A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management
A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management

Author: Joe H. Scott

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 83

ISBN-13:

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Wildfires can result in significant, long-lasting impacts to ecological, social, and economic systems. It is necessary, therefore, to identify and understand the risks posed by wildland fire, and to develop cost-effective mitigation strategies accordingly. This report presents a general framework with which to assess wildfire risk and explore mitigation options, and illustrates a process for implementing the framework. Two key strengths of the framework are its flexibility-- allowing for a multitude of data sources, modeling techniques, and approaches to measuring risk--and its scalability, with potential application for project, forest, regional, and national planning. The specific risk assessment process we introduce is premised on three modeling approaches to characterize wildfire likelihood and intensity, fire effects, and the relative importance of highly valued resources and assets that could be impacted by wildfire. The spatial scope of the process is landscape-scale, and the temporal scope is short-term (that is, the temporal dynamics of succession and disturbance are not simulated). We highlight key information needs, provide guidance for use of fire simulation models and risk geo-processing tools, and demonstrate recent applications of the framework across planning scales. The aim of this report is to provide fire and land managers with a helpful set of guiding principles and tools for assessing and mitigating wildfire risk.

A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management
A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management

Author: Joe Scott

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-06-22

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9781511647632

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Wildfires-unplanned wildland fires-can result in significant, long-lasting impacts to ecological, social, and economic systems; therefore, it is necessary to identify and quantify the risks posed by wildfire, and to subsequently develop cost-effective mitiga-tion strategies. To do so, fire and fuel managers require information on where fires are likely to occur, the intensity at which they might occur, and with what impacts to highly valued resources and assets (HVRAs; that is, the things we care about). Managers need to assess wildfire risk.

A Comparative Risk Assessment Framework for Wildland Fire Management
A Comparative Risk Assessment Framework for Wildland Fire Management

Author: U.s. Department of Agriculture

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2012-10-19

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 9781480146549

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Forests, rangelands, and other open spaces provide a broad array of ecological benefits, including critical habitat for protected species, drinking water, wood products, carbon storage, and scenic and recreational opportunities. Large, destructive wildfires threaten these values and communities adjacent to these lands. Large investments in wildland fire suppression and fuel reduction activities are being made throughout the United States in ongoing efforts to reduce human and ecological losses from wildfire (USDA and USDI 2001; Public Law 108-148 2003; Sexton 2006). Managing these investments is a challenge to multiple Federal, State, and local agencies as decision makers attempt to reduce wildfire risk over extensive areas while balancing public expectations with finite budgets (Agee 2002; Dicus and Scott 2006; Johnson and others 2006; Sexton 2006; Winter and Bigler-Cole 2006). Landscape-scale changes in vegetation structure and fuel loadings must be accomplished in order to significantly alter wildfire behavior, reduce wildfire losses, and achieve longer-term fire resiliency (for example, Agee and others 2000; Finney 2001; Peterson and others 2003; Graham and others 2004). However, the most efficient way to achieve these long-term landscape goals remains unclear, and there are different perceptions on the relative role and effectiveness of management activities versus natural and managed wildfire to reduce fuels (cf. Agee 2002; Finney and Cohen 2003; Reinhardt and others 2008). The FLAME Act of 2009 requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Interior to submit to Congress a Cohesive Wildfire Management Strategy. In this report, we explore the general science available for a risk-based approach to fire and fuels management and suggest analyses that may be applied at multiple scales to inform decisionmaking and tradeoff analysis. We discuss scientific strengths and limitations of wildfire risk assessment frameworks, including the benefit of broad scalability as demonstrated by four recent case studies. We further highlight the role of comparative risk assessment, which extends the analysis to include the decision space available to managers and stakeholders to allow them to explore the tradeoffs between alternative courses of action. We identify scientific limitations of the analytical protocol and discuss questions of how to better address climate change, smoke modeling issues, and socioeconomic vulnerability, and how to better quantify treatment effectiveness. Key challenges are: achieving a balance between retaining analytical flexibility at regional and sub-regional planning scales while simultaneously retaining data and methodological consistency at the national scale, and identifying and aligning regional and national priorities to inform multi-objective strategy development. As implementation proceeds, the analytical protocol will no doubt be modified, but the contents of this report comprise a rigorous and transparent framework for comparative risk assessment built from the best available science.

