interagency fire futures unit that would 

be staffed with several trained futurists, with enough 

budget and personnel to do high-quality and continuing 

foresight. This unit would be responsible for regular 

horizon scanning and high-priority projects exploring 

possible, plausible, and preferable fire futures using a 

range of foresight methods.

An alternative strategy is to have one high-level person 

assigned specifically to contract with futures research 

organizations and think tanks, purchasing scans and 

futures surveys on a regular basis, and working closely 

with fire planners, managers, and policy makers to 

incorporate the findings into decisionmaking and 

strategies. Outsourcing foresight activities is a common 

approach in corporations, but it is important for 

decisionmakers to ensure that foresight developed by 

outside consultants is relevant and incorporated into 

strategic planning and decisions.

Conclusions

The key areas of agreement among the panelists point 

toward a new direction for wildland fire management: 

a paradigm shift from the “war on fire” approach 

emphasizing fire suppression and exclusion, to a 

fire resilience approach emphasizing learning to live 

with fire in resilient communities on fire adapted 

landscapes. These are certainly not new ideas in the 

fire management community—they have deep roots in 

holistic thinking about social-ecological systems. But 

as with all paradigm shifts, the new fire management 

paradigm faces many barriers and obstacles. Our hope 

is that this study will stimulate further forward-looking 

debate and discussion about the future of wildland fire 

management.
4

INTRODUCTION

Wildland fire management faces unprecedented 

challenges in the 21st century. The list of major 

challenges is well known in the wildfire community, and 

includes the following:

•	 The number, size, and intensity of wildland fires 

have increased significantly in many parts of the 

world in recent decades, and they are expected 

to continue to increase in the decades ahead 

due to projected climate change (Moritz et al. 

2012, Stephens et al. 2013). Factors driving 

increased frequency and size of fires include 

rising temperatures, longer fire seasons, earlier 

spring snowmelts, and an accumulation of 

forest fuels in many areas due to decades of fire 

suppression.

•	 The presence of more people and structures 

in the path of wildland fires has increased the 

social and economic impacts of fire activity. 

Related trends include population growth, 

sprawling development patterns, growing 

multiple and seasonal homeownership, amenity 

migration, and interregional population shifts to 

the West and Southeast (Hammer et al. 2009). 

Retirement by the baby boom generation over 

the next 20 years is expected to intensify most 

of these trends.

•	 The cost of wildfire suppression has grown 

alarmingly and suppression costs are only a 

small fraction of the full direct, indirect, and 

postfire costs associated with wildfire. According 

to Zybach et al. (2009), suppression costs 

represent no more than 10 percent of actual 

wildfire costs to society. Studies have estimated 

that total economic costs can be at least 10 to 

50 times suppression costs.

•	 The frequency of “fire events that cause 

catastrophic damages in terms of human 

casualties, economic losses, or both” (SanMiguel-Ayanz et al. 2013: 11) has increased. 

These large wildfires are distinguished by the 

extraordinary scope and scale of their impacts. 

According to Williams (2013), 0.1 percent of 

wildland fires account for about 95 percent 

of total area burned and 85 percent of the 

total costs of suppression. Carbon emissions 

associated with high-impact fires are positive 

feedbacks to climate change (Adams 2013).

Given these significant and growing challenges, 

conventional fire management approaches are unlikely 

to be effective in the future. Innovative and forwardlooking approaches are needed.

Several recent reports have identified challenges, 

opportunities, and risks to help wildland fire policy 

makers and managers plan for an uncertain and 

changing future. Most prominent among these are 

the Quadrennial Fire Reviews (QFRs), a strategic 

assessment process carried out by the five federal fire 

management agencies and their partners in the wildland 

fire community every 4 years to help guide budgeting 

and strategic planning. The 2005 Quadrennial Fire 

and Fuel Review (QFFR) was developed by more than 

200 personnel from the fire community, including fire 

experts from federal, state, local, and tribal partners, 

with input from the fire and natural resource research 

community and nongovernmental organizations 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. 

Department of the Interior [USDI] 2005). A series 

of meetings were held around the country to gather 

input, followed by more formal “working panels” 

organized around specific topics of interest. The 2009 

QFR broadened the process used in the 2005 QFFR in 

several respects, such as greater involvement of nonfire 

and nonfederal participants, an expanded domain of 

the working panels to explore a wider range of future 

options, and a greater role for research in the process 

(USDA and USDI 2009). The next QFR is being 

conducted by the strategic management and technology 

consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. See Appendix 

1 for a brief review of the QFRs and other fire futures 

studies.

This study offers a supplemental and alternative 

approach to the QFRs, exploring wildland fire 

management futures via methods and diverse 

perspectives from futures research. Futures research 

is a transdisciplinary social science that uses an array 
5

of methods and perspectives to examine alternative 

possible, plausible, and preferable futures (Bengston 

et al. 2012, Cook et al. 2014). The goal of futures 

research is to produce strategic foresight, defined as “the 

ability to create and maintain a high-quality, coherent, 

and functional forward view and to use the insights 

arising in organizationally useful ways; for example, to 

detect adverse conditions, guide policy, shape strategy” 

(Slaughter 2002: 104). To gain foresight for wildland 

fire management, we convened an expert foresight 

panel consisting of professional futurists and wildfire 

professionals, and engaged the panelists in a series of 

online discussions.

This project does not attempt to “predict the future” 

of wildland fire management. Successfully predicting 

the future of complex social-ecological systems is 

rarely possible because of the prevalence of surprise 

(Gunderson and Longstaff 2010) and irreducible 

uncertainties (Carpenter 2002). But wildland fire 

managers and policy makers must still anticipate and 

prepare for a rapidly changing world. Futures research 

offers a productive set of approaches to this challenge. 

Enhanced foresight resulting from our project may be 

helpful in preparing for and shaping the future of fire 

management.

The next section describes the methods used in our 

study of the future of wildland fire management. This is 

followed by a discussion of the key areas where our panel 

members agreed about potential future developments, 

contexts, and directions for wildland fire management. 

Recommended actions are then summarized, and 

guidelines for institutionalizing foresight in wildland fire 

management follow.

METHODS

This study involved recruiting futurists and wildfire 

professionals for an expert foresight panel and engaging 

the panelists in a series of structured, text-based, 

asynchronous online discussions to explore wildland 

fire management futures. The use of foresight panels 

generally entails identifying a diverse set of creative 

thinkers and querying them about (1) potential 

high-impact future developments that may affect the 

topic of interest, (2) the likelihood and impacts of 

these developments, and (3) policies to encourage 

positive developments or to deal with negative impacts 

(Environmental Futures Committee 1995, Gordon and 

Glenn 2009). Foresight panels are often conducted in 

multiple, interactive rounds. This section describes the 

main steps in our three-round, online panel method. See 

Bengston and Olson (2015) for additional detail.

Selecting Panel Members

Most of the panelists in this study were outside of 

the wildfire community. Seven leading academic and 

professional futurists plus two wildfire professionals 

were recruited to provide their insights and perspectives 

on emerging issues and trends that will likely affect fire 

management in the future. The box on page 6 presents 

a list of our foresight panel members. A biographical 

sketch for each participant is given in Appendix 2.

A panel consisting mostly of wildfire outsiders was 

chosen because specialists within a field are often 

unaware of external developments that may have 

significant effects in the future. Specialists tend to 

focus within their field and see what they are trained to 

see. This phenomenon has been termed the “educated 

incapacity” of experts with respect to perceiving the 

future: experts generally “know so much about what 

they know that they are the last to see that future 

differently” (Weiner and Brown 2005: 2). People with 

a broad array of outside perspectives and knowledge 

spanning diverse fields are more likely to see a wider 

range of possible and plausible futures.

Our panel of futurists included individuals with 

diverse perspectives and disciplinary roots. Futurists 

are generalists by nature and practice. Bell (1997: 182) 

observed that because futurists examine a wide range of 

topics and draw on many different fields of knowledge, 

“the futurist tends to become a polymath, a generalist, 

and a universalist.” Futurists strive to see the big picture 

and how the parts interrelate to produce the whole.

In addition to the seven top-of-the-profession futurists, 

two highly regarded wildfire professionals were included 

on the panel: a social scientist known for her work 
6

on the human dimensions of wildland fire, and a fire 

policy expert. These wildfire professionals provided 

invaluable perspectives and knowledge, and served 

as a resource for the other panelists when questions 

Foresight Panel Participants

Futurists

Peter C. Bishop: Retired associate professor of strategic foresight and director 

of the graduate program in futures studies at the University of Houston; 

founding board member of the Association of Professional Futurists; president 

of Strategic Foresight and Development.

Jamais Cascio: Professional futurist at OpentheFuture.com; Distinguished 

Fellow at the Institute for the Future; Senior Fellow at the Institute for Ethics 

and Emerging Technologies; cofounder of WorldChanging.com.

James A. Dator: Professor and director of the Hawaii Research Center for 

Futures Studies, Department of Political Science; former president of the World 

Futures Studies Federation; cofounder of the Institute for Alternative Futures.

Elizabeth Hand: Award-winning visionary scenario writer; author of 15 novels 

and 4 collections of short stories; faculty member at the Stonecoast MFA 

Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.

Michael Marien: Former editor of Future Survey, a scanning service 

published monthly by the World Future Society from 1979-2008; director of 

GlobalForesightBooks.org; has published a large number of articles in leading 

futures research journals and other scholarly journals.

Jonathan Peck: President and senior futurist at the Institute for Alternative 

Futures; futures work spans scientific, economic, political, and social changes 

that can be addressed with an understanding of complex systems dynamics.

David Rejeski: Director of the Science and Technology Innovation Program at 

the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; former head of the 

Future Studies Unit at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Wildland fire professionals

Sarah McCaffrey: Social scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, Northern 

Research Station’s “People and Their Environments” research unit; 

internationally recognized expert on the social dynamics of fire management.

John Phipps: Director of the Rocky Mountain Research Station; former senior 

advisor in the Deputy Chief’s Office, U.S. Forest Service, State & Private 

Forestry; develops policy analysis and options for national fire issues.

about fire management and policy arose during the 

online discussions. The principal investigators (Olson 

and Bengston) and research assistants (DeVaney and 

Thompson) also participated in the online discussions.
7

Asynchronous Computer 

Conferencing

Panelists interacted in three separate week-long rounds 

of discussion (each about 2 months apart) using textbased asynchronous computer conferencing, a form of 

computer-mediated communication in which there is a 

delay in interaction between contributors. This approach 

is in contrast to synchronous computer conferencing, 

in which participants communicate simultaneously 

in “real time.” Asynchronous computer conferencing 

has several advantages over face-to-face meetings and 

synchronous computer conferencing. Travel expenses 

are avoided, participants can join in and contribute at 

any time of the day or night, messages are stored and 

can be searched and analyzed later, and participants have 

time to reflect before posting a message. This last point 

may be the most compelling advantage of asynchronous 

computer conferencing: its capacity to support reflective 

interaction, independent of the pressures of time (Wu 

and Hiltz 2004). This feature is especially important 

in the context of developing high-quality and coherent 

strategic foresight.

To be effective, computer conferencing requires skilled 

moderation (Collison et al. 2000, Heuer and King 

2004). The moderator needs to actively manage the 

discussion, including providing instructions to set the 

discussion parameters, posing questions to clarify points 

made by participants, adding new topics and questions 

to a discussion thread, keeping the conversation on 

track, summarizing the discussion at appropriate points, 

and identifying emerging themes and common points of 

agreement and disagreement—a process called weaving 

(McGugan 2002). One of the principal investigators 

in this study (Olson) has moderated asynchronous 

computer conferences over several years involving 

hundreds of participants. The Web-based conferencing 

platform used in this study was InVision Power Services, 

Inc. (IPS Inc., Forest, VA).

Panel Groundwork

After identifying our panel members and securing their 

participation, we asked them to read a set of nine short 

background papers intended to quickly familiarize them 

with U.S. wildfire issues. The background readings 

covered the following topics: the history of wildfire 

policy in the United States (Dombeck et al. 2004, 

Harbour 2009), the Incident Command System (Idaho 

Firewise 2015, Wikipedia 2013), the wildland-urban 

interface or WUI (McKinley and Johnson 2007), 

climate change and wildfire (ScienceDaily 2012a), the 

phenomenon of mega-fires (Maron and ClimateWire 

2011), and perspectives on the future of wildfire 

(ScienceDaily 2012b, USDA and USDI 2009). The 

futurists on the panel proved to be quick learners 

with a big appetite for more information about the 

wildfire situation and wildland fire management, and 

they frequently exchanged relevant articles and other 

information via email throughout the panel process.

Participants were then asked to prepare a short paper 

or bullet-pointed list stating their initial thoughts 

about the most significant emerging developments and 

trends that have potential implications for wildland 

fire management in the future, drawing broadly from 

their knowledge and imagination. We encouraged 

panelists to think broadly about technical innovations, 

social developments, environmental changes, economic 

disruptions, changes in government and in the role of 

the fire management agencies, U.S. developments, global 

developments, converging developments in different 

areas, unlikely developments that could blindside the 

wildfire community, and so on. A spirit of wide-open 

brainstorming was encouraged, with no idea too wild 

to hold back. Although they were asked to provide 

only one or two pages, most of the panelists provided 

considerably more.

Round 1

We analyzed the initial-thought papers and identified 

the following 12 major themes, each of which became 

a separate discussion thread in the first round of online 

discussion: climate change, monitoring, serious games, 

bioengineering, new firefighting technologies, insurance, 

risk assessment, economic and political context, value 

change, fire-resistant designs and materials, public 

education and engagement, and policy tools. Within 

the online conferencing platform, each topic in round 1 

began with a “conversation starter” which summarized 

the ideas brought up in participants’ initial-thought 
8

papers, posed broad questions related to the topic, 

and invited participants to jump into the discussion. 

