41 Forest fire frequency is increasing globally, with significant incidents occurring in Asia (Vadrevu et al., 2019; Zong et al., 2020). Forest fire frequency is also growing at an alarming rate in Nepal, suggesting that the current management practices and methods are inadequate to address the risk (Parajuli et al., 2020). The humans’ role and support in fire management can be considered as the first anthropogenic instrument to address the risk in the fire–prone landscapes (Doerr & Santín, 2016; Santín & Doerr, 2016). Unlike in the case of other natural hazards, the concerned stakeholders can avoid or reduce the forest fire risk (Donovan & Brown, 2007). Many factors determine public attitude towards the measures taken for addressing natural resource management issues, but a key element is the social acceptance of the practices (Shindler et al., 2009). Identifying current problems and future needs can be an effective tool for prioritizing Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1, 2022 Pp 41‒51https://doi.org/10.3126/banko.v32i1.45476 A Strategy for involving community forest managers in effective forest fire management in Nepal Each year forest fire causes enormous damage to Nepal's forest ecosystems and landscape. For an active community involvement at the landscape level, policymakers must take the interests of local forest managers into account to increase social acceptability. This research explores the perception of community forest managers, who are constantly managing forests at the grassroots level, to understand the relationship between their priorities, needs, and attitudes toward forest fire management. Eighty–eight key informants from six districts were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into three major sections, (i) forest fuel management and infrastructure, (ii) forest fire management strategies and actions, and (iii) public education and awareness on forest fire management. The data were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis test, where the respondents rated above 4.2 out of 5 for activities like increase of insurance mechanisms, providing training for firefighting volunteer groups, and provisioning firefighting equipment. The majority of the respondents agreed on the activities under the forest fire management strategies and actions section (Kendall's Tau = 0.8501), followed by forest fuel management and infrastructure (Kendall’s Tau= 0.6757). We anticipate that the results of this study will be helpful for the local decision–makers in involving different communities and identifying their priorities while implementing various forest fire management activities in diverse landscapes or provinces of the country. Keywords: Adaptation measure, community forest, landscape, local participation, perception A. Parajuli 1*, A. P. Gautam 2, S. P. Sharma 3, P. Lamichhane 4, G. Sharma 1 B. S. Bist 5, U. Aryal 6 and R. Basnet 7 Received: 14, February 2022 Revised: 23, April 2022 Accepted: 20, May 2022 Published: 31, May 2022 1. Ministry of Forests and Environment, Hetauda, Bagmati Province, Nepal *E–mail:saracaindica07@gmail.com; 2. Kathmandu Forestry College, Kathmandu, Nepal, 3. Department of Forests and Soil Conservation, Kathmandu, Nepal 4. Forest Research and Training Center, Ministry of Forests and Environment, Kathmandu, Nepal 5. The School of Forestry and Natural Resource Management, Institute of Forestry, Kritipur, Nepal 6. Ministry of Industry, Tourism, Forests and Environment, Butwal, Lumbini Province, Nepal 7. Kaligandaki Polytechnic Institute, Tanahu, Nepal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9401-888X https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9800-0057 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0355-0222 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0124-0693 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2230-725X https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0235-6866 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6935-7003 Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 42 Parajuli et al. forest fire management strategies and actions in different landscapes (Ghasemi et al., 2020; Kouassi et al., 2020; Palaiologou et al., 2021; Raftoyannis et al., 2014). For effective forest fire management, the active involvement of the local forest managers is a must (Tshering, 2006). Furthermore, incorporating local knowledge and practices in forest fire management planning is crucial for effective forest fire management (Schultz et al., 2019). The community forestry program, a participatory forest management program, was started in Nepal in 1978. Since then, numerous community forest user groups (CFUGs) are managing their forests independently in the technical support of the Department of Forests. CFUGs are also playing a vital role in forest fire management but mainly in traditional ways. Some CFUGs seem to have concrete ideas about fire occurrences, the role of fire lines, the history of fire occurrences, and the fuel loading that they are using to suppress forest fires (Kunwar & Khaling, 2006). However, not all CFUGs have the required knowledge and experience and several users have lost their lives while fighting forest fires (Bhujel et al., 2017). Insufficient understanding of suppression techniques, limited or no availability of firefighting equipment, communication, and awareness could be the major reasons behind such losses. Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) and Chitwan Annapurna Landscape (CHAL) are the two major landscapes in Nepal that contain Asia’s important biodiversity eco–region and a fire– prone landscape of the country (Parajuli et al., 2020). In recent years, global climate change has been recognized as a significant driver of ecological change. Accordingly, Solomon et al., (2007) have predicted a higher rate of warming and increase in precipitation for the Himalayas in Nepal, which is bound to affect the ecosystems of the country (Thapa et al., 2015) and subsequently the livelihoods, lives, and economic investments in the Himalayas (Eriksson et al., 2009). Such changes are likely to affect the biodiversity of these landscapes resulting in multiple threats. In addition, the increase in anthropogenic activities have played a significant role in altering the different natural landscape and these activities have affected the local people by having direct contact with the forest fire (Dlamini, 2009). To date, studies carried out by (Matin et al., 2017; Parajuli et al., 2020; Qadir et al., 2021) in Nepal have focused on identifying forest fire risk areas but no studies have been conducted at the country or regional level about the forest user's preferences for managing forest fire. Only providing information related to the risk of forest fire to the public might not help increase awareness or undertake actions (Kumagai et al., 2004; Slovic, 1999). A recent study stated that both experience and perception of the effective mitigation measures can determine the risk perception and their intention while implementing the measures (Spano et al., 2021). Documenting the perceptions of community forest managers will provide essential insights into the state of knowledge and practice on the adoption of different plans and strategies related to forest fire management (Williamson et al., 2005). Therefore, to understand the relationship between knowledge, needs, and attitudes toward forest fire management, this paper attempts to explore the perception of community forest managers on forest fire management, focusing on the planning and outreach process and management outcomes at the landscape level. This study also attempts to identify different forest fire management activities that are mostly preferred by the local community forest managers by ranking the different activities that were provided to the respondents to increase social acceptability and ownership. By doing so, the study intends to build knowledge on forest fire suppression that will be helpful in reducing the costs and the ecological disasters (Kalabokidis et al., 2008). Materials and methods Study area Among the five identified landscapes in Nepal (MFSC, 2016), Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) and Chitwan–Annapurna Landscape (CHAL) are the major landscapes (Figure 1). The TAL is located in southern part of Nepal between longitude (80° 15́ E to 85° 49́ E) and latitude (27° 14́ N to 29° 08́ N) whereas the CHAL lies in central Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 43 Parajuli et al. part of the country between longitude (82° 88' E to 85° 80' E) to latitude (27° 35' N to 29° 03' N). TAL that represents Asia's one of the most crucial biodiversity eco–regions of the Terai Duar Savanna and Grassland was declared a transboundary conservation landscape in 2001 (Wikramanayake et al., 2010). CHAL that includes four WWF Global 200 eco–regions was declared a conservation landscape in 1999 to maintain north–south ecological connectivity (MFSC, 2016). More than 75% of the forests of the lowland Terai and Churia fall within the TAL boundary. The main natural ecosystems of the CHAL are forests and grasslands, with more than 38% of the landscape under forest cover. It serves as a habitat for many endangered and threatened flora such as Satisal (Dalbergia latifolia) and Bijayasal (Pterocarpus marsupium) (MFSC, 2016) as well as fauna like tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), greater one–horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), swamp