Wildfire Risk to Communities: Spatial datasets of landscape-wide wildfire risk components for the United States

Scott, Jill R.; Gilbertson-Day, Julie W.; Moran, Christopher J.; Dillon, Gregory K.; Short, Karen C.; Vogler, Kevin C.

doi:10.2737/rds-2020-0016

Cited by 23 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 5 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Prior efforts have focused on in-situ risk with risk assessments, while we have focused on identifying the source of risk. This approach allowed us to target the problem of prioritizing large areas of wildlands that are the source of fire to developed areas, rather than focusing on individual communities as has been the emphasis of many existing programs (Scott et al 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Application of the Fireshed Registry

Ager

Day

Ringo

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Fireshed Registry is an interactive geospatial data portal providing access to data describing past, present, and future trends regarding wildfire exposure to communities and forest and fuel management. The registry employs a nested spatial framework that organizes landscape variation in wildfire risk to developed areas into containers or "firesheds" and displays these data on a background of maps on management and disturbances, including past and predicted wildfire events and their potential impacts. It was built in close cooperation with USDA Forest Service staff and establishes a nationally consistent, all-lands, scalable framework for classifying fireshed conditions in terms of underlying wildfire transmission and the potential to mitigate exposure and risk. Foremost, the framework provides a foundation for communication and coordination with external agencies and partners for cross-boundary collaboration and can potentially improve agency national reporting and monitoring of programs. The registry provides the Forest Service with a planning framework for tracking changes in fireshed conditions with respect to wildfire exposure at forest, regional, and national scales. We describe the process of building the system, sources of data, and its application within the agency for decision support and reporting for multiple ongoing programs related to forest and landscape management.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and Application of the Fireshed Registry

Ager

Day

Ringo

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Average annual temperature and annual precipitation (1981–2010) were acquired from PRISM 77 . We used conditional flame length data derived from simulation modeling to represent average potential fire behavior 36 . Road density data was calculated based on HERE roads shapefile data ( https://www.here.com ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human ignitions on private lands drive USFS cross-boundary wildfire transmission and community impacts in the western US

Downing

Dunn

Thompson

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wildfires in the western United States (US) are increasingly expensive, destructive, and deadly. Reducing wildfire losses is particularly challenging when fires frequently start on one land tenure and damage natural or developed assets on other ownerships. Managing wildfire risk in multijurisdictional landscapes has recently become a centerpiece of wildfire strategic planning, legislation, and risk research. However, important empirical knowledge gaps remain regarding cross-boundary fire activity in the western US. Here, we use lands administered by the US Forest Service as a study system to assess the causes, ignition locations, structure loss, and social and biophysical factors associated with cross-boundary fire activity over the past three decades. Results show that cross-boundary fires were primarily caused by humans on private lands. Cross-boundary ignitions, area burned, and structure losses were concentrated in California. Public lands managed by the US Forest Service were not the primary source of fires that destroyed the most structures. Cross-boundary fire activity peaked in moderately populated landscapes with dense road and jurisdictional boundary networks. Fire transmission is increasing, and evidence suggests it will continue to do so in the future. Effective cross-boundary fire risk management will require cross-scale risk co-governance. Focusing on minimizing damages to high-value assets may be more effective than excluding fire from multijurisdictional landscapes.

show abstract

“…The curves allow for the comparison of incidents relative to one another regarding likely outcomes (positive and negative), such as which fires in a given time frame have the highest likelihood of loss or ecological benefit. The information helps prioritize resources based on risk [19,20].…”

Section: Exceedance Probability Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent exploration of the Wildland Fire Decision-Support System (WFDSS) reports that the utility of the System to support risk-informed decision-making could be improved by incorporating prefire planning tools such as PODs [23]. Other examples of Forest Service initiatives that are focused on improving decision-making and coordination include the Shared Stewardship Strategy [24], Scenario Investment Planning [25], the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy [26], and the Wildfire Risk to Communities mapping effort [20]. It remains to be seen if and how these initiatives will be integrated, but it is worth noting a general trend towards improving strategic decision-making based on improved coordination, communication, and integration of science and data analytics.…”

Section: Exceedance Probability Curvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Qualitative Study on the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance Efforts to Improve Wildfire Decision-Making

Schultz

Miller

Greiner

et al. 2021

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To support improved wildfire incident decision-making, in 2017 the US Forest Service (Forest Service) implemented risk-informed tools and processes, together known as Risk Management Assistance (RMA). The Forest Service is developing tools such as RMA to improve wildfire decision-making and implements these tools in complex organizational environments. We assessed the perceived value of RMA and factors that affected its use to inform the literature on decision support for fire management. We sought to answer two questions: (1) What was the perceived value of RMA for line officers who received it?; and (2) What factors affected how RMA was received and used during wildland fire events? We conducted a qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with decision-makers to understand the contextualized and interrelated factors that affect wildfire decision-making and the uptake of a decision-support intervention such as RMA. We used a thematic coding process to analyze our data according to our questions. RMA increased line officers’ ability to communicate the rationale underlying their decisions more clearly and transparently to their colleagues and partners. Our interviewees generally said that RMA data analytics were valuable but did not lead to changes in their decisions. Line officer personality, pre-season exposure to RMA, local political dynamics and conditions, and decision biases affected the use of RMA. Our findings reveal the complexities of embracing risk management, not only in the context of US federal fire management, but also in other similar emergency management contexts. Attention will need to be paid to existing decision biases, integration of risk management approaches in the interagency context, and the importance of knowledge brokers to connect across internal organizational groups. Our findings contribute to the literature on managing change in public organizations, specifically in emergency decision-making contexts such as fire management.

show abstract

Wildfire Risk to Communities: Spatial datasets of landscape-wide wildfire risk components for the United States

Cited by 23 publications

References 5 publications

Development and Application of the Fireshed Registry

Development and Application of the Fireshed Registry

Human ignitions on private lands drive USFS cross-boundary wildfire transmission and community impacts in the western US

A Qualitative Study on the US Forest Service’s Risk Management Assistance Efforts to Improve Wildfire Decision-Making

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About