Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper explores recent public resistance to the Forest Service’s proffered “safety” legacies of tragedy fires. A rhetorical organizational communication analysis shows how a root military metaphor for firefighting has historically constrained the agency’s public sensemaking about tragedy fires. Because safety is constructed as rule following, tragedies are framed as failure in discipline, solutions involve tightening the iron cage of control, and fallen firefighters are eulogized with promises for future organizational perfection. But repeated accidents only raise questions about past promises, and most recently seem to call into question the organization’s rhetorical competence. The paper analyzes the discursive elements that help to sustain the organization’s root military metaphor, and identifies alternate metaphors for wildland firefighting safety that might help the Forest Service to redeem its discursive competence. Implications for rhetorical tools like root metaphor analysis, lists and stories, and the enthymeme, are discussed.