Wildland Fire Research Future Search Conference Notes Park City, UT - October 6-8, 1997

IV. Future Scenarios

Participants were somewhat impressed when they realized the broad commonality of their interests and concerns about wildland fire research and management. Two key questions emerged. What do we want to see in the future? What are we prepared to do to achieve this future vision?

Conference facilitators asked participants to imagine a future for wildland fire research and management that they would want to help make a reality. Participants were asked to design a story, a play, or some other creative way of communicating their future vision. Using flip charts, participants described current events in fire research and the barriers that must be overcome to reach their envisioned future of wildland fire research and management.

The assignment was to imagine 13 years into the future -- October 7, 2010 -- and dramatize the changes in the wildland fire community that had taken place. Attendees were encouraged to exercise creative dreaming. Visions could include anything possible, desirable, or motivating.

The activity was challenging. Participants developed outlines and made props to dramatize an often humerous story about their group's future vision. Each mixed group produced its own scenario of an ideal future wildland fire research and management situation.

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Mixed Group #1
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The setting: It is the year 2010. The Fire Wizard walks among a group of sleeping people. In 1997, the Fire Wizard had cast a sleep spell on these people. It's now the moment of awakening.

First person: I must call Don Latham and Jack Cohen to tell them how effectively the fire lab is transferring information to the field.

Second person: Our flip charts? They've been updated! I'm going to accept ecosystem change as a part of everyday life. The wildland urban interface is a social space, not just a geographic zone. Management and research communicate well.

Third person: My, what day is it? 2010! I'd better check my long-range forecast. I now have the ability to make better seasonal forecasts and excellent small-scale forecasts.

Fourth person: I just had this amazing experience. We spent a day with the House Committee on Natural Resources and they supported everything we are doing. They understand that science has a role in making management decisions, and they met our funding requests!

Fifth person: Wow, the International Cooperative Interagency Committee has a new way to obtain funding. I'll apply right away!

Sixth person: I wouldn't get any sleep at all if it weren't for these meetings. More decisions are based on high-quality risk assessments than they were 13 years ago. Now we're relying mostly on remote sensing for the majority of our monitoring and inventory work. We have a reliable small-scale wind model and better ability to forecast seasonal trends. And finally, social research is fully integrated with other disciplines.

Seventh person: I'm meeting with the new Forest Service Chief today to discuss the issue of looking at biodiversity more holistically rather than just in regard to threatened and endangered species. I expect that we'll be collaborating more based on shared information, too!

Fire Wizard: What do you think? Should I put them back to sleep?

Additional future vision:

• Interact more directly with the public.
• Discussions include below and aboveground processes.
• Make appropriate management decisions and establish a better balance between prescribed fire and wildfire.
• Single interface between fire behavior, fire effects, etc., at all scales.
• Research filters and packages information and models are effectively used by managers.
• More "seamless" research community; fire research is no longer a separate community.
• Public trust of management is restored.
• International cooperation is expanded with a global focus.
• Large, international research projects are ongoing.
• More competitive, peer reviewed funding is open to all.
• Blurred distinction between research and management funding sources.
• Prescribed fire is fully integrated into land management practices.
• Land managers view themselves as risk managers.
• Science is used as the foundation for a national, natural resource policy.
• Sustainable resource and forest management indicators are the accepted criteria used as a framework for full stakeholder involvement.

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Mixed Group #2
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The setting: Five men and three women sit around a table at the front of a room. The meeting is called to order. . .

The Interagency, International Cooperative Research Consortium is convened. This consortium exists because many barriers have been broken. We're all united under the Department of Natural Resources. Funding barriers have been eliminated; we can use suppression money for research. Fear is gone; we can make decisions and take risks without worry. Communication barriers do not exist. This agency is funding competitive grants.

Member: My interest in this work goes back to the 1990s when the cost of ineffective fire suppression and the risk to human health was high. Now we have cost effective, ecologically sound systems.

Member: I'm concerned about restoration ecology. I want to see competitive research. I want to see research on ecosystem structures and processes to reduce hazard of catastrophic fires.

Member: I'm interested in ways to educate ourselves and others. I think people should spend a year doing work that is outside the realm of what they currently do to unleash and harvest their creative potential.

Member: Good communication is very important. I think that good communication will ensure that the general public continues to understand the role of fire.

Member: It seems to me that the real success stories from land management have come from mutual, personnel exchanges.

Member: My interest is building cohesive, yet diverse communities that take effective action. I'm always looking for management/research partnerships that integrate management and social sciences.

Welcome to your new board!

Additional future vision:

• Institutional barriers to research/management exchange and interdisciplinary research are eliminated.
• All budget opportunities are fully investigated.
• Substantial progress in ecosystem restoration and reduction of damaging and undesirable wildfire through a research and management partnership.
• Public understanding and acceptance of the cost of fire management.
• Research has initiated work on the next generation of problems.
• Fire community is integrated, coordinated, and flexible with a common understanding of problems and priorities. International Fire Science Plan is in place.

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Mixed Group #3
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Setting: A freak, early-season snowstorm in the year 2010 has isolated Park City, Utah.

Isolated individuals, known as the Saveland Party, develop a new vision and establish a new land management planning process that becomes the "north star" for fire research. One aspect of the process defines a new fire research triangle involving federal, state, and private entities. People are approaching land management as an an integrated, holistic process.

Land management objectives combine research and