Achieving fuel reduction in wildland-urban interface ecosystems via prescribed fire, mechanical treatment, and establishment of defensible space around buildings, is considered critical to reducing the likelihood of future catastrophic fires. The rationale for fire management policy has traditionally been based on evidence regarding the role of fire in maintaining forest or ecosystem health. However, political and social factors ultimately determine the public*s judgment of how acceptable specific management strategies are, and hence, whether managers can implement them. Homeowners in wildland-urban interface areas in northeastern Florida, the Sierra foothills and the Bay Area in California, and Michigan*s northern lower peninsula were interviewed in focus groups as part of a multi-stage formative evaluation of fuel reduction strategies. Sites were selected to assure variation in important attributes such as fire regime, fire history, cultural interactions with fire, land use and ownership patterns, and socioeconomic composition. Homeowner comments were analyzed within a framework, developed from the human dimensions literature and social psychological models of human behavior, that accounts for theoretical and empirically observed factors associated with the social acceptability of natural resource management policies. At all sites, common fuel treatment acceptance factors include the perceived competence and credibility of the land manager, the likelihood of escaped/catastrophic fire, cost-effectiveness, situational specifics and property rights. Findings also guided development of a survey instrument designed to further test a conceptual model of fuel treatment acceptance. Overall findings will be used to evaluate site-specific fuel reduction strategies and to assist fire managers in developing targeted outreach and education programs.