A methodology for determining operational priorities for prevention and suppression of wildland fires

2014 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Rodríguez y Silva ◽  
Juan Ramón Molina Martínez ◽  
Armando González-Cabán
Keyword(s):  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
Wildfire Management ◽  
Land Use Conversion ◽  
Management Personnel ◽  
Fundamental Information ◽  
Difficulty Index ◽  
A Site ◽  
Risk Potential

Traditional uses of the forest (timber, forage) have been giving way to other uses more in demand (recreation, ecosystem services). An observable consequence of this process of forest land use conversion is an increase in more difficult and extreme wildfires. Wildland forest management and protection program budgets are limited, and managers are requesting help in finding ways to objectively assign their limited protection resources based on the intrinsic environmental characteristics of a site and the site’s interrelationship with available firefighting resources and existing infrastructure. A Fire Suppression Priority Index, integrating information on both the potential fire behaviour risk (Potential Fire Behaviour Index) and the fire suppression difficulty (Suppression Difficulty Index), provides managers with fundamental information for strategic planning and development of tactical operations to protect the natural environment. Results in the Córdoba Province, Andalusia’s autonomous region, Spain, showed a statistically significant relationship between wildfire size and all three indices, demonstrating the utility of the methodology to identify and prioritise forest areas for strategic and tactical fire management operations. In addition, the methodology was tested and validated by trained and qualified wildfire management personnel in Chile and Israel, obtaining similar results as in Spain.

Modelling suppression difficulty: current and future applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 739 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Rodríguez y Silva ◽  
Christopher D. O'Connor ◽  
Matthew P. Thompson ◽  
Juan Ramón Molina Martínez ◽  
David E. Calkin
Keyword(s):  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
Support Tools ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Large Fires ◽  
Informational Basis ◽  
Fire Containment ◽  
Difficulty Index ◽  
Made In

Improving decision processes and the informational basis upon which decisions are made in pursuit of safer and more effective fire response have become key priorities of the fire research community. One area of emphasis is bridging the gap between fire researchers and managers through development of application-focused, operationally relevant decision support tools. In this paper we focus on a family of such tools designed to characterise the difficulty of suppression operations by weighing suppression challenges against suppression opportunities. These tools integrate potential fire behaviour, vegetation cover types, topography, road and trail networks, existing fuel breaks and fireline production potential to map the operational effort necessary for fire suppression. We include case studies from two large fires in the USA and Spain to demonstrate model updates and improvements intended to better capture extreme fire behaviour and present results demonstrating successful fire containment where suppression difficulty index (SDI) values were low and containment only after a moderation of fire weather where SDI values were high. A basic aim of this work is reducing the uncertainty and increasing the efficiency of suppression operations through assessment of landscape conditions and incorporation of expert knowledge into planning.

Corrigendum to: Modelling suppression difficulty: current and future applications

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 752
Author(s):  
Francisco Rodríguez y Silva ◽  
Christopher D. O'Connor ◽  
Matthew P. Thompson ◽  
Juan Ramón Molina Martínez ◽  
David E. Calkin
Keyword(s):  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
Support Tools ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Large Fires ◽  
Informational Basis ◽  
Fire Containment ◽  
Difficulty Index ◽  
Made In

Improving decision processes and the informational basis upon which decisions are made in pursuit of safer and more effective fire response have become key priorities of the fire research community. One area of emphasis is bridging the gap between fire researchers and managers through development of application-focused, operationally relevant decision support tools. In this paper we focus on a family of such tools designed to characterise the difficulty of suppression operations by weighing suppression challenges against suppression opportunities. These tools integrate potential fire behaviour, vegetation cover types, topography, road and trail networks, existing fuel breaks and fireline production potential to map the operational effort necessary for fire suppression. We include case studies from two large fires in the USA and Spain to demonstrate model updates and improvements intended to better capture extreme fire behaviour and present results demonstrating successful fire containment where suppression difficulty index (SDI) values were low and containment only after a moderation of fire weather where SDI values were high. A basic aim of this work is reducing the uncertainty and increasing the efficiency of suppression operations through assessment of landscape conditions and incorporation of expert knowledge into planning.

