Reduce Wildfire Risk Research Articles

Protect Thy Neighbor: Investigating the Spatial Externalities of Community Wildfire Hazard Mitigation

Abstract Climate change, increased wildland fuels, and residential development patterns in fire-prone areas all combine to make wildfire risk mitigation an important public policy issue. One approach to wildfire risk mitigation is to encourage homeowners to use fire-resistant building materials and to create defensible spaces around their homes. We develop a theoretical model of interdependent household wildfire risk and mathematically introduce two new concepts of the benefits accruing from hazard mitigation: direct and spillover (indirect) damage averted. We explore how firewise communities can best spend and position mitigation resources to maximize the sum of direct and spillover damage averted. Simulating wildfire behavior within a fire-prone community, our results indicate that homeowners' wildfire risk reduction actions can have significant, positive spillover effects on the wildfire risk of neighboring houses. In such cases, individual homeowners may engage in inefficient levels of wildfire risk mitigation when viewed from the community perspective. We use a simulation approach to demonstrate that wildfire risk reduction is most effective when concentrated in houses at the interface of communities and wildlands.

Effects of Mechanized Thinning and Prescription Fire on Stand Structure, Live Crown, and Mortality in Jeffrey Pine

ABSTRACT Forest thinning, using cut-to-length and whole-tree harvesting systems with subsequent underburning were assessed for their influence on stand structure, health, and fire resilience in uneven-aged Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi Grev. & Balf). Stand attributes, derived from measuring trees ≥ 10.2 cm diameter at breast height (DBH), were collected from permanent plots. Trees were divided into three size classes that generally corresponded to dominant/codominant, intermediate, and suppressed crown classes. Comparisons of post- to pre-burning mortality revealed significant thinning and fire main treatment effects as well as significant interaction between these two treatments in the two larger size classes. Mortality increased by 250% in the intermediate crown class within the burned stand portion of the whole-tree treatment, whereas among dominant/codominant trees mortality rose by 160% in the burned cut-to-length treatment combination. Pre- to post-burning shifts in live crown, expressed as a percentage of total tree height, were significantly influenced by both thinning and fire main treatments in the two larger size classes, while the interaction of these treatments was also significant among the largest trees. Within both of these size classes, decreases in live crown percentage were greatest in the burned portion of the unthinned treatment, where intermediate crown class trees lost over 20% of their crowns, while reductions in dominant/codominant trees averaged nearly 25%. The second highest losses for both size classes occurred within the burned cut-to-length treatment. In the smallest trees, mortality rose sharply and live crown decreased substantially after burning in both thinning treatments and in the unthinned control. Within the two larger size classes, preburn live crown size was negatively correlated with changes in crown size subsequent to underburning while DBH was negatively correlated with postburning changes in mortality, but only in intermediate crown class trees. These results present land managers with outcomes of differing management practices presently being evaluated for their potential to enhance forest health and reduce wildfire risk in the Sierra Nevada and similar dry forest regions.

Design of forest management planning DSS for wildfire risk reduction

Forest management planning is generally a complicated task. The amount of data, information and knowledge involved in the management process is often overwhelming. Decision support systems can help forest managers make well documented decisions concerning forest management planning. These systems include a wide variety of components, depending on the management goals of the forested land. Although an increased growth of decision support systems in specific domains of forest management planning exists, there is no special design model for the deployment of forest management planning. To this direction, this paper has the following objectives: Firstly, to propose a conceptual design model for developing goal-driven forest management planning decision support systems. Secondly, to apply the design model for a particular case of these systems, the wildfire risk reduction decision support systems. Thirdly, to present the deployment of a wildfire risk reduction decision support system as well as its results for a specific forest area.

Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface: Reducing Wildfire Risk While Achieving Other Landscaping Goals

Circular 1478, an 8-page illustrated publication by Cotton K. Randall, L. Annie Hermansen-Báez, and Glenn Acomb, gives a brief overview of several different landscaping goals, including wildfire risk reduction (Firewise), wildlife habitat creation or enhancement, water conservation, and energy conservation. It introduces the main principles and compares each to firewise landscaping. It also briefly discusses examples of programs and guidelines that incorporate multiple goals. Includes additional resources and a table showing compatibilities of several landscaping goals and firewise landscaping principles. Published by the UF School of Forest Resources and Conservation, October 2006.

