Socioculturally resonant, people-centered solutions for wildfire prevention and governance

As wildfires become more frequent and intense across the United States, there is a growing need for broader public participation in wildfire prevention. Current wildfire prevention efforts rely heavily on specialized fire workforces and often use uniform messaging that does not reflect the socioeconomic and cultural diversity of communities in fire-prone areas, limiting public engagement and the effectiveness of policies and resource distribution. This project will develop wildfire prevention and governance models that encourage active participation from diverse communities by designing communication strategies grounded in behavioral science, particularly the concept of cultural defaults — shared, context-specific patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. By identifying and applying these cultural defaults to wildfire-related behaviors, the project aims to create more socioculturally resonant communication and policy approaches that better motivate preventive action and improve the reach and impact of wildfire adaptation efforts.