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Project ID: 06-4-1-04

Year: 2006

Date Started: 07/07/2006

Date Completed: 06/18/2010

Title: Evaluating Approaches to Mapping Burn Probabilities for Quantitive Wildland Fire Risk Analysis Framework

Project Proposal Abstract: This project builds on and extends the completed work from JFSP project #01-1-1-05 to compare and evaluate burn probability (BP) models, and incorporate these into a risk analysis framework. During that JFSP project, the GIS model BurnPro was developed and used to estimate spatially explicit probabilities of wildland fire for large fire-prone areas. BurnPro represents a novel approach that simulates fires as a function of the physical factors that drive their spread: fuels, weather, and topography. It outputs a quantitative estimate of BP, which is necessary for strategic fire and fuels management planning activities. As such, BurnPro received considerable interest from fire planners and managers, but its developers recognized that further development in BP modeling is needed, and that BurnPro needs to be thoroughly evaluated and tested before it can be used operationally for risk analysis. Once this is achieved, using BP in conjunction with resource and financial valuation models would provide land managers with a valuable and much needed framework for measuring risk (burn probability ? loss/gain, Finney 2005). This project is a collaboration that brings together experts from Canada and the US who have been studying BP modeling and wildland fire risk analysis to accomplish the following: 1. Compare BurnPro with at least two other BP modeling approaches and evaluate the accuracy, practicality and effectiveness of each for mapping burn probability in different fire regimes. 2. Assess the spatial factors that affect and contribute to BP at the landscape scale to better understand why some landscapes are inherently more likely to experience fires and how landscape modifications resulting from fuels modifications (e.g., fuel treatments, prescribed fire) and fire management activities (e.g., fire suppression, wildland fire use) can affect BP. 3. Incorporate an improved BP modeling capability into an operational framework for assessing wildland fire risk using the existing ArcFuels software (ongoing JFSP #03-4-1-04, Ager 2005) and demonstrate this application in at least two study sites. ArcFuels will be modified to run one or more of the BP models and combine their outputs with resource value data to provide an automated method for calculating risk. We will use our comparative evaluations of BP models (Objective 1) and our study of the landscape influences on BP (Objective 2) to identify a BP modeling approach that meets the analytical needs of a typical district fuels manager and integrate that approach into a standardized framework for wildland fire risk analysis using the existing ArcFuels software (Objective 3). Prior to finalizing the framework, we will host a workshop of specialists, planners, and researchers to ensure its widespread applicability and utility. We will substantially advance the methods used to model BP and ensure that these measures are compatible with wildland fire risk analysis models. Land managers will benefit from this project by having a more robust measure of the expected ecological or financial losses and gains resulting from wildland fire upon which to base decisions.

Principal Investigator: Carol L. Miller

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: RMRS-Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Alan A. Ager	Forest Service	Umatilla National Forest
Co-Principal Investigator	Mark A. Finney	Forest Service	RMRS-Fire Sciences Lab-Missoula
Federal Cooperator	Carol L. Miller	Forest Service	RMRS-Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute

Project Locations

Consortium

Alaska

Appalachian

California

Great Basin

Great Plains

Lake States

Oak Woodlands

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Pacific

South

Southern Rockies

Southwest

Tallgrass

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

	ID	Type	Title
	8741	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Measuring the effect of fuel treatments on forest carbon using landscape risk analysis. Natural Hazards and Earth Systems Sciences.
	9398	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Contributions of Ignitions, Fuels, and Weather to the Spatial Patterns of Burn Probability of a Boreal Landscape. 2011. Ecosystems.
	8740	Refereed Publication	Journal article: A Comparison of Landscape Fuel Treatment Strategies to Mitigate Wildland Fire Risk in the Urban Interface and Preserve Old Forest Structure. Forest Ecology and Management.
	8738	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Multi-scale evaluation of the environmental controls on burn probability in a southern Sierra Nevada landscape. 2011. IJWF.
	8737	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Scale-dependent controls on the area burned in the boreal forest of Canada, 1980-2005. Ecological Applications.
	9707	Refereed Publication	Parks, S. A. et al. 2012. Spatial bottom-up controls on fire likelihood vary across western North America. Ecosphere.
	7790	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Use of Artificial Landscapes to Isolate Controls on Burn Probability. Landscape Ecology.
	8734	Refereed Publication	Journal article: Measuring the effect of fuel treatments on forest carbon using landscape risk analysis. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
	7791	NonRefereed Publication	Evaluating Spatially-Explicit Burn Probabilities for Strategic Fire Management Planning
	8736	NonRefereed Publication	Application of Wildfire Simulation Models for Risk Analysis
	8729	Poster	Factors Controlling Burn Probability in Four Landscapes of Western North America
	7274	Poster	Evaluating Approaches to Mapping Burn Probability: Phase I
	8739	Poster	Scale-Dependent Factors Controlling Burn Probability in the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, California
	7788	Poster	The Factors Controlling Burn Probability in a Large Boreal Landscape
	7787	Poster	The Factors Controlling Burn Probability In a Large Boreal Landscape

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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