Through Smoke to Policy: Framing the EU Forest Fire Policy Landscape

The global community is grappling with a significant increase in forest fires’ frequency, size, and intensity, presenting a profound challenge. To complement existing framing literature on forest fires, this paper examines collective frames applied to forest fires in a broader EU context. Employing a content analysis covering 354 EU policy documents—spanning both soft (non-legally binding) and hard (legally binding) policy documents—via the use of Atlas.ti, six collective frames on forest fires are outlined, identifying four as particularly dominant: ‘climate adaptation and resilience’, ‘risk mitigation and protective governance’, ‘agriculture and rural development’, and ‘technocratic perspectives on forest fires’. These frames capture dominant perspectives promoted within specific policy domains, such as energy and agriculture. Despite the diverse approaches to framing forest fires and their varied objectives, a common thread connects the narratives in these documents, namely, the central theme of ‘risk’. Whether it emerges in the context of reporting or as part of a call to action for adopting certain EU measures, the use of risk operates as a narrative device that negatively frames the discourse, consistently employed to call for action. The findings underscore the importance of considering communication strategies surrounding forest fires, particularly in light of their implications for forest governance.