Climate Change or Mismanagement? Partisan Attribution and Public Support for Urban Wildfire Policy

This paper examines how Americans assign responsibility for the rising urban wildfire risk and how those judgments influence their support for pre- or post-disaster planning and policy. Urban wildfires are becoming more destructive because of a combination of factors including climate change, expansion of settlement into the wildland–urban interface, fuel accumulation from fire suppression policies, and the failure of older infrastructure. Using two surveys conducted in summer 2025, a national U.S. sample and a California-focused sample, the study investigates public perceptions of wildfire trends, attribution of causation to climate change versus government mismanagement, and support for related mitigation and adaptation policies. The results show broad agreement across partisan groups that urban wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity. However, much like the messaging from the media and partisan elites, Democrats were significantly more likely to attribute the increase primarily to climate change, while Republicans were more likely to emphasize poor government management of forests. Californians were more likely than national respondents to view both climate change and government mismanagement as contributing causes, suggesting that proximity to wildfire risk and prolonged media exposure may encourage more multifaceted understandings of wildfire causation. Beliefs about causation were strongly associated with policy preferences: attribution to climate change predicted support for climate mitigation policies, while attribution to government mismanagement predicted support for fire-management policies. The findings suggest that communication emphasizing the multi-causal nature of urban wildfires may reduce polarization and build broader support for integrated wildfire governance strategies.