Fuels Planning: Science Synthesis and

Integration

Social Issues Fact Sheet: 6

Important Considerations for

Communicating About Hazards

United States

Department

of Agriculture

Forest Service

Rocky Mountain

Research Station

Research Note

RMRS-RN-21-6-WWW

September 2004

Social Science Team Co-Leads:

Pam Jakes

Sue Barro

USDA Forest Service

North Central Research Station

1992 Folwell Avenue

St. Paul, MN 55108

Fuels planning: Science synthesis and

integration, an interagency research/

management partnership to support

the Ten-Year Fire Plan, led by Russell

T. Graham, RMRS, and Sarah M.

McCaffrey, NCRS.

Synthesizing

Scientific Information

for Fire and Fuels

Project Managers

Pacific Northwest

Research Station

One of the major challenges managers face in wildland fire and fuels management is explaining to homeowners and community members the degree of hazard they face. Most public hazard education and communication efforts seek to

accomplish one of the following goals:

ï Simply comply with a mandate to distribute public education materials

ï Actually inform and educate people

ï Alter peopleís opinion and behavior

Effective public education and communication campaigns have clear objectives,

and use the right techniques to achieve these objectives. This is one of several

fact sheets that address wildland fire hazard communication. Here we list important considerations for planning or implementing a hazard communication effort:

1. Public Education and Warnings Should Not Be Confused. Public hazard

education involves communicating hazard information to the public independent of the occurrence of a specific hazardous event. Warnings communicate

information about a specific disaster in the days, hours, or minutes prior to, during, or immediately after an occurrence.

2. There Is a Known Psychology of Hazard Education. Public hazard communication and education work best by creating uncertainty in the minds of

people, causing them to wonder about their environment and their ability to

manage it.

3. Good Hazard Education Takes People Factors Into Account. There is

no such thing as ìa public.î Rather, the public is made up of different and diverse audiences. These sub-publics differ from each other in terms of their personal and social characteristics, which determine how likely they are to be influThe Greater Laguna Coast FireSafe Council Red Flag

Program alerts area residents and people traveling

through the community when hazardous wildland fire

conditions exist (photo credit: Greater Laguna Coast

FireSafe Council).

enced by public hazard education.

4. Perceiving Risk Doesnít

Mean Doing Something About

It. People do not always act in

what we might think of as a rational manner. For example, a person

living close to a hazardous site

may understand the risk from the

site but may not have taken action

to enhance his or her safety.

5. Probability Estimates Really

Arenít That Important. People

do not think in probabilities. Typically, the human thought process

The information for this

fact sheet was provided by

Dr. Dennis Mileti and staff

at the Natural Hazards Center in Boulder, Colorado.
The Fuels Planning fact sheets are based on preliminary findings. Information from fact sheets will be synthesized in an upcoming publication.

Social Science Team Fact Sheets

Look for fact sheet topics from the Social Science Team including information on developing personal responsibility for fuels reduction, communicating fire hazard, topics for community fire plans, guidelines for

community education, and the ìgolden ruleî for communicating fire

hazard to people.

Fuels Planning: Synthesis and Integration

This fact sheet is one in a series being produced as part of a larger project

supported by the USDA Forest Service to synthesize new knowledge and

information relevant to fire and fuels management. Fact sheets address

topics related to stand structure, environmental impacts, economics, and

human responses to these factors. Information in the fact sheets is targeted for the dry forests of the Inland West, but is often applicable across

broad regions of the country. For more information, please visit our Web

site at:

www.fs.fed.us/fire/tech_transfer/synthesis/synthesis_index

Good public hazard education causes people to wonder about their environment and their ability to manage that environment (photo credit: Eric

Toman).

6. People Like to Think Itís Their Own Idea. Public

educators have learned through trial and error what parents of teenagers already know: people are generally not

motivated by sermons on why they ought to do something

or why they ought to accept the actions of others. People

are more apt to follow what we or others have identified as an appropriate course of action if they work out

a solution or come to a conclusion themselves, with

helpful information from specialists.

7. Effective Hazard Education is OngoingóNot a

Single Act. Effective communication campaigns have

three things going for them: (1) they raise questions (create uncertainty) in the minds of the audience, (2) they

offer fairly simple answers, and (3) they have authorities available who can provide additional information

and reinforce the message over time.

about future events is binary: it will happen/it wonít

happen; it will affect me/it wonít affect me. Information about a ì65 percent probabilityî or an ì80 percent

chanceî is just not very useful to the general public.