Red flag warnings (RFWs) are issued to alert management and emergency response agencies of weather conditions that are conducive to extreme wildfire behavior. Issuance of RFWs also can encourage the public to exercise extreme caution with activities that could ignite a wildfire. Among the ignition causes associated with human activity, some generally reflect short-term behavioral decisions, whereas others are linked to infrastructure and habitual behaviors. From 2006–2020, approximately 8% of wildfires across the western United States were discovered on days with RFWs. We discuss our discovery that although the number of human-caused fires was higher on RFW days than on similar days without RFWs, the warnings appeared to disproportionately reduce the number of ignitions associated with short-term behavioral choices.

Presenter: John Abatzoglou, University of California, Merced

 

Understanding of the conditions that contribute to wildfire ignitions and impacts increases capacity to mitigate wildfire risks. The Fire Program Analysis Fire-Occurrence Database (FPA FOD) contains information on the location, jurisdiction, discovery time, cause, and final size of more than 2 million wildfires from 1992 through 2020. To each of those wildfire records, we added information on 267 physical, biological, social, and administrative attributes. As we will demonstrate, these publicly available data can be used to answer numerous questions about the circumstances associated with human- and lightning-caused wildfires. We will share examples of how the enhanced FPA FOD data can support descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive wildfire analytics, including the development of machine learning models.

Presenters:
Mojtaba Sadegh, Boise State University
Karen Short, USDA Forest Service

Wildfires reshape recreation access and experiences over the short and long term. A researcher shares emerging science that is revealing how people return to and perceive wildfire-affected landscapes, and a manager shares how they navigate decisions about supporting recreation in these contexts.

Presenters:
Dr. Eric White, Research Social Scientist, Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service;
Jon Meier, Assistant Field Manager, Wenatchee Field Office, Spokane District Bureau of Land Management