Governing Wildfire Risk in Canada: The Rise of an Apparatus of Security

Abstract

This article argues that the governance of wildfire risk in Canada is increasingly oriented toward governance through a security apparatus. As climate change complicates wildfire “problems” in fast-expanding wildland–urban interface areas, fire managers and other actors increasingly seek a shift toward a fire-permitting, risk-based fire management style, even as the balance between private and public responsibility for wildfire protection gets renegotiated. This approach, typified by FireSmart, is characterized by a gradual, geographically uneven shift from state-centered fire suppression toward a multiplicity assembled around an expectation of security and the promise of economic freedom. These multiple shifts, we argue, reflect a characteristic approach to governing through the Foucauldian “apparatus of security,” a mechanism of power that seeks security through economic freedom and indirect governmental intervention. Central to the emerging apparatus of wildfire security are three core rationalizing discourses focused on the valorization of the individual’s capacity for wildfire management and protection, the negotiation of limits of state and public institutions in wildfire management, and the invitation to live resiliently with wildfires by embracing biophysical contingency. At stake is the complex politics through which the very ideas of wildfire risk, responsibility, and security are being, and can be, reconstituted. Our analysis furthers the poststructural geographies of wildfires and climate risk governance in Canada and beyond.

本文认为, 加拿大野火风险管理愈加倾向于采用安全机制。在快速扩张的荒地—城市边缘地带, 野火“问题”因气候变化而变得更加复杂, 消防等人员逐渐转向容忍火灾的、基于风险的火灾管理方式, 甚至在个人和公众野火防护责任之间实现平衡。FireSmart是这种方式的典范：从国家为主导的防火, 逐渐向以安全和经济自由为中心的、空间非均衡化的多元化转变。这些多元化转变, 反映了基于傅柯式“安全体制”进行治理的独特方法, 即通过经济自由和政府间接干预去寻求安全的权力机制。野火安全新机制的核心是三个合理化论述：改善野火管理和防护的个人能力、协商国家和公共机构在野火管理中的权限、接受生物自然事件并鼓励人们与野火共存。复杂的政治能够并正在重建野火风险、责任和安全的理念。我们的分析, 促进了加拿大等地区野火的后结构地理学研究和气候风险治理。

En este artículo se arguye que la gobernanza del riesgo de incendios forestales en Canadá se orienta cada vez más hacia una gobernanza manejada con un aparato de seguridad. A medida que el cambio climático complica los “problemas” de los incendios forestales en las áreas de la interfaz urbano-forestal, en rápida expansión, los encargados del manejo de este riesgo y otros actores cada vez más buscan cambiar hacia un modo de control de los incendios que se base en un estilo de permiso para uso del fuego y el control de riesgos, incluso cuando se renegocia el equilibrio entre la responsabilidad privada y pública para la protección contra los incendios en áreas silvestres. Este enfoque, tipificado por FireSmart, se caracteriza por un cambio gradual y geográficamente desigual para la supresión de incendios, centrada solo en el Estado, hacia una multiplicidad que se arma alrededor de la expectativa de seguridad, y la protección de la libertad económica. Estos múltiples cambios, sostenemos, reflejan el enfoque característico de gobernar a través de un “aparato de seguridad” foucauldiano, mecanismo de poder que propende por la seguridad a través de la libertad económica y de la intervención gubernamental indirecta. Cuestiones centrales en el emergente aparato de seguridad contra los incendios forestales, son los tres discursos racionalizadores que se enfocan en la valoración de la capacidad individual para el manejo y protección de este tipo de incendios, la negociación de los límites de las instituciones estatales y públicas en el manejo de los incendios, y la invitación a que se viva de manera resiliente con esta amenaza natural aceptando la contingencia biofísica. En juego está la política compleja a través de la cual se reconstituyen, y pueden reconstituirse, las ideas mismas de riesgo, responsabilidad y seguridad ante los incendios forestales. Nuestro análisis promueve las geografías posestructurales de los incendios en áreas boscosas y la gobernanza del riesgo climático en Canadá y otras partes del mundo.

Key Words:

• climate change
• governance
• neoliberalism
• security
• wildfires

关键词：:

• 气候变化
• 治理
• 新自由主义
• 安全
• 野火。

Palabras clave::

• cambio climático
• gobernanza
• incendios forestales
• neoliberalismo
• seguridad

Acknowledgment

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, Colin Sutherland, and Judith Burr whose thoughtful comments have helped to improve the article. Thanks to all the interviewees whose generous participation made this study possible. Thanks also to the members of the Environmental Policy and Governance Group at the University of Calgary for comments on this paper during the term seminars. The article also benefitted from comments at the “Critical Geographies of Wildfires” session of the 2021 Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, the “Socio-spatial network perspectives on environmental hazards and risk” session of the 2021 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, and the “Social-Ecological Dynamics of Wildfire Risk” session of the 2022 Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting. We take responsibility for any remaining errors. Research for this paper was funded by the Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Award Number: 756 2019 0306).

Notes

Notes

1 This shift is not necessarily peculiar to Canada. Indeed, the Canadian FireSmart was modeled after the U.S. program Firewise. As such, a detailed comparative analysis with other contexts, notably the United States, Australia, and the Mediterranean regions of Europe, is highly desirable but is beyond the scope of this article.

2 Tymstra (2015) showed how the so-called ghost fires raged unhindered across much of the north of the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia at least until policy changes in the 1950s authorized and enabled full suppression in Alberta.

3 Although the Smokey Bear was an adored icon of fire suppression in Canada and the United States, it was nevertheless revulsed as a symbol of land appropriation and racial discrimination in areas such as northern New Mexico (Kosek 2006).

4 CIFFC is a not-for-profit corporation formed by the federal, provincial, and territorial wildland fire management agencies in 1982 to share firefighting resources and information during the fire season. If CIFFC emerged with a focus on fire suppression, PiP emerged to focus on public engagement and preparedness.

5 ICLR describes itself as a leading center for multidisciplinary disaster prevention research and communication. It was established by the property and casualty insurance industry, and is led by coalitions of insurance practitioners who work with researchers and other practitioners.

6 Thanks to Colin Sutherland for stimulating some of the ideas that we develop here.

7 To be sure, this trajectory differed across jurisdictions and is historically uneven and nonlinear, sometimes with significant wildfire events followed by a period of investment in public wildfire protection.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adeniyi Asiyanbi

ADENIYI ASIYANBI is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community Culture and Global Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Science, University of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include political ecology, climate change, forest conservation, wildfires, and forest carbon offsetting.

Conny Davidsen

CONNY DAVIDSEN is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada. Her environmental policy and governance research focuses on local to global interests at the policy nexus between climate, energy, livelihoods and carbon, including resource management, local extraction conflicts, indigenous land and resource rights.