CSIRO Publishing blank image blank image blank image blank imageBooksblank image blank image blank image blank imageJournalsblank image blank image blank image blank imageAbout Usblank image blank image blank image blank imageShopping Cartblank image blank image blank image You are here: Journals > International Journal of Wildland Fire   
International Journal of Wildland Fire
http://www.iawfonline.org/
  Published on behalf of the International Association of Wildland Fire
 
blank image Search
 
blank image blank image
blank image
 
  Advanced Search
   

Journal Home
About the Journal
Editorial Board
Contacts
Content
Online Early
Current Issue
Just Accepted
All Issues
Special Issues
Sample Issue
20-Year Author Index
For Authors
General Information
Notice to Authors
Submit Article
Open Access
For Referees
Referee Guidelines
Review Article
For Subscribers
Subscription Prices
Customer Service
Print Publication Dates

blue arrow e-Alerts
blank image
Subscribe to our Email Alert or RSS feeds for the latest journal papers.

red arrow Connect with us
blank image
facebook   youtube

 

Open Access Article << Previous     |     Next >>   Contents Vol 21(4)

Estimation of wildfire size and risk changes due to fuels treatments

M. A. Cochrane A F, C. J. Moran A, M. C. Wimberly A, A. D. Baer A, M. A. Finney B, K. L. Beckendorf C, J. Eidenshink D and Z. Zhu E

A Geographic Information Science, Center of Excellence, South Dakota State University, Brookings, South Dakota 57007, USA.
B USDA Forest Service, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, PO Box 8089, Missoula, MT 59808, USA.
C Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), Research and Technology Solutions, US Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS), 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA.
D US Geological Survey, Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS), 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA.
E US Geological Survey, 12708 Roark Court, Reston, Reston, VA 20192, USA.
F Corresponding author. Email: mark.cochrane@sdstate.edu

International Journal of Wildland Fire 21(4) 357-367 http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF11079
Submitted: 14 June 2011  Accepted: 26 October 2011   Published: 9 March 2012
 
 Full Text
 PDF (899 KB)
 Export Citation
 Print
  
Abstract

Human land use practices, altered climates, and shifting forest and fire management policies have increased the frequency of large wildfires several-fold. Mitigation of potential fire behaviour and fire severity have increasingly been attempted through pre-fire alteration of wildland fuels using mechanical treatments and prescribed fires. Despite annual treatment of more than a million hectares of land, quantitative assessments of the effectiveness of existing fuel treatments at reducing the size of actual wildfires or how they might alter the risk of burning across landscapes are currently lacking. Here, we present a method for estimating spatial probabilities of burning as a function of extant fuels treatments for any wildland fire-affected landscape. We examined the landscape effects of more than 72 000 ha of wildland fuel treatments involved in 14 large wildfires that burned 314 000 ha of forests in nine US states between 2002 and 2010. Fuels treatments altered the probability of fire occurrence both positively and negatively across landscapes, effectively redistributing fire risk by changing surface fire spread rates and reducing the likelihood of crowning behaviour. Trade offs are created between formation of large areas with low probabilities of increased burning and smaller, well-defined regions with reduced fire risk.

Additional keywords: FARSITE, fire behaviour, fire extent, fire management, fire modelling, fire risk, fire spread.


References

Agee JK, Skinner CN (2005) Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments. Forest Ecology and Management 211, 83–96.
| CrossRef |

Ager AA, Vaillant NM, Finney MA (2010) A comparison of landscape fuel treatment strategies to mitigate wildland fire risk in the urban interface and preserve old forest structure. Forest Ecology and Management 259, 1556–1570.
| CrossRef |

Albini FA (1979) Spot fire distance from burning trees: a predictive model. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, General Technical Report INT-56. (Ogden, UT)

Bessie WC, Johnson EA (1995) The relative importance of fuels and weather on fire behavior in subalpine forests. Ecology 76, 747–762.
| CrossRef |

Bradshaw LS, McCormick E (2000) FireFamilyPlus user’s guide, version 2.0. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-67WWW. (Ogden, UT)

Cram DS, Baker TT, Boren JC (2006) Wildland fire effects in silviculturally treated vs. untreated stands of New Mexico and Arizona. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Research Paper RMRS-RP-55. (Fort Collins, CO)

Cruz MG, Alexander ME (2010) Assessing crown fire potential in coniferous forests of western North America: a critique of current approaches and recent simulation studies. International Journal of Wildland Fire 19, 377–398.
| CrossRef |

Eidenshink J, Schwind B, Brewer K, Zhu Z, Quayle B, Howard S (2007) A project for monitoring trends in burn severity. Fire Ecology 3, 3–21.
| CrossRef |

Finney MA (2001) Design of regular landscape fuel treatment patterns for modifying fire growth and behavior. Forest Science 47, 219–228.

