Quantifying the Prevalence and Practice of Suppression Firing with Operational Data from Large Fires in Victoria, Australia

Simpson, Heather; Bradstock, Ross A.; Price, Owen

doi:10.3390/fire4040063

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In particular, fire suppression operations such as backburning rely on suitable 'windows' of still, stable atmospheric conditions that are less conducive to severe fire behaviour and typical of high-pressure systems (Di Virgilio et al 2019, Simpson et al 2019). Greater synoptic variability implies a faster rate of change and therefore shorter windows of opportunity, so such seasons may limit the chances for such strategies, or expose backburns to the stronger winds and greater instability of lowpressure fronts, leading to their escape and contribution to the total burnt area (Simpson et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate

Zylstra

Bradshaw

Lindenmayer

2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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As climatic changes continue to drive increases in the frequency and severity of forest fires, it is critical to understand all of the factors influencing the risk of forest fire. Using a spatial dataset of areas burnt over a 58-year period in a 528,343-ha study area, we examined three possible drivers of flammability dynamics. These were: that forests became more flammable as fine biomass (fuel) returned following disturbance (H1), that disturbance increased flammability by initiating dense understorey growth that later self-thinned (H2), and that climatic effects were more important than either of these internal dynamics (H3). We found that forests were unlikely to burn for a short ‘young’ period (5-7 years) following fire, very likely to burn as the regrowing understorey became taller and denser (regrowth period), then after a total post-disturbance period of 43-56 years (young + regrowth periods), fire became unlikely and continued to decrease in likelihood (mature period). This trend did not change as the climate warmed, although increases in synoptic variability (mean changes in synoptic systems per season) had a pronounced effect on wildfire likelihood overall. Young forest and regrowth forest became increasingly likely to burn in years of greater synoptic variability and the time taken for forests to mature increased, but in years with the most severe synoptic variability, mature forests were the least likely to burn. Our findings offer an explanation for fire behaviour in numerous long-term studies in diverse forest types globally and indicate that, even in the face of a warming climate, ‘ecologically-cooperative’ approaches may be employed that reinforce rather than disrupt natural ecological controls on forest fire. These range from traditional indigenous fire knowledge, to modern targeting of suppression resources to capitalise on the benefits of self-thinning, and minimise the extent of dense regrowth in the landscape.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate

Zylstra

Bradshaw

Lindenmayer

2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…Building from some of the themes in Table 7, there are several areas for improvement to realize the potential of PODs more fully, beginning with the core components that underpin and enrich PODs. One area is improving PCL modeling, for instance by capturing more information on historical fire perimeter progression and containment operations, and by integrating with analyses of fuelbreak and fireline effectiveness (Gannon et al 2020;Simpson et al 2021). Risk assessments can be improved by increasing the rigor of expert elicitation, better examining low-probability, high-consequence events, and incorporating more diverse stakeholder values and perspectives (McFayden et al 2019;McEvoy et al 2021;Essen et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential operational delineations: new horizons for proactive, risk-informed strategic land and fire management

et al. 2022

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Background The PODs (potential operational delineations) concept is an adaptive framework for cross-boundary and collaborative land and fire management planning. Use of PODs is increasingly recognized as a best practice, and PODs are seeing growing interest from federal, state, local, tribal, and non-governmental organizations. Early evidence suggests PODs provide utility for planning, communication, coordination, prioritization, incident response strategy development, and fuels mitigation and forest restoration. Recent legislative action codifies the importance of PODs by devoting substantial financial resources to their expansion. The intent of this paper is to explore new horizons that would help land and fire management organizations better address risks and capitalize on opportunities. Specifically, we focus on how PODs are a natural platform for improvement related to two core elements of risk management: how we leverage preparation and foresight to better prepare for the future; and how we learn from the past to better understand and improve performance and its alignment with strategy. Results We organize our exploration of new horizons around three key areas, suggesting that PODs can enable climate-smart forest and fire management and planning, inform more agile and adaptive allocation of suppression resources, and enable risk-informed performance measurement. These efforts can be synergistic and self-reinforcing, and we argue that expanded application of PODs at local levels could enhance the performance of the broader wildland fire system. We provide rationales for each problem area and offer growth opportunities with attendant explanations and illustrations. Conclusions With commitment and careful effort, PODs can provide rich opportunities for innovation in both backward-looking evaluative and forward-looking anticipatory frameworks. In addition to continued improvement of core PODs elements, attention must be paid to being more inclusive and participatory in PODs planning, to building sufficient capacity to expand PODs applications in meaningful boundary spanning ways, to ensure their continuity and relevance over time through maintenance and updating, and to deliver necessary information to responders to inform the effective management of wildfires. Lastly, ongoing monitoring and evaluation of PODs and related initiatives is essential to support organizational learning and continual improvement.

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Suppression resources and their influence on containment of forest fires in Victoria

Marshall

Dorph

Holyland

et al. 2022

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Background Wildfire suppression is becoming more costly and dangerous as the scale and severity of impacts from fires increase under climate change. Aims We aim to identify the key environmental and management variables influencing containment probability for forest fires in Victoria and determine how these change over time. Methods We developed Random Forest models to identify variables driving fire containment within the first 24 h of response. We used a database of ~12 000 incident records collected across Victoria, Australia. Key results Response time, fire size at first attack, number of ground resources deployed (e.g. fire fighters), ignition cause, and environmental factors that influence fire spread (e.g. elevation, humidity, wind, and fuel hazard) were key drivers of suppression success within the first 24 h. However, certainty about the factors influencing suppression reduced as the containment period increased. Conclusions Suppression success hinges on a balance between the environmental factors that drive fire spread and the rapid deployment of sufficient resources to limit fire perimeter growth. Implications Decreasing the period between an ignition and the time of arrival at the fire will allow first responders to begin suppression before the fire size has exceeded their capability to construct a control line.

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Quantifying the Prevalence and Practice of Suppression Firing with Operational Data from Large Fires in Victoria, Australia

Cited by 7 publications

References 23 publications

Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate

Self-thinning forest understoreys reduce wildfire risk, even in a warming climate

Potential operational delineations: new horizons for proactive, risk-informed strategic land and fire management

Suppression resources and their influence on containment of forest fires in Victoria

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