Psychological impact of fire disaster on children and their parents.

Luckett et al. (2002) talked to families six weeks after a big wildfire. They split families into two groups: high-loss and low-loss.

High-loss families lost homes, pets, or belongings. Low-loss families mostly watched the fire on TV.

Kids and parents in high-loss homes reported much higher PTSD scores. They also felt they had lost more personal resources like money, toys, and safe spaces.

Low-loss families still felt stress, but the numbers stayed lower.

Billette et al. (2008) showed that adding a spouse to CBT can wipe out PTSD in assault survivors. Luckett et al. (2002) did not test therapy, but both papers use the same PTSD checklists, so you can compare scores.

Schroeder et al. (2014) taught emotion-regulation skills to assault survivors and cut risky behavior in half. Their work hints that skill-building might also lower wildfire PTSD, but no one has tried it yet.

Ivancic et al. (1981) and McGonigle et al. (2014) taught kids fire-escape skills before any fire happened. Their data show kids can learn safety responses fast. Luckett et al. (2002) looked at the emotional wreckage after the fire, not before, so the papers sit back-to-back: one prevents harm, the other measures it.

If you work with families after natural disasters, treat high resource loss as a red flag for PTSD. Screen kids with the same short forms used in Billette et al. (2008) and Schroeder et al. (2014). Consider brief emotion-regulation drills while families wait for full therapy. You can also borrow the fire-safety BST scripts from Ivancic et al. (1981) to prep kids in fire-prone areas before the next season starts.