Impacts of wildland fire effects on resources and assets through expert elicitation to support fire response decisions

McFayden, Colin B.; Boychuk, Den; Woolford, Douglas G.; Wheatley, Melanie J.; Johnston, Lynn M.

doi:10.1071/wf18189

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…In practice, we often aim to stimulated deliberative thought with a pilot round asking experts to identify control locations and containment polygons for various ignition scenarios, and then expand to the landscape scale through discussion, feedback, and iteration. Improving processes and ensuring rigor in elicitation of expert judgment remain an important research direction [31,71].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, the fire science community has developed a wide range of operationally focused assessment and planning tools. This body of work includes various risk assessment tools to estimate the social and ecological consequences of fire [29][30][31][32][33]; models of suppression difficulty, resistance to control, and potential fire control locations that speak to firefighting challenges and opportunities [34][35][36][37][38]; and models of fire responder safety zones, escape routes, and falling tree (snag) hazards to help suppression resources avoid harm [39][40][41][42]. Despite the proliferation of risk-based information, its use in fire management and decision support remains limited in part due to the lack of attention paid towards engineering the delivery and communication of this information to key users and decision makers [43,44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prototyping a Geospatial Atlas for Wildfire Planning and Management

Thompson

Gannon

Caggiano

et al. 2020

Forests

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Wildland fire managers are increasingly embracing risk management principles by being more anticipatory, proactive, and “engaging the fire before it starts”. This entails investing in pre-season, cross-boundary, strategic fire response planning with partners and stakeholders to build a shared understanding of wildfire risks and management opportunities. A key innovation in planning is the development of potential operational delineations (PODs), i.e., spatial management units whose boundaries are relevant to fire containment operations (e.g., roads, ridgetops, and fuel transitions), and within which potential fire consequences, suppression opportunities/challenges, and strategic response objectives can be analyzed to inform fire management decision making. As of the summer of 2020, PODs have been developed on more than forty landscapes encompassing National Forest System lands across the western USA, providing utility for planning, communication, mitigation prioritization, and incident response strategy development. Here, we review development of a decision support tool—a POD Atlas—intended to facilitate cross-boundary, collaborative strategic wildfire planning and management by providing high-resolution information on landscape conditions, values at risk, and fire management resource needs for individual PODs. With the atlas, users can rapidly access and assimilate multiple forms of pre-loaded data and analytics in a customizable manner. We prototyped and operationalized this tool in concert with, and for use by, fire managers on several National Forests in the Southern Rocky Mountains of the USA. We present examples, discuss real-world use cases, and highlight opportunities for continued decision support improvement.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prototyping a Geospatial Atlas for Wildfire Planning and Management

Thompson

Gannon

Caggiano

et al. 2020

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Wildfire management agencies generally employ a risk-based approach where the potential impact(s), likelihood, and resulting expected loss or benefit are assessed at the appropriate scale according to the complexity of the wildfire situation [ 26 , 52 , 53 ]. Decisions often involve multiple decision-makers and stakeholders with varying perspectives concerning risk [ 23 , 26 ]. Decisions are not static and are frequently updated through an iterative process of determining and taking actions, monitoring outcomes, and revising actions until the situation is resolved [ 53 ].…”

Section: Wildfire Management Needs Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wildfires that are threatening communities and critical infrastructure are prioritized for suppression action over remote wildfires where there is more opportunity for the natural ecological role of wildfire on the landscape [ 23 ]. Therefore, these wildfires more frequently grow larger and are generally managed through modified tactics (e.g., continuous mapping and monitoring; [ 14 ]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission

Johnston

Jackson

McFayden

et al. 2020

Sensors

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In 2019 the Canadian Space Agency initiated development of a dedicated wildfire monitoring satellite (WildFireSat) mission. The intent of this mission is to support operational wildfire management, smoke and air quality forecasting, and wildfire carbon emissions reporting. In order to deliver the mission objectives, it was necessary to identify the technical and operational challenges which have prevented broad exploitation of Earth Observation (EO) in Canadian wildfire management and to address these challenges in the mission design. In this study we emphasize the first objective by documenting the results of wildfire management end-user engagement activities which were used to identify the key Fire Management Functionalities (FMFs) required for an Earth Observation wildfire monitoring system. These FMFs are then used to define the User Requirements for the Canadian Wildland Fire Monitoring System (CWFMS) which are refined here for the WildFireSat mission. The User Requirements are divided into Observational, Measurement, and Precision requirements and form the foundation for the design of the WildFireSat mission (currently in Phase-A, summer 2020).

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“…Optimal strategies for human and ecological values differed in some studies (Driscoll et al, 2016), but not others (Bentley and Penman, 2017). Most studies have focused on only one or two case study regions (Bradstock et al, 2012b;Thompson et al, 2013;Driscoll et al, 2016;Bentley and Penman, 2017;Florec et al, 2019;McFayden et al, 2019;Cirulis et al, 2020) making it difficult to generalize results. The performance of prescribed burning strategies needs to be systematically assessed in relation to these variations given the likely variation in potential effectiveness of prescribed burning in influencing fire behavior, along with differing configurations of assets and management values.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cost-Effective Prescribed Burning Solutions Vary Between Landscapes in Eastern Australia

Penman¹,

Clarke²,

Cirulis³

et al. 2020

Front. For. Glob. Change

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Fire management agencies undertake a range of fire management strategies in an attempt to reduce the risk posed by future wildfires. This can include fuel treatments (prescribed burning and mechanical removal), suppression and community engagement. However, no agency has an unlimited budget and numerically optimal solutions can rarely be implemented or may not even exist. Agencies are trying to quantify the extent to which their management actions reduce risk across multiple values in the most cost-effective manner. In this paper, we examine the cost-effectiveness of a range of prescribed burning strategies across multiple landscapes in south-eastern Australia. Landscapes considered include vegetated areas surrounding the cities of Hobart, Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, and Sydney. Using a simulation approach, we examine the potential range of fires that could occur in a region with varying levels of edge and landscape prescribed burning treatment regimes. Damages to assets are measured for houses, lives, transmission lines, carbon and ecological assets. Costs of treatments are estimated from published models and all data are analyzed using multi-criteria decision analysis. Cost-effectiveness of prescribed burning varies widely between regions. Variations primarily relate to the spatial configuration of assets and natural vegetation. Regions with continuous urban interface adjacent to continuous vegetation had the most cost-effective fuel treatment strategies. In contrast, those regions with fragmented vegetation and discontinuous interfaces demonstrated the lowest cost-effectiveness of treatments. Quantifying the extent to which fuel treatments can reduce the risk to assets is vital for determining the location and extent of treatments across a landscape.

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Impacts of wildland fire effects on resources and assets through expert elicitation to support fire response decisions

Cited by 22 publications

References 34 publications

Prototyping a Geospatial Atlas for Wildfire Planning and Management

Prototyping a Geospatial Atlas for Wildfire Planning and Management

Development of the User Requirements for the Canadian WildFireSat Satellite Mission

Cost-Effective Prescribed Burning Solutions Vary Between Landscapes in Eastern Australia

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