deer (Cervus duvaucelii , asian elephant (Elephas maximus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), red panda (Ailurus fulgens), musk deer (Moschus leucogaster) and many other less charismatic species (Thapa et al., 2015). However, most of the forests are highly fragmented (WWF Nepal, 2017). The total population of these two landscape is over 12.5 million people who are heavily dependent upon forests and ecosystem services for their livelihoods and wellbeing (MFSC, 2016). Data collection The main objective of this study was to get broad insights into issues related to forest fire management in Nepal based on the opinions of local resource managers, who are constantly implementing activities at the grass–root level. Secondary sources were used to obtain data on fire incidents. Data on fire incidents from 2001 to 2019 were acquired from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite (Giglio, 2010). The districts within the boundaries of two study landscapes Figure 1. Map of the study area Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 44 Parajuli et al. were classified into high, medium, and low–risk districts according to the number of fire incidents of which, six districts two each from high, medium, and low fire risk districts were selected for the study i.e. Chitwan and Bardiya from the high–risk category, Bara and Lamjung from the medium–risk category, and Salyan and Baglung from the low–risk category as shown in Table 1. Table 1 Selection of high medium and low–risk districts from the study district based on past fire records T AL Fire Counts CHAL Fire Counts Bardiya 3494 Chitwan 3333 Kanchanpur 2799 Gorkha 1184 Parsa 2798 Dhading 840 Kailali 2577 Myagdi 711 Banke 2541 Tanahu 633 Dang 2480 Lamjung 537 Nawalparasi 1839 Rasuwa 364 Makwanpur 1465 Kaski 295 Kapilbastu 1137 Gulmi 263 Bara 912 Nuwakot 197 Rautahat 569 Syangja 195 Rupandehi 445 Manang 179 Palpa 221 Parbat 91 Arghakhanchi 83 Baglung 84 Salyan 74 Mustang 75 Eighty–eight key informants were sampled purposively based on their knowledge of forest fire management and awareness from the six study districts (Chitwan 10, Bardiya 18, Lamjung 17, Bara 13, Salyan 14, and Baglung 16). They were interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The structured questionnaire survey was carried out on those respondents who are in key positions (either president or secretary) of the community forest users committee assuming that the selected respondent has wider knowledge of their community forest and forest fire than other general forest users. There were 28 questions in the questionnaire, of which 16 questions were related to the following three major groups: (1) forest fuel management and infrastructure, (2) forest fire management strategy and actions, and (3) public education, coordination and awareness on forest fire management, and the rest were related to the general background of key–informants. Since the interviews were done face to face, the response rate was 100%. The majority of the key informants were males (73%) with agriculture as the primary occupation. The key informants were asked to rank the importance of each measure on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1=not important; 2=not so important; 3=important; 4=very important; 5=the most important. Data analysis We adopted the data analysis techniques used by Raftoyannis et al. (2014) for the data analysis. Keeping in mind the non–normal and heteroscedastic nature of the data, the Kruskal– Wallis test was used to identify the nature of homogeneity in the responses among different districts and three major groups as stated in the data collection section. Israel (2009) argues that this method does not need to fulfill the assumptions of normal distribution and interval data homogeneity of group variance and is one of the most powerful techniques comparable to ANOVA. This method was used to identify the differences in the responses of every measure of each three groups under each district assuming that community forest managers have different needs or priorities while mitigating or managing the forest fire. For example, the priority or need for certain measures under high–risk areas might differ in the low or medium–risk district. Therefore, each adoptive measure was analysed by comparing each risk district. The level of agreement between the district's responses to all three groups was also evaluated using Kendall's Tau coefficient of concordance. Results Kruskal–Wallis test was used to know the difference in acceptability between the three main groups. Most of the Kruskal–Wallis probability values are greater than 0.05 (Table 2) suggesting that there is no significant difference between the perceptions of the groups. Out