How a research community constructs and uses naturalness: A case study of the 2023 Lookout Fire and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon, USA

Wildfire severity is increasing in the western United States. Simultaneously, many recognize that fire is a natural process and advocate for learning to live with fire. Indeed, the naturalness of fire can be an important reason provided to increase the amount of fire on a landscape. However, “naturalness” can be interpreted in incommensurate ways, such as the historic range of variability of a system or the absence of human influence. What makes wildfires feel natural or unnatural to the people who experience them, and how naturalness affects reactions to wildfires is underexplored. Using social representations theory, we examine the 2023 Lookout Fire at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA). We use semi-structured interviews (n = 40) to explore how the research community associated with the HJA mentally constructs and uses naturalness to emotionally process and make meaning from the wildfire. We find even in a community with advanced training in ecology, respondents use a variety of metrics to determine naturalness, including ignition source, fire behavior, and pre-fire landscape characteristics and fire history. Respondents consider a variety of factors, and there was not consensus on whether the Lookout Fire was a “natural” fire. In general, respondents who described the fire as more natural were able to come to a state of acceptance and excitement for future research opportunities sooner than respondents who described the fire as largely unnatural. This has important implications for wildfire risk communication for scientists and practitioners who want to restore fire as a natural process. While fires perceived (or framed) as natural may be more readily accepted, fires perceived as unnatural may take longer to process. Fires perceived as human-caused and especially as climate-exacerbated may be the most difficult for people to process after and during the fire, and may have the most resistance for being managed for purposes other than full suppression.