Public Preferences for Communicating Red Flag Warnings

Abstract Red flag warnings (RFWs) issued by the National Weather Service in the United States are designed to guide people during times of heightened wildfire risk when extra caution is advised. However, the current RFW format is a standardized warning with no reflection of the forecast’s relative severity. We carried out a mixed-mode survey of 240 respondents from 16 California Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) communities to evaluate public perceptions of four alternate formats that include a level of severity (number, color, adjective, and a combination of color and adjective). For each option, we asked respondents to rate how well they could understand the danger of the forecasted fire weather and how helpful it would be in deciding if and how much to prepare. They then ranked the four alternates and the current format (a generic warning with no severity level) in order of preference. Results showed that the combined option, which included color and adjective, had the highest mean for both ease of understanding and ease of deciding on preparation. This option also had the highest mean ranking (3.42 out of 5), significantly greater than the other options. Interestingly, there were no significant differences between the other four options. These findings suggest that California WUI residents preferred a RFW format that provided more information on the danger of the forecasted fire weather in a way that was easy to understand. However, the system used to indicate severity needs to be carefully selected to ensure it is easily understandable across different socio-demographic groups.