Panel members elaborated on their initial thoughts, 

contributed new ideas, and reacted to and built on each 

other’s ideas.

Two additional topics were added (by the moderator) 

during the first round: Can the Forest Service escape its 

“social trap”? and preferred and likely futures.1

Round 2

The last topic in round 1 (preferred and likely futures) 

helped lead into the second round of discussion, in 

which panel members provided reactions to three miniscenarios developed by the principal investigators to 

serve as a framework for strategic conversations. This 

approach is similar to futurist Jim Dator’s alternative 

futures method, in which multiple generic or archetypal 

images of the future are used to stimulate broad thinking 

about the future of an organization, community, 

or subject area (Dator 2009). The three scenarios 

described a wide range of plausible social, economic, 

and technological contexts for fire management in the 

future: “collapse” (or slow unraveling), “continue” (or 

business as usual), and “transformation” (a surprisingly 

positive future). The complete mini-scenarios are given 

in Appendix 3, but the following outlines give a sense of 

their character:

Scenario 1: Collapse

•	 Slow economic growth and then decline 

stretching into the foreseeable future

•	 An increasingly polarized, dysfunctional, 

ineffective federal government

•	 A sharp decline in government spending 

•	 Progress in science and technology slowed or 

derailed in most areas

•	 Peak oil; the natural gas revolution proves 

shorter lived than expected; soaring energy 

prices; limited financial ability to invest in 

renewables or nuclear power

•	 Stressed ecosystems, severe water scarcities, 

some environmental impacts eased by economic 

decline

•	 Carbon emissions stay high for a time with 

growing reliance on tar sands and coal, then 

decline as growth falters

•	 Growing social unrest at first; growing local selfsufficiency over time

Scenario 2: Continue

•	 Economic recovery with continuing moderate 

growth in U.S. and global economies

•	 Easing of political polarization, some 

improvement in government functioning

•	 Cuts to entitlements and other government 

programs, but increased spending in highestpriority areas

•	 Continuing technological advances, but few 

major breakthroughs

•	 Boom in shale gas and oil, significant growth 

in renewables but not as a proportion of total 

energy used

•	 Increasing pollution, environmental damage, 

resource depletion; more sprawl in the WUI

•	 Accelerating climate change; major increase in 

wildfires in the United States and globally

•	 Slight easing of economic disparities and social 

tensions

Scenario 3: Transformation

•	 Rapid technological progress accelerates growth, 

but there is less emphasis on consumption, 

more on investment in energy and resource 

efficiency, renewable energy, advanced 

manufacturing, sustainable agriculture

•	 Revitalized, smaller, and more efficient 

government; budget cuts in some areas but 

heavy spending in highest-priority areas

•	 Major breakthroughs in several areas of 

technology

1 A “social trap” is a situation in which the short-term, local 

incentives and reinforcements guiding behavior are at odds 

with the long-term, global best interest of society (Costanza 

1987, Platt 1973). 
9

•	 Energy system transformation with large 

investments in energy efficiency, renewable 

energy, smart grids, and energy storage

•	 Reduced environmental impacts and resource 

depletion despite growth, but global impacts are 

still high

•	 Unprecedented mobilization to deal with 

climate change 

•	 High receptivity to innovation; adaptive 

leadership; sense of common purpose (creating 

a sustainable future, shifting to clean energy, 

minimizing climate change, achieving a higher 

quality of life) animates society

This wide range of plausible future contexts for wildland 

fire management, going well outside of the business-asusual assumptions typically used in planning, provides 

a more robust way of thinking about wildland fire 

management futures.

For each scenario, participants were instructed to 

consider the following questions: What significant 

changes in wildland fire management could result from 

(or would be required by) this scenario? How would 

wildland fire management need to adapt to make the 

best of this possible future?

In addition to brainstorming about the three scenarios, 

round 2 included a wild card discussion forum. Wild 

cards are unlikely but possible developments that would 

be total “game changers” (for better or worse) if they 

should occur. Examples of possible wild cards are abrupt 

or runaway climate change and the development of 

biotechnology- or nanotechnology-based “virtual fire” 

that creates the ecological benefits of wildfire without 

the dangers. The inclusion of wild cards is an important 

aspect of futures thinking because they are the most 

disruptive type of discontinuous change yet they are 

almost always neglected in traditional planning (Petersen 

and Steinmueller 2009).

Round 2 also included a “water cooler” forum for 

discussing any other topic that occurred to the panelists 

and a discussion labeled “Reactions to Michael 

Marien’s Paper.” Panelist Michael Marien contributed a 

thoughtful and broad-ranging paper on wildfire futures 

after the first round. The moderator created a separate 

forum for participants to discuss the paper, which 

generated significant dialogue, including discussion 

of the need for a new paradigm of wildland fire 

management.

Round 3

The third and final round consisted of four discussion 

threads:

•	 Actions and strategies appropriate in all three 

scenarios 

•	 Does the new paradigm, developed in round 2, 

“work” in all three scenarios? 

•	 Institutionalizing foresight in the wildfire 

management community 

•	 Another “water cooler” forum for open 

discussion of any topic 

The first of these discussion threads was motivated 

by the need to identify robust actions that would be 

appropriate and effective across a wide range of potential 

future conditions. Participants were asked to look 

again at the three scenarios used in round 2 and discuss 

wildland fire management ideas that would be suitable 

given the circumstances of at least two of the scenarios.

The second discussion thread, “Does the new paradigm 

‘work’ in all three scenarios?”, focused on a paradigm 

shift in wildland fire management that first emerged in 

the initial-thought papers and grew throughout the first 

and second rounds. The essence of this paradigm shift 

is that the current prevailing “war on fire” paradigm 

(focusing heavily on suppression) will increasingly 

fail and that we need to embrace a new paradigm of 

wildland fire management that focuses on learning to 

live with fire and creating fire-resilient communities. 

Panelist John Phipps proposed a “2050 Vision” in 

round 2 that was a good articulation of this perspective 

and was used as an example of the new paradigm 

in this discussion forum. Participants were asked to 

be specific about how and why a new wildland fire 

management paradigm similar to this vision would or 

would not be viable across all three of the scenarios. 
10

See Appendix 4 for the full statement of this version of 

the new paradigm.

Finally, the discussion thread on “institutionalizing 

foresight in the wildfire management community” 

focused on specific recommendations to the wildland 

fire management community about how to improve 

foresight capability, institutionalize foresight as a 

continuous process, and effectively integrate it with 

decisionmaking and planning.

Analysis

After the last round, the transcripts of all three rounds 

of online discussion were analyzed and summarized 

for the final report. The open coding method was 

used to identify major themes in the text, an approach 

that is well suited to capture rich themes and uncover 

unanticipated issues. This method involves a process of 

repeated and careful reading of the text, developing an 

outline of recurring themes, and cross-referencing each 

theme back to the original text. See Strauss and Corbin 

(1998) for details on the open coding method.

KEY AREAS OF AGREEMENT

The foresight panel members disagreed about the 

likelihood of various future developments and the 

feasibility of specific actions, but there were five broad 

areas where all the panelists were in full agreement.

1. The level of uncertainty about external 

developments and future conditions that will set the 

context for wildland fire management is significantly 

greater than is recognized in past Quadrennial Fire 

Reviews (QFRs) and current planning.

The 2009 QFR identified the following forces for 

change in wildland fire management (USDA and USDI 

2009):

•	 Effects of climate change

•	 Cumulative drought effects and fuel 

accumulation

•	 Increasing WUI growth as better economic 

conditions resume

•	 Escalating emergency response demands

•	 Stress on agency budgets and fire budget 

resources

Panel members agreed that these are among the key 

driving forces. However, they were unanimous in their 

belief that the plausible range of change in these forces is 

much greater than assumed in the QFR.

For example, the wildland fire community may be 

greatly underestimating what is probably the most 

important long-term driving force: climate change. 

A 2012 U.S. Forest Service report, Effects of Climate 

Variability and Change on Forest Ecosystems (Vose et 

al. 2012), estimates that U.S. wildfires could be twice 

as destructive by 2050, and up to five times more 

destructive in some regions, such as western Colorado. 

This estimate is based on the assumption that the 

temperature will increase by an average of roughly 

0.5 °C (0.9 °F) by 2050. This projection is in line 

with another 2012 study, The Age of Western Wildfires

(Climate Central 2012), which estimates that for every 

1.0 °C (1.8 °F) of temperature increase the area burned 

in the western United States could quadruple.

There is considerable uncertainty, however, about how 

much temperatures will actually increase. We cannot 

predict how much carbon dioxide human activities will 

emit, because this depends on factors such as how the 

global economy performs, how society’s production and 

consumption of energy changes, and how responsible 

and effective governments are in addressing the climate 

challenge. Beyond that, our limited understanding of 

how climate feedbacks operate means there is still some 

degree of uncertainty about how much climate change 

will occur as a result of a given amount of greenhouse 

gas emissions. Over timescales of a few decades, natural 

climate variability, aerosols released from volcanoes, 

and other factors can mask or modulate the effects of an 

underlying warming trend. Finally, there is uncertainty 

about what effect different levels of warming would 

have on rainfall patterns and other conditions in specific 

regions.

Despite these uncertainties, all current climate modeling 

efforts agree that the Earth will experience substantial 
11

warming over the next several generations. The latest 

report by the IPCC, Climate Change 2014: Mitigation 

of Climate Change, projects that if the world continues 

down its current carbon-emitting course, average global 

temperatures will rise by anywhere from 2.6 °C (4.6 

°F) to a staggering 4.8 °C (8.6 °F) by the end of the 

century (IPCC 2014). Projections by the International 

Energy Agency, accounting for the reality that many of 

the carbon reduction pledges nations have made are not 

being met, indicate it is conceivable that business-asusual might lead to an average warming of 6 °C (10.8 

°F) by the century’s end. Moving into these higher 

temperature ranges increases the chance of passing 

critical tipping points, such as melting large areas of 

arctic permafrost and releasing vast amounts of methane 

into the atmosphere, triggering abrupt or runaway 

climate change.

The foresight panel members conducted a thought 

experiment imagining the consequences of a temperature 

increase of 4 °C (7 °F) in the western United States by 

the end of the century. If the burn area quadruples for 

every increase in temperature of 1 °C, that might mean 

up to a sixteenfold increase in the area of wildfires by 

2100, and certainly far more than a doubling by 2050. 

In reality there may not be a continuous increase in 

area burned for every degree increase in warmth, and 

burn area is not necessarily equal to destructiveness or 

bad outcomes. But given that our current wildland fire 

management system is already struggling with recent 

increases in the extent of wildfire, any increase in acreage 

burned would tax the system further. The demand 

for emergency response and the stress on fire budgets 

could far surpass current expectations or capabilities, 

and wildland fire management could become much 

more dangerous for firefighters than most managers are 

anticipating today.

Panelists believe many other external conditions that 

will shape wildland fire management in the future 

are also more uncertain than usually assumed. For 

example, the QFR explicitly or implicitly assumes future 

conditions such as the continued existence of abundant 

energy supplies (even if somewhat more expensive), 

an economic system that will recover from its recent 

problems, and a federal government that can make laws 

and assure they are effectively carried out. One panelist 

expressed a very different image of the future:

My conclusions now are that the era of cheap 

and abundant energy will soon be over and 

that expensive, erratic, and eventually very 

inadequate supplies will be normal; water 

will be increasingly expensive and scarce; 

climate change will be increasingly severe and 

unpredictable; our economy will not function 

in any way similar to the rather fair and effective 

way it functioned from the end of WWII to 

1980 while the gaps and dysfunctions brought 

on by fiscal policies and practices from the 

1980s onward will increasingly inhibit rather 

than support our plans and preferences; and 

that while formal governments at all levels will 

be increasingly unable to govern effectively, 

they, along with corporations, will increasingly 

surveil and strive to control.

Panelists found this image of the future disturbingly 

plausible, a reasonable extrapolation of many 

developments currently underway. But panelists’ views 

of “what could be” also included far more positive 

possibilities. Discussion highlighted changes and 

potential developments like the rise of sustainability and 

resilience as guiding concepts, the growing influence 

of the pragmatic millennial generation, and dramatic 

progress in energy and other areas of technology that 

could make it possible to live better while reducing 

environmental impacts.

Panelists believe that uncertainties about the pace 

and character of technological progress, including 

progress in technologies directly useful for wildland fire 

management, make very different outcomes possible 

over the decades ahead. On one hand, the kind of 

economic decline and political dysfunction described 

above could severely limit technological progress. 

On the other hand, some participants believe there 

is a real possibility that progress in areas like artificial 

intelligence, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology 

will have revolutionary impacts. They imagined, for 

instance, the use of “Big Dog”-style all-terrain robots 

able to follow voice commands, carry heavy loads, go 
12

places where human firefighters cannot go, and assist 

in complex tasks like fuel treatment.2

 Such all-terrain 

robots are currently being tested by the military. 

Looking further into the future, they considered 

the possibility of developing biotechnology- or 

nanotechnology-based “virtual fire” able to produce the 

ecological benefits of fire without the dangers.

In between these extremes, panelists discussed a wide 

range of technologies that could be implemented 

soon, or in some cases are already being used but will 

be substantially improved in the years ahead. Several 

examples are listed below.

