A fire place for climate: The role and use of climate information in fire management and policy

Abstract

Since 1910, the U.S. Forest Service has developed and transformed policy for wildland fire suppression and management of federal lands utilizing prescribed fire and fire use. The fire management issues of today have evolved from 100 years of influence from three shaping factors fire management practices, land use activities and climate. All three have been on parallel but related paths. Climate has a pronounced role in fuel dynamics, fire behavior, ecosystem health and desired management outcomes. However, the role that climate plays directly in fuels and treatments is poorly understood, and management of fuels would likely benefit from a better understanding of climate impacts on vegetation and treatment schedules. Fuel loading fluctuates at multiple temporal scales related to climate, but few attempts have been made to quantify these relationships. Additionally, the timing of optimal treatment periods (such as prescribed burning “windows” for both fire behavior and air quality) depends on climatology to adequately meet treatment objectives. The understanding of climate variability and change on fire and fuels may necessitate a paradigm shift in land management or at least in the assumptions inherent in management plans. In this presentation we argue that the benefits of climate information can be realized in both operational and constitutive or policy formulation settings. We review national and regional fire policy plans and identify the potential and practical role for climate information in improving the outcomes identified within these strategies. More precisely we document (1) Policy changes: What was learned in the last ten years about prevention, suppression and the role of climate (and are resources and practices commensurate with these lessons); (2) Climate-sensitive factors which drive up firefighting (suppression and mitigation) costs; (3) Policies and programs that might experience increased fire risks and severity if climate is not taken into account especially within present fire preparedness plans; (4) Reforms that have been proposed. Lessons are drawn from recent major fires and fire hotspots in the western United States, but these have international applicability. We show that a risk assessment approach, which incorporates cross-scale climatic information including forecasts, can improve policy formulation and implementation in several areas. For many global fire management programs, incorporating climate into the decisionmaking process may help to facilitate a shift in problem framing from emergency response to pro-active risk assessment and management.