This paper was presented at the conference ‘Integrating spatial technologies and ecological principles for a new age in fire management’, Boise, Idaho, USA, June 1999
‘The earth, born in fire, baptized by lightning since before life"s beginning, has been and is a fire planet.’
E.V. Komarek
Attitudes and policies concerning wildland fire, fire use, and fire management
have changed greatly since early European settlers arrived in North America.
Active suppression of wildfires accelerated early in the 20th Century, and
areas burned dropped dramatically. In recent years, burned areas and cost of
fires have begun to increase, in part due to fuel buildups resulting from fire
suppression. The importance of fire as an ecosystem process is also being
increasingly recognized. These factors are leading to changes in Federal
agency fire and fuels management policies, including increased emphasis on use
of prescribed fire and other treatments to reduce fuel loads and fire hazard.
Changing fire management strategies have highlighted the need for better
information and improved risk analysis techniques for setting regional and
national priorities, and for monitoring and evaluating the ecological,
economic, and social effects and tradeoffs of fuel management treatments and
wildfires. The US Department of Interior and USDA Forest Service began the
Joint Fire Science Program in 1998 to provide a sound scientific basis for
implementing and evaluating fuel management activities. Development of remote
sensing and GIS tools will play a key role in enabling land managers to
evaluate hazards, monitor changes, and reduce risks to the environment and the
public from wildland fires.
