ABSTRACT
A common mandate in federal forest and fire management policies is the use of interagency cooperation and community collaboration to manage wildland fire and develop community preparedness. In these policies, however, it is of en unclear to land managers how to facilitate collaboration or why collaborative efforts matter. Furthermore, recent years have seen a renewed interest in researching the human dimensions of wildfire, particularly with an emphasis on wildfire as a natural hazard. One aspect that is rarely discussed is how community collaborative efforts can aid in individual and community recovery from fire. Another critical role of collaborative processes is in assessing perceptions of risk in the community and shared visions of fire mitigation. Community-supported plans for mitigation and other preparedness activities can be instituted and developed through collaboration before a disaster strikes. This chapter examines the importance of community collaboration in both postfire recovery and prefire planning, using five case studies of postfire community collaborative recovery efforts.