•	 Real-time mapping and traffic systems (like the 

Waze© community-based traffic and navigation 

app) to support safer access and egress during fires

•	 Serious games and playable simulations to train 

first responders and engage citizens

•	 Targeted biological controls for insects that 

weaken or kill trees

•	 Genetically modified trees to re-establish species 

devastated by diseases and insect pests

•	 Innovations in fire-resistant construction 

materials and wood treatments

•	 More advanced precision logging technology for 

more effective fuel treatment 

•	 Satellites, drones, sensor networks, and possibly 

even sensors placed on captured and released 

animals to monitor forest conditions, detect and 

track fire, and supply data to models

Most of these technologies would be useful in 

supporting the current approach to wildland fire 

management. However, panelists emphasize the need 

for fundamental changes in the current approach and 

predict that organizational and behavioral changes will 

be more important to the future of the field than will 

technological developments.

Thus, panel members saw a wide range of developments 

and future circumstances as plausible. Given such large 

uncertainties about the future, panel members agreed 

that their own conversations should not be based on 

any single image of the future but should be organized 

around a set of alternative futures or scenarios designed 

to embrace the range of potential future conditions they 

believe are plausible, i.e., the three scenarios that were 

the focus of discussions in round 2.

2. As conditions change, the traditional fire 

prevention and suppression approach to wildland fire 

management will prove unsustainable.

Congress currently funds the federal wildland fire 

agencies to extinguish 98 percent of fires on initial 

attack, and therefore the vast majority of fires are put 

out and kept small. Despite these efforts, high-impact 

fires are becoming more common.

Panel members see this situation worsening with no end 

in sight as long as the current approach to wildland fire 

management continues. Climate change will increasingly 

stress forests, especially in the West, making them more 

vulnerable to fires. The traditional fire season already 

lasts 2 months longer than in decades past and we may 

be headed toward a situation where the fire season will 

extend through much of the year. With constant fire 

suppression and the resulting buildup of fuels, we are 

creating conditions for fires that we cannot control and 

that do the greatest damage. By aggressively suppressing 

fires now, we are transferring worsening fire risks to 

the future. As more frequent high-impact fires spread 

to larger and larger areas, wildland fire management 

will become increasingly difficult, expensive, and 

dangerous. Risk will continue to escalate until fuel-filled 

landscapes eventually reset catastrophically, or until 

a fundamentally different approach to wildland fire 

management is implemented.

One participant summed up the discussion with a 

quotation from the late Nobel laureate economist 

Herbert Stein: “If something cannot go on forever, it 

will stop” (Stein 1997).

2 The U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Advanced 

Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded the 

development of prototype Big Dog robots in the hope that 

they will serve as robotic pack mules to accompany soldiers in 

extremely rough terrain.
13

3. A new fire resilience paradigm is emerging as an 

alternative to traditional viewpoints and practices.

After extensive discussion, panel members concluded 

that this increasingly dangerous situation can be resolved 

only by a shift to a “new paradigm” of wildland fire 

management. The idea of a new paradigm for wildland 

fire management is not new. Elements of this approach 

can be seen in many places, including the QFRs and the 

recently completed National Strategy (USDA and USDI 

2014). Forest ecologists and others have called for a new 

paradigm in recent years (e.g., Ingalsbee et al. 2007, 

Jensen and McPherson 2008).

Physicist, historian, and philosopher of science Thomas 

Kuhn introduced the term “paradigm shift” in his book 

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn 1962). As 

Kuhn defined it, a paradigm in science is larger than a 

theory; it embraces the worldview and basic assumptions 

upon which theories in a given area of science are built. 

In the 1970s, people working in the fields of sociology 

and futures studies began using the term to describe a 

similar pattern of social change where anomalies force 

fundamental changes in worldviews, assumptions, and 

values, leading to new ways of looking at things and to 

more adaptive behaviors (Barker 1992, Barnes 1982).

In Kuhn’s view, anomalies—deviations from 

expectations—are always present to some extent in 

all areas of science, but small anomalies are typically 

ignored or set aside as something that will be explained 

before long. However, when extremely large or 

numerous anomalies build up in a scientific field and 

ignoring them becomes impossible, the field is thrown 

into a state of crisis. During this crisis, new ideas and 

ideas previously discarded are tried. Eventually basic 

assumptions are challenged, and a whole new way of 

looking at things emerges and resolves the anomalies. 

In Kuhn’s terminology, when a scientific discipline goes 

through this kind of change—as physics did in moving 

from Newtonian mechanics to Einstein’s theory of 

relativity—that is a paradigm shift.

Panel members believe this pattern fits well with what 

is happening now in wildland fire management. As they 

see it, the paradigm that continues to dominate the 

field is based on a worldview that assumes humans are 

in some sense above or outside of nature and have the 

ability to “conquer” nature. The aspiration to prevent 

and stop forest fires is a manifestation of that outlook, 

as is the imagery of “firefighters” engaged in a war 

against fire. From this standpoint, the problem today 

is that more fires are escaping from our control and the 

solution is to reassert control over nature.

Panel members recognize that this approach has 

served society well for a long time. Improvements 

in technology and management made the “10 a.m.” 

and “extinguish 98 percent on initial attack” goals 

achievable.3

 Lives were saved and property protected 

when fires did occur.

Now, however, wildland fire managers are confronted 

with the anomaly that for all the efforts and past 

successes, highly damaging fires are burning larger and 

larger areas and it is virtually certain that this trend will 

accelerate. Panel members believe that at some point, 

not too far into the future, the growing costs (ecological, 

social, and economic) of fires, combined with probable 

limits on the resources to deal with them, will provoke 

a crisis in wildland fire management. There will be an 

increasingly active search for new ideas and a willingness 

to look at ideas previously discarded or only weakly 

acted upon.

The panelists believe some aspects of the new paradigm 

that will eventually prevail can be anticipated. The 

worldview within this paradigm will be based on a 

deeper understanding and appreciation of the complex 

self-regulating processes within natural systems. This 

will lead to an aspiration to act in ways that “go with 

the flow” of natural processes rather than disrupting 

them. Efforts to influence natural processes will not be 

abandoned but rather will be undertaken with more 

humility and respect for the self-balancing processes of 

nature.

3 Beginning in 1935, the U.S. Forest Service had a “10 a.m.” 

policy which required fires to be controlled as quickly as 

possible after being reported, preferably the same day they 

were detected. If same-day control was not possible, fires 

were to be controlled by 10 a.m. the next day (U.S. Forest 

Service, n.d.).
14

The deeper understanding that has begun developing 

is leading to a fuller appreciation of wildland fire as 

an inevitable and natural process (Moritz et al. 2014). 

Across the country many ecosystems evolved in the 

presence of frequent wildfire and are “fire adapted.” These 

landscapes require wildfire to maintain their balance. 

Wildfire increases plant and animal diversity by releasing 

nutrients into the soil, thereby causing a flush of new 

plant growth, which provides food for forest animals. 

Some vegetation, like lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta), 

need fire to germinate their seeds and stimulate growth. 

Without occasional visits by fire, these landscapes 

become unhealthy and choked with trees and brush.

So the problem, as the panelists see it, is not that we 

need to exert stronger control over natural wildfires. In 

fact, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that there are 

few areas where natural wildfire still exists in the United 

States because the wildland fire community has been 

so successful in removing wildfire from the nation’s 

fire adapted landscapes. And this is the fundamental 

problem. By eliminating natural wildfire, we have 

created a worsening situation of high-intensity unnatural 

wildfire fed by the enormous buildup of fuel that 

natural wildfires would have eliminated. From this very 

different point of view, what we need to do is to end the 

war on fire, return natural wildfire to our fire adapted 

landscapes, and learn to live with it. Panelists believe 

that moving in that direction is both a preferable and an 

inevitable future. Characteristics of the current and new 

wildland fire paradigms are compared below.

4. All the major steps needed to implement this new 

fire resilience approach are already familiar to 

wildland fire managers.

Adopting this approach would be relatively easy if fire 

adapted landscapes were unpopulated, but widespread 

development in the WUI creates a much more difficult 

challenge of returning fire to the land with minimal 

damage to human life and property. This challenge 

is made even more difficult because many of those 

landscapes are also loaded with unsustainable levels of 

hazardous fuels.

An approach that panelists think would be feasible in all 

three of the scenarios is what one called an “inside-out” 

protection strategy, where communities, with or without 

outside assistance, take responsibility for becoming 

fire-resilient. This approach is in sharp contrast to the 

current “outside-in” approach, where many people 

expect to be protected by fire suppression efforts from 

the outside, largely because fire agencies lead them to 

have that expectation.

Becoming fire-resilient requires communities to protect 

structures with building codes and protection zones. 

At minimum, building codes need to make buildings 

more fire-resistant by limiting places where embers can 

enter and ignite the structure. Stronger codes would 

require the use of more fire-resistant building materials. 

Protection zones require standards for flammable 

vegetation adjacent to structures to limit ember sources 

and direct flame contact. Local governments need to set 

Dominant paradigm New paradigm

• “War on fire” • “Work with the flow” of natural processes

• Wildland fire is destructive • Wildland fire is a necessary natural process

• Control wildfire on the landscape • Learn to live with fire on fire adapted landscapes

• Prevent and suppress wildfires • Create fire-resilient human and natural 

communities

• The problem is that wildfires are escaping our 

control

• The problem is that suppressing natural wildfire 

is creating an unsustainable buildup of fuels, 

which results in dangerous “unnatural fire”

• The solution is to apply existing procedures and 

technologies more strongly to bring wildland 

fires under control

• The solution is to develop a more holistic 

approach to wildland fire management where 

stakeholders work together to comanage their 

fire risk 
15

How does a community become fire adapted?

Becoming a fire adapted community is a process and includes the following characteristics:

• It is in or near a fire adapted ecosystem.

• It has adequate local fire suppression capacity to meet most community 

protection needs.

• Its structures and landscaping are designed, constructed, retrofitted, and 

maintained in an ignition-resistant manner.

• It has local codes (building, planning, zoning, and fire prevention codes) that 

require ignition-resistant home design and building materials.

• Fuels on land near and inside the community are treated and maintained for 

safety.

• It has and uses a community wildfire protection plan.

• It has built other safety features such as buffers between fuels and the 

community, safe designated evacuation routes, and safe zones in the community 

when evacuation is not advisable.

protection zone requirements for subdivision design and 

some minimal land use restrictions to prevent building in 

very specific, highly dangerous locations such as at the top 

of steep ridges. A full application of these measures would 

not apply just to places where people already live, but also 

to new development in the 84 percent of the WUI across 

the western United States that has not yet been developed 

(Headwaters Economics 2015). Several characteristics 

of fire adapted communities are highlighted in the box 

below (Fire Adapted Communities Coalition, n.d.).

All these measures are familiar to wildland fire managers. 

There are many locations where several of them have 

been applied. Programs and organizations already 

exist to support these efforts, like community wildfire 

protection plans that encourage thinning trees and 

removing understory around homes, the National Fire 

Protection Association’s Firewise Communities program 

(http://www.firewise.org/), and the Fire Adapted 

Communities Program (http://www.fireadapted.org/).

Research and direct experience have demonstrated that 

residential fire disasters do not have to occur even during 

extreme wildfire conditions (Calkin et al. 2014, Cohen 

2010). There is no reason that any homes or structures 

need to be lost to fire if the right protective measures are 

in place. The potential for home ignition is principally 

determined by a home’s characteristics in relation 

to the home ignition zone, its surroundings within 

100-200 feet. This means we can effectively increase 

resistance to home ignition within a relatively small area 

to prevent residential destruction even without doing 

extensive fuel treatment and controlling wildfire. A fire 

resilience approach to home ignition gives us an effective 

alternative to such impractical approaches as banning 

residential development in the WUI and total wildfire 

control.

As a community is moving toward fire resilience, 

adjacent and back-country areas can be more safely 

treated with fire to make them fire-resilient as 

well. Communities do not have to take all possible steps 

before adjacent land is treated. Thinning can be done 

at any time and with proper care fire can be used at 

little risk, as is often done today. Though it is essential 

for communities to take responsibility, this approach 

calls for shared responsibility between communities and 

adjacent public or private landowners.

As communities and their adjacent areas become more 

fire-resilient, surrounding public lands can be managed 

to limit potential fire severity so that fires burn in a 
16

patchy, low-intensity way. Again, these are familiar 

measures. Federal fuel treatment programs have been 

in place for many years but have never approached 

the needed scale. Once communities, adjacent land, 

and back-country areas have been made fire-resilient, 

sustainable wildland fire management would then 

involve maintaining this pattern over time. Loss of 

life and property would drop sharply, firefighter safety 

would increase dramatically, and the cost of wildland 

fire management would fall well below what it is today.

5. There are strong short-term barriers to the fire 

resilience approach, but panel members believe its 

adoption is nearly inevitable between now and midcentury.

Even though land managers understand that continuing 

the fire suppression approach allows fuel to build up 

and creates future risks, many have not yet concluded 

that the risks and costs involved are unsustainable. Even 

managers who are most concerned about the growing 

risks find it hard to move away from conventional 

practices because there are barriers to the fire resilience 

approach at every level.

At the national level, political leaders have historically 

exerted pressure to put fires out quickly and have poorly 

understood the importance of fuels treatment. Within 

federal agencies, there is little risk to fire managers’ 

careers if they throw everything at a fire and it costs a 

great deal. On the other hand, if they allow a fire to be 

monitored instead of quickly suppressing it and if there 

are adverse consequences, it could end their careers or 

even lead to civil or criminal charges. Fighting fires is 

what people have been trained to do and been rewarded 

for, so getting outside that thinking is difficult.

A complex of businesses including airplane contractors, 

firefighting equipment vendors, mobile catering services, 

and companies that supply showers and washing 

facilities have an incentive to keep policy focused on 

firefighting. The federal-private “fire industrial complex” 

is financially and politically vested in continuing the war 

on wildfire (Keiter 2006, Snider et al. 2006).

At the state level, most state-owned lands are managed 

with a requirement to produce the best economic value, 

which means they are actively managed for timber 

and have to suppress fires to protect the timber. Local 

governments have limited incentives to support land 

use planning and building codes because the costs of 

suppression and recovery are primarily handled at the 

federal and state level. Local fire departments often view 

firefighting as their only legitimate function.