Insights Into Wildfire Mitigation Decisions Among Wildland–Urban Interface Residents

In-depth interviews conducted with homeowners in five Colorado wildland–urban interface communities reveal that the homeowners face difficult decisions regarding the reduction of wildfire risk. Rather than seeing risk reduction as straightforward, homeowners appear to be involved in a complex decision-making process with social considerations. The interviews shed light on the social context in which homeowners make wildfire mitigation decisions, participants' perceptions of how the biophysical landscape near their residences affects mitigation, and participants' perceptions of wildfire mitigation options.

The Place of Fire

As the wildland-urban interface (WUI) grows in size and density and increasing levels of funding are being directed toward education and outreach programs targeting residents in these communities, it is becoming increasingly important to investigate residents’ responses to wildfire risk. This is particularly true because participation of WUI residents in reducing fire risk constitutes an important piece in the management of wildland fire problem. Few studies have examined how residents living in fire-prone areas feel about and adapt to increasing levels of wildfire risk. In this paper, I investigate “place” as a salient theme shaping the decision-making process around the implementation of wildfire risk reduction measures on private property. Insight into this process will be valuable to fire and forest managers who are increasingly charged with the responsibility of galvanizing WUI residents and communities to take part in wildfire risk reduction.

A multi-criteria evaluation of organic amendments used to transform an unproductive shrubland into a Mediterranean dehesa

Environmental and health problems associated with the use of digested sewage sludge hinder its application and encourage the introduction of additional treatments such as composting and thermal drying. The aim of this paper is to assess the possibility of using three different types of sewage sludge (digested, composted and thermally dried) to improve soil fertility and enhance the transformation of an unproductive shrub land into a Mediterranean dehesa for grazing purposes and also to reduce wildfire risk. In total, 10 t ha −1 of dry matter of three types of sewage sludge were spread on the soil surface of 4×5 m field plots, and then seeded with a mixture of grasses. Effects on soil fertility and plant growth were monitored over 2 years. The results show that all three types of sludge application had a significant effect on vegetation cover, herbaceous biomass (2767.7±716.1 and 1735.0±299.7 kg ha −1 for digested sludge amended and control plots, respectively) and tree growth (0.41±0.108 cm year −1 on amended trees, 14.6% more than control trees). This study proposes the use of multi-criteria analysis to identify the most suitable fertilization alternatives and to assist in the decision-making process of sludge recycling. Because of the high degree of uncertainty and conflicting objectives associated with these decisions, multi-criteria evaluation tools make a valuable contribution to decision-making processes concerning sewage sludge applications. According to multi-criteria results, the composted sludge alternative is the most suitable. This is because all the objectives are achieved: an improvement in the properties and functions of the soil with a positive vegetation response as well as minimal economic cost and risk of toxicity.

Goals, obstacles and effective strategies of wildfire mitigation programs in the Wildland–Urban Interface

Abstract The dramatic expansion into the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) places property, natural assets, and human life at risk from wildfire destruction. The U.S. National Fire Plan encourages communities to implement laws and outreach programs for pre-fire planning to mitigate the risk to area residents. Starting in 2003, we surveyed the administrators of regulatory and voluntary wildfire risk reduction programs in 25 U.S. states. These state and local programs are listed on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service's National Wildfire Programs Database website, www.wildfireprograms.usda.gov , and are concerned with vegetation management on private lands. Analyses of the administrators' responses suggest several new insights about these risk mitigation efforts, including 1) how they are organized, 2) what they are trying to accomplish, 3) what are the obstacles, and 4) how well they may be working. In our study we describe the goals and objectives of these programs as well as the obstacles confronting managers. Further, we explore trends in these programs including participation in collaborative planning and use of program evaluation to measure progress toward goals. Additionally, we explore the program managers' perceptions of what are their most effective programs for creating defensible space.

