Science for Wildfire Risk
This project is a collaboration among USGS scientists and Department of the Interior (DOI) bureau managers to develop actionable science (data, analysis, projections, and tools) to support DOI efforts to reduce wildfire risk, enhance wildfire resilience, implement and monitor fuel management projects and postfire restoration and rehabilitation efforts, and ensure the success of congressional investments.
Background
The primary goals of wildland fire management are to balance the need to maintain natural fire regimes for resilient ecosystems and landscapes while at the same time ensuring human populations and infrastructure can survive wildfires and wildfire management decisions are safe, and effective and based on risk (Wildland Fire Leadership Council, 2023). Wildfire risk reduction is a core component of the federal funding focusing on prioritizing treatments to reduce risk and monitoring treatment effectiveness. This requires prioritization of high-hazard and high-risk areas and an understanding of strategically important areas that will reduce risk the most.
A common wildfire risk assessment or methodology among DOI bureaus does not exist, although the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service have their agency-specific assessment approaches (Crist et al. 2020; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2016; U.S. National Park Service 2024). While those assessments meet the needs of the agencies that created them, Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and others expect DOI to have a common tool to assess risk and mitigation strategies and communicate the effectiveness of their strategy. The overarching goal of this task is to design a unified approach for wildfire risk assessments on DOI lands. We address that goal with four interrelated subtasks described in detail below.
Objectives and Methods
We start by inventorying existing assessments, their spatial and temporal extents, methods used, and assets considered. This inventory informs DOI agencies which assessments are available now for their regions but also highlights the need for DOI-specific assessments, including DOI management priorities and assets. Then, our team will conduct a gap analysis to identify DOI management priorities and assets to include in future risk assessments and collect geospatial data representing them. Little information is available about how well risk frameworks relate to observed patterns of burning and building destruction (buildings are the most common asset across risk assessments). Our team is quantitatively assessing these relationships to build upon current frameworks used by DOI bureaus and other agencies before building a DOI-specific assessment approach. Finally, we combine these components into a DOI-specific risk modeling framework and demonstrate the target application of that framework for a range of management priorities and assets in a well-defined study area and the large-scale application of that framework for wildfire risks and post-fire hazards (e.g., post-fire debris flows).
Our project team also uses a co-production approach where bureau representatives are involved in planning, implementation, analysis, and synthesizing results. Actionable science from this work includes appropriate science review of information, data sets, tools, and implementation recommendations that will be shared with DOI and bureaus. Bureau representatives play an important part in defining the details of the actionable science to enhance its utility to the bureaus for use.
Project Team
USGS Collaborators: Todd Hawbaker, Lucas Bair, Becky Brice, Amanda Carlson, Sarah Carter, Michele Crist, Brian Ebel, Jason Kean, Jason Kreitler, James Meldrum, Sheila Murphy, Kurtis Nelson, and Paul Steblein
External Partners: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Referenced Documents
Crist, M., Bobo, M., Frels, J., Sampson, D., 2020, BLM Wildfire Risk Assessment. https://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=b1fdb5d7d9a34c29a4b1f4850a05c0fc (accessed 2.6.24).
H.R. 3684 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text (accessed 1.31.24).
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016. Fuels Management Allocation and Accountability System (FAAS), FY2016-2018, Version 1.0 [WWW Document]. URL https://ecos.fws.gov/ServCat/DownloadFile/164579 (accessed 2.23.24).
U.S. National Park Service, 2024. NPS Wildfire Risk Assessments [WWW Document]. NPS Wildfire Applications. URL https://wildfire-risk-assessments-nifc.hub.arcgis.com/ (accessed 2.23.24).
Wildland Fire Leadership Council, 2023. National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, Addendum Update [WWW Document]. URL https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/strategy/natl-cohesive-wildland-fire-mgmt-strategy-addendum-update-2023.pdf (accessed 2.25.24).