of 16 measures, 5 measures mainly fire line development, reduction of fuels, identification of risk areas, insurance Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 45 Parajuli et al. Table 2. District differences in the median ranks of each adaptive measure (normal rows) and a group of measures pooled together (rows in italic). A district with the same letter in a row indicates the significance. Higher mean ranks indicate the higher importance among different measures Fire management measures All districts pooled together Median rank Asymp. Sig df KW (H)TAL CHAL Bardiya Bara Salyan Chitwan Lamjung Baglung (1) Forest fuel management and infrastructure Fireline development 3.8 4.2a 3.5b 3.6ab 4.2a 3.5c 3.8bc 0.0014 5 19.72 Fire Fighting Tools 4.2 4.3a 4.1a 4.4a 4.2a 4.0a 4.4a 0.4133 5 5.021 Control Burning 3.8 3.8b 3.7b 3.8b 3.8b 3.6b 3.9b 0.4983 5 4.364 Reduction of fuels 3.8 4.2a 3.7bc 3.6c 4.3a 3.6ab 3.6b 0.0114 5 14.76 Increase of fire fighting force 4.4 4.4ab 4.2ab 4.5ab 4.6ab 4.3ab 4.4ab 0.7563 5 2.633 Fire Fighter training 3.9 4.0b 3.9b 3.9b 4.1b 3.9b 3.7b 0.5013 5 4.342 Forest Fuel Management and Infrastructure Pooled – 4.1 3.9 4 4.2 3.8 4 (2) Forest fire management strategies and actions Identification of risk areas 4 4.4ab 4.2b 2.9c 4.4ab 4.1b 3.9a 0.0383 5 11.75 Improvement in information flow and warning system 3.9 3.7c 3.9c 4.0c 4.0c 3.9c 3.8c 0.8798 5 7.871 Insurance Mechanism for the firefighters 4.5 4.9b 4.6b 3.6a 4.9b 4.6b 4.2b 0.0002 5 24.69 Restriction of human activities in forests 1.6 1.5ab 1.7ab 1.6ab 1.4ab 1.7ab 1.9ab 0.6724 5 3.179 Improvement in law enforcement 3.4 3.7b 3.2b 3.1b 3.7b 3.4b 3.2b 0.1635 5 1.772 Forest Fire Management Strategies and Actions pooled – 3.6 3.5 3.1 3.7 3.5 3.4 (3) Public education and coordination on forest fire management Community Involvement in fire suppression 4.1 3.9a 4.2a 4.1a 4.1a 4.1a 4a 0.9358 5 1.291 Different forest fire awareness mechanism 3.9 4.2b 3.8b 3.7b 4.2b 3.8b 3.9b 0.1287 5 8.545 Stakeholder Involvement in Fire Fighting 3.8 3.6ab 3.9ab 3.9ab 3.6ab 3.9ab 3.6ab 0.677 5 3.149 Knowledge of fire fighting 4 3.9bc 4.2bc 4.1bc 3.9bc 4.1bc 3.8bc 0.46 5 4.651 School–level knowledge 3.8 4.4abc 3.6ab 3.5a 4.5abc 3.7b 3.3ab 0.0003 5 23.63 Public Education and Coordination on forest fire management pooled – 4 3.9 3.9 4.1 3.9 3.7 mechanism for the firefighters and school–level knowledge were statistically significant. To know which districts are different from each other, Dunn's posthoc multiple comparison test was also conducted. For the fire line development, Bara– Bardiya and Lumjung–Bardiya had a difference in mean rank with the adjusted significance of 0.039 and 0.017 respectively. Similarly, in the insurance mechanism for firefighters, the mean ranks were different with Salyan–Chitwan, Salyan–Bardiya and Baglung–Bardiya. The remaining other three measures having statistically significant values had the major difference in the mean rank, especially between high risk and low or medium risk. Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 46 Parajuli et al. When the rating of the overall district was compared under the section of forest fuel management and infrastructure, high fire risk districts (Chitwan and Bardiya) have rated above 4 in all activities except control burning (3.8) compared to medium and low–risk districts. The topmost priority was given to the training of the fire fighting forces (4.4), followed by fire fighting forces (4.2). Public education and coordination were ranked as the subsequent essential following fuel management and infrastructure. As per se, commitment, collaboration, and coordination are highly required. Thus, from the survey, respondents emphasized community involvement in fire suppression (4.1) as the most crucial activity under this section, followed by knowledge of fire fighting (4.0). Activities like forest fire awareness, stakeholder involvement in fire fighting, and school–level knowledge were considered almost similar. In this study, forest users also agree uniformly that awareness and collaboration are required for the efficient performance of the strategy. On the other hand, strategy and actions were found to be the least essential sections except for the activity of the insurance mechanism scheme. This section got the lowest rank because, the respondents were asked if there should be a restriction of human access inside the forest where most of the respondents do not want to restrict human access, with a mean answer of 1.6 among 5. Likewise, the lowest rating was also found in another question based on the improvement of law enforcement (3.4 out of 5). Level of agreement between the respondents The level of agreement or concordance between the district's responses to the different