Multi-attribute evaluation of landscape-level fuel management to reduce wildfire risk

This paper provides an example of the practical application of multi-attribute trade-off analysis (MATA) to wildfire management. The MATA approach supports more informed decision-making because it exposes important trade-offs among competing management objectives (requiring value-based choices), helps guide and structure necessary technical judgements, explicitly represents uncertainty (i.e., not just expected outcomes but risk profiles around outcomes) and addresses temporal trade-offs. MATA promotes critical thinking about what analysis is required for decision-making. A MATA approach can be applied for all types of forest and fire management decisions. In this paper, we provide a sample application of MATA to an evaluation of landscape-level fuel treatments for managing wildfire risk. The study area is located in southeastern British Columbia, Canada where historical fire suppression policies and expanding development in wildland urban interface areas have resulted in an increase in both the probability and the consequences of stand replacement fires. We specify management objectives and develop measurable attributes for fire management costs, timber supply, property damage, landscape-level biodiversity, local air quality and climate change. We then simulate the effects on these attributes of four alternative fuel management strategies that include combinations of mechanical treatments and prescribed burning over a 100-year period. The evaluation illustrates the key features of MATA while highlighting the benefits and challenges of implementing the approach.

The Look of the Land: Homeowner Landscape Management and Wildfire Preparedness in Minnesota and Florida

ABSTRACT Many forest and fire agencies seek to influence homeowners to manage vegetation near their home to reduce wildfire risk. To be successful managers need to understand the range of existing landscape typologies based on a defensible space evaluation, homeowners' activities for wildfire preparedness, and what they value in landscape attributes. Interviews and visits with 80 homeowners at risk of wildfire in the wildland–urban interface of northern Minnesota and central Florida reveal that respondents managed for “naturalness,” valuing their privacy, wildlife, aesthetics, and recreation. Five landscape typologies in Minnesota and four in Florida ranged from wide-open spaces to homes nestled in the deep woods. The valuing of naturalness was most closely linked to the tendency for a deep woods landscape. Respondents noted that how they manage for what they value as well as the ecosystem they live in partially explained their behavior in creating defensible space around their homes.

Liability, Incentives, and Prescribed Fire for Ecosystem Management

Prescribed fire is widely viewed as a useful but risky ecosystem management tool, and liability is a crucial issue for prescribed burning on private and public land. Basic liability rules motivate landowners to reduce risk when making choices about the use of fire. Liability therefore influences land use through incentives, and so has important consequences for the larger ecological landscape. Strict liability rules may lead to too little prescribed fire use, while negligence rules may, under certain circumstances, lead to too much. Although prescribed fire provides broad public benefits, such as reduction of wildfire risk or enhanced ecosystem health, the application of liability rules by courts often discourages its use as a vegetation management option. Various approaches exist for improving the laws and regulations surrounding prescribed fire.

Liability, incentives, and prescribed fire for ecosystem management

Prescribed fire is widely viewed as a useful but risky ecosystem management tool, and liability is a crucial issue for prescribed burning on private and public land. Basic liability rules motivate landowners to reduce risk when making choices about the use of fire. Liability therefore influences land use through incentives, and so has important consequences for the larger ecological landscape. Strict liability rules may lead to too little prescribed fire use, while negligence rules may, under certain circumstances, lead to too much. Although prescribed fire provides broad public benefits, such as reduction of wildfire risk or enhanced ecosystem health, the application of liability rules by courts often discourages its use as a vegetation management option. Various approaches exist for improving the laws and regulations surrounding prescribed fire.

Prescribed burning and productivity in southern pine forests: a review

Fire is an ancient tool but still widely used in the management of southern pine forests. Fire is a relatively inexpensive tool and has a number of beneficial uses such as removing logging debris, reducing wildfire risk, increasing the abundance of certain understory species, and maintaining or restoring certain ecological conditions. However, recent studies demonstrate that fire can play a significant role in regulating the productivity of certain ecosystems. Burning releases large quantities of carbon and essential nutrients to the atmosphere as gases and particulates. The adverse impact of these releases on air quality is widely recognized, but the potential impact of nutrient losses and changes in soil productivity have received less attention from southern pine managers. The effect of fire on nitrogen (N) pools is especially significant since N availability is one of the most common limiting factors in forest productivity. The amount of N lost during the burning of forest fuels is directly related to fuel consumption and ranges from 3 to 6 kg N Mg −1 of fuel consumed. The combined losses of N and other elements through harvesting and burning appear to exceed considerably the rate of replacement by natural processes, and may necessitate the regular application of fertilizer to maintain the nutrient capital of the site. Burning results in a short-term increase in soil available N and other nutrients immediately after burning, which stimulates the growth of understory vegetation; a desirable effect in some settings but also a source of competition for newly planted pine seedlings. A more thorough understanding of the biogeochemical effects of prescribed fire of varying frequencies and severities is needed to make optimum use of this tool in sustainable forest management.