This project is a collaboration among USGS scientists and Department of the Interior (DOI) bureau managers to develop actionable science (data, analysis, projections, and tools) to support DOI efforts to reduce wildfire risk, enhance wildfire resilience, implement and monitor fuel management projects and postfire restoration and rehabilitation efforts, and ensure the success of congressional investments.
Background
The primary goals of wildland fire management are to balance the need to maintain natural fire regimes for resilient ecosystems and landscapes while at the same time ensuring human populations and infrastructure can survive wildfires and wildfire management decisions are safe, and effective and based on risk (Wildland Fire Leadership Council, 2023). Wildfire risk reduction is a core component of the federal funding focusing on prioritizing treatments to reduce risk and monitoring treatment effectiveness. This requires prioritization of high-hazard and high-risk areas and an understanding of strategically important areas that will reduce risk the most.
A common wildfire risk assessment or methodology among DOI bureaus does not exist, although the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service have their agency-specific assessment approaches (Crist et al. 2020; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2016; U.S. National Park Service 2024). While those assessments meet the needs of the agencies that created them, Congress, the Office of Management and Budget, and others expect DOI to have a common tool to assess risk and mitigation strategies and communicate the effectiveness of their strategy. The overarching goal of this task is to design a unified approach for wildfire risk assessments on DOI lands. We address that goal with four interrelated subtasks described in detail below.
Objectives and Methods
We start by inventorying existing assessments, their spatial and temporal extents, methods used, and assets considered. This inventory informs DOI agencies which assessments are available now for their regions but also highlights the need for DOI-specific assessments, including DOI management priorities and assets. Then, our team will conduct a gap analysis to identify DOI management priorities and assets to include in future risk assessments and collect geospatial data representing them. Little information is available about how well risk frameworks relate to observed patterns of burning and building destruction (buildings are the most common asset across risk assessments). Our team is quantitatively assessing these relationships to build upon current frameworks used by DOI bureaus and other agencies before building a DOI-specific assessment approach. Finally, we combine these components into a DOI-specific risk modeling framework and demonstrate the target application of that framework for a range of management priorities and assets in a well-defined study area and the large-scale application of that framework for wildfire risks and post-fire hazards (e.g., post-fire debris flows).
Our project team also uses a co-production approach where bureau representatives are involved in planning, implementation, analysis, and synthesizing results. Actionable science from this work includes appropriate science review of information, data sets, tools, and implementation recommendations that will be shared with DOI and bureaus. Bureau representatives play an important part in defining the details of the actionable science to enhance its utility to the bureaus for use.
Project Team
USGS Collaborators: Todd Hawbaker, Lucas Bair, Becky Brice, Amanda Carlson, Sarah Carter, Michele Crist, Brian Ebel, Jason Kean, Jason Kreitler, James Meldrum, Sheila Murphy, Kurtis Nelson, and Paul Steblein
External Partners: U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Referenced Documents
Crist, M., Bobo, M., Frels, J., Sampson, D., 2020, BLM Wildfire Risk Assessment. https://blm-egis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=b1fdb5d7d9a34c29a4b1f4850a05c0fc (accessed 2.6.24).
H.R. 3684 - 117th Congress (2021-2022): Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3684/text (accessed 1.31.24).
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016. Fuels Management Allocation and Accountability System (FAAS), FY2016-2018, Version 1.0 [WWW Document]. URL https://ecos.fws.gov/ServCat/DownloadFile/164579 (accessed 2.23.24).
U.S. National Park Service, 2024. NPS Wildfire Risk Assessments [WWW Document]. NPS Wildfire Applications. URL https://wildfire-risk-assessments-nifc.hub.arcgis.com/ (accessed 2.23.24).
Wildland Fire Leadership Council, 2023. National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy, Addendum Update [WWW Document]. URL https://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/documents/strategy/natl-cohesive-wildland-fire-mgmt-strategy-addendum-update-2023.pdf (accessed 2.25.24).