Wildfire Risk
Wildfire Risk

Author: Wade E. Martin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1136523898

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The continuing encroachment of human settlements into fire-prone areas and extreme fire seasons in recent years make it urgent that we better understand both the physical and human dimensions of managing the risk from wildfire. Wildfire Risk follows from our awareness that increasing public knowledge about wildfire hazard does not necessarily lead to appropriate risk reduction behavior. Drawing heavily upon health and risk communication, and risk modeling, the authors advance our understanding of how individuals and communities respond to wildfire hazard. They present results of original research on the social, economic, and psychological factors in responses to risk, discuss how outreach and education can influence behavior, and consider differences among ethnic/racial groups and between genders with regard to values, views, and attitudes about wildfire risk. They explore the role of public participation in risk assessment and mitigation, as well as in planning for evacuation and recovery after fire. Wildfire Risk concludes with a dedicated section on risk-modeling, with perspectives from decision sciences, geography, operations research, psychology, experimental economics, and other social sciences.

Wildfire Risk and Hazard
Wildfire Risk and Hazard

Author: U.s. Department of Agriculture

Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub

Published: 2012-10-19

Total Pages: 70

ISBN-13: 9781480146792

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Reviews have been conducted by Federal oversight agencies and blue ribbon panels to identify causal factors of the unprecedented fire suppression costs and to suggest possible modifications to Federal fire management policy and strategies (USDOI, USDA 2004; USDAOIG 2006; GAO 2007, 2009). Agency and panel member reviews have found that Federal agencies with wildland fire responsibilities are not able to quantify the value of fire management activities in terms of reducing wildfire risk to social, economic, and ecological values. In response, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council's (WFLC) monitoring strategy asked: What are the trends and changes in fire hazard on Federal lands? Fire risk assessment requires an understanding of the likelihood of wildfire by intensity level and the potential beneficial and negative effects to valued resources from fire at different intensity levels. This monitoring study was conducted to meet three broad goals: (1) address the WFLC monitoring question regarding fire hazard on Federal lands; (2) develop information useful in prioritizing where fuels treatments and mitigation measures might be proposed to address significant fire hazard and risk; and (3) respond to critiques by Office of Management and Budget, General Accounting Office, and Congress that call for risk-based performance measures to document the effectiveness of fire management programs. The results of this monitoring study are useful for project planning to quantify the potential effects of proposed actions in terms of reducing risk to specific resources of concern. Developing decision support tools that utilize an appropriate risk management framework would address many of the issues identified within government oversight reports. Specifically, the Office of Inspector General (USDAOIG 2006) reviewed USDA Forest Service (FS) large fire costs and directed that the “FS must determine what types of data it needs to track in order to evaluate its cost effectiveness in relationship to its accomplishments. At a minimum, FS needs to quantify and track the number and type of isolated residences and other privately owned structures affected by the fire, the number and type of natural/cultural resources threatened, and the communities and critical infrastructure placed at risk.” The application of fire risk and fire hazard analyses has been demonstrated at the watershed and National Forest scales (Ager and others 2007). There, specific details regarding probabilities of fire and fire intensity are linked with specific resource benefit and loss functions (Ager and others 2007). Expanding these detailed analyses to regional and national scales to provide consistent risk assessment processes is complicated by the required data specificity and difficulty in developing loss-benefit functions for the range of human and ecological values. The research effort described in this report is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how both fire likelihood and intensity influence risk to social, economic, and ecological values at the national scale. The approach uses a quantitative risk framework that approximates expected losses and benefits from wildfire to highly valued resources (HVR). The information gathered in this study can be summarized in tabular and map formats at many different scales using administrative boundaries or delineations of HVR such as built structure density. The overall purpose of the analysis is to provide a base line of current conditions for monitoring trends in wildfire risk over time. Future analyses would be used to determine trends and changes in response to fuel reduction investments, climate shifts, and natural disturbance events (e.g., bark beetles) between the timeframes analyzed. Monitoring data could be used to address national and regional questions regarding changes in fire risk and hazard as a result of investment strategies or changing conditions.

