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International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
REVIEW

A review of recent advances in risk analysis for wildfire management

Carol Miller A C and Alan A. Ager B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, 790 E. Beckwith Avenue, Missoula, MT 59801, USA.

B USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center, 3160 NE 3rd Street, Prineville, OR 97754, USA.

C Corresponding author. Email: cmiller04@fs.fed.us

International Journal of Wildland Fire 22(1) 1-14 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF11114
Submitted: 11 August 2011  Accepted: 29 June 2012   Published: 14 September 2012

Abstract

Risk analysis evolved out of the need to make decisions concerning highly stochastic events, and is well suited to analyse the timing, location and potential effects of wildfires. Over the past 10 years, the application of risk analysis to wildland fire management has seen steady growth with new risk-based analytical tools that support a wide range of fire and fuels management planning scales from individual incidents to national, strategic interagency programs. After a brief review of the three components of fire risk – likelihood, intensity and effects – this paper reviews recent advances in quantifying and integrating these individual components of fire risk. We also review recent advances in addressing temporal dynamics of fire risk and spatial optimisation of fuels management activities. Risk analysis approaches have become increasingly quantitative and sophisticated but remain quite disparate. We suggest several necessary and fruitful directions for future research and development in wildfire risk analysis.

Additional keywords: burn probability, fire likelihood, hazard, risk assessment, risk science.


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