adaption measures within each of the three groups was evaluated by Kendall's Tau coefficient of concordance (Table 3). This method gives the level of agreement between the respondents or overall views on the perception of priorities among the respondents. Higher the level of coefficient of concordance, the higher is the level of agreement on the preferences of forest fire management measures. Table 3. Level of agreement between the district responses. Pooled adaptation measure groups, Kendall’s Tau and p–values are presented Adaptation measures group (pooled) Kendall's Tau P–value Forest Fuel Management and Infrastructure 0.6757 <0.01 Forest Fire Management Strategies and Actions 0.8501 <0.01 Public Education and Coordination on Forest Fire Management 0.2471 >0.05 The strongest agreement between district responses was found for forest fire management strategies and actions (Kendall's Tau = 0.8501, Table 3) as most of the rankings were similar for insurance mechanisms for firefighters, improvement in law enforcement, and restriction of human activities in forest (Table 2). Insurance mechanism was highly preferred by the respondents whereas improvement in law enforcement and restriction of human activities in the forest were felt unimportant. The second strongest agreement between district responses was found for forest fuel management and infrastructure (Kendall Tau = 0.6757, Table 3) as most of the rankings were similar for firefighting tools and infrastructure and fuel reductions mechanism (Table 2). The lowest agreement between district responses was found for public education and coordination (Kendall's Tau = 0.2471, Table 3) as the rankings varied in almost all of the characteristics (Table 2). Discussion Nepal is among the most vulnerable countries to climate change impacts. NARC (2010) predicted that because of climate change, events of natural disasters, including forest fires are likely to be increased in the coming years. This will cause a problem in the demand and supply of different climate services to the policymakers (Clar & Steurer, 2018). To effectively implement and involve local forest users in forest fire management, concerned official or decision– makers need to incorporate the existing knowledge of the local people, their perception Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 47 Parajuli et al. and risk in terms of forest fire and their opinions and interest in the best forest fire management measures should be incorporated. Shindler et al., (2009) also stated that public acceptance of forest fire management activities can play a key role in the successful implementation of forest fire management strategies. Therefore, to reduce the knowledge gap in understanding the perception, needs and priorities of forest users’ communities and increasing the social acceptability and local response to forest fire management activities, we studied different measures that have high social acceptability across two landscapes. Three major areas for discussion come from the result that is related to forest fuel management and infrastructure, forest fire management strategies and actions and public education and coordination on forest fire management. Firstly, under the forest fuel management and infrastructure section, adoptive measures such as the increase in fire fighting force, firefighting tools and fire fighting training were ranked higher than the measures such as control burning, reduction of fuels and fire line development. The overall result indicates that local forest users focus on capacity development or infrastructure over forest fuel management. Ensuring simple yet effective forest fire suppressing equipment can prove to be less costly and more realistic if local people have some experience in managing forest fires (Appiah et al., 2010). Moreno et al., (2005) also argued that technological advancement improves the monitoring and warning systems in firefighting and reduces the fire detection and response time. Under the same section, almost all of the measures were ranked as significantly important by both high–prone districts of the study areas, i.e., Chitwan and Bardiya. For example, both infrastructures and reduction of forest fuels were rated higher by both districts because they have been frequently experiencing the negative aspects of forest fires and other remaining districts have fewer forest fires. Low or medium–risk districts focused on fire fighting training and tools than forest fuel reduction. These findings are similar to those of Bright & Newman (2006) and Gordon et al., (2018) who stated in their study that control or prescribed burning was strongly supported by the local people who experienced frequent or recent forest fires than that of low or no