Despite these strong barriers, panel members believe that 

the fire resilience approach is highly likely to be adopted 

over the decades ahead. The change will happen in 

different ways depending on future conditions.

If the future evolves along the lines of scenario 1, with a 

collapsing economy, a dysfunctional federal government, 

energy shortages, and other serious problems, the war on 

fire would end by force of necessity. With government 

budgets at all levels cut to the bone, the kind of 

herculean efforts made today to prevent fires from 

advancing toward communities would be unaffordable. 

Fire would roam on the landscape and fire response 

would be limited to protecting life and property.

With government unable to shoulder much of the 

fire protection burden, communities would be forced 

to assume the primary role themselves through 

comanagement of risk by citizens and adjacent 

landowners. Communities that fail to accept this 

role would burn if fire passes through them. But if 

communities are proactive and create defensible space 

and fire-resilient structures and landscapes, they will 

survive any fires that occur. If they facilitate creation of 

fire-resilient landscapes adjacent to their communities, the 

lands they depend on for their quality of life will survive 

fire without much harm. Allowing fire to roam on the 

landscape the way it did in the pre-settlement era will 

help create landscape-scale fire resilience. The wildland 

fire community could facilitate and speed this adaptive 

process by various low-cost strategies, but it would 

happen even if the federal government plays no role.

If future conditions evolve to be more like those in 

scenario 3, panel members believe the fire resilience 

approach would be readily adopted. The approach fits 

the scenario’s culture, which is open to innovation, 

supports adaptive leadership, and promotes commitment 
17

to moving toward a sustainable future. With the ample 

resources and efficient government in scenario 3, the 

U.S. Forest Service and other government agencies could 

play a large role in facilitating the paradigm shift. The 

scenario’s high technological capabilities would provide 

better tools for learning, communicating, and organizing 

for change. But the scenario’s “cultural fit” with the new 

paradigm is more important than its technical advances.

In conditions similar to scenario 2, which is the businessas-usual scenario most like the present, panelists expect 

that resistance to the fire resilience approach would stay 

strong for a long time. Government is not ineffective as 

in scenario 1, but it is not innovative and adaptive, either. 

The scenario has enough resources to keep escalating what 

we are already doing—for a time. Fire risk is growing 

rapidly in the scenario, and dealing with immediate 

fire dangers would tend to use up the time needed for 

reconsidering the whole approach to the problem.

Panelists see two ways by which the shift to a fire 

resilience approach is most likely to happen under 

scenario 2’s conditions. The preferable way hinges on the 

influence of a science-based approach to managing risk. 

Panelists believe, for example, that continuing research 

may be able to demonstrate that spending a given 

amount of money on fuel treatment across the western 

national forests will reduce expected suppression costs 

by even more, not even factoring in avoidance of loss to 

fire. If this proves possible, then the pressure to adopt a 

new approach might become strong enough to overcome 

the barriers.

The undesirable way the shift could occur is that current 

practices would continue for another generation or 

more. Landscapes would undergo more and more 

catastrophic fire events, many more firefighters would 

lose their lives, and fire suppression costs would 

continue to escalate, until finally the failure of the fire 

suppression approach could no longer be denied.

The bottom line of the panelists’ thinking is that as 

conditions change over time the existing fire suppression 

approach will fail across the whole range of plausible 

future conditions. The emerging fire resilience approach 

works in all those conditions.

FACILITATING THE SHIFT TO FIRE

RESILIENCE

The foresight panel members discussed a wide range 

of ideas about how the wildland fire community could 

facilitate the shift to a fire resilience approach. The 

scenarios mentioned in the preceding section (and given 

in full in Appendix 3) were used as a tool to focus much 

of the discussion on measures likely to be workable 

across a broad range of future conditions. Identifying 

such “robust” measures is one of the best ways to deal 

with the future’s inherent uncertainty.

In practice, this meant a focus on low-cost/lowresource initiatives that are disproportionately effective 

compared to other potential actions and are relatively 

easy to manage. These efforts might still be possible to 

undertake in conditions approaching those in scenario 

1, where the economy is depressed and the federal 

government is considerably weakened. Most of these 

initiatives would be in support of locally led action.

Panel members also discussed initiatives that could 

become possible if more resources are available and 

the federal government is capable of playing a stronger 

leadership role, as in scenario 3 and, to a lesser extent, in 

scenario 2.

A selection of the ideas that panel members discussed is 

set out below for consideration within fire management 

agencies and the larger wildland fire community. 

Many of these actions are already taking place or 

being implemented and need only to be continued or 

strengthened.

Actions Appropriate Across a Wide 

Range of Future Conditions

1. Cultivate a new leadership stance

The new paradigm of wildland fire management 

fundamentally assumes a different leadership stance, a 

stance that in itself is a paradigm shift. One panel 

participant highlighted the need to develop what he 

called “net-centric leaders” able to provide facilitative 

leadership across organizations and bureaucratic 

silos. He argued that the roles, methods, and skills 
18

needed for this kind of boundary-spanning leadership 

are quite different from those required for effective 

leadership within hierarchical organizations. Indeed, 

virtually every idea presented here involves leading 

and coordinating across organizational boundaries—

with local communities, organizations concerned 

with sustainability and security, other organizations 

promoting the fire resilience approach, universities, and 

others.

Another participant stressed the related need for a shift 

from technical to adaptive leadership (Heifetz et al. 

2009). Technical leadership is appropriate for “technical 

problems,” where existing expertise and established 

procedures and technologies can provide an adequate 

response. Although good technical leadership is always 

important, it can “go wrong” when the nature of 

problems changes, as in today’s situation where technical 

leadership is failing to deal with the changing nature 

of the wildfire problem. Established procedures and 

technologies, such as putting fires out and acquiring air 

tankers, remain the priority. But this technical approach 

is making matters worse by changing the problem from 

“natural” wildfire to more dangerous and destructive 

“unnatural” wildfire.

Today wildland fire managers confront an adaptive 

problem, where adequate responses are still being 

developed and clear-cut technical fixes are unavailable. 

It calls for adaptive leadership, where leaders do not 

have all the answers and one of their central tasks is 

to facilitate people learning together, experimenting, 

and cooperating to develop and apply successful 

approaches. The new fire resilience paradigm is based on 

the notion of comanagement of risk, with individuals, 

communities, governments, and other organizations 

learning together what they can each do to back 

away from today’s increasingly fuel-filled landscapes 

and create a sustainable approach to wildland fire 

management.

The skills of boundary-spanning and adaptive leadership 

can be learned. Making more training programs in these 

skills available to fire management agency employees 

could contribute substantially to their capability to 

facilitate the shift to a fire resilience approach and deal 

with other challenging future conditions. Organizations 

like the National Conservation Leadership Institute can 

assist in making this kind of training available.

2. Use awards, certifications, and fire resilience 

design competitions to reward and encourage 

innovation

Awards and certifications for individuals, communities, 

and organizations that promote fire resilience can 

be used as low-cost incentives even in the depressed 

conditions of scenario 1. For example, federal fire 

management agencies could work with the U.S. Green 

Building Council to develop a certification program for 

fire-resistant homes similar to the Leadership in Energy 

and Environmental Design (LEED) program. 

Fire resilience design competitions could be sponsored 

or organized with architecture schools, landscape 

architecture programs, and materials science programs 

at engineering schools. Design competitions at leading 

architecture and planning schools could be used to 

create and popularize ideas for fire-resistant designs 

for buildings and communities. An architecture 

challenge could be done with the American Institute 

of Architects or a group of architecture schools. 

Dedicated fire resilience design studios would be 

easy to build into architecture curricula and might 

be readily accepted if the fire community encouraged 

them and helped supply educational materials. Similar 

activities could be sponsored for landscape architects, 

focusing on combining the provision of defensible 

space with other landscape goals such as aesthetics, 

storm water management, and green infrastructure 

planning and provision. The American Society of 

Landscape Architects could cosponsor such activities. 

Competitions for the development of a new generation 

of fire-resistant building materials and coatings could be 

sponsored at materials science programs at engineering 

schools. In all these areas, fire management agencies 

and organizations could be the catalyst and play a 

supporting role, but could let other organizations 

take the lead, provide most of the funding and other 

resources, and get most of the credit.
19

3. Create ongoing public relations efforts highlighting 

the fire resilience approach

Most panelists felt the effort should use Smokey Bear 

as an effective wildfire messenger, as Smokey is still so 

well known, beloved, and trusted that no one can really 

replace him. Most participants recommended that he 

appear in traditional formats such as posters and public 

service announcements but also that he have his own 

strong and vibrant presence on social media, going well 

beyond his current Twitter account and Facebook page. 

A person or a small group of social media professionals 

who are savvy, smart, and funny could oversee this 

“Smokey Avatar” and keep him active.

Panelists agreed that Smokey should carry a new simple 

central message, replacing the outdated “Only you 

can prevent forest fires.” A suggestion that arose in the 

discussion was “Only you can make your home firesafe,” but there was no intention to recommend that or 

any other message. Rather, panelists thought a major 

effort involving wildfire personnel and public relations 

professionals should go into distilling the new message.

A suggestion was also made that Smokey may need a few 

animal friends to join him, each with a crisp message, 

that taken together sets out the “new story” of how fireresilient communities can live safely in harmony with 

nature. The story should not be backward looking (such 

as “ending the war on fire”) but rather forward looking 

and positive (for example, “We can save money, reduce 

property damage, save lives, and create healthy forest 

ecosystems by doing A, B, and C”). Another suggestion 

for presenting the “new story” is to make more extensive 

use of information displays that describe the recovery 

process at sites of previous fires in highly visible areas, 

with photographs and information about plant species 

that propagate or benefit by wildfire and how firedependent plants support animal life and healthy 

ecosystems.

Some public relations efforts already underway 

support the new fire management paradigm. For 

example, the messages in the Ad Council’s Fire 

Adapted CommunitiesTM campaign (http://fireadapted.

adcouncil.org/TV-and-Radio/) are excellent examples 

of wildfire messages supporting the new paradigm. 

Describing public service announcements about wildfire 

preparedness, the Ad Council (Advertising Council 

2014) states: “In many communities across the country, 

wildfires are an inevitable fact of life; it’s not a matter 

of ‘if’, but ‘when.’ A Fire Adapted Community is one 

where its members understand and accept their wildfire 

risk and have taken pro-active steps to improve the 

safety and resilience of their homes, landscapes, and 

community assets to withstand a wildfire.” Campaigns 

such as this need to become a major focus of an 

expanded and ongoing effort.

4. Connect wildland fire management to larger global 

concerns for sustainability and security

Panel participants were surprised by the lack of 

connection they found between the field of wildland fire 

management and networks and organizations concerned 

with sustainability. One panelist has devoted his career 

to scanning and reviewing futures and sustainabilityoriented literature—books and articles in journals, 

magazines, and newspapers—and reported that “from 

what I have seen, the growing incidence and destruction 

of wildfire and its threat to sustainable development ... 

is not in the literature.” He continued: “What I have 

found remarkable is that wildfire is not only virtually 

absent from the vast literature on sustainability ... but 

the focus is notably nationalistic. Surely there is much 

to be learned by assembling information on the growing 

incidence of wildfire in Canada, Australia, Russia, 

China, Indonesia and elsewhere, and especially on how 

the problem is perceived and what policies are most 

effective.”

Panel members recommended that the wildfire 

community take a number of low-cost steps to “go 

global” and connect to organizations concerned 

with sustainability. For example, the U.S. Forest 

Service could encourage the Worldwatch Institute in 

Washington, DC, to write a paper on the global threat 

of wildfires and emerging approaches to sustainable 

wildland fire management. Similar initiatives could 

involve international organizations, such as the 

International Union for Conservation of Nature 

(IUCN). The world’s oldest and largest environmental 
20

organization, IUCN publishes more than 150 books 

and reports each year. Many of these publications are 

about forests, but none, so far, has dealt with wildfire. 

Outreach to undergraduate programs in sustainability 

and environmental science could help attract a new 

generation of people to wildland fire management.

Another suggestion is to work with National Geographic 

magazine, which does in-depth future-oriented articles 

on environmental issues. An example of its extensive 

treatment of such topics is the cover feature on “Rising 

Seas” in the September 2013 issue (pp. 30-57), which 

included a five-page fold-out map of what the world 

would look like if all the ice melted, raising seas by 

216 feet. Fire management agencies and organizations 

could encourage National Geographic reporters to do an 

overview of “World on Fire,” highlighting vulnerable 

areas worldwide and illustrating the success of fire 

adapted communities in living with fire.

The notion of “security” has been broadening in recent 

years to include food security, energy security, climate 

change, and other concerns. Panel members believe that 

the growing threat of large and destructive wildfires 

should become part of this expanding conception. 

The fact that the Federal Emergency Management 

Administration’s (FEMA’s) National Incident 

Management System has its roots in the U.S. Forest 

Service Incident Management System (U.S. Department 

of Homeland Security 2004) suggests that the wildland 

fire community has much to contribute to the design 

and implementation of national and international 

disaster response and mitigation protocols.

Panelists believe an important result over time of these 

kinds of outreach efforts would be to raise the profile 

of the field of wildland fire management within the 

domains of sustainability and security, draw new people 

into the field, and perhaps give it a higher priority 

within the federal budget.

5. Conduct additional social science research to more 

fully understand the human dimensions of a fire 

resilience approach

Much has been learned from fire social science research. 

