Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment

Abstract

In this article, we describe the design and development of a quantitative, geospatial risk assessment tool intended to facilitate monitoring trends in wildfire risk over time and to provide information useful in prioritizing fuels treatments and mitigation measures. The research effort is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how both fire likelihood and intensity influence risk to social, economic, and ecological values at regional and national scales. Three main components are required to generate wildfire risk outputs: (1) burn probability maps generated from wildfire simulations, (2) spatially identified highly valued resources (HVRs), and (3) response functions that describe the effects of fire (beneficial or detrimental) on the HVR. Analyzing fire effects has to date presented a major challenge to integrated risk assessments, due to a limited understanding of the type and magnitude of changes wrought by wildfire to ecological and other nonmarket values. This work advances wildfire effects analysis, recognizing knowledge uncertainty and appropriately managing it through the use of an expert systems approach. Specifically, this work entailed consultation with 10 fire and fuels program management officials from federal agencies with fire management responsibilities in order to define quantitative resource response relationships as a function of fire intensity. Here, we demonstrate a proof-of-concept application of the wildland fire risk assessment tool, using the state of Oregon as a case study.

Assessing Wildland Fire Risk Transmission to Communities in Northern Spain

“…BP average values for each HIZ were used to estimate wildfire likelihood and assess wildfire exposure to residential houses [35].…”

Is there an inherent conflict in managing fire for people and conservation?

“…nominal percentage landscape treated, reduction in ignition number) to explore ways to manipulate risk from fire in the landscape (Bradstock et al 2012b;Haas et al 2015;Calviño-Cancela et al 2016). A common approach is to compare the change in risk between management scenarios using a response group, often human assets and communities (Scott et al 2016) or threatened species (Thompson et al 2011b;Ager et al 2012). Very few studies have considered multiple assets in an explicit risk trade-off process (although see Ager et al 2010;Thompson et al 2011a;Salis et al 2013;Driscoll et al 2016).…”

Assessing Watershed-Wildfire Risks on National Forest System Lands in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States

“…Initially developed for national-scale assessment under the auspices of the interagency Fire Program Analysis (FPA) planning and budgetary system [41], FSim has since been used for myriad applications across a variety of geographic locations and planning scales [27][28][29][30][31]42]. The FPA wildfire simulations are conducted on pixelated (270 × 270 m 2 ) landscapes, and parameterized and run at the scale of individual Fire Planning Units (FPUs) that are defined by FPA for the purposes of cooperative fire management planning and implementation.…”

“…A variety of approaches can be employed to model fire effects, although a lack of broadly applicable process-based models, a recognition of scientific uncertainty surrounding fire effects, and a desire for a standard template that can be used for integrated assessment across a suite of natural and developed resources has led to a reliance on expert-defined "response functions" that characterize expected fire-related losses and benefits as a function of flame length [29,30]. The response function approach is a flexible platform that can account for additional environmental variables thought to influence response to fire and can therefore capture spatial variation in resource susceptibility and likely fire consequences [31].…”