Messmate stringybark: bark ignitability and burning sustainability in relation to fragment dimensions, hazard score and time since fire

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (10) ◽  
pp. 866 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara E. Penman ◽  
Jane G. Cawson ◽  
Simon Murphy ◽  
Thomas J. Duff
Keyword(s):  
Physical Properties ◽  
Hazard Assessment ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Assessment Methods ◽  
Tree Size ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
Site Assessment ◽  
Field Surveys ◽  
Time Since Fire ◽  
Eastern Australia

Messmate stringybark is common in forests across south-eastern Australia. The bark of these trees is persistent and produces firebrands that contribute to house loss and the difficulty of fire suppression during wildfires. The trees typically survive fire with the amount of bark depleted. We compared two common methods to assess messmate bark fuels: (1) field-based hazard assessment, and (2) desk-based assessment using mapped time since fire. Our measurements included space-for-time field surveys and laboratory flammability tests. Although several physical properties of bark could be approximated from both assessment methods, some bark properties important to flammability were not captured. Ignitability was found to be dependent on the amount of char on bark fragments and could be predicted by the site assessment methods, whereas sustainability was dependent on bark fragment dimensions and could not be predicted by current methods. Bark fragment properties were found to be partially a function of tree size. Overall, these findings indicate that current bark assessment methods do not capture all the key bark properties that contribute to messmate bark’s flammability. Further research is warranted to improve bark assessment methods so they better reflect bark’s contribution to fire behaviour.

scholarly journals Forage responses to lime and nitrogen fertiliser on land converted from pine forest to dryland pasture in Canterbury

2007 ◽  
pp. 111-115
Author(s):  
L.M. Condron ◽  
D.J. Moot ◽  
A.J. Marshall ◽  
P.J. White ◽  
G.R. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Dry Matter ◽  
Woody Debris ◽  
Plantation Forestry ◽  
Nitrogen Fertiliser ◽  
Land Use Conversion ◽  
Lime Application ◽  
Fertiliser Application ◽  
A Site ◽  
Crop Sequence ◽  
N Status

A field trial was established to quantify the impacts of lime (0, 2.5, 5 and 10 t/ha) and nitrogen (N) fertiliser (0, 50, 100, 200 and 400 kg N/ha/year) addition on the dry matter (DM) production of a crop sequence of triticale followed by dryland pasture that was established on a site converted from long-established plantation forestry. Results are reported for the first 22 months. The application of lime up to 10 t/ha had no effect on triticale DM production. In the subsequent pasture, the percentage of clover increased from 15% without lime to 25-30% when 5-10 t/ha of lime was applied. Lime application only increased pasture DM production in the last 4 months. Annual pasture DM production increased significantly with increasing levels of N fertiliser application from 5.3 t DM/ha with no N applied to 7.5 t DM/ha at 400 kg N/ha. The observed response to N addition was mainly attributed to the low N status of the soil following conversion, which in turn was compounded by the ongoing decomposition of large quantities of mulched woody debris. Keywords: land-use conversion, plantation forestry, pasture, lime; nitrogen fertiliser

Assessing changes in soil carbon stocks after land use conversion from forest land to agricultural land in Japan

Geoderma ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 377 ◽  
pp. 114487
Author(s):  
Nobuhisa Koga ◽  
Seiji Shimoda ◽  
Yasuhito Shirato ◽  
Takashi Kusaba ◽  
Takeo Shima ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Soil Carbon ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Carbon Stocks ◽  
Forest Land ◽  
Land Use Conversion ◽  
Soil Carbon Stocks

Seed dynamics of two fire-dependent Geranium species in the boreal forest of southeastern Sweden

Botany ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 90 (9) ◽  
pp. 794-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotta Risberg ◽  
Anders Granström
Keyword(s):  
Seed Bank ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Mineral Soil ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Humus Layer ◽  
Repeated Sampling ◽  
Viable Seeds ◽  
A Site ◽  
Ballistic Dispersal ◽  
Seed Dynamics