For example, past research shows that most people in 

the WUI already understand the risk posed by fire and 

feel responsible for their property (McCaffrey and Olsen 

2012), so the focus of research should be on barriers 

to action besides risk perception. Research is needed 

on how people feel about more fire on the land, how 

individuals interpret the concept of fire adaptation, 

whether the response of fire agencies needs to change 

during fires involving fire adapted communities, and 

many other topics. McCaffrey et al. (2013) review key 

social science research lessons related to wildland fire 

management and identify future research needs.

6. Provide additional “how to do it” information in 

many forms through many channels

Many educational materials that support the shift to fire 

resilience have been developed and disseminated. But 

providing additional clear and practical information 

is an inexpensive, cost-effective approach that can be 

strengthened. Some possibilities are as follows:

Continue to disseminate model codes (building, 

protection zone, subdivision planning, fire resilience) 

widely to state and local governments. In addition, 

provide more information on the types of policy 

instruments, such as incentives, disincentives, 

regulations, and information campaigns that 

communities can use to help implement these codes.

Develop additional educational materials for individuals 

and local communities on well-known topics such as:

•	 How to assess homes for vulnerability to fire

•	 What specific steps people can take to retrofit 

existing structures to make them more ignitionresistant 

•	 How to design fire adapted structures and use 

fire-resistant construction materials 

•	 How to create adequate defensible space 

•	 How to create and use a community wildfire 

protection plan 
21

New educational materials are especially needed on the 

critical and neglected issue of how to cooperate with 

adjacent landowners to comanage fire risks.

Make this information available in a variety of forms 

from checklists for homeowners and videos available 

on YouTube to material for construction professionals. 

Engage real estate agents, insurance companies, local 

governments, fire departments, libraries, civic groups, 

and other organizations in making these materials 

widely available. Encourage their distribution at 

local activities like festivals, home and garden shows, 

health fairs, and other events that involve the whole 

community. 

Keep newsworthy reports and video messages ready to 

maximize their impact in “teachable moments” when 

large wildfires are in the news. The volume of news 

media coverage spikes dramatically during large wildfires 

(Fingerman Johnson et al. 2009). All of the above ideas 

about information dissemination ideas are already being 

followed, but devoting additional resources to these and 

similar approaches could be a cost-effective strategy.

Provide greater support for other organizations’ 

educational efforts promoting elements of a fire 

resilience approach. Federal fire management agencies 

currently provide support for a wide range of such 

efforts. For example, the Fire Adapted Communities 

Web site (www.fireadapted.org) provides access 

to information targeted to homeowners, fire and 

emergency responders, forest and land managers, 

and civic and community leaders. The Ready, Set, 

GO! (RSG) program managed by the International 

Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) helps train fire 

departments to teach individuals who live in highrisk wildfire areas how to best prepare themselves and 

their properties for fire threats. California’s Fire Safe 

Council provides a model that could be promoted to 

other states. The Nature Conservancy is at the forefront 

of environmental organizations promoting new fire 

approaches. Additional support for efforts such as 

these may be an effective strategy to promote change. 

In addition, federal fire management agencies and 

their partners could broker support for these outreach 

efforts from other organizations like the Westinghouse 

Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and regional 

film councils.

7. Use serious games

Serious games are simulations of real-world events or 

processes. Although serious games can be entertaining, 

their main purpose is to train or educate users. They can 

also be used to engage communities, inform national 

planning, and solve problems. One panel member 

identified the following advantages of a game platform: 

•	 A game can provide a whole systems view that 

very few citizens (or policy makers) ever have. 

Some call this “topsight,” and it is critical in 

addressing complex systems issues.

•	 Games built on dynamic simulation models 

are one of the few ways to teach people about 

system dynamics, nonlinearity, non-intuitive 

feedback loops, rebound effects, time lags, etc.

•	 Games can generate significant amounts of data 

about player strategies.

•	 Games scale in a way that other public 

participation techniques cannot. They shift 

the economics of engagement to a “software 

model,” where it is very expensive for the first 

person engaged (the price of developing the 

game) but each successive player drives the cost 

down a rapidly descending curve.

Serious games and playable simulations can be 

used in training first responders and others. See, 

as an example, the Incident Commander game at 

http://www.incidentcommander.net/.

The wildland fire community could also help develop 

interactive games to engage communities, homeowners, 

and children, giving players a sense for the key 

parameters that result in high-impact wildfires, actions 

to take if a fire threat looms near, policy options for 

dealing with the growing wildfire problem, and longterm consequences of different policy choices. Games 

can be designed to work with tablets and smart phones 

and their use should be encouraged in schools in 

fire-prone areas. Materials to structure discussions in 
22

classrooms and online about what people are learning 

from wildfire management games should be developed.

Serious games can also be used to solve real-world 

problems. One panelist commented, “If gamers on 

Foldit can find the structure of a protein key to AIDS 

development in 3 weeks, while scientists had not been 

able to solve the puzzle for years, who’s to say that they 

won’t come up with creative solutions to sustainability 

problems, such as wildfire management?” (See Horn 

2011.)

The fire community could work through 

the Serious Games Association (http://www.

seriousgamesassociation.com/) and attend the 

association’s Serious Play Conferences to team with 

experienced game developers and organizations that 

have used serious games. One panel member suggested 

setting up an internship program specifically targeted 

toward those with backgrounds in game development 

and computer simulation with the goal of creating 

user-friendly games or platforms related to wildfire. The 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has 

a Serious Games Initiative that has developed games 

such as Budget Hero in which players balance the federal 

budget (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/budget-hero). 

Budget Hero has generated a database of more than one 

million game runs.

Serious games are not a panacea, but with 215 million 

gamers in the U.S. population (average age is 34 and 

40 percent are female), they deserve consideration for 

education, community engagement, and problemsolving related to wildland fire management.

8. Help educate the political community

Because much of the pressure for immediate fire 

suppression comes from politicians (Donovan et al. 

2011), it will be important to find ways to educate 

the political community about the true nature of 

wildland fire problems, the limitations of the current 

approach, and the feasibility of a fire resilience approach. 

Educating political leaders will be a significant challenge 

considering the political community’s short-term focus 

and always-imminent elections. Nevertheless, long-term 

educational efforts need to begin soon, with a realistic 

expectation that the wildfire problem may have to get 

worse before most politicians will be open to re-thinking 

how to deal with it. Panel members urged that the 

wildland fire community make the development of an 

effective, ongoing informing and engagement process a 

high priority.

9. Support development of a new fire economics

Several panel members made the point that a new 

paradigm of wildland fire management requires a new 

fire economics that incorporates long-term ecological 

thinking and the value of life-supporting ecosystem 

services. A great deal of relevant activity is occurring 

in economics that is not visible in the mass media. The 

work of the environmentally focused International 

Society for Ecological Economics and its journal 

Ecological Economics is especially relevant (http://www.

isecoeco.org). A new U.S. Forest Service Research and 

Development work unit that would apply the concepts 

and methods of ecological economics to fire economics 

could develop a new fire economics.

10. Initiate an ongoing dialogue between the wildland 

fire management community and the insurance 

industry

As a highly regulated and competitive industry, the 

insurance industry has a limited ability to provide 

discounts to policy holders for engaging in mitigation 

or raising rates for lack thereof. But the exposure of the 

insurance industry to wildfire risk is growing and will 

continue to grow, and insurers might be able to play 

a useful role in facilitating the shift to fire resilience. 

We suggest convening a conference and keeping a 

dialogue going between the wildland fire management 

community and the insurance industry to discuss 

strategies for moving communities to become more fireresilient. Topics of discussion could include supporting 

efforts to develop more fire-resistant structures and 

helping policy holders understand what they can do to 

mitigate fire risk.
23

Actions Requiring More Resources

If future conditions are more like those described 

in scenario 2, where there is moderate continuing 

growth and the government’s functioning is somewhat 

improved, or like the still-better conditions in scenario 

3, then fire management agencies could play a stronger 

role in facilitating the shift to a fire resilience approach.

All of the actions previously described would still be 

worth consideration, but many could be strengthened. 

For example, significant financial awards could be given 

to design competition winners. More expensive ways of 

communicating the “new story” could be pursued, such 

as producing a high-quality documentary film or helping 

to finance the production of a PBS NOVA episode.

At an even higher resource level, funding could be 

made available for fire-resilient home and property 

improvements, administered by state-run agencies 

or private organizations, modeled after existing 

weatherization programs. Subsidies could be provided 

for construction using fire-resistant materials, similar 

to subsidies provided for solar energy. Fuel treatment 

programs could be expanded rapidly so that as 

communities become fire-resilient, adjacent lands and 

back-country areas could be treated simultaneously.

Under the conditions described by scenario 2 or 3, a 

“Forest Preservation Corps” could be created to clear 

understory brush, conduct prescribed burns, and 

perform other tasks to promote fire resilience, with 

volunteers receiving funds for college or forgiveness 

of student loans. Adding an educational component 

to these activities could make it attractive to people 

interested in forestry, environmental science, and related 

fields. Something along this line may even be possible 

in ongoing depressed conditions more like those in 

scenario 1 because, as with the Civilian Conservation 

Corps during the Great Depression, it would help 

provide employment and social stability.

Panel members discussed at length a vision presented by 

one participant for how strong federal leadership could 

accelerate the shift to a fire resilience approach (see 

Appendix 4). This vision would be feasible in conditions 

resembling those in scenario 3, with adequate resources, 

efficient and respected government, and high receptivity 

to innovation. It might even be feasible in the more 

constrained conditions of scenario 2 if using a sciencebased approach for managing risk convinces leaders of 

the urgency of adopting a new approach.

In this vision, the federal government helps create a new 

system of firesheds across the country. A fireshed is defined 

as an area surrounding a community that can potentially 

support a wildfire that could affect the community. In 

the West, firesheds would typically be large because fires 

can move great distances from point of origin and several 

communities may share the same fireshed.

Each fireshed would have a fireshed council with the 

responsibility of managing wildfire risk within its area. 

For firesheds that contain federally owned land, councils 

would have the responsibility of comanaging risk with 

the federal government by statute under a Wildland 

Fire Resilience Act of Congress. As required by this 

act, councils would consider all aspects of wildland 

fire, including landscape fuels treatment, preparedness 

planning, suppression response, fire rehabilitation and 

recovery, and land use zoning and building codes.

Federal investment in firesheds would be prioritized 

based on risk management models. For any community 

in a fireshed, federal government investment would 

require the community to protect its structures with 

building codes and protection zones. As this is done, 

funding would become available for fire managers to 

treat adjacent areas with fire. Once the communities and 

adjacent areas were fire-resilient, back-country areas of 

the fireshed could withstand more natural fire patterns 

without significant fire protection.

The federal government’s investment strategy in this 

vision would be to: (1) facilitate establishment of 

firesheds across all fire adapted landscapes, (2) establish 

fireshed councils, (3) provide correct incentives, 

(4) prioritize investment based on risk ranking and 

community performance, (5) focus first on the highest 

opportunities for risk reduction, and (6) invest 

sufficiently to reduce risk to acceptable levels. Aspects of 

this approach, such as establishing firesheds and fireshed 

councils, could prove valuable even in situations where 

resources were not available to realize the full vision.
24

INSTITUTIONALIZING 

FORESIGHT IN WILDLAND FIRE

MANAGEMENT

Strategic foresight (or futures research) is a 

transdisciplinary field of inquiry that uses a variety of 

methods to explore alternative possible, plausible, and 

preferable futures. Bell (1997) further characterizes 

futures research as an “action science,” with an 

orientation to informing decisionmaking and action. 

With roots extending back many decades, futures 

research is now a mature field with a considerable body 

of literature, many specialized journals, professional 

organizations, and distinct methods (Bengston et 

al. 2012). The goal of futures research is to produce 

strategic foresight, defined as “the ability to create 

and maintain a high-quality, coherent, and functional 

forward view and to use the insights arising in 

organizationally useful ways; for example, to detect 

adverse conditions, guide policy, shape strategy” 

(Slaughter 2002: 104). The box below describes a wide 

range of possible contributions of futures research.

One of the discussion forums in round 3 of our online 

conferences focused on how to improve foresight 

capability in the wildland fire management community 

and institutionalize it as a continuous process that is 

effectively tied in with decisionmaking and planning. 

The QFRs are a good periodic effort, but our panel 

members agreed that foresight work must be ongoing 

and institutionalized into routine planning and policymaking to have a lasting effect. A single foresight 

exercise like this one, or even periodic efforts like the 

QFRs, quickly loses its value no matter how skillfully 

done and widely embraced. Institutionalizing foresight 

capacity in wildland fire management would help 

Possible Contributions of Futures Research

• Creating a longer-term perspective: The temporal scales considered in futures research are 

beyond the range usually used in planning and decisionmaking. This longer-term perspective may 

help identify issues of concern as well as opportunities that could be overlooked in the prevailing 

shorter-term view.

• Exploring key uncertainties and potential surprises: Futures research can help identify 

fundamental uncertainties and potential surprises, especially those arising from other domains, 

that could affect fire management, thereby facilitating the development of policies to increase 

adaptive capacity to deal with surprises (Bennett et al. 2003).

• Decreasing reaction time to rapid change: Insights about possible and plausible futures can help 

decrease reaction time as events rapidly unfold. Decisionmakers can explore possible responses in 

advance and react swiftly to change as it occurs. A classic business example is Royal Dutch Shell’s 

use of scenario planning and its subsequent quick response to the 1973-1974 OPEC oil embargo 

and price shock (Schwartz 1991).

• Anticipating unintended consequences: The methods of futures research can help identify 

potential unintended consequences of new technologies, proposed policies, and social and 

cultural trends. A better understanding of potential consequences of change can help in the 

design of policies and strategies that will minimize negative consequences and enhance resilience.

• Encouraging thinking big: Futures research promotes thinking big in terms of multiple disciplinary 

perspectives, creative problem-solving, and a systems perspective, and can help all stakeholders 

take a broader and more creative view.

