Understanding ‘Community’ in Wildfire Research in High-Latitude Areas

With increasing wildfire impacts on communities in high-latitude areas, a call for community involvement in wildfire risk reduction has been widely promoted. Correspondingly, a ‘community-based’ approach has been advocated in research understanding wildfire, with various interpretations of ‘community’ evident in this work. This paper identifies and characterises how ‘community’ has been conceptualised and operationalised in research on wildfire risk reduction in high-latitude areas (defined as areas above 50°N). We conducted a scoping review to identify and characterise the different interpretations of ‘community’ in wildfire research from six dimensions: research background, community role and function, social inclusion and exclusion, participatory approach, power relations, and research innovation and reflexivity. We find that the use of ‘community’ has expanded beyond its geographical scale in wildfire research, with increasing recognition of community heterogeneity. Recent research has increasingly focused on, and worked with, Indigenous Nations, as well as diverse community attributes. However, ambiguity over what ‘community’ means exists in wildfire research, with such work limited to certain community attributes with a neglect of social exclusion and power hierarchy within community participation. We therefore suggest a critical reflection of community-based approach in future wildfire research and emphasise community heterogeneity in addressing the impacts of climate change.