Large areas of federal lands in the western states are currently at high risk of severe wildfire and have many insect and disease problems, indicating a significant decline in forest health and resilience.
Where a legacy of aggressive wildland fire suppression has left forests in need of fuel reduction, allowing wildland fire to burn may provide fuel treatment benefits, thereby reducing suppression costs from subsequent fires. The least-cost-plus-net-value-change model of wildland fire economics includes benefits of wildfire in a framework for evaluating suppression options.
We present a technique for modelling conditional burn probability patterns in two dimensions for large wildland fires. The intended use for the model is strategic program planning when information about future fire weather and event durations is unavailable and estimates of the average probabilistic shape and extent of large fires on a landscape are needed.
Due to the composition and dispersion of wildland fire smoke, particulate matter is the principal pollutant of public health concern. Effects will vary based on the source of smoke but predominantly impact local communities in the same way. Studies of the effects of PM from non-fire sources show that long-term exposure can reduce lung function and cause the development of chronic bronchitis.
This proceedings contains articles, posters, and abstracts of presentations from the third Human Dimensions of Wildland Fire Conference held 17-19 April 2012 in Seattle Washington. The conference covered the social issues at the root of wildland fire management’s most serious challenges.
Prescribed burning for fuel reduction is a major strategy for reducing the risk from unplanned fire. Although there are theoretical studies suggesting that prescribed fire has a strong negative influence on the subsequent area of unplanned fire (so-called leverage), many empirical studies find a more modest influence.