Federal Wildland Fire Management
Federal Wildland Fire Management

Author: DIANE Publishing Company

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 1997-08

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13: 0788146793

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Managing wildland fire in the U.S. is a challenge increasing in complexity & magnitude. The goals & actions presented in this report encourage a proactive approach to wildland fire to reduce its threat. Five major topic areas on the subject are addressed: the role of wildland fire in resource management; the use of wildland fire; preparedness & suppression; wildland/urban interface protection; & coordinated program management. Also presented are the guiding principle that are fundamental to wildland fire management & recommendations for fire management policies. Photos, graphs, & references.

Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management
Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management

Author: Nicolas R. Dalezios

Publisher: IWA Publishing

Published: 2017-02-15

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 1780407122

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From the beginning of 21st century, there has been an awareness of risk in the environment along with a growing concern for the continuing potential damage caused by hazards. In order to ensure environmental sustainability, a better understanding of natural disasters and their impacts is essential. It has been recognized that a holistic and integrated approach to environmental hazards needs to be attempted using common methodologies, such as risk analysis, which involves risk management and risk assessment. Indeed, risk management means reducing the threats posed by known hazards, whereas at the same time accepting unmanageable risks and maximizing any related benefits. The risk management framework involves evaluating the importance of a risk, either quantitatively or qualitatively. Risk assessment comprises three steps, namely risk identification (data base, event monitoring, statistical inference), risk estimation (magnitude, frequency, economic costs) and risk evaluation (cost-benefit analysis). Nevertheless, the risk management framework also includes a fourth step, risk governance, i.e. the need for a feedback of all the risk assessment undertakings. There is currently a lack of such feedback which constitutes a serious deficiency in the reduction of environmental hazards. This book emphasises methodological approaches and procedures of the three main components in the study of environmental hazards, namely forecasting - nowcasting (before), monitoring (during) and assessment (after), based on geoinformatic technologies and data and simulation through examples and case studies. These are considered within the risk management framework and, in particular, within the three components of risk assessment, namely risk identification, risk estimation and risk evaluation. This approach is a contemporary and innovative procedure and constitutes current research in the field of environmental hazards. Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management covers hydrological hazards (floods, droughts, storms, hail, desertification), biophysical hazards (frost, heat waves, epidemics, forest fires), geological hazards (landslides, snow avalanches), tectonic hazards (earthquakes, volcanoes), and technological hazards. This book provides a text and a resource on environmental hazards for senior undergraduate students, graduate students on all courses related to environmental hazards and risk assessment and management. It is a valuable handbook for researchers and professionals of environmental science, environmental economics and management, and engineering. Editor: Nicolas R. Dalezios, University of Thessaly, Greece

Wildfire Risk and Hazard
Wildfire Risk and Hazard

Author: United States Department of Agriculture

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2015-01-02

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781505877281

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This report was designed to meet three broad goals: (1) evaluate wildfire hazard on Federal lands; (2) develop information useful in prioritizing where fuels treatments and mitigation measures might be proposed to address significant fire hazard and risk; and (3) develop risk-based performance measures to document the effectiveness of fire management programs. The research effort described in this report is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how fire likelihood and fire intensity influence risk to social, economic, and ecological values at the national scale. The approach uses a quantitative risk framework that approximates expected losses and benefits to highly valued resources from wildfire. Specifically, burn probabilities and intensities are estimated with a fire simulation model and are coupled with spatially explicit data on human and ecological values and fire-effects response functions to estimate the percent loss or benefit. This report describes the main components of the risk framework, including the burn probability models, highly valued resource data, and development of response functions, and illustrates the application to the State of Oregon. The State of Oregon was selected for prototype due to the wide range of variability in ecoregions represented in the state. All of the highly valued resource themes were represented in the mix of developed and natural resources present in the state.