Human Health Impacts of Forest Fires in the Southern United States: A Literature Review

Forestry management practices can shape patterns of health, illness, and disease. A primary goal for owners of federal, state, and private forests is to craft ecosystem management plans that simultaneously optimize forest health and human health. Fire­­a major forest management issue in the United States­­complicates these goals. Wildfires are natural phenomena with unpredictable effects. Controlled fires, on the other hand, are often prescribed to reduce biomass fuels, reduce wildfire risks, and protect resource values. While fires can enhance the health of fire-adapted ecosystems, research on the human health impacts of smoke from forest fires is somewhat equivocal. This article synthesizes 30 years of research on the human health impacts of forest fires. It summarizes our current state of knowledge about the following: biophysical effects of environmental contamination resulting from forest fires; psychosocial impacts of forest fires; occupational exposure issues among fire crew; visibility impairment from forest fire smoke; and health care measures that address the impacts of forest fires. This article provides information that may be useful for land managers, researchers, policy makers, health care workers, and the general public in decision-making about forest management practices. It also recommends that future research use integrative health models and adopt ethnographic research methods.

Factors influencing fire behaviour in shrublands of different stand ages and the implications for using prescribed burning to reduce wildfire risk

Fire behaviour under experimental conditions is described in nine Mediterranean gorse shrublands ranging from 3–12 years of age with different fuel loads. Significant differences in the fire-line intensity, fuel load and rate of fire spread have been found to be related to the stage of development of the communities. Fire spread is correlated with fuel moisture using multiple regression techniques. Differences in fuel moisture between mature and young communities under moderate weather conditions have been found. The lower moisture content identified in the mature shrubland is due both to the decreasing moisture content of senescent shrubland in some species, mainly in live fractions of Ulex parviflorus Pourr. fuel, and to a substantial increase in dead fuel fractions with low percentages of moisture content. The result is that the older the shrubland is, the greater will be the decrease in the total moisture content of the vegetation. In these moderate weather conditions, the fire intensity of the mature community was as high as the maximum intensity recommended for prescribed fires. This fact seems to indicate that, even under moderate conditions, prescribed burning as an alternative management tool in the mature shrubland must always take into account fuel control; on the other hand, this technique could be applied more easily when the shrubland is at an intermediate growth stage (4–5 years of age). Therefore, more frequent low-intensity prescribed fires are indicated to abate the risk of catastrophic fire.

Fire ecology and Aboriginal land management in central Arnhem Land, northern Australia: a tradition of ecosystem management

AimTo compare fire behaviour and fire management practice at a site managed continuously by traditional Aboriginal owners with other sites in tropical northern Australia, including the nearby Kakadu National Park, and relate those observations to indicators of landscape condition.LocationDukaladjarranj, a clan estate in north‐central Arnhem Land, in the seasonal tropics of northern Australia. The site abuts a vast sandstone plateau that is an internationally recognized centre of plant and animal biodiversity.MethodsEcological assessments included: (1) mapping of the resource base of the estate from both traditional and ecological perspectives; (2) aerial survey of the extent of burning, distribution of the fire‐sensitive native pine Callitris intratropica, rock habitats, and a range of macropod and other fauna resources; (3) fauna inventory; (4) detailed ecological assessment of the status of fire‐sensitive vegetation; and (5) empirical assessment of the intensities of experimental fires. Ethnographic information concerning traditional fire management practice was documented in interviews with senior custodians.ResultsExperimental fires lit during the study were of low intensity compared with late dry season fires reported elsewhere, despite weather conditions favouring rapid combustion. In contrast to other parts of the savanna, fuel loads comprised mostly leaf litter and little grass. We found that (i) a large proportion of the estate had been burned during the year of the study (ii) burned sites attracted important animal food resources such as large macropods (iii) important plant foods remained abundant (iv) well represented in the landscape were fire sensitive vegetation types (e.g. Callitris intratropica Baker & Smith woodlands) and slow growing sandstone ‘heath’ typically dominated by myrtaceaous and proteaceous shrubs (v) diversity of vertebrate fauna was high, including rare or range‐restricted species (vi) exotic plants were all but absent. Traditional practice includes regular, smaller fires, lit throughout the year, and cooperation with neighbouring clans in planning and implementing burning regimes.Main conclusionsWe attribute the ecological integrity of the site to continued human occupation and maintenance of traditional fire management practice, which suppresses otherwise abundant annual grasses (Sorghum spp.) and limits accumulation of fuels in perennial grasses (Triodia spp.) or other litter. Suppression of fuels and coordination of fire use combine to greatly reduce wildfire risk and to produce and maintain diverse habitats. Aboriginal people derive clear economic benefits from this style of management, as evidenced by abundant and diverse animal and plant foods. However, the motives for the Aboriginal management system are complex and include the fulfillment of social and religious needs, a factor that remains important to Aboriginal people despite the rapid and ongoing transformation of their traditional lifestyles. The implication of this study is that the maintenance of the biodiversity of the Arnhem Land plateau requires intensive, skilled management that can be best achieved by developing co‐operative programmes with local indigenous communities.

