Treesearch

Futuring Group 7 identified nine trends that frame the way prescribed fire will be used in the future. The group identified three key visions and associated strategies.

Public agencies involved in natural resource management and fire protection will face many challenges over the next few decades, including decreasing real budgets, lower staffing levels, increasing responsibilities, expanding technologies and a more sophisticated and demanding public. In addressing these challenges, resource managers must be prepared to enter a new phase of interagency cooperation in which authority and responsibilities are pooled for more efficient utilization. Closer liaison must also be established with higher education to insure both the development of needed technologi...

The ability of fire suppressant foams to improve ground-applied fire control efforts was evaluated. Foaming agents and foam-generating systems were examined. Performance evaluations were made for direct attack, indirect attack, and mop-up. Foam was determined to suppress and repel fire in situations where water did not. Cost comparisons of mop-up work showed straight water to be significantly more expensive than foam. Foam will replace all current water applications and present new suppression opportunities to the fire management community.

Managers use prescribed fire to accomplish a variety of resource objectives. The knowledge needed to design successful prescriptions is both quantitative and qualitative. Some of it is available through publications and computer programs, but much of the knowledge of expert practitioners has never been collected or published. An expert system being developed at the, Forest Service's Intermountain Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana, uses artificial intelligence programming techniques to integrate this diverse information, and interpret it for application, and to recognize skilled...

Interactive video is a powerful medium, bringing together the emotional impact of video and film and the interactive capabilities of the computer. Interactive videodisc instruction can be used as a tutorial, for drill and practice and in simulations, as well as for information storage. Videodisc technology is being used in industrial, military and medical applications for training, sales, education, and information systems. A project is underway to demonstrate the application of interactive videodisc instruction to wildland fire management by producing a program on wildland fire behavior.

The University of California's Department of Forestry and Resource Management, under contract with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, has developed and released the first version of the California Fire Economics Simulator (CFES). The current release is adapted from the Initial Action Assessment component of the USFS's National Fire Management Analysis System and features a greatly enhanced user interface. Research priorities include exploring alternatives to per acre net value change to better account for localized values at risk, addressing the issue of determining...

A small number of fires escape initial attack suppression efforts and become large, but their effects are significant and disproportionate. In 1983, of 200,000 wildland fires in the United States, only 4,000 exceeded 100 acres. However, these escaped fires accounted for roughly 95 percent of wildfire-related costs and damages (Pyne, 1984). Thus, future research efforts logically will focus on the difficult and complicated task of modeling large fires.

A steadily shrinking forest land base and the social demands of an expanding population will require utmost skill from land managers, if forest products are to meet the demands of 6 billion people in the year 2000. Developed nations have recognized fire's role, both as a tool and a destructive force. By contrast, developing nations have not instituted adequate policy in coping with wildland fire. There is need for government support of programs that will maximize the beneficial use of fire in the forest, while recognizing its destructive force and taking adequate protection measures. The...

Describes, from a historical perspective, methods used to characterize fire prevention problems and evaluate prevention programs and discusses past research efforts to bolster these analytical and management efforts. Highlights research on the sociological perspectives of the wildfire problem and on quantitative fire occurrence prediction and program evaluation systems. Focuses on current and future advances in fire prevention management due to research in four critical areas: modeling fire occurrence, measuring prevention effectiveness, measuring economic efficiency, and optimizing...