Mitigating a pyro-terror attack using fuel treatment

Rashidi, Eghbal; Medal, Hugh R.; Hoskins, Aaron B.

doi:10.1080/24725854.2017.1415490

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Attacker-defender models have also been applied to fuel management. Rashidi et al (2018b) propose a model to counter against pyro-terror attacks through fuel treatments, called the pyro-terrorism mitigation problem (PTMP). Pyroterrorism consists of large-scale human-caused wildfires for political or religious purposes.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel management operations planning in fire management: A bilevel optimisation approach

et al. 2021

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Recent events have shown the destructive consequences that wildfires can have on the environment, people's lives, and the economy. Elevated fuel loads (i.e., the amount of flammable material in an area) increase the likeliness as well as the severity of accidental and human-caused fires. Fuel management operations help to reduce the impact of fires by applying treatments on the landscape that decrease fuel load. However, their planning poses a complicated decision problem, which includes multiple sources of uncertainty. In this paper, a problem for fuel treatment planning is presented, formulated, and solved. The optimisation model identifies the best subset of units in the landscape to be treated to minimise the impact of the worst-case wildfire. The model, bilevel in nature, is reformulated as a single-level integer program. Due to its size, which would make it intractable for realistic instances, a solution algorithm applying bound-based filters that reduce the size of the optimisation model while preserving optimality has been devised. Extensive computational testing on randomly generated instances illustrates that the proposed approach is very successful at solving the problem and that the filters indeed reduce the total solution time. Finally, the algorithm is applied to a case study on a landscape in Andalusia, Spain, which shows the capabilities of the proposed approach in addressing a real-world problem.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fuel management operations planning in fire management: A bilevel optimisation approach

et al. 2021

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“…These reasons include: to support diverse ecosystems, to reduce the fuel load of a region to make it less susceptible to wildfire losses, and even to protect wildland from a potential pyro-terror attack (large-scale arson) (Rashidi et al. 2018 ). Rx is an effective way to reduce the risks posed by wildfires, including deaths and injuries caused directly by burns and indirectly by smoke inhalation, damage to personal, public, and commercial properties and infrastructure, and disruption in the functioning of various industries (i.e., tourism, forestry, and transportation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A data-driven analysis and optimization of the impact of prescribed fire programs on wildfire risk in different regions of the USA

2023

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In the current century, wildfires have shown an increasing trend, causing a huge amount of direct and indirect losses in society. Different methods and efforts have been employed to reduce the frequency and intensity of the damages, one of which is implementing prescribed fires. Previous works have established that prescribed fires are effective at reducing the damage caused by wildfires. However, the actual impact of prescribed fire programs is dependent on factors such as where and when prescribed fires are conducted. In this paper, we propose a novel data-driven model studying the impact of prescribed fire as a mitigation technique for wildfires to minimize the total costs and losses. This is applied to states in the USA to perform a comparative analysis of the impact of prescribed fires from 2003 to 2017 and to identify the optimal scale of the impactful prescribed fire programs using least-cost optimization. The fifty US states are classified into categories based on impact and risk levels. Measures that could be taken to improve different prescribed fire programs are discussed. Our results show that California and Oregon are the only severe-risk US states to conduct prescribed fire programs that are impactful at reducing wildfire risks, while other southeastern states such as Florida maintain fire-healthy ecosystems with very extensive prescribed fire programs. Our study suggests that states that have impactful prescribed fire programs (like California) should increase their scale of operation, while states that burn prescribed fires with no impact (like Nevada) should change the way prescribed burning is planned and conducted.

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“…A prescribed fire (which we refer to as Rx in this paper) is a fire ignited and managed in a specific region for various reasons. These reasons include: to support diverse ecosystems, to reduce the fuel load of a region to make it less susceptible to wildfire losses, and even to protect wildland from a potential pyro-terror attack (large scale arson) (Rashidi, Medal, & Hoskins, 2018). Rx is an effective way to reduce the risks posed by wildfires, including deaths and injuries caused directly by burns and indirectly by smoke inhalation, damage to personal, public, and commercial properties and infrastructure, and disruption in the functioning of various industries (i.e., tourism, forestry, and transportation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Data-driven Analysis and Optimization of the Impact of Prescribed Fire Programs on Wildfire Risk in Different Regions of the United States

José

Agarwal

Zhuang

2022

Preprint

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In the current century, wildfires have shown an increasing trend, causing a huge amount of direct and indirect losses in society. Different methods and efforts have been employed to reduce the frequency and intensity of the damages, one of which is implementing prescribed fires. Previous works have established that prescribed fires are effective at reducing the damage caused by wildfires. However, the actual impact of prescribed fire programs are dependent on factors such as where and when prescribed fires are conducted. In this paper, we propose a novel data-driven model studying the impact of prescribed fire as a mitigation technique for wildfires to minimize the total costs and losses. This is applied to states in the U.S. to perform a comparative analysis of the impact of prescribed fires from 2003-2017 and to identify the optimal scale of the impactful prescribed fire programs. The fifty U.S. states are classified into categories based on impact and risk levels. Measures that could be taken to improve different prescribed fire programs are discussed. Our results show that California and Oregon are the only severe-risk U.S. states to conduct prescribed fire programs that are impactful at reducing wildfire risks, while other southeastern states such as Florida maintain fire-healthy ecosystems with very extensive prescribed fire programs. Our research provides a novel model and insights for wildfire management.

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Mitigating a pyro-terror attack using fuel treatment

Cited by 6 publications

References 34 publications

Fuel management operations planning in fire management: A bilevel optimisation approach

Fuel management operations planning in fire management: A bilevel optimisation approach

A data-driven analysis and optimization of the impact of prescribed fire programs on wildfire risk in different regions of the USA

A Data-driven Analysis and Optimization of the Impact of Prescribed Fire Programs on Wildfire Risk in Different Regions of the United States

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