Community perceptions regarding prescribed fires, wildfires, and ecosystem disservices in southern California's Wildland-Urban Interface

Wildfires adjacent to highly populated Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) areas are increasingly impacting urban communities in terms of post-fire costs and displacement of populations. But community perception of these socioeconomic and ecological costs, or ecosystem disservices (EDs), before catastrophic events like the 2025 Los Angeles Fires is little understood. Thus, understanding how experts and the urban public perceive fire-related EDs, relative to the risk reduction benefits of prescribed fire, is key. We used a 2023 survey (n = 869) from communities within Greater Los Angeles as well as spatial data and econometrics to understand how urban and WUI public and experts perceived prescribed fires, wildfires, and fire-related EDs. We found no significant difference between experts and the public in reported smoke exposure over the past five years. Experts were significantly less likely to agree that threat of property damage outweighed the ecological benefits of prescribed fire. Younger (18–29) and non-white respondents were significantly less likely to support prescribed fire, whereas higher-income individuals were more likely to view property damage from fire as exceeding the ecological benefits of fire. Overall, living in a designated WUI area and recent smoke exposure did not significantly influence EDs perceptions. Findings have implications for understanding risk perceptions, WUI fire governance, and audiences before the occurrence of catastrophic urban fires such as the 2025 Los Angeles urban fires. Policy makers can use these insights to craft context-specific outreach and social-media communication for urban communities, diverse populations, and young adults in or near high fire risk WUI areas.