The Stories of Fire project explored the efficacy of using personal narratives of wildland fire to increase participation in informal STEM learning (ISL) in rural informal education contexts in the Northwestern US. Public education efforts that promote fire adaptation are increasingly important as wildfire impacts in the region increase. Yet, typical approaches often overlook the power dynamics that privilege scientific knowledge and sideline complementary ways of knowing. Fire adaptation outreach programs can benefit from integrating storytelling, or narratives, in informal education programming. Our interdisciplinary team, including three graduate students, a science communicator, a fire ecologist, a narratologist, and a specialist in affect studies, worked with interpreters and rural residents to share stories about living with fire and its increasing impacts as the climate warms and fire and land management change. Through interviews, narrative analysis, ISL program design and implementation, and a podcast, we specifically examined 1) fire knowledge conveyed in personal narratives of fire, and 2) what audience-centered approaches best facilitate participant storytelling in informal STEM learning.

We focused on the ways stories, or narratives, convey fire knowledge. When we listened closely to rural residents’ stories in our interviews with them, we learned that they have strong and sometimes contradictory emotions about fire, including awe, fear, respect, and nostalgia for times prior to burning or for times when fire was managed differently. In some stories, elements of fire science emerged, reflecting various types and degrees of knowledge about fire’s natural role in the region’s ecosystems. We also learned that rural residents, the ecosystems they live in, and their interactions with fire are diverse. For example, some rural residents feel comfortable with fire and the use of prescribed burning as a cultural and agricultural stewardship practice; but others are more fearful and prefer to suppress or avoid fire interactions. We utilized our narrative interviews with rural residents of Idaho to examine the features of their narrative-based fire knowledge. Our analysis suggests that storied fire knowledge 1) centers human timescales, 2) privileges localized fire dynamics, and 3) reveals complex human relationships with fire.

Drawing from these results, we developed informal education programs about fire based on integrating both fire science and similar fire narratives. We worked with interpreters and informal educators in state parks and environmental education centers around Idaho to deliver these educational programs in places that reflect the cultural and ecological diversity of our region. We used the educators' feedback, as well as the experiences of participants in these programs, to refine a participatory storytelling framework for fire programs. Based on survey results and focus groups from this pilot project, we learned that interpreters and participants found these participatory storytelling programs engaging and productive of new knowledge. We suggest that engaging narrative epistemologies in public outreach can support situating this multi-scalar phenomena in local contexts of salience to residents, re-integrating affective and scientific dimensions, and diversifying epistemologies valued in dialogues about fire adaptation.

In addition to training 30 informal educators in five rural areas of Idaho in participatory storytelling methods, narrative theory, and fire science, Stories of Fire programming reached at least 324 participants at Ponderosa State Park, the McCall Outdoor Science School, Craters of the Moon National Monument, and Q’emlin State Park. We additionally supported Nez Perce Tourism to conduct culturally-embedded fire science programming and to build fire knowledge among educators and program participants, including Nez Perce youth. Now, additional research is needed to assess the effectiveness of participatory storytelling programs more broadly. We describe our interdisciplinary, community-based process as a “confluence” of experiences, knowledge, and ideas, alongside a shared intention of moving forward together in adapting to the changing social and physical landscape of wildland fire. 

Last Modified: 11/27/2022
Modified by: Leda N Kobziar