Dear {{ first_name | reader }},

Have you ever wondered why some people flee at the first whiff of smoke, while others water their gardens as the flames approach? Living in Portugal, where it's fire season for the moment, I got tired of wondering about it and decided to get to the bottom of it.

I “unleashed” my AI research tool¹ on relevant academic papers and picked out 23 European studies that show exactly what makes people tick when their lives are on the line. What I found was really interesting…

Our warning systems are not only failing, but they are doing so in ways we can predict and fix. Problems like optimism bias, trust issues, emotional attachment, and cultural blind spots are all highlighted in the research.

This week I'll break down what really works: the messages that get people moving, the psychology behind life-and-death decisions, and the practical things you can apply when people's survival depends on your words.

Keep safe.

The orange glow appears on the horizon. Emergency alerts ping across phones. Authorities issue evacuation orders. Yet some residents pack their cars and flee immediately, while others water their gardens and wait to see what happens next.

Why?

The numbers from recent fire seasons tell a stark story: Portugal saw 41,644 hectares burned, eight times more than 2024. France experienced 17,000 hectares consumed in one fire alone, the largest since 1949. Turkey faced 10 firefighters dead and 50,000 people displaced. Spain placed 18,000 people under lockdown orders.

Here's what makes these statistics even more sobering: over 90% of these fires started because of human activity. Yet our communication strategies still treat wildfires like natural hazards we can't prevent.

I decided to dig deeper. Using my AI research tool, I ran a comprehensive analysis of European forest fire behavior, screening over 126 million academic papers to find the most relevant studies.

The tool searched the Semantic Scholar corpus with strict criteria; adult populations in European countries, empirical studies with real-world behavioral data, research examining the psychological and social aspects of evacuation decisions.

Twenty-three studies made the cut. From Portugal to Sweden, Greece to the Netherlands, they show something risk and emergency communicators know but often forget:

The findings are a masterclass in how psychology, culture, and communication intersect when lives hang in the balance. They hit close to home too; I currently live in Portugal, where fires regularly burn just an hour from our place. We've dodged direct impact, but the smoke-filled skies and evacuation alerts for neighbors create a constant backdrop during fire season.

High risk perception drives compliance with evacuation orders. But here's the twist: low risk perception and optimism bias consistently lead to delays and non-compliance.

People underestimate personal risk even when they acknowledge general danger. They think: "The fire might threaten the area, but surely not my house." This optimism bias showed up consistently across studies in Italy, Switzerland, and beyond.

The communication challenge: How do you pierce optimism without creating panic?

My analysis suggests targeting this bias head-on. Instead of generic warnings about area-wide risk, successful communications made the threat personal and immediate.

Instead of: "Fires are approaching the region."
Try: "Fire is moving toward residential areas like yours and could reach your street within 2 hours. Homes on similar terrain 5km away are already threatened."

Instead of: "Residents should consider evacuation."
Try: "Your neighbors on Rua da Igreja have already evacuated. Emergency services cannot guarantee rescue access to your area after 3 PM."

Counter-intuitively, my research shows that regions with less wildfire experience had more "wait and see" behavior. France, with fewer recent major fires, saw more hesitation compared to Australia's immediate response culture.

But here's what's fascinating for communicators: prior experience cuts both ways.

Yes, experience builds preparedness. But it also creates dangerous pattern recognition. People who've weathered previous emergencies may think they can weather this one too. They've seen fires before. They've evacuated unnecessarily before. This time feels familiar.

The lesson: Don't assume experience makes people more compliant. Experienced populations need different messaging that acknowledges their knowledge while emphasizing what makes this situation unique.

For experienced populations:
"You've weathered fires before, but this one is different. Wind speeds are 40% higher than the 2019 fire you survived. The fuel moisture is at record lows. Even experienced firefighters are calling this unprecedented."

For inexperienced populations:
"This may be your first wildfire warning. Here's what to expect: You'll see smoke first, then ash falling. You have approximately 30 minutes from first sight of flames to safe evacuation. Don't wait to see the fire, leave when you see heavy smoke."

The most heartbreaking finding from my analysis centers on emotional attachment. Strong connections to home and property- particularly in rural Portugal and Catalonia - led to evacuation refusal.

These aren't just houses to people; they're repositories of memory, identity, and often livelihood. In Portugal's rural communities, I've seen generations of family history embedded in stone walls and olive groves. Telling someone to abandon what they've spent decades building requires more than logical arguments about safety.

The key insight: Good evacuation messaging must acknowledge what people are being asked to give up. Rather than dismissing attachment as irrational, frame evacuation as protecting what matters most.

Instead of: "Your property isn't worth your life."
Try: "Protect your family's legacy by leaving now. The best way to save what you've built is to ensure you're alive to rebuild it. Every hour you stay reduces your chance of returning safely."

For rural/agricultural areas:
"We know this land represents generations of your family's work. Leave now so you can return to care for it."

The esearch consistently finds lack of trust in authorities as a barrier to compliance. This showed up across Portugal, Greece, and tourist contexts.

But trust isn't built during emergencies, it's spent.

When crisis hits, people make split-second decisions about whether to believe official sources. Those decisions are based on years of accumulated trust or distrust. Communities that felt ignored during normal times proved skeptical during crisis times.

The bottom line: Risk and emergency communication begins long before the emergency. The analysis shows that communities with strong government relationships had higher compliance rates. Your emergency response is only as strong as your peacetime credibility.