Finney MA (2004) FARSITE: fire area simulator – model development and evaluation. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Research Paper RMRS-RP-4 Revised. (Fort Collins, CO)

Finney MA, McHugh CW, Grenfell IC (2005) Stand- and landscape-level effects of prescribed burning on two Arizona wildfires. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35, 1714–1722.
| CrossRef |

Finney MA, Seli RC, McHugh C, Ager AA, Bahro B, Agee JK (2007) Simulation of long-term landscape level fuel treatment effects on large wildfires. International Journal of Wildland Fire 16, 712–727.
| CrossRef |

Graham RT, McCaffrey S, Jain TB (2004) Science basis for changing forest structure to modify wildfire behavior and severity. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-120. (Ogden, UT)

Hudak AT, Rickert I, Morgan P, Strand E, Lewis SA, Robichaud PR, Hoffman C, Holden ZA (2011) Review of fuel treatment effectiveness in forest and rangelands and a case study from the 2007 megafires in central Idaho, USA. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-252. (Fort Collins, CO)

Keane RE, Agee JA, Fulé P, Keeley JE, Key C, Kitchen SG, Miller R, Schulte LA (2008) Ecological effects of large fires on US landscapes: benefit or catastrophe? International Journal of Wildland Fire 17, 696–712.
| CrossRef |

Key CH, Benson NC (2006) Landscape assessment: ground measure of severity, the Composite Burn Index, and remote sensing of severity, the Normalised Burn Ratio. In ‘FIREMON: Fire Effects Monitoring and Inventory System’. (Eds DC Lutes, RE Keane, JF Caratti, CH Key, NC Benson, S Sutherland, LJ Gangi) pp. LA-1–LA-51. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-164-CD. (Ogden, UT)

Loehle C (2004) Applying landscape principles to fire hazard reduction. Forest Ecology and Management 198, 261–267.
| CrossRef |

Martinson EJ, Omi PN (2008) Assessing mitigation of wildfire severity by fuel treatments – an example from the Coastal Plain of Mississippi. International Journal of Wildland Fire 17, 415–420.
| CrossRef |

Narayanaraj G, Wimberly MC (2011) Influences of forest roads on the spatial pattern of wildfire boundaries. International Journal of Wildland Fire 20, 792–803.
| CrossRef |

National Wildfire Coordinating Group (2009) Quadrennial fire review 2009. (National Association of State Foresters, USDA Forest Service and USDI Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service) Available at http://www.iafc.org/files/wild_QFR2009Report.pdf [Verified 9 February 2012]

Pollet J, Omi P (2002) Effect of thinning and prescribed burning on crown fire severity in ponderosa pine forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire 11, 1–10.
| CrossRef |

Radeloff VC, Hammer RB, Stewart SI, Fried JS, Holcomb SS, McKeefry JF (2005) The wildland–urban interface in the United States. Ecological Applications 15, 799–805.
| CrossRef |

Raymond CL, Peterson DL (2005) Fuel treatments alter the effects of wildfire in a mixed evergreen forest, Oregon, USA. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 35, 2981–2995.
| CrossRef |

Rollins MG (2009) LANDFIRE: a nationally consistent vegetation, wildland fire, and fuel assessment. International Journal of Wildland Fire 18, 235–249.
| CrossRef |

Rollins MG, Frame CK (2006) The LANDFIRE Prototype Project: nationally consistent and locally relevant geospatial data for wildland fire management. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-175. (Fort Collins, CO)

Rothermel RC (1972) A mathematical model for predicting fire spread in wildland fuels. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Research Paper INT-115. (Ogden, UT)

Rothermel RC (1991) Predicting behavior and size of crown fires in the Northern Rocky Mountains. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Research Paper INT-438. (Ogden, UT)

Ryu S, Chen C, Zheng D, LaCroix JJ (2007) Relating surface fire spread to a landscape structure: an application of FARSITE in a managed forest landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning 83, 275–283.
| CrossRef |

Schoennagel T, Nelson CR, Theobald DM, Carnwath GC, Chapman TB (2009) Implementation of National Fire Plan treatments near the wildland–urban interface in the western United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, 10706–10711.
| CrossRef | CAS |

Scott JH, Burgan RE (2005) Standard fire behavior fuel models: a comprehensive set for use with Rothermel’s surface fire spread model. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-153. (Fort Collins, CO)

Scott JH, Reinhardt ED (2001) Assessing crown fire potential by linking models of surface and crown fire behavior. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Research Paper RMRS-RP-29. (Fort Collins, CO)

Scott JH, Reinhardt ED (2005) Stereo photo guide for estimating canopy fuel characteristics in conifer stands. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-145. (Fort Collins, CO)

Stratton RD (2006) Guidance on spatial wildland fire analysis: models, tools, and techniques. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-183. (Fort Collins, CO)

Stratton RD (2009) Guidebook on LANDFIRE fuels data acquisition, critique, modification, maintenance, and model calibration. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-200. (Fort Collins, CO)

US Congress (2003) House Resolution 1904, Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. 108th United States Congress, 1st Session, 7 January 2003. (National Archives: Washington DC)

US GAO (2007) Wildland management: a cohesive strategy and clear cost-containment goals are needed for Federal Agencies to manage wildland fire activities effectively. Government Accountability Office, Testimony GAO-07-1017T, 19 June 2007. (Washington, DC)

Van Wagner CE (1977) Conditions for the start and spread of crown fire. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 7, 23–34.
| CrossRef |

Van Wagner CE (1993) Prediction of crown fire behavior in two stands of jack pine. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 23, 442–449.
| CrossRef |

Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW (2006) Warming and earlier spring increase western US forest wildfire activity. Science 313, 940–943.
| CrossRef | CAS |

Wimberly MC, Cochrane MA, Baer A, Pabst K (2009) Assessing fuel treatment effectiveness using satellite imagery and spatial statistics. Ecological Applications 19, 1377–1384.
| CrossRef |


   
 
    
Legal & Privacy | Contact Us | Help

CSIRO

© CSIRO 1996-2013