Wildfires: environmental and social entanglements

This course explores how environmental and social factors interact to cause wildfires and shows why these interactions need to be considered when preparing for future wildfires. Focusing on the 2007 wildfires in Greece, this course introduces students to the geographical concept of entanglement as a tool for exploring these interrelated factors. Using the ideas of the environmental historian Stephen Pyne, the course establishes that wildfires are entangled physical, ecological, and human processes. Then it helps students critique the relative benefits of trying to prevent or respond to the environmental challenge of wildfires in the future.This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course DD213 Environment and society.

• 1 Fire, environment, and society
• 2 The 2007 Greek wildfires
• 2.1 The burned areas
• 2.2 Why?
• 3 Wildfires as environment-society entanglements
• 3.1 Entanglement
• 3.2 The environmental historian Stephen Pyne
• 3.3 Stephen Pyne: wildfire as entanglement
• 3.4 The 2007 Greek wildfires as entanglement
• 4 Preparing for future wildfires
• 4.1 Greece’s preparedness for future wildfires
• 4.2 The United Nations recommendations for preparing for future wildfires