A perspective and survey on the implementation and uptake of tools to support decision-making in Canadian wildland fire management

Abstract

The level of implementation and uptake of specific tools used to support wildland fire management decision-making has received little attention in Canada. Our aim is to aid the fire research-to-practice discourse in Canada by describing key terms and concepts for characterizing implementation, uptake, and capacity. We also designed and conducted a survey to assess the implementation and uptake of some of the available tools used by Canadian provincial and territorial fire management agencies. We assessed nine tools and found distinct differences in their implementation and uptake, with differing results at national versus provincial and territorial scale. The Canadian Fire Weather Index and Fire Behaviour Prediction Systems had the highest level of both implementation and uptake nationally. The other tools have substantially lower but varying degrees of implementation and uptake across the country. The results encourage further investigation into the factors affecting implementation and uptake of fire management tools, both nationally and in provinces and territories.