Oct. 2022 Science Corner | “Countering Wildfire Misinformation”

Authors: Gavin M Jones, Emily K Vraga, Paul F Hessburg, Matthew D Hurteau, Craig D Allen, Robert E Keane, Thomas A Spies, Malcolm P North, Brandon M Collins, Mark A Finney, Jamie M Lydersen, A Leroy Westerling

Interview and story by: Tessa Maurer, PhD

Photo credit: Peter Wyrsch

Wildfires are a complex phenomenon: their causes are diverse and the factors influencing their growth, intensity, and impact can vary widely by geography, local climate, and ecosystem. As the consequences of wildfires for human and natural communities grow more severe, the circulation of misinformation around them has also intensified.

To combat this growing problem, Dr. Gavin Jones of the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station and his co-authors published a commentary piece called “Counteracting Wildfire Misinformation.” In it, they discuss the characteristics and consequences of wildfire misinformation and provide suggestions for how scientists, policymakers, and journalists can take steps to combat it.

Like misinformation around climate change, wildfire misinformation distorts normal, healthy discrepancies in the scientific literature, giving undue weight to outlying evidence in ways that are incomplete, misleading, or overly simplified. “Misinformation is incorrect or misleading evidence that counters the best available science or expert consensus on a topic,” says Dr. Jones. “It is not necessarily intentional; that would be disinformation.”

Scientific misinformation results in social or political inaction or reinforcement of the status quo, which makes our response to wildfires less effective. “Within fire science, not everyone agrees on every point,” notes Dr. Jones. “That’s part of the scientific process. But you can’t take outlying perspectives and say that these are equivalent to a robust framework of knowledge, because that is where we get false uncertainty that then creates a gridlock of decision making.” This kind of doubt can have serious consequences for ecosystems and communities that are contending with modern wildfires.

That is why it is so critical to be equipped to combat misleading or incomplete claims, and the authors provide several suggestions for how to do so. One important step is known as “prebunking”: measures that anticipate and counter misinformation before it becomes part of the discourse. Prebunking can be just as critically important to combating misinformation as debunking it after it arises. The authors also point out that the spread of misinformation is often driven by distrust of institutions, which can be the result of past management and policy mistakes. To rebuild that trust, they emphasize that it is “essential to own past mistakes, seek input, act in good faith, and minimize future mistakes.”

For individuals, whether private citizens, journalists, or policy-makers, “one of the best approaches is to identify a set of reliable sources that have domain expertise and also have the trust of their subject matter experts,” suggests Dr. Jones. “It’s difficult for the average person to sift through the scientific literature on their own. The key is to have a reliable source that you can square any information you hear against.” He notes that federal and state agencies, like CalFire in California, provide good information on wildfire occurrence and the ecology of wildfires.

Dr. Jones and his co-authors also assembled a table of common misleading claims around wildfire, which lists the consequences of those claims and provides more robust information that contradicts those claims. Some common misleading claims they highlight include that fuels reductions are ineffective, that forests will naturally recover from contemporary wildfires, and that fuels reduction projects are a pretense for harmful commercial logging.

These are claims that all organizations that work in forest management, including Blue Forest, must be prepared to hear and counteract in order to build healthy trust and collaboration in support of forest resilience. Blue Forest follows an evidence-based approach to promote forest resilience. To ensure that we continue to be aligned with the latest scientific consensus, we maintain relationships with natural and social expert scientists who can advise our team on best practices in an ongoing way. The tools suggested by Dr. Jones and his co-authors will further help Blue Forest and our collaborators promote and act on the most robust fire science.

“The goal is to raise awareness and give readers and consumers of information a healthy degree of skepticism about what they’re hearing. The consequences of wildfire misinformation are serious. So that’s why we’re raising the alarm. A lot of people’s livelihoods hang in the balance as well as the future of our Western American landscapes and beyond,” says Dr. Jones.