When researcher Cara Lawson encounters a wildfire for the first time, it inspires the direction of her career.
Cara Lawson is an assistant professor in agricultural communication at Ohio State University where she teaches courses in strategic and science communication. Her research interests involve the exploration of factors that influence public opinion and public understandings of complex issues in science and society. Dr. Lawson received her B.S. in Agricultural Education and M.S. in Agricultural and Extension Education from The Ohio State University, and her Ph.D. in Agricultural Communication and Education from Texas Tech University. In her spare time, Dr. Lawson enjoys canning, exploring, and organizing her home.
Story Transcript
I love to explore new things. Ideas, restaurants, cities, events, I'm up for all of it. But I guess what I really mean is I'm usually up for all of it.
I like planned exploration. I'm very adventurous within my boundaries. And when I explore or travel, I typically have a few things I'd like to see or do. But I'm really just excited to see what pops up along the way. I look forward to finding the greatest coffee of my life or the chance to wander into a bookshop and look around. I love the thrill of life unfolding before me and stumbling into new things and experiences.
Exploration can lead to excitement and wonder, but it doesn't always work out that way.
So I graduated from Texas Tech with my PhD in Agricultural Communication in the spring of 2020, just in time for every faculty position I had applied for to be frozen due to the uncertainties associated with the COVID‑19 pandemic. To say I was worried about my prospects as a faculty member was a complete understatement.
I left Lubbock, Texas for my hometown of Ripley at the end of that May with just a few things in my car and everything else stored in a PODS to be shipped somewhere to be determined. Luckily, a few miles outside of Lubbock, I got a call from the department chair at Oregon State University who said that while the new faculty role I had applied for had been frozen, he could offer me a role as an instructor. I can't tell you how happy I was to accept a job that I wouldn't have even considered just a few months before.
The paperwork came through a couple of days later and it would be just a couple more months until my big move to Oregon, sight unseen.
As the new fall semester approached, I drove by myself from Ohio to Oregon. And when I got to the Oregon State line, the excitement really started to kick in. Seeing the lush forests and green trees made me feel like I was living inside the pages of a calendar.
I made it to my new home near Corvallis and started to get settled. My new colleagues were very welcoming, and I was really excited to reunite with one of my closest friends from graduate school, who was also an instructor at my new department.
My pod of belongings were delivered a short time later and I started to unpack. There were still boxes everywhere and my new furniture had not even been delivered when I started to question my decision to take this new job and to move to the Pacific Northwest. Here's why.
The morning of September 8th, I wake to a completely dark bedroom. Naturally, I assume it's 3:00 AM and I wonder if I'll ever adjust to my new time zone. But when I look at the time on my phone, I'm shocked to see it's actually 8:00 AM.
“Where is the sun? Is my phone broken?” Feeling confused and disoriented, I look out my window and see nothing but darkness and an eerie, orangish, overcast sky. The apocalypse is here and the end must be coming. This must surely be the final blow from 2020 and there is nothing I can do about it.
I remember the news from yesterday. It said a historic windstorm was coming. I guess this is the result. I don't remember the news guys mentioning the possibility of complete darkness instead of daylight.
Campfire scent fills my apartment and the smell is even worse near my windows and doors. I wonder what to do next. I feel paralyzed in terms of action and don't know what to do, so I do the usual things and go to campus.
I get myself ready and venture outside, but I can hardly breathe due to the thick toxic smoke in the air. I dust a layer of ash off of my car and get inside. I think of my Meemaw, because it looks like the contents of her ashtray have been dumped all over. I drive through a smoky haze to campus and wonder what everyone else is up to, and also wonder how anyone could function in this environment. How is this real? Is this real?
I make it to my office and my colleagues who have lived there a little bit longer than me confirm that while the smoke is worse than usual, the fire is about five miles away and we should be good.
We should be good? With a historic wildfire burning just five miles away? This does not sound good to me. With a bit of advice and reassurance from my colleagues, I have more capacity to think when I return home from work.
As the wildfire continues to spread, I gather up my most valuable items, things like my jewelry box, lockbox, a few of my favorite clothes, and I sit everything by the front door in case I need to grab things and go in a hurry. I take pictures of my belongings, because that's what the internet says to do in case my home burns and insurance claims are needed. I stuff towels around the doors and windows and start a simmer pot of water, cinnamon sticks, lemon slices, and a few herbs.
Now feeling oddly at peace and resigned to wait for the answer about what to do next to become clear, I waited, wondering if I should flee to the sea, hop a flight out of Portland, or just wait it out.
The smoke lingered for days, as in my curiosity about what had just unfolded. Fortunately, the fire was contained a few days later and I did not have to evacuate. This historic wildfire burned thousands of acres and displaced countless people and animals. All in all, I was pretty lucky.
But after having the chance to reflect on the situation and the events, feelings, and needs I had during this very unfamiliar situation, I recognized a bigger problem. I mentioned before that my field of study is agricultural communication. At the time of the wildfire, I was just starting to figure out what I wanted to study as a researcher. And while I didn't ask for it, living through a historic wildfire ultimately gave me the gift of a clear research agenda and changed the trajectory of my professional life as a researcher.
I had just experienced an extreme weather event for the first time, and while this wasn't my first time navigating risk and uncertainty, it was the first time I had experienced an event of this magnitude. It had a fury behind it, and a realization that action needed to take place, but that action was very unclear.
I was confused, unprepared, scared, and worried about what would happen. Surely I wasn't alone. How did others navigate these kinds of situations? And could I do something to make things easier for people to stay safe? How could my work help others navigate new and unfamiliar experiences more confidently?
During the wildfire, I was truly lost when it came to what to do and how to respond. And having a lack of information about what to do got me thinking about how individuals seek and process information in times of risk and uncertainty.
Now, it's my goal to figure out how to communicate during these intense times so people can stay safe and experience the least harm. Since then, I've conducted studies to figure out the kinds of information people need, what sources they prefer to use, and how they approach, process, and consider information about risk, which is always all around us.
In situations of risk, people deserve to have access to the information they need in a way that's easy to understand and apply. And I've found evidence that when it comes to risk, a few key things appear to remain consistent. For example, a lot of people prefer to get information from friends and family. And as risk awareness grows, lower levels of information seeking tends to take place.
My work is about helping people feel more confident in assessing risk and finding the information they need to protect themselves. While risk unfolds differently in different communities and for different groups of people, I ultimately want to develop a communication formula that can be applied in a variety of risk scenarios. Because after all, I'm all for new experiences, but it certainly helps to be prepared for the situation and to have a decent idea of how to respond when the unexpected happens.