Community Risk and Resilience to Wildfires: Rethinking the Complex Human-Climate-Fire Relationship in High-Latitude Regions

Community risk and resilience to high-latitude wildfires has received limited conceptual attention, with a comprehensive, integrated framework that unpacks the complex human-fire-climate relationship in high-latitude environments largely missing. In this paper, we use insights from both the climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction literature to build a conceptual framework to understand the factors and dynamics of risk and resilience to wildfires at the community level in high-latitude regions. Using an illustrative case study, the framework demonstrates how unique social and ecological features of high-latitude communities elevate their risk of wildfires and emphasizes the need to think holistically about the different spatial-temporal interactions and interdependencies between fire, humans, and climate in these regions. We find that remoteness, indigeneity, subsistence-based activities, and colonial practices, along with accelerated climate warming, are notable features influencing community risk and resilience to wildfires in high-latitude regions. This framework can help unravel the complex nature of wildfires, guide stakeholders through each phase of the disaster process, and facilitate the development and design of wildfire-related policies and strategies in high-latitude regions.