fire history. In line with this, Raftoyannis et al., (2014) argued that the stakeholders of the high fire risk region are more aware of the importance of suppression measures, especially with the reduction of surface fuels and prescribed burning in the areas where large and frequent fires occurred. The second measure that the respondents were asked to rank was the forest fire management strategies and section. Interestingly, we found a wide range of rankings where the respondents ranked the highest priority measure as the provision of insurance mechanism to the firefighters and the least preferred measure as restriction of human activities in forests among all the measures. The insurance mechanism got the highest ranking, having a mean of 4.5, making it the foremost priority of all the groups, including the other 16 activities. Both high and medium–risk districts showed primary concern about insurance mechanisms because of the direct threat to their life or physical loss while suppressing fire. Many researchers claim that the health and life insurance mechanism is vital for firefighters (Rubaca & Majid Khan, 2020; Varney et al., 2020). In addition, Lee et al., (2020) argue that there are chances to have around five cancer types where firefighting is involved. Most of the respondents across the landscape believed that if the insurance mechanism were provisioned, then the participation in the firefighting would be increased. Restriction of human activities in forests under the same group received the least ranking (1.6 out of 5). Improvement in law enforcement was also ranked second least preferred measure by all most all of the respondents across the region suggesting that strong law and enforcement in this region will decrease the participation of local people in managing the forest fire. A similar result was obtained by Chhetri et al., (2012) and the author explains the negative consequences of forest management when the law is enforced against local people's will. Raftoyannis et al., (2014), likewise, also stated that although the human restrictions in the forest might be helpful to decrease the rate of forest fire incidents, there Banko Janakari, Vol 32 No. 1 48 Parajuli et al. would be other adverse effects on forest–related crimes, deforestation, and degradation. On the contrary, Yuliana et al., (2021) in their study found that the majority of the respondents who had a high level of perception of forest fire were mostly supportive to introduce strict laws and regulation that prohibits forest fire. Public education and coordination are also the major components of forest fire management. Encouraging stakeholders' involvement in fire management will help reduce the risk and forest fire suppression cause (Kalabokidis et al., 2008). In this study, forest users also uniformly agree that awareness and collaboration are required for the efficient performance of the strategy. Under this group, community involvement in fire suppression and knowledge of fire fighting was both supported and considered effectively by the community forest managers. They believed fighting with fire needs knowledge because there have been numerous incidents in the past that took many lives for not having adequate knowledge, equipment and coordination (Bhujel et al., 2017). Therefore, they ranked forest fire awareness measure as the third most important measure. If the awareness is increased in the landscape, it will have a higher level of agreement among the stakeholders (Karki, 2002) and implementation of different other measures will be easier. For example, awareness of social networks and institutions and wise decision–making can be effective for the implementation of a long–term forest fire management plan (Gordon et al., 2018). Conclusion To increase effective participation of local people in the forest fire management sector, it is essential to understand the opinion of those forest users on the risk management. Therefore, this study highlighted the perception of community forest managers on the preferences of different forest fire management measures in order to gain wider social acceptability. The respondents were asked to rank on three main themes i.e., forest fuel management and infrastructure, forest fire management strategies and actions, and public education and coordination on forest fire management. The study found an increased concern in implementing forest fire risk management measures such as insurance mechanisms, increase of the fire fighting force, and fire fighting tools. This study could be helpful to local and regional planners for increasing public participation and social acceptability for effective implementation of forest fire management plan. 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