Quantifying the Potential Impacts of Fuel Treatments on Wildfire Suppression Costs

Abstract

Modeling the impacts and effects of hazardous fuel reduction treatments is a pressing issue within the wildfire management community. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatment effectiveness allows for comparison of alternative treatment strategies in terms of socioeconomic and ecological impacts and facilitates analysis of tradeoffs across land-management objectives. Studies have yet to rigorously examine potential impacts to fire suppression expenditures associated with prior hazardous fuel reduction treatments. Such information would be helpful for federal land-management agencies struggling to contain escalating wildfire management costs. In this article we establish a methodology for estimating potential reductions in wildfire suppression costs. Our approach pairs wildfire simulation outputs with a regression cost model and quantifies the influence of fuel treatments on distributions of wildfire sizes and suppression costs. Our case study focuses on a landscape within the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon that was selected to receive funding under the auspices of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program. Results suggest substantial reductions in distributions of wildfire size and suppression cost on a per fire basis. Furthermore, because fewer ignitions become large fires on the treated landscape, distributions of annual area burned and annual suppression costs also shift downward because of fuel treatments. Results are contingent on four key factors: large-scale implementation of fuel treatments across the landscape, assumed treatment effectiveness over the duration of the analysis period, accuracy of wildfire and cost models, and accuracy of projected changes to fire behavior fuel models resulting from fuel treatments. We discuss strengths and limitations of the modeling approach and offer suggestions for future improvements and applications.

Examining heterogeneity and wildfire management expenditures using spatially and temporally descriptive data

“…A spatially descriptive expenditure model could be used to estimate the effect of fuel treatments on future suppression expenditures; as demonstrated with the hypothetical examples in the previous section, the spatially descriptive model captures the effects on expenditures of changing conditions independently of changes in size. Current research uses an ignition-point model to estimate expenditures for simulated fires in a pre-and post-treatment landscape (Thompson et al, 2013c), and cannot account for differences in the composition of fuels, ownership, and land protection between similarly sized fires. The spatially descriptive model sets the stage for a number of expanded analyses with additional information.…”

“…related to expenditures and examine the potential cost consequences of changes to landscape-level characteristics (e.g., fuel treatments; see Thompson et al, 2013c). Comparisons are reported for the instrumental variables (2SLS) models where fire size is endogenous.…”

“…Of particular interest is how the two models predict differences in expenditures when the ignition point remains constant but fire behavior and spread are altered. For example, fuel treatments might result in smaller fires on average (e.g., in a pre-and post-treatment landscape described by Thompson et al, 2013c), or changes in suppression strategies or weather events may allow fire growth in some areas (e.g., Wilderness) and not others (e.g., Wildland-Urban Interface areas). Notes:…”

“…Despite this progress, sophisticated expenditure models are increasingly needed to better forecast and manage agency expenditures, support outcome based performance measures, inform land, fire, and fuel management planning efforts, and support incident decision making. For example, prioritizing and planning treatments of hazardous fuels may incorporate the effect of treatment options on expected suppression expenditures (Taylor et al, 2013;Thompson et al, 2013c), and the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) uses a suppression expenditure model to provide information on expected expenditures for an incident under current conditions (Noonan-Wright et al, 2011). As these applications continue to be developed, expenditure models that can provide accurate information at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales will become increasingly important.…”

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.…”