The Wildfire Crisis Strategy: Slack & Scarcity in Wildfire Management

In this talk I will explore themes of slack and scarcity and how they relate to efficiency and risk in wildfire. First I will discuss slack and scarcity in the context of incident response and then scale up to the interagency system that prioritizes and allocates resources across incidents. Emphasis will be on how enhanced prioritization, logistics, operations, and proven fire analytics can support synergistic efficiency at fire incident and system scales.

Presenter

Matthew Thompson, RMRS Research Forester

Dr. Matthew P Thompson is a Research Forester with the Wildfire Risk Management Science Team at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service. In 2016 he was a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. His research interests include: wildland fire management; risk, systems, and decision analysis; data science and analytics; operations research; management science; forest management; and coupled human and natural systems. He has a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia, a MS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley, a MS in Forest Management from Oregon State University, a PhD in Forest Engineering from Oregon State University, a professional certificate in Strategic Decision and Risk Management from Stanford University, and is currently enrolled in the Senior Executive Fellows program through the Harvard Kennedy School.