The Development of an Organizational Safety Culture in the United States Forest Service

Abstract

For over 100 years, the US Forest Service (USFS) has developed initiatives to improve safety outcomes. Herein we discuss the engineered solutions used from 1910 through 1994, when the agency relied on physical science to address the hazards of wildland fire suppression. We then interpret safety initiatives of the subsequent 25 years, as the USFS incorporated social science perspectives both into its understanding of emergency fire incidents and its mitigation of vulnerabilities across all fields of work. Tracing the safety programs using a historical sociology approach, we identify, within the agency’s narrative, three recent developments in its organizational safety culture: cultural awareness, cultural management, and cultural reorganization. This article describes how the development of top-down safety initiatives are questioned and shaped by employees who actively influence the trajectory of a safety culture in the USFS. Study Implications: Safety is a core value of the US Forest Service (USFS), and several safety initiatives, along with employee feedback over the years, have shaped the organizational culture of the agency. To build a robust and world-renowned safety culture in high-risk industries, managers require an understanding of the origins of their organization’s current safety culture. Using a critical social science analytical lens, we discuss how safety initiatives and the development of a safety culture position organizations such as the USFS to move away from reactionary safety initiatives and anchor to employee safety as a core value in order to absorb external shocks, such as rapidly changing ecosystems, development in the wildland urban interface, and larger and more intense wildfires.

The US Forest Service Life First safety initiative: exploring unnecessary exposure to risk

“…Inscribed by natural and physical scientific advances in firefighter safety, the agency expanded efforts for fire science risk modelling, response and prevention strategies, and made investments in training, protective equipment, and communication technologies (Pyne 2015;Rollins et al 2017). By the mid-1990s, the US Forest Service also began incorporating social science for inquiries into the social and cultural mechanisms that shape safety practices (Putnam 1995;USDA Forest Service 1995;Flores and Haire 2021). This included using the theoretical approach of high reliability organisation (HRO) for the development of a safety culture in wildfire management (Putnam 1995;Weick and Sutcliffe 2007;Black and Baldauf McBride 2013).…”