European emergency management research emphasizes the critical need for two-way communication channels, not as an add-on, but as core operational infrastructure.

Authorities should dedicate staff and tools to ingest citizen reports and social media signals, verify them rapidly, and feed back authoritative updates. This approach improves both situational awareness and trust while managing misinformation.

The analysis also shows fascinating demographic patterns. Women had higher evacuation compliance rates. Age influenced both information-seeking behavior and evacuation methods. Cultural norms varied dramatically; from France's cautious "wait and see" approach to Australia's immediate evacuation culture.

The strategic question: How do you craft messages that work across diverse populations?

The research points toward segmented communication strategies. One-size-fits-all emergency messaging may actually hurt overall compliance by failing to connect with specific community subgroups.

This aligns with European research on vulnerable populations, which emphasizes pre-scripting evacuation and shelter-in-place messages for high-risk groups like nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and schools. The key is developing risk-based, locally coordinated plans before emergencies hit, not scrambling during the crisis.

Segmented messaging examples:

For tourist areas/multilingual communities:
"IMMEDIATE EVACUATION REQUIRED. Fire approaching coastal road - your only exit route. Follow red signs to Autoroute A9. Do not return to hotels for belongings."

For elderly populations:
"Evacuation mandatory for Vila Nova area. Transportation provided every 15 minutes from the community center at Praça Central. Bring medications and identification only. Family members will be notified of your safe arrival."

For families with children:
"EVACUATION ORDER: All families in Bairro das Flores must leave immediately. Fire is 2 kilometres away, moving fast. Take children, medications, ID. Meet at Escola Primária São João. Teachers on-site to help with children."

My research's second focus - arson and intentional fire-setting - gives unexpected insights for risk and emergency communicators. Four distinct profiles emerged:

Each pattern responded to different intervention approaches. Economic support reduced instrumental fires. Mental health intervention decreased expressive fires. Community engagement minimized political fires.

The communication parallel: Different stakeholder motivations need different messaging strategies. The angry community member needs different engagement than the confused resident or the financially desperate business owner.

Understanding these motivational patterns becomes crucial for risk and emergency communicators. European research shows that addressing root causes—whether economic pressures, mental health challenges, or governance conflicts—requires different communication approaches.

For emergency managers, this means developing stakeholder-specific messaging that acknowledges underlying concerns while maintaining public safety priorities.

1. Make warnings impact-based and place-specific Don't just describe general risk, convert danger indices into concrete neighborhood-level actions.
Example: "Fire could reach homes like yours on Rue des Oliviers within 90 minutes. If you live in a wooden house on a slope, evacuate now."

2. Pre-script messages for vulnerable groups Develop evacuation and shelter-in-place messaging before crisis hits, especially for nursing homes, schools, and high-risk populations.
Example: Pre-authorized transportation plans with specific pickup locations and family notification protocols.

3. Institutionalize two-way communication Dedicate staff to monitor, verify, and respond to citizen reports and social media signals in real-time.
Example: Rapid verification teams that can update evacuation routes based on citizen reports of blocked roads.

4. Communicate uncertainty without paralysis Use decision graphics and language that convey forecast ranges and operational thresholds confidently.
Example: "Fire has 70% chance of reaching Highway A9 between 2-4 PM. Evacuation mandatory for all areas south of highway."

5. Create unified messaging across agencies Develop a single operational lexicon so all authorities speak with one voice during emergencies.
Example: Harmonized danger levels that mean the same thing whether announced by fire services, civil protection, or health authorities.

6. Use social proof strategically My research shows that seeing others evacuate increases compliance. Make evacuation visible and normalized.
Example: "Your neighbors on Via Roma evacuated 30 minutes ago. Join them at the evacuation center."

Forest fires are risk and emergency communication in its purest form. Life-or-death decisions. Immediate consequences. Clear right and wrong choices.

Yet even in these extreme circumstances, human psychology complicates everything.

European emergency management research reveals additional critical practices that transform how we approach risk and emergency communication:

Establish seasonal communication phases. Instead of treating each fire as unprecedented, develop predefined communication stages tied to seasonal forecasts. This helps normalize earlier readiness and avoids overusing crisis language.

Coordinate smoke health operations. Stand up dedicated communication cells during high-risk periods to coordinate air quality alerts, mask distribution guidance, and clean-air shelter information. Target messaging specifically for cardiopulmonary-vulnerable populations.

Measure communication performance. Define specific KPIs like warning lead time to action, message consistency across agencies, uptake among vulnerable groups, and rumor suppression time. Mandate after-action reviews that integrate community feedback.

As communicators, we're not just handling information. We're dealing with the complex mix of human psychology, culture, and survival instincts. My desk research on forest fires shows that effective risk and emergency communication isn't about flawless messages, but about understanding the complex nature of the people who receive them.

From my vantage point in Portugal, where fire season brings both dread and familiarity, I've learned that the flames don't just show the landscape's vulnerability; they show who we really are. Our job is to communicate with that truth.

What risk and emergency communication lessons have you learned from emergency situations? How do you balance rational messaging with emotional reality? Share your thoughts! These conversations make us all better communicators.

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_{Parts of this newsletter were created using AI technology to draft content. In addition, all AI-generated images include a caption stating, 'This image was created using AI'. These changes were made in line with the transparency requirements of the EU AI law for AI-generated content. Some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if you click and make a purchase; however, I only promote tools and services that I have tested, use myself, or am convinced will make a positive difference.}