Treesearch

SEILAF is a system designed for training, simulation and research in the fight again forest fires in a 3D world of a great virtual realism. A consortium of technological centers CITIC and CATEC, enterprises such as INDRA and FASSA, and the University of Cordoba have taken part in the design. The simulation center is located in Aeropolis, near the airport of Seville in Andalusia, Spain. The system is comprised by three interconnected simulators: a flight simulator of a 412 Bell helicopter, a flight simulator of a fixed wing aircraft to coordinate the tasks of the aerial coordinator and a...

Rekindles and false alarms are unusually high in the Portuguese wildfire management system, representing a high burden on suppression resources in particular, and fire management resources in general. In 20,049 occurrences that the suppression system handled in the summer of 2010, 12.5% were false alarms and 15.0% were rekindles. We present a discreteevent simulation model of a wildfire suppression system, designed to analyze the joint impact of primary fires, rekindles and false alarms on system performance. The work contributes to fill a research gap concerning that impact, and features...

Thousands of acres of giant saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) habitat in the Sonoran Desert have been scorched by fire in recent decades. Resource managers struggle to maintain scenic landscapes featuring majestic saguaro faced with the challenges of fire, non-native species invasion, and recreational needs of millions of annual visitors. Successfully managing this iconic plant community requires understanding its fire resilience or intolerance. We compared survival of 162 saguaro 10 years after two wildfires on the Mesa Ranger District, Tonto National Forest, Arizona. Six 350-m point-quarter...

This paper describes the use of field surveys, biometric information for urban tree species and remote sensing to quantify and map carbon (C) storage, sequestration and avoided emissions from energy savings. Its primary contribution is methodological; the derivation and application of urban tree canopy (UTC) based transfer functions (t C ha-1 UTC). Findings for Los Angeles and Sacramento illustrate the complex role of regional and local determinants. Although average tree density and size were substantially greater in Los Angeles, the mean C storage density (8.15 t ha-1) was 53 percent of...

In this paper, we investigate homeowner preferences and willingness to pay for wildfire protection programs using a choice experiment with three attributes: risk, loss, and cost. A phone-mail-phone survey was used to collect data from homeowners predominantly living in medium and high wildfire risk communities in Florida. We tested three hypotheses: (1) homeowner preferences for wildfire protection programs are risk averse, (2) past personal experience with wildfires increases homeowners’ willingness to pay for protection programs, and (3) subjective perception of risk influences willingnes...

We developed a methodology to evaluate the efficacy of fuel treatments by estimating their costs and potential costs/losses with and without treatments in the San Jacinto Ranger District of the San Bernardino National Forest, California. This district is a typical southern California forest complex containing a large amount of high-valued real estate. We chose four sites to represent different land use types – real estate, mixture of real estate and wilderness, recreation use and non-use. Within each site, we iteratively ran the FARSITE fire simulation model using different random starting...

Recent advances in fire behavior are conforming strategies for forest management in nonindustrial private and public forests in the western United States. The strategy developed should include identifying the most cost-effective ways for allocating fire management budgets. In recreational areas, visitors’ opinion should be included in forest planning decisions and surveys have been useful tools to collect this information. However, it is difficult to assess fire prior to occurrence, particularly in areas where fire regime varies due to climate change. We merged geographic information...

[Spanish version: Memorias del Cuarto Simposio Internacional Sobre Políticas, Planificación, y Economía de los Incendios Forestales: Cambio Climático e Incendios Forestales.] These proceedings summarize the results of a symposium designed to address current issues of agencies with wildland fire protection responsibility at the federal and state levels in the United States as well as agencies in the international community. The topics discussed at the symposium included climate change and wildland fires: reality or illusion?, theory and models for strategic fire planning, economic analysis...