Firefighter availability and prescribed burning in the Okanogan–Wenatchee
Employees working on a prescribed burn in California.
For many years, prescribed fire practitioners have cited the availability of qualified personnel as a key restriction on when and how much prescribed fire they are able to implement. Researchers recently gathered data on when and how many personnel were assigned to wildland fires from Washington state (making them unavailable for use on prescribed fire). They then assessed if this was statistically correlated with the incidence of prescribed burns on the forest.
The findings from the study help managers quantify impacts of different staffing strategies. The methods developed could be applied across the U.S. to inform the agency about the impacts of wildfire demands for personnel on prescribed fire more broadly.