A prescription for controlling the air pollution resulting from the use of prescribed biomass fire: clouds

Forestry, conservation, wildfire risk reduction, and agricultural uses of planned or prescribed fires as a tool for meeting the needs of wildland managers are increasingly in collision at the air pollution control and climate change cross-roads. The inevitable conflict resulting from the disparate goals of users has long been the subject of a combination of both systems and ecologically integrated analysis attempting to minimize the environmental impact and maximize the economic and societal benefits of this land management technique. We offer here experimental evidence for the viability of implementing a pollution control option that could substantially reduce the particulate emissions from prescribed fires in biomass and explore some of the logical implications of these concepts. In nature, clouds and precipitation are the principal mechanisms by which the atmosphere is cleansed of particulate pollution, aerosols and smokes. We propose here, for consideration, using clouds as a part of the prescription for scheduling biomass fires. Since in most areas biomass fire is already carried out within a detailed prescriptive plan which includes meteorological forecasts, the addition of additional meteorological scheduling constraints should be acceptable to most users providing that the benefits are correspondingly large. Reducing particulate smoke emissions in all size classes by at least 50% seems practicable.

Commentary: senior-serve: an ethical case study

A small but growing number of watershed investment programs in the western United States focus on wildfire risk reduction to municipal water supplies. This paper used return on investment (ROI) analysis to quantify how the amounts and placement of fuel treatment interventions would reduce sediment loading to the Strontia Springs Reservoir in the Upper South Platte River watershed southwest of Denver, Colorado following an extreme fire event. We simulated various extents of fuel mitigation activities under two placement strategies: (a) a strategic treatment prioritization map and (b) accessibility. Potential fire behavior was modeled under each extent and scenario to determine the impact on fire severity, and this was used to estimate expected change in post-fire erosion due to treatments. We found a positive ROI after large storm events when fire mitigation treatments were placed in priority areas with diminishing marginal returns after treating >50–80% of the forested area. While our ROI results should not be used prescriptively they do show that, conditional on severe fire occurrence and precipitation, investments in the Upper South Platte could feasibly lead to positive financial returns based on the reduced costs of dredging sediment from the reservoir. While our analysis showed positive ROI focusing only on post-fire erosion mitigation, it is important to consider multiple benefits in future ROI calculations and increase monitoring and evaluation of these benefits of wildfire fuel reduction investments for different site conditions and climates.

Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface: Selecting and Maintaining Firewise Plants for Landscaping

This extension publication outlines plant characteristics that have the greatest effect on flammability, as discussed at three levels: plant parts (primarily leaves), whole plants, and groups of plants. Selecting firewise plants can reduce wildfire risk, but during drought conditions, most plants will burn if exposed to enough heat, regardless of their flammability. This document is Circular 1445, one of the series Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface of the School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First published: March 2004. 
 Circular 1445/FR147: Fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface: Selecting and Maintaining Firewise Plants for Landscaping (ufl.edu)