Social media has become a vital tool in disaster risk management as it allows for rapid dissemination of information, real-time updates on the status of a disaster, and facilitates communication and coordination between various entities involved in disaster management. This can help people make informed decisions about their safety and can assist emergency responders in planning and executing their response. In addition, social media can also facilitate communication and coordination between different entities involved in disaster management, such as government agencies, NGOs, and volunteers. By leveraging the power of social media, it is possible to improve the effectiveness of disaster response and increase the resilience of communities.
VOST Portugal (VOST-PT) is a volunteer-based organization that focuses on the use of technology and social media in disaster risk management. One of VOST-PT's key initiatives is CONFIRM, an open-source platform that allows for the acquisition and presentation of relevant information during disasters. This tool has been successfully used in a number of contexts, including in the response to forest fires. In addition to its technical efforts, VOST-PT also plays a crucial role in fighting disinformation during times of crisis by providing accurate and timely information to the public, training volunteers, and collaborating with government agencies and other organizations to develop strategies for combating false information. These efforts help to ensure that the public has access to reliable information and can make informed decisions during times of crisis.

Fire is a traditional land management practice, despite the high risk of rural fires due to climate change and fire misuse. Researchers have sought to understand the key features of communication practices to improve rural fire risk management. The Carnegie Mellon mental models approach encompasses participatory processes to deepen risk understanding and addresses what can be done to mitigate future impacts. This study aims to demonstrate the applicability of the mental model approach to improve risk communication effectiveness to reduce accidental fire ignitions caused by debris burning and leisure activities in the wildland-urban interface. This systemic approach is being applied in two projects. First, the rePLANT project, whose purpose is to increase sustainable forest management, the competitiveness of the Portuguese forestry sector, and reduce the impact of rural fires. Second, the FIRE-RES project, will develop a holistic and integrated fire management strategy to efficiently and effectively address Extreme Wildfire Events in Europe in 11 Living Labs thanks to its Innovation Actions. Overall, this study provides guidelines to help decision-makers and stakeholders, highlighting the importance of exploring the underlying reasons for resistance to behavioral change and defining guidelines to support the design of new risk communication strategies, including disseminating new behaviors and practices to mitigate human-caused rural fires.

Wildfire communication tends to happen top-down: experts telling society what they should (not) do for wildfire prevention and preparedness. Even so, wildfire communication can also happen through local, community-based wildfire initiatives. However, such initiatives are often not recognized nor researched due to their high level of informality and invisibility for non-locals. Hence, this research aims to shed light on how community-based initiatives can contribute to, and transform, wildfire communication practices and knowledge.

Present research is conducted through an in-depth case study in southeast Spain, using qualitative research methods like interviews, participant observation, and focus groups. By zooming into the citizen initiative Pego Viu (that emerged as a social response to the 2015 Vall d’Ebo wildfire, and developed further when another wildfire affected the same area in 2022), we can gain key insights for wildfire communication. For instance, wildfire communication goes far beyond just wildfire prevention and preparedness, becoming instead deeply intertwined with root causes of extreme wildfires at the local level; community-based initiatives respond to local needs and interests typically left unaddressed by top-down wildfire communication; and, while citizen initiatives frequently emerge after impactful wildfires, only few last over time.

Overall, community-based wildfire initiatives are key in increasing the resilience of wildfire-prone territories, by carrying out a wide scope of wildfire prevention and mitigation actions embedded and responding to the local realities. What is needed now is further support for such situated actions, e.g. through policy support and strengthening ties with other wildfire actors in the territory.

Mainstream media often report on wildfires when they threaten communities, lead to evacuation, loss of live or property, or have an extensive direct environmental impact. These mainstream news reach a large proportion of the general population as well as decision makers. They therefore represent a potentially very effective means of risk communication and for improving society’s understanding of the causes and consequences of wildfires.

However, the tendency for sensationalistic and simplistic reporting, with a focus often on the causes of ignition, suppression activities, losses and how to avoid future fires, rarely leave room for balanced reporting on risk and the wider understanding of fires. These limitations also apply when scientists are interviewed or asked to contribute to the writing of news articles. This is a reason why only a small proportion of academic researchers are willing to work with the media, together with very short deadlines and differences in communication styles between journalists and academics.

Here we report on our experiences with TV, radio and online media following major wildfire events across the globe in recent years including, for example, the 2018 US Camp Fire, the 2019/20 Black Summer fires and the extreme European fire season of 2022. We highlight the benefits and pitfalls of this work and of acting as ‘fact checker’ for social media. Together with published views by other media active scientists in the US and UK, we conclude with some thoughts on ‘ dos and don’ts ’ in working with the media.

In the context of climate change, wildfires are becoming one of the main environmental concerns in many parts of the world. In this sense, it is fundamental to educate the population, to increase their wildfire preparedness, and to manage forests, making them more wildfire resilient. The present study is a review of wildfire pedagogical materials from around the world. The aim is to find the main topics and concerns covered by these materials along with their knowledge gaps. This information will help us to create pedagogical materials about wildfire for the project EduFire ToolKit. So far, over 180 references from 30 countries have been analyzed. Most references (around 47%) are targeted at the general public, and around 42% are aimed at students (from preschool to high school). Some materials found specifically target firefighters, about 9%, and just 1% is directed to the rural population. Regarding the topics addressed, most materials explain the main concepts (physics and chemistry) around wildfires (60%), as well as fire prevention (52%), and community fire safety measures (51%). Very few materials, less than 1 %, approach historical, social, health, and economic concerns related to wildfires. In addition, climate change and its links to wildfires is not a very explored topic in the retrieved materials. It is expected that the results of this thorough an extensive review will guide and inform the content creation processes in future wildfire manuals to provide the most essential knowledge, helping the population to adapt to the changing climate and fire regimes

The Regional Eastern Africa Fire Management Resource Center (REA-FMRC) is serving countries of East Africa, by provisioning, archiving and interpreting scientific-technical information and satellite-derived near-real time and historic data on landscape fires. This kind of Center has been established in different parts of the world to decentralize the role of the Global Fire Monitoring Center (GFMC) for an adapted response to the local, national and regional needs of stakeholders in fire management data.
The REA-RFMRC has developed a specific geoportal, first for Madagascar, and now for all the eastern Africa countries, in order to share all the available data on active fires, on fire forecasting and monitoring. This kind of tool has been developed as a science-policy interface to reconcile the needs in between local communities, natural resource managers and policy makers to face landscape fire management issues.
The daily fire danger forecast is based on the Forest-Weather Index Method (FWI) which is made up of six components that take into account the effects of the water content of fuels and weather conditions on fire behaviour. For burnt area monitoring, two spectral indexes (Normalized Burn Ratio, NBR and Burned Area Index for Sentinel-2, BAIS2) are used to distinguish burnt surfaces from Sentinel-2 images. These two indices are calculated and compiled in monthly data. All of this information is publicly available at the www.rfmrc-ea.org geoportal and has been used in Madagascar to catalyze a better understanding of the role of fires in the landscapes by all stakeholders.

Non-resident landowners, alongside changing local fire regimes, pose complex challenges for local governments trying to support capacity-building and resilience in communities across Australia.

Objectives: Working with local government, this study examines community resilience in Halls Gap (Victoria) and surrounding areas. We focus on non-resident landowners who are responsible for preparedness and response to bushfire, in order to better understand this ‘hard-to-reach’ group.

Methods: In 2019 we conducted 29 semi-structured interviews with non-resident landowners and one workshop with resident and non-resident landowners about their bushfire risk perceptions, preparedness, and needs.

Results: We found both widespread interest and new opportunities for facilitating social learning and knowledge-sharing amongst community groups. Thematic narrative analysis revealed absentee landholders bring diverse values, knowledge and experiences of fire in the landscape. Further, there was significant interest from this group in establishing local connections and being part of the community, although they lack the how-to knowledge. These findings contribute to dispelling the myth of the "disengaged” non-resident landowner and secondly, the importance of investment in local social network programs.

Conclusions: New insights were used to make recommendations for better integration of non-resident landowners’ knowledge, capacity and needs in bushfire risk communication and engagement. This informed the development of a new Community Resilience Group plus a mobile app to disseminate bushfire information. This case-study demonstrates the role that absentee landholders can play in community-led bushfire mitigation, preparedness, and response. We suggest the findings of this study have broader relevance for risk communication and community engagement in dynamic fire-prone landscapes.