Abstract
The Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) is a web-based software and data integration framework that organizes fire and fuels software applications into a single online application. IFTDSS is designed to make fuels treatment planning and analysis more efficient and effective. In IFTDSS, users can simulate fire behavior and fire effects using the scientific algorithms and processes found in desktop applications including FlamMap, Behave, FOFEM, and Consume. Strategic-level goals of IF-TDSS are to This paper discusses the tools and processes IFTDSS offers to fire, fuels, and resource managers responsible for planning fuels treatment within a framework of hazard analysis and risk assessment. We outline how fire and fuels treatment planners can use IFTDSS to identify areas of high hazard and risk, evaluate the potential burning risk and hazard level for valued resources (values at risk) within the area of interest, and simulate the effectiveness of fuels treatments in reducing the potential harm to values at risk.
Highlights
Why Create a Fuels Treatment Decision Support System?From the national to the local level, there is a clear mandate to reduce hazardous fuel loadings within the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii
We focused on what Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) offers to the target users: fire, fuels, and resource managers tasked with planning fuels treatment within a hazard and risk assessment framework
By providing direct access to the data and models commonly used for fire management planning in a single location, IFTDSS reduces planning time from weeks or months to days, depending on the scope of the project; users have made comments during workshops such as, “I just did in 15 minutes what used to take me days to accomplish.”
Summary
From the national to the local level, there is a clear mandate to reduce hazardous fuel loadings within the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii This mandate is primarily driven by the dramatic increase in the number of large wildfires throughout the western United States during recent decades (Westerling et al 2006, Dennison et al 2014). These more frequent large fires may be more severe due to increases in fuel loadings and hotter, drier climates (Miller et al 2009; van Mantgem et al 2013). Land managers cannot change topography or control weather, but they can influence the quantity, continuity, and compactness of fuels available to burn by using mechanical or prescribed burning techniques to treat those fuels (Reinhardt et al 2008)
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