We analyzed critical life-history variables for two rare fire-dependent annual Geranium species in southern Sweden, which are today threatened because of effective fire suppression. At recently burned sites with abundant recruitment, seedlings occurred only where the humus layer had been completely removed by smoldering fire. Emergence depths ranged 1–6 cm in the mineral soil. Soil sampling at four sites revealed that in unburned soil Geranium seeds were located only in the mineral soil. Surprisingly, residual seeds were still present where fire had burned away the humus layer. An experiment showed that both species deposit seeds relatively evenly within a radius of 5–6 m, through ballistic dispersal. Repeated sampling in the field over a 2-year period after seed dispersal at one site indicated a low rate of seed depletion, corroborated by an indoor incubation of seeds. Our results show that successful management of these species depend on deep-burning prescribed fire, which can only result after severe drought. On the other hand, the seed bank is extremely long-lived, as viable seeds were present at a site last burned 200 years ago. This well-protected seed bank will likely buffer against both ill-timed fires and occasional failure in the recruiting seedling populations.

scholarly journals Effects of wildfire suppression chemicals on people and the environment

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-137
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Retardant ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Fish Kill ◽  
Smoke Emission ◽  
Broad Array ◽  
Wildfire Suppression ◽  
A Site ◽  
Potential Human Health

Fire agencies worldwide apply millions of gallons of fire suppression chemicals on a broad array of ecosystems. These chemicals are considered to have minimal effects on the health of people who might be exposed to them. Only incidents of skin and eye irritation have been reported as a result of prolonged fire retardant and firefighting foam contact. Fire suppression chemicals have minor toxicological or ecological effects and, as a result, do not generally harm terrestrial ecosystems. Major impacts, suppression chemicals have on the environment, may be through the adverse effects on water quality, and subsequently to aquatic ecosystems. Retardants may encourage eutrophication and, in some cases, contribute to fish kill when applied on watersheds, or if accidentally applied directly to water bodies. Foams are generally more toxic than retardants to aquatic biota, but they are applied in much smaller quantities. Application of retardants increases the total amount of smoke and airborne particulate produced, but air quality implications are minimal since additional smoke emission by the retardant is insignificant compared to the major output by the wildfire. Recommendations are offered for mitigation of potential human health and environmental impacts from the use of fire suppression chemicals, nevertheless, risks must be assessed on a site-by-site basis.

Grassfires

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phil Cheney ◽  
Andrew Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Diffusion Flames ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Personal Safety ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Rate Of Spread ◽  
Turbulent Diffusion Flames ◽  
Wildfire Suppression ◽  
The Impact

Grassfires: Fuel, Weather and Fire Behaviour presents information from CSIRO on the behaviour and spread of fires in grasslands. This second edition follows over 10 years of research aimed at improving the understanding of the fundamental processes involved in the behaviour of grassfires. The book covers all aspects of fire behaviour and spread in the major types of grasses in Australia. It examines the factors that affect fire behaviour in continuous grassy fuels; fire in spinifex fuels; the effect of weather and topography on fire spread; wildfire suppression strategies; and how to reconstruct grassfire spread after the fact. The three meters designed by CSIRO for the prediction of fire danger and rate of spread of grassfires are explained and their use and limitations discussed. This new edition expands the discussion of historical fires including Aboriginal burning practices, the chemistry of combustion, and the structure of turbulent diffusion flames. It also examines fire safety, including the difficulty of predicting wind strength and direction and the impact of threshold wind speed on safe fire suppression. Myths and fallacies about fire behaviour are explained in relation to their impact on personal safety and survival. Grassfires will be a valuable reference for rural fire brigade members, landholders, fire authorities, researchers and those studying landscape and ecological processes.

scholarly journals A review of operations research methods applicable to wildfire management

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 189 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Minas ◽  
John W. Hearne ◽  
John W. Handmer
Keyword(s):  
Research Methods ◽  
Operations Research ◽  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Analytical Techniques ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Wildfire Management ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Conflicting Objectives ◽  
Decision Environment

Across the globe, wildfire-related destruction appears to be worsening despite increased fire suppression expenditure. At the same time, wildfire management is becoming increasingly complicated owing to factors such as an expanding wildland–urban interface, interagency resource sharing and the recognition of the beneficial effects of fire on ecosystems. Operations research is the use of analytical techniques such as mathematical modelling to analyse interactions between people, resources and the environment to aid decision-making in complex systems. Fire managers operate in a highly challenging decision environment characterised by complexity, multiple conflicting objectives and uncertainty. We assert that some of these difficulties can be resolved with the use of operations research methods. We present a range of operations research methods and discuss their applicability to wildfire management with illustrative examples drawn from the wildfire and disaster operations research literature.

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