• Shaping a preferred future: A preferred future or vision is a compelling statement of the future 

that a group or organization wants to create based on shared deep values and purpose (Bezold 

2009). A clear, shared understanding of the preferred future enhances options and possibilities in 

the present.
25

identify emerging issues, driving forces of change, 

potential wild cards, and a range of plausible scenarios 

that can help provide the broad context for QFRs and 

other fire management planning processes.

Panel members identified two main strategies 

for institutionalizing foresight into wildland fire 

management. An in-house strategy would involve 

creating an interagency fire futures unit that would 

be staffed with several trained futurists, with enough 

budget and personnel to do high-quality and continuing 

foresight. This unit would be responsible for regular 

horizon scanning (Bengston 2013) and high-priority 

projects exploring possible, plausible, and preferable fire 

futures using a range of foresight methods. A growing 

number of federal agencies have in-house foresight units, 

as shown in Table 1.

An alternative strategy is to have one high-level person 

assigned specifically to contract with futures research 

organizations and think tanks, purchasing scans and 

futures surveys on a regular basis, and working closely 

with fire planners, managers, and policy makers to 

incorporate the findings into decisionmaking and 

strategies. Outsourcing foresight activities is a common 

approach in corporations, but it is important to ensure 

that foresight developed by outside consultants is 

relevant and incorporated into strategic planning and 

decisionmaking (Day and Schoemaker 2005).

A hybrid approach to institutionalizing foresight, 

involving both an in-house futures unit and regular 

use of outside experts, is often most effective. In-house 

foresight champions know the culture and the ways of 

the organization or field, and outside experts bring new 

ideas and perspectives.

CONCLUSIONS

Wildland fire management faces a daunting set 

of challenges in the coming decades. Traditional 

approaches to wildland fire management and policy, 

developed in the last century, will have to change to 

meet these unprecedented challenges. Foresight is 

needed to help planners, managers, and policy makers 

navigate this turbulent and uncertain future.

To gain foresight, this study convened an online 

foresight panel of professional futurists and fire policy 

experts to explore broad issues related to wildland fire 

management futures. The futurists on this panel brought 

a diversity of fresh and forward-looking perspectives 

from outside of the fire management community, 

informed and enhanced by the insider knowledge and 

insights of the fire policy experts.

Five broad areas of consensus emerged among our panel 

members in the course of three rounds of discussion: 

•	 The level of uncertainty about external 

developments and future conditions that will 

set the context for wildland fire management 

is significantly greater than is recognized in the 

Quadrennial Fire Reviews and current planning.

•	 As conditions change, the traditional fire 

prevention and suppression approach to wildland 

fire management will prove unsustainable.

•	 A new fire resilience paradigm is emerging as 

an alternative to traditional viewpoints and 

practices.

•	 All the major steps needed to implement this 

new fire resilience approach are already familiar 

to wildland fire managers.

•	 There are strong short-term barriers to the fire 

resilience approach, but panel members believe 

its adoption is nearly inevitable between now 

and mid-century.

These key areas of agreement among the panel 

members point toward a new direction for wildland fire 

management: a paradigm shift from the “war on fire” 

approach emphasizing fire suppression and exclusion 

to a fire resilience approach emphasizing learning to 

live with fire in resilient communities on fire adapted 

landscapes. These are certainly not new ideas in the 

fire management community—they have deep roots in 

holistic thinking about social-ecological systems. But 

as with all paradigm shifts, the new fire management 

paradigm faces many barriers and much resistance. Our 

hope is that this study will stimulate further forwardlooking debate and discussion about the future of 

wildland fire management.
26Agency Description URL U.S. Army, Army 

Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI)

Conducts or sponsors monthly horizon scanning on environmental issues with discussion of military implications. The Millennium Project now carries out these horizon scans for the AEPI, although the latest online reports are for June 2011.

http://www.aepi.army.mil/reports/http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/env-scanning.html

Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI)

Was launched in 2010 as a broad effort to create an enduring foresight capability. Key SFI reports include Crisis Response and Disaster Resilience 2030 and Toward More Resilient Futures: Putting 

Foresight Into Practice.

http://www.fema.gov/strategic-planning-analysis-spa-division/strategic-foresight-initiative 

U.S. State Department, Project Horizon

Was initiated in 2005 and involved more than 200 senior executives across more than two dozen agencies in an effort to explore ways to develop the interagency capacities that would be crucial to successfully navigating global challenges that may face the nation over the next 20 years.

http://www.osif.us/images/Project_Horizon_Progress_Report.pdfhttp://www.businessofgovernment.org/brief/getting-our-foreignaffairs-order-project-horizon-06-2007 

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Council, Global Trends

Global Trends 2030: A Transformed World (2012) is the fifth installment in the National Intelligence Council-led effort to identify key trends and drivers likely to shape world events a decade or more in the future. It uses scenarios to illustrate ways in which the drivers may interact to generate challenges and opportunities for future decisionmakers.

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/nationalintelligence-council-global-trends 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Office of Policy and Planning, Strategic Studies Group

Was formed in 2011 and leads the VA’s horizon scanning efforts. Helps identify long-term, cross-cutting challenges and opportunities for the department. Its 10- to 15-year assessments of strategic drivers and identification of alternative “future worlds” for veterans help create the context for the VA’s quadrennial strategic planning process.

Currently no Web site.

U.S. Coast Guard, Office of Strategic Analysis

Began its foresight efforts in 1998. Its most recent effort, Project Evergreen, relies on the use of alternative futures scenario-planning. Identified scores of drivers and trends that would affect the Coast Guard’s mission and distilled them into five scenarios, to determine what capabilities they would need to have in place in years to come.

http://www.uscg.mil/strategy/docs/Evergreen/EG3_BlueBook.pdf

U.S. Marine Corps, Strategic Vision Group

The Marines have historically looked 10 years out and have linked their efforts with the Department of Defense-wide Quadrennial Review and joint operations with their sister military services. The Strategic Vision Group has pushed the vision further out into the future by identifying a range of different world-view scenarios.

http://www.onr.navy.mil/~/media/Files/About-ONR/usmc_vision_strategy_2025_0809.ashx

U.S. Air Force, Future Concepts and Transformation Division

The Air Force has regularly developed 20-year strategic outlooks. Its environmental assessments integrate perspectives on technology, intelligence, environmental resources, demographics, economics, and politics into a series of “megatrends” used to develop its strategic plan.

Currently no Web site.

Table 1.—Examples of current and recent strategic foresight efforts in the U.S. government
27

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to all of the foresight panel participants 

for generously sharing their insights, knowledge, and 

creativity. We also thank the Joint Fire Science Program 

for partial funding of this study (JFSP Project Number 

12-2-01-61).

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32

APPENDIX 1

Previous Wildfire Futures Efforts

A handful of past reports and workshops have explored the future of wildland fire management. Some 

of these efforts have used the perspectives and methods of futures research, albeit to a limited extent. 

An early example was a 1987 symposium titled “Wildland Fire 2000” that brought together scientists, 

educators, fire professionals, and other stakeholders “to consider the possible, probable, and preferred 

status of wildland fire management and science in the year 2000 and beyond” (Davis and Martin 

1987: iii). Almost all of the participants in Wildland Fire 2000 were from within the wildland fire 

and natural resource management communities, and the contributed papers focused mainly on the 

issues and concerns of the 1980s rather than looking forward. But the symposium did include a smallgroup futuring process to develop visions of the future for nine topic areas and then outline strategies 

for achieving the visions. 1 The preface to the proceedings of this symposium mentioned previous 

“futuring sessions” conducted by individual wildfire agencies, but no record of these earlier efforts 

found their way into the permanent literature.

The 1995 U.S. Forest Service report Course to the Future: Positioning Fire and Aviation Management

was a revision in federal fire policy rather than a futuring effort, although the report did identify 

desired future outcomes (U.S. Forest Service 1995). Motivated by the deadly and costly 1994 fire 

season, Course to the Future was part of a shift in fire policy toward recognizing the role of fire as a 

vital ecosystem process.

Another high-level fire policy effort is the recently completed three-phase Cohesive Strategy effort 

(U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI] 2014), 

which identified a national vision and goals for wildland fire management, described challenges 

and opportunities, and established national priorities for achieving the vision. This 5-year effort was 

forward looking but did not involve futures research.

In recent years, the five federal natural resource management agencies and their partners in the wildland 

fire community have carried out a strategic assessment process every 4 years to help guide budgeting 

and strategic planning of fire management. The inaugural effort was called the 2005 Quadrennial Fire 

and Fuels Review (QFFR). Modeled roughly after the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial Defense 

Review and facilitated by the Brookings Institution, the 2005 QFFR was developed by more than 

200 personnel from the fire community, including fire experts from federal, state, local, and tribal 

partners, with input from the fire and natural resource research community and nongovernmental 

organizations (USDA and USDI 2005). A series of meetings were held around the country to gather 

input, followed by more formal “working panels” organized around specific topics of interest.

The 2009 Quadrennial Fire Review (QFR) broadened the process used in the 2005 QFFR in several 

respects, such as greater involvement of nonfire and nonfederal participants, an expanded domain 

for working panels to explore a wider range of future options, and a greater role for research in the 

process (USDA and USDI 2009). Evidence of the more prominent role for research is provided 

by an advanced briefing report prepared for the 2009 QFR working panels titled “The Future of 

Wildland Fire Management” (The Brookings Institution 2008). This briefing report contained 

“new assumptions” papers prepared by a group of researchers from wildfire and natural resource 

management backgrounds. A research advisory panel rated the most significant driving forces and 
33

emerging trends identified in the new-assumptions papers. The three broad categories of the most 

significant driving forces were: (1) climate change, ecosystem dynamics, and the new scale of wildland 

fire in the United States, (2) managing resource values and sustaining fire-dependent ecosystems, 

and (3) social dynamics and values for public lands and the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Specific 

driving forces and trends related to each of these broad categories were highlighted for consideration 

by the 2009 QFR working panels in preparing future alternatives.

Trends, forecasts, and recommendations for change noted in the 2009 QFR include the following:

•	 Longer fire seasons will result from climate change, and geographic areas that have commonly 

been considered low-risk—such as the Northeast and Great Lakes region—will increasingly 

be affected by fire.

•	 The current drought cycle will likely continue, resulting in greater stress on vegetation and 

more fires.

•	 Growth of housing and communities in the WUI will slow, but these areas will still be at high 

risk for wildfires.

•	 The budgets of agencies that deal with fire will be stretched thin by growing demands and 

rising costs.

•	 Social networking will become the most effective way to communicate with and educate the 

public about wildfire issues.

•	 The focus of educational efforts should shift toward promoting “fire adapted communities” 

and greater self-reliance.

Solicitation for a contractor to conduct the next QFR was announced in FedBizOpps.gov in July 

2013 (U.S. General Services Administration 2013). The synopsis of the solicitation reads as follows: 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS) and Department of [the] 

Interior seek to conduct a Quadrennial Fire Review (QFR) that will perform a forward-looking 

risk assessment of wildland fire management and response on a landscape scale to determine the 

key challenges that lie ahead and analyze recommended strategic alternative paths for the future of 

fire management in response to those challenges. The contractor will be responsible for reviewing 

and understanding previous two QFR’s and having knowledge of management and policy changes 

that have occurred since those reviews. In addition, the contractor must be knowledgeable about 

the Federal Fire Policy and the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, which 

guide wildland fire management in the U.S. The contractor will gather information through 

interviews with a wide variety of people including fire managers, natural resource managers, 

scientists, academia, the public and other partners. They will also review additional relevant 

documents including available science and fire reports, laws and policies.

A new component of the QFR effort in 2014 was a crowdsourcing Web site to gather input from 

diverse stakeholders on the following four areas plus a wild card topic for any ideas that did not fit 

within the specified topics:

•	 Changing climatic conditions and effects on landscape

•	 Evolving risk in public and fire fighter safety
34

•	 Water quality and quantity

•	 Technology and program infrastructure

•	 Wild card: What aren’t we seeing?

Stakeholders submitted ideas related to these topics and could comment on ideas submitted by others.

Another recent wildfire futures effort was a 2008 workshop on “The Future of Wildland Fire and 

Fuels Management,” sponsored by the Joint Fire Science Program and conducted by Global Business 

Network (GBN), a prominent futures consulting firm (Gray 2008). The 2-day workshop was part 

of a broader project investigating the use of software tools and systems in the fire community. The 

purpose of the workshop was “to identify some of the factors and forces that are likely to shape fire 

management in the coming decade” and to explore their implications.1

 Workshop participants used 

GBN’s FastForward® scenario methodology to develop brief qualitative scenarios about the future of 

fire and fuels management based on sets of givens, uncertainties, and potential wild card events. Nine 

alternative futures were identified and briefly described, including the “business as usual” or “official 

future” that workshop participants believed the fire community is planning for. The implications 

of the nine scenarios were then explored, with an emphasis on potential information and research 

requirements for the future.

An ongoing fire futures project is being carried out by the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Center of 

Innovation and Intel Corporation futurist Brian David Johnson (Roeder 2014, U.S. Air Force 

Academy Public Affairs 2014). A 2-day workshop was held in Colorado Springs, CO, in February 

2014 that included experts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Red Cross, wildfire 

experts, local wildland firefighters, and government officials. These stakeholders developed a preferable 

future for wildfire and then used a back-casting method to identify the steps needed to achieve that 

future.

Another ongoing project related to the future of fire management is the Alternative Fire Management 

Futures initiative led by the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service (Nydick and Sydoriak 

2011). Focused on the Southern Sierra Nevada ecoregion, this collaboration among resource 

managers, fire managers, and scientists is using scenario planning and other tools to achieve the overall 

goal of developing “the capacity to manage fire under a ‘new lens’ and to revise fire management 

objectives, tools, and methods so that valued resources sensitive to climate change can be conserved 

at an appropriate scale” (Nydick and Sydoriak 2011: 44). A range of future scenarios of climate, fire, 

and vegetation have been developed to help managers make strategic decisions that will be robust for a 

range of plausible futures.

Finally, almost no studies about the future of wildfire and fire management have been published 

in futures research journals. An exception is a paper titled “The future of fire in environmental 

management” (MacGregor 2006). This think piece examined the relationship between humans and 

wildfire, exploring the apparent dilemma between the needs of nature (ecosystems that are dependent 

on fire for their health and sustainability) and the needs and desires of humans and communities.

1 Global Business Network. 2008. The future of wildland fire and fuels management—workshop report. 

Unpublished report, p. 1. On file with: Global Business Network, San Francisco, CA. 13 p.
35

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U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs. 2014. ‘Future-casting’ wildfires. Colorado Springs, CO. 

Updated February 14. Available at http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123379566. 

(Accessed April 14, 2015).

U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI]. 

2005. Quadrennial Fire and Fuel Review Report. June 30. Available at http://www.

forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/documents/foundational/qffr_final_report_20050719.pdf. 

(Accessed April 14, 2015).

U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI]. 2009. 

Quadrennial Fire Review 2009. January. Available at http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/

strategy/documents/foundational/qfr2009final.pdf. (Accessed April 14, 2015).

U.S. Department of Agriculture [USDA] and U.S. Department of the Interior [USDI]. 2014. The 

National Strategy: the final phase in the development of the National Cohesive Wildland 

Fire Management Strategy. April. Available at http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/

thestrategy.shtml. (Accessed April 14, 2015).

U.S. Forest Service. 1995. Course to the future: positioning fire and aviation management.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Department of Fire and 

Aviation Management. 19 p.

U.S. General Services Administration. 2013. FedBizOpps.gov. Quadrennial Fire Review. Arlington, 

Virginia. Available at https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=f5076

0f575d51cde9dbb8f239c95fabc&_cview=0. (Accessed April 17, 2015).
36

APPENDIX 2

Biographical Sketches of Panel Members

Peter Bishop is a recently retired associate professor of strategic foresight and coordinator of 

the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. Bishop specializes in 

techniques for long-term forecasting and planning. He delivers keynote addresses and conducts 

seminars on the future for business, government, and nonprofit organizations. He also facilitates 

groups in developing scenarios, visions, and strategic plans. His clients include IBM, the 

NASA Johnson Space Center, Nestle USA, Tetra Pak, the Shell Pipeline Corporation, the U.S. 

Department of Defense, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the Lawrence Livermore National 

Laboratory, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Waitt Family Foundation, the California 

Environmental Protection Agency, and the Center for Houston’s Future. Bishop is also a 

founding board member of the Association of Professional Futurists, and is president of Strategic 

Foresight and Development, which offers education and training in futures thinking and 

techniques to the corporate market. Bishop came to the University of Houston in 2005, having 

taught Futures Studies at the University of Houston–Clear Lake since 1982. Bishop received 

his doctoral degree in sociology from Michigan State University in 1974. He has published 

numerous articles in leading futures journals such as Foresight, The Futurist, Futures Research 

Quarterly, and Journal of Futures Studies, and is the coauthor of Thinking About the Future: 

Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (2006), and Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight 

Education (2012, both written with Andy Hines).

Jamais Cascio was selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of its Top 100 Global Thinkers. 

In 2010 he was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute For The Future, where he 

is a primary contributor to its annual Ten Year Forecast program. Cascio is also a Senior 

Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. In 2003, he cofounded 

WorldChanging.com, the award-winning Web site dedicated to finding and calling attention 

to models, tools, and ideas for building a “bright green” future. In his time at WorldChanging, 

Cascio wrote much of the site’s content, covering topics including urban design, climate science, 

renewable energy, open-source models, emerging technologies, social networks, and “leapfrog” 

global development. In March 2006, he started Open the Future as his online home. He 

writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural 

transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future. His 

work focuses on the importance of long-term, systemic thinking, emphasizing the power of 

openness, transparency, and flexibility as catalysts for building a more resilient society. Cascio’s 

work appears in a wide range of publications including Metropolis, the Atlantic Monthly, the

Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. He has been featured in multiple television programs 

discussing foresight and environmental issues, including National Geographic Television’s 2008 

documentary on the effects of global warming, “Six Degrees”; the History Channel’s 2009 

series on emerging technologies, “Science Impossible”; and the 2010 Canadian Broadcasting 

Company documentary “Surviving the Future.” Cascio speaks about future possibilities at a 

variety of venues around the world. Recent appearances include the Fifth Astana Economic 

Forum in Astana, Kazakhstan, the 2012 National Geographic Aspen Environmental Forum, 

and Futuro è Sostenabilità in Rome, Italy. He was a featured speaker at the TED 2006 

conference, “The Future We Will Create,” in Monterey, CA. Cascio’s first book, Hacking the 
37

Earth: Understanding the Consequences of Geoengineering, was published in 2009. In 2010, he 

was invited to present on the subject at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. 

Cascio has worked in the field of scenario development for more than a decade, beginning with 

scenario-planning pioneer Global Business Network.

James A. Dator is a professor and director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures 

Studies, Department of Political Science, and an adjunct professor in the Program in Public 

Administration, the College of Architecture, and the Center for Japanese Studies, of the 

University of Hawaii at Manoa. He also taught at Rikkyo University (Tokyo, for 6 years), the 

University of Maryland, Virginia Tech, the University of Toronto, and the InterUniversity 

Consortium for Postgraduate Studies in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. He is a Danforth Fellow, 

Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and Fulbright Fellow. Dator is the former president of the World 

Futures Studies Federation, and was a cofounder of the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF), 

a leader in the creation of preferred futures. He is the author of Advancing Futures: Futures 

Studies in Higher Education (2002), two other books, and a large number of futures research 

articles and reports. He is an editorial board member of many futures studies journals, including 

Futures, Foresight, Journal of Futures Studies, Futures Research Quarterly, On the Horizon, and 

Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Dator’s research includes studying and developing 

theories and methods appropriate for futures studies, both basic and applied; the design of 

new governance institutions; the futures of law, education, and technology; and the politicaleconomic futures of North America, East Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Elizabeth Hand is an award-winning visionary scenario writer. She is one of today’s most 

imaginative and prolific writers of speculative fiction, is the author of 15 novels and 4 collections 

of short stories, and serves on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing at 

the University of Southern Maine. Her carefully researched stories range across topics as varied 

as climate change, ecological restoration, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence. Hand 

is a longtime contributor of book reviews and articles to numerous publications, including 

the Washington Post, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, and Fantasy and Science Fiction

magazine. She has twice received the Nebula Award, the most prestigious award in the field of 

science fiction; is a four-time winner of the World Fantasy Award; and has received the Shirley 

Jackson Award and the Tiptree Award, among others. She worked at the Smithsonian’s National 

Air & Space Museum before beginning to write full time in 1988.

Michael Marien plays a unique role in futures research as the leading scanner, summarizer, 

and reviewer of futures-relevant books and articles published in the English language. He is 

the former editor of Future Survey, a scanning service published monthly by the World Future 

Society between 1979 and 2008, and is currently director of GlobalForesightBooks.org. Marien 

prepared some 21,000 abstracts of futures-oriented books and articles for Future Survey. 

Global Foresight Books offers online searchable abstracts of more than 4,000 books and reports 

published since 2009, arranged in 30 categories. He also prepares lengthy and critical Book of 

the Month reviews that appear on his Web site. His work provides a concise cross-disciplinary 

overview of an enormous array of trends, emerging issues, and futures thinking. Marien has also 

published many articles in leading futures research journals such as Futures, Futures Research 

Quarterly, World Future Society Bulletin, and The Futurist, and a wide range of other scholarly 

journals including The Information Society, Telecommunications Policy, and the Journal of 
38

Humanistic Psychology. Marien is the coauthor (with Land Jennings) of the book What I Have 

Learned: Thinking About the Future Then and Now (1987).

Sarah McCaffrey is a research forester for the U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 

Her research focuses on the social aspects of fire management. This work has included National 

Fire Plan- and Joint Fire Science Program-sponsored projects examining social acceptability 

of prescribed fire and thinning, characteristics of effective communication programs, wildfire 

risk perception, and incentives for creating and maintaining defensible space. She has also 

initiated work examining social issues that occur during and after fires including evacuation 

decisionmaking, agency-community interaction during fires, and long-term health impacts of 

experiencing a fire. More recent work has begun looking at the interactions of social dynamics 

across the time spectrum, from preparedness to response to recovery. Much of her time is 

focused on identifying, translating, and transmitting relevant research findings to the fire 

community. This work includes consultation with organizations (e.g., the Insurance Institute 

for Business and Homes Safety, Orange County Fire Authority); providing scientific findings to 

policy efforts (e.g., Quadrennial Fire Review, National Wildfire Cohesive Strategy); and invited 

presentations at conferences, workshops, webinars, and manager training courses. She received 

her Ph.D. in Wildland Resource Science in 2002 from the University of California at Berkeley, 

where her research examined Incline Village, NV, homeowner views and actions in relation to 

defensible space and fuels management.

Jonathan Peck is president and senior futurist at the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF). 

This leading nonprofit futures think tank, founded in 1977, works with a wide range of 

organizations to help them choose and create their preferred futures. Its for-profit subsidiary, 

Alternative Futures Associates (AFA), works with corporations to apply futures methods to 

their strategy development. Peck provides a wide range of research, consulting, speaking, 

meeting design, and facilitation services. A certified Myers-Briggs Type Indicator practitioner, 

he has integrated psychological patterns and insights into his facilitation of vision, mission, and 

strategic processes for corporations, organizations, and government agencies. He led IAF’s 2019: 

Health Care That Works for All project, which created a visionary outcome of U.S. healthcare 

reform. His futures work spans the scientific, economic, political, and social changes that can be 

addressed with an understanding of complex systems dynamics. Peck has coauthored two books 

and written numerous articles for Business and Health, Pharmaceutical Executive, Food & Drug 

Law Review, Clinical Cancer Research, The Monitor, Futures Research Quarterly, and many other 

publications. He received his master’s degree at the Futures Studies Program in the political 

science department of the University of Hawaii.

John Phipps is currently the director of the Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S Forest 

Service. At the time of this project, he was senior advisor, State & Private Forestry, in the U.S. 

Forest Service. In this role, he provides policy analysis and advice relating primarily to wildland 

fire. Phipps has worked 38 years in the U.S. Forest Service and previously served as associate 

deputy chief, State & Private Forestry; deputy regional forester; forest supervisor; and district 

ranger. Throughout his career, he has been involved in the fire militia, prescribed fire, fire risk 

management, and the agency’s safety program. He has also served in numerous fire agency 

administrator assignments. Phipps earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in forestry from the University 

of Washington.
39

David Rejeski is the director of the Science and Technology Innovation Program (STIP) at the 

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. The mission of STIP 

is to explore the scientific and technological frontier, stimulating discovery and bringing new 

tools to bear on public policy challenges that emerge as science advances. This program focuses 

on emerging technologies and the critical choices innovation presents to public policy. Work 

includes synthetic biology (www.synbioproject.org), nanotechnology (www.nanotechproject.

org), participatory technology assessment, geoengineering, and the application of information 

technologies, computer games, and social media to public policy challenges. Rejeski has been 

a Visiting Scholar at the Environmental Law Institute, a Visiting Fellow at Yale University’s 

School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and an adjunct affiliated staff member at RAND. 

Between 1994 and 2000, he worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality 

and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on a variety of technology, research 

and development, and policy initiatives, including the development and implementation of 

the National Environmental Technology Strategy, the Greening of the White House, and the 

Education for Sustainability Initiative. Before moving to OSTP, he was head of the Future 

Studies Unit at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Rejeski sits on the advisory 

boards of several organizations, including the Board on Global Science and Technology of 

the National Academy of Sciences; the expert panel advising the Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Living Foundries Program; the National Science Foundation’s 

(NSF’s) Advisory Committee on Environmental Research and Education; the NSF-funded 

Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC); the external science advisory 

committee of the Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology; the Committee 

on Science, Engineering and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement 

of Science; the Center for Environmental Policy at American University; the National Council 

of Advisors for the Center for the Study of the Presidency; the Journal of Industrial Ecology; and 

Games for Change. Between 2004 and 2009, he was a member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board 

and he has served on the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors. He has graduate degrees in 

public administration and environmental design from Harvard University and Yale University, 

respectively, and a degree in industrial design from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the 

coauthor (with Robert Olson) of Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow (2005), 

and many articles about technological and environmental futures.
40

APPENDIX 3

Three Scenarios for Wildfire Futures

The three scenarios below were used to help structure the project’s online conversations. They 

were developed as a way to capture the range of future circumstances that the foresight panel 

participants believe are plausible. They were used to stimulate creative thinking and identify 

“robust” actions to put forward for consideration. Looking through the lens of significantly 

different yet plausible images of the future is a powerful method for spurring creative thinking 

about the range of actions that may be appropriate for dealing with challenges ahead. Testing 

potential actions and strategies against a range of scenarios to identify robust actions that appear 

feasible and useful across a wide range of potential future circumstances is an effective way to 

deal with the future’s inherent uncertainty.

Scenario 1: Collapse

Clear warning signs of serious cracks in the foundation of the social-ecological system emerged 

between 2015 and 2020: stagnant or declining economies in the United States and globally, 

persistently high unemployment, a widening gap and growing tensions between the rich 

and poor, mounting social unrest, increasing incidents of international terrorism. By 2018, 

there was a growing consensus that production of conventional oil had peaked and was now 

declining, and gasoline prices soared to more than $10 per gallon. Global food prices also 

spiraled due to higher oil prices, China’s massive grain imports, and depleting aquifers (“peak 

water”) that limited irrigated agriculture in many places around the world. Arctic sea ice was 

disappearing, glaciers melting, and sea levels rising faster than scientists had anticipated. Federal 

resources to help states and local communities deal with the impacts of these challenges were 

severely limited by budget cuts needed to reduce deficits and the national debt.

Nervousness about all these factors and the long-term lack of economic recovery led many 

investors to pull out of the market, and in 2021 global stock markets crashed. Crashing stocks 

set off a chain reaction of protectionist actions and negative economic and social events, which 

acted to prevent an economic recovery. A persistent worldwide economic depression settled in. 

Progress in many advanced technologies such as biotechnology and nanotechnology was slowed 

down or derailed by depression.

The economic collapse made it impossible to invest heavily in a massive switch to renewable 

energy, especially because the cost of renewable energy technologies increased rapidly with the 

escalating cost of the fossil fuels needed to build them. As conventional oil production declined 

and the natural gas boom fizzled, the dirtiest energy sources—oil shales, tar sands, coal—were 

increasingly used. By 2030, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels have surged above 450 

parts per million, even with the depressed level of economic activity. Extreme weather events 

have increased in frequency and intensity, including mega-fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, 

flooding, and record-breaking heat waves.

By 2030 it has become clear that the era of cheap and abundant energy is long over and that 

expensive, erratic, and inadequate supplies are the new normal. Water is increasingly expensive 

and scarce. Climate change is increasingly severe and unpredictable. Our economy does not 
41

function in any way similar to the rather fair and effective way it functioned from the end 

of World War II to 2000, and governments at all levels are increasingly unable to govern 

effectively.

Communities have realized that the capacity of federal and state governments to deal with the 

unraveling of the social-economic-ecological system is severely limited. Local communities 

increasingly pick up the pieces. They creatively do what is needed to build resilience and adapt 

to the substantial changes with whatever resources they have on hand, with limited help from 

the outside. For example, “collaborative consumption” arrangements have become ubiquitous 

and mainstream, expanding from personal lending to sharing and bartering networks for 

everything imaginable. High energy prices have led individuals, families, communities, and 

businesses to take advantage of all the most affordable technologies for using energy more 

efficiently. Major energy-saving behavior changes have spread rapidly as everyone has engaged 

in learning to live at a much lower level of energy intensity. Consumer preferences for locally 

produced foods and innovations in sustainable agriculture have driven a revival of small farms 

in both rural and urban areas.

Although the role of the federal government has been sharply curtailed, it still plays a supportive 

role in promoting local self-reliance and community development through small-scale efforts 

such as information programs to highlight successful community efforts, small grants for local 

experiments, and basic support for maintaining the most critical public infrastructure. By 

2030, wildfires have grown to nearly twice their extent in 2014 and federal funding for fighting 

wildfires has been cut to the bone, forcing the development of creative new approaches to 

wildland fire management.

Questions for Online Panel Discussion: What significant changes in wildland fire 

management could result from (or are required by) this scenario? How would wildland fire 

management need to adapt to make the best of this possible future?

Scenario 2: Continue

The modest turnaround in the U.S. economy was fueled largely by the energy revolution in 

shale gas and oil. Booming oil and gas production and relatively cheap energy provided the 

stimulus needed to finally shake off the Great Recession, saving the average American household 

$1,500 to $2,000 annually and tipping the scales in favor of U.S. producers of steel, chemicals, 

and many other materials and products. Millions of direct and indirect jobs were created in the 

late 2010s, finally driving unemployment down to 5 percent—considered “full employment” 

by most economists. Economic growth continued in the United States, most of Europe, and the 

BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) throughout the 2020s. Although the rate of 

growth was slower than hoped for, it was steady. Most of Africa, some of South America, and 

the Middle East did not fare as well.

Full employment and the resumption of economic growth helped generate a modest revival of 

the middle class, easing but not eliminating the nation’s political and social tensions. Congress 

and the White House relearned the art of compromise, at least on less controversial issues. 

Deals on federal spending and debt allowed most government programs to continue without 

draconian cuts.
42

Advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other areas in the 2020s helped maintain 

continued growth, creating new industries and revitalizing old ones. Progress was made in 

renewable energy technologies as well. But cheaper fossil fuels meant that the share of energy 

use accounted for by renewables increased only very slowly throughout the 2020s.

Continued global growth resulted in significant increases in the consumption of all natural 

resources, putting more strain on ecological systems. Suburban and exurban sprawl picked up 

where it had left off during the Great Recession, causing more fragmentation of forests and 

loss of wetlands. A new wave of large homes was built in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), 

greatly complicating wildland firefighting.

By 2030, climate change is toward the high end of past projections and is clearly accelerating 

due to melting permafrost in the Arctic, releasing growing amounts of methane, which is 20 to 

80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

The area burned by wildfires by 2030 in the United States and globally is considerably larger 

than anticipated at the start of the century and the extent of annual damage continues to 

escalate. With many competing needs and tight federal budgets, the U.S. Forest Service has to 

persuade the public and policy makers that wildland fire management is a high priority and that 

improved approaches are possible.

Questions for Online Panel Discussion: What significant changes in wildland fire 

management could result from (or are required by) this scenario? How would wildland fire 

management need to adapt to make the best of this possible future?

Scenario 3: Transformation

The years between 1950 and today in 2030 witnessed what futurist John Platt called “ten 

Industrial Revolutions ... rolled into one” (quoted in Cornish 1977:1). The Great Recession, 

concerns about oil availability, and other problems contributed to a temporary loss of 

nerve about technological progress earlier in the 21st century, but it was actually during this 

period that some of the most important advances affecting our life today were gestating: 

inexpensive solar panels an order of magnitude more efficient than previous models, artificial 

photosynthesis, advanced batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage, super-efficient 

buildings, biomimetic industrial processes (innovative processes that emulate nature’s timetested patterns and strategies), drought-resistant self-fertilizing crops, advanced robotics and 

artificial intelligence, high-quality voice language translation allowing people everywhere to 

talk to each other, memory and intelligence enhancement, all kinds of novel organisms and 

biologically based devices produced by synthetic biology ... the list goes on and on.

A listing like this makes it sound like social change is mainly driven by technology, but 

the dynamics of change have been much more complicated, and forest fires have played an 

important role. During the 2010s, large fires raged in Australia, Indonesia, China, Russia, and 

the United States. Then, in 2018, a major wildfire occurred in the spruce (Picea spp.) cover near 

the 100-square-mile tailing ponds of the tar sands mining operation in Alberta. It was never 

determined if the fire was caused by a lightning strike or arson, but it ignited the “goop,” which 

has petroleum in the mix. Two years later, in 2020, the United States experienced the largest 
43

wildfire in modern history, the so-called “Mother Fire,” which caused a major disaster, severing 

power and water supplies to California’s Bay Area.

Wildland fires had never been treated as a major issue in discussions of sustainability, despite 

the links to climate change, deforestation, water availability, air pollution, soil erosion, and 

other issues. That now changed: wildfires began to be regularly treated as among the “top 10 

sustainability issues” as well as a significant security issue. The greater importance given to 

wildfires, combined with the recovery from the Great Recession, led to substantially more 

resources becoming available for wildland fire management.

The really important development was that wildfire replaced large storms as the “face” of 

climate change. The drama, unpredictability, and fear associated with fire had a powerful effect 

on public opinion, helping to break through remaining resistance and galvanize all-out efforts 

to deal with climate change. During the 2020s these efforts reached the scale of mobilizing for 

a war, which was a key factor stimulating the economy and accelerating technological change. 

People at every level from local communities to international organizations became involved. 

Politicians and civil servants, entrepreneurs and corporate leaders, scientists and academics in 

the social sciences and humanities, environmentalists and other leaders of nongovernmental 

organizations, journalists, teachers, religious leaders, film producers, musicians, and people 

involved in all the arts engaged in the effort to help cut greenhouse gas emissions. As successful 

as these ongoing efforts were proving to be, here in the United States and as a model for other 

nations, scientists still predicted warming by nearly 2 °C by the end of the century.

The efforts to deal with climate change helped trigger a revitalization of the federal government. 

An urgent mission, the influx into politics and government agencies of the more cohesive and 

pragmatic millennial generation, and enormous pressure on government from corporations 

and other stakeholders to “shape up” led to a smaller, more flexible, and more efficient federal 

government with clearer priorities and cuts in many areas of inappropriate or wasteful spending, 

but substantially increased resources for dealing with high-priority issues. In government, as 

well as in the private sector and community life, the 2020s became one of those rare creative 

periods when new visions of how to do things emerged or gained legitimacy and people felt 

empowered to act on their aspirations.

The extent of areas affected by wildfires increased, but by a lesser amount than experts once 

feared. Damage from wildfires decreased thanks to the comprehensive implementation of a 

“new paradigm of wildland fire management.”

Questions for Online Panel Discussion: What changes in wildland fire management could 

result from the technical progress, economic growth, improved governance, and spirit of 

innovation and empowerment described in this scenario? What changes in wildland fire 

management would make the best of this possible future?

LITERATURE CITED

Cornish, E. 1977. The study of the future: an introduction to the art and science of 

understanding and shaping tomorrow’s world. Bethesda, MD: World Future Society. 

307 p.
44

APPENDIX 4

New Paradigm of Wildfire Management 2050

John Phipps

Wildfire plays an important and natural necessary role on fire adapted landscapes. In recognition 

of this hard truth, humans have adapted to these landscapes. Human settlement and fire adapted 

vegetation coexist with fire on the landscape. Fire is an occasional natural occurrence and passes 

without much consequence like a rainstorm. Humans have ended their war with fire on these 

landscapes. As a result, loss of life and property has dropped considerably, firefighter safety has 

increased dramatically, and costs of wildland fire management have declined significantly.

How did we arrive at this future? In 2015, the federal government facilitated a new system of fireshed 

management across the country. A fireshed is defined as the area surrounding a community that can 

potentially support a wildfire that can impact the community. In the West, firesheds are typically 

large because fires can move great distances from point of origin and communities may share the 

same fireshed.

The fireshed system of management was a game changer. Each fireshed had a fireshed council 

that had the responsibility to manage the wildfire risk of the fireshed. For firesheds that contained 

federal ownership, the council had the responsibility to comanage risk with the federal government 

by statute under the Wildland Fire Resilience Act of 2015 (WFRA). All aspects of wildland fire, 

including landscape fuels treatment, preparedness planning, suppression response, fire rehabilitation 

and recovery, and land use zoning and building codes, are considered by the councils as required by 

WFRA.

All the fire adapted areas in the country are now organized into firesheds, each with a council. Federal 

investment in firesheds is prioritized based on risk management models. For any given community 

in a fireshed, federal government investment requires the community to adopt an “inside-out” 

protection philosophy to community protection instead of the current “outside-in” practice. The 

“inside-out” philosophy requires communities to protect structures with protection zones and 

building codes. Protection zones require standards for flammable vegetation adjacent to structures.

Once a community is fire-resilient from the inside out, it sets up an opportunity for other areas of 

the fireshed to become fire-resilient from the community to the backcountry of the fireshed. If the 

community is fire-resilient, then fire managers can safely treat adjacent areas with fire to make those 

areas fire-resilient. Once those adjacent areas are fire-resilient, the back-country areas of the fireshed 

can experience more natural fire patterns without significant fire suppression. Once this pattern is 

established and maintained via prescribed fire over time, the fireshed is considered fire-resilient and 

sustainable.

The federal government investment strategy under WFRA was to: (1) facilitate establishment 

of firesheds across all fire adapted landscapes, (2) establish fireshed councils, (3) provide correct 

incentives, (4) prioritize investment based on risk ranking and inside-out philosophy adoption, (5) 

focus first on the highest opportunity for risk reduction, and (6) invest to reduce risk to acceptable 

levels. Following this strategy created the proper set of incentives for communities and land managers 

to create a trajectory toward an acceptable level of risk to communities, landscapes, and firefighters.
Printed on Recycled Paper

Olson, Robert L.; Bengston, David N.; DeVaney, Leif A.; Thompson, Trevor A.C. 2015. 

Wildland fire management futures: insights from a foresight panel. Gen. Tech. 

Rep. NRS-152. Newtown Square, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, 

Northern Research Station. 44 p.

Wildland fire management faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century: the 

increasingly apparent effects of climate change, more people and structures in the 

wildland-urban interface, growing costs associated with wildfire management, and the 

rise of high-impact fires, to name a few. Given these significant and growing challenges, 

conventional fire management approaches are unlikely to be effective in the future. 

Innovative and forward-looking approaches are needed.

This study explored wildland fire management futures by using methods and diverse 

perspectives from futures research. To gain foresight for wildland fire management, 

we convened a foresight panel consisting of seven leading academic and professional 

futurists outside of the wildfire community and two wildfire professionals. We engaged the 

panelists in a series of structured online discussions to elicit their insights and perspectives 

on the future of wildland fire management.

There are five broad areas where the foresight panel members were in full agreement. 

(1) The level of uncertainty about external developments and future conditions that will 

set the context for wildland fire management is significantly greater than is recognized in 

current planning. (2) As conditions change, the traditional fire prevention and suppression 

approach to wildfire management will prove unsustainable. (3) A new fire resilience 

approach is emerging as an alternative to traditional viewpoints and practices. (4) All 

the major strategies needed to implement this approach are already familiar to wildfire 

managers. (5) There are strong short-term barriers to adopting the fire resilience approach, 

but the panelists believe its adoption is nearly inevitable between now and mid-century.

KEY WORDS: wildland fire management, futures, foresight panel, resilience, scenarios

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