Homeowner perspectives on fire hazard, responsibility, and management strategies at the wildland-urban interface

Following a survey of forest homeowners in rural Michigan to assess the val ue of reducing the risk of damage from wildfires at the wildland-urban inte rface, focus group discussions were conducted with a subset of survey parti cipants to learn about their perceptions concerning specific components of fire hazard (e.g., how fires start, fire control, fire damage), their under standing of how fire protection responsibility is allocated between governm ent and individuals, and their understanding of and preferences for alterna tive fire management strategies. Focus-group data were analyzed using a fra mework based on behavioral economics and psychometric models of risk. Attri butes associated with the fire risk help explain the relative popularity of different fire protection strategies. Because participants consider forest fires inherently uncontrollable, and the resulting damage essentially rand om, they ape only weakly supportive of investments in firefighting infrastr ucture, unlikely to take all possible steps to safeguard their own properti es, and resolute in their emphasis on solutions that reduce the number of f ire ignitions. Their universally negative perceptions of prescribed fire ma y ultimately preclude its use as a risk management tool in Michigan's wildl and-urban ban interface forests.