Treesearch

Fuel classifications are integral tools in fire management and planning because they are used as inputs to fire behavior and effects simulation models. Fuel Loading Models (FLMs) and Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCSs) fuelbeds are the most popular classifications used throughout wildland fire science and management, but they have yet to be thoroughly evaluated with field data. In this study, we used a large dataset of Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) surface fuel estimates (n = 13,138) to create a new fuel classification called Fuel Type Groups (FTGs) from FIA forest type...

Currently, the Chilean insurance market sells forest fire insurance policies and agricultural weather risk policies. However, access to forest fire insurance is difficult for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), with a significant proportion (close to 50%) of forest plantations being without coverage. Indeed, the insurance market that sells forest fire insurance policies does not have an evaluation system based on known standards accepted by the market; rather, it is discretionary, with each company evaluating risk with their own specific parameters. This lack of standardization reduces...

The tragic fatality events of the mid-1990s and subsequent studies led to a concentrated effort to increase safety in the US federal wildland firefighter community beginning in 2000. Addressing human factors (HF) as a causal agent in accidents was a major focal point for this cultural change. To examine the effectiveness of this change, we hypothesized a decline in firefighter entrapment rates after implementation. Seasonal data on entrapment numbers and exposure amounts were collected on a national level for federal and non-federal wildland firefighting agencies for the years 1994-2013....

The Strategic Operational Planner (SOPL) wildland fire management position was created in the United States in 2009 to reflect updated terminology. SOPL merges the former Fire Use Manager positions (FUM1 and FUM2) and is now an established position within the Incident Command System. Traditionally, the FUM positions and the SOPL have been used on incidents managed for resource benefit, wildland fire use, and on long-duration events. The use of the SOPL to develop a strategic operational plan on "suppression" strategy wildfires is fairly new, thus, creating some confusion about the position'...

In many areas of the United States, prescribed burning near highways is considered too risky because of the potential for smoke to obscure the highway. In one area in Florida, prescribed fire is used to reduce the risks of smoke related impacts to Interstate 95. The St Johns River Water Management District manages over 400,000 acres of land. Seventy percent of those lands are wetlands, and nearly 200,000 acres of the wetlands are marsh ecosystems that require fire for their perpetuation. Some marsh acres are immediately adjacent to Interstate 95 near Cocoa, in Brevard County, Florida....

Within the last decade, mixed-severity fire regimes (MSFRs) have gained increasing attention in both the scientific and management communities (Arno and others 2000, Baker and others 2007, Hessburg and others 2007, Perry and others 2011, Halofsky and others 2011, Stine and others 2014). The growing influence of the MSFR model derives from several factors including: (1) recent recognition of the wide geographic breadth of mixed severity fire regimes within western North America and elsewhere, (2) a lack of basic ecological data that spans sufficient temporal and spatial scales to sufficientl...

Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) is a departure index that compares the current amounts of the different vegetation succession classes, fire frequency, and fire severity to historic reference conditions. FRCC assessments have been widely used for evaluating ecosystem status in many areas of the U.S. in reports such as land use plans, fire management plans, project plans, burn plans, and agency reporting.

Past fire exclusion policies and fire suppression actions have led to a historic "fire deficit" on public wildlands. These sociocultural actions have led to unprecedented environmental changes that have created conditions conducive to more frequent large-scale wildfires. Politicians, the newsmedia, and agency officials portray large wildland fires as catastrophes and unnatural disasters, but these fires could actually provide fire managers unique opportunities to recover fire-dependent species and restore fire-adapted ecosystems that have been adversely affected by the fire deficit. This...

When managing for fire across a large landscape, the types of fuel treatments, the locations of treatments, and the percentage of the landscape being treated should all interact to impact not only potential fire size, but also carbon dynamics across that landscape. To investigate these interactions, we utilized a forest growth model (FVS-FFE) and fire simulation software (FlamMap, Randig), integrated through GIS software (ArcMap9.3), to quantify the impacts that varied landscape-scale fuel treatments have on burn probability, fire size, short-term carbon loss, and long-term carbon storage....

Federal wildfire managers often want to know, over large landscapes, where wildfires are likely to occur and how intense they may be. To meet this need we developed a map that we call wildland fire potential (WFP) - a raster geospatial product that can help to inform evaluations of wildfire risk or prioritization of fuels management needs across very large spatial scales (millions of acres). Our specific objective with the WFP map was to depict the relative potential for wildfire that would be difficult for suppression resources to contain. To create the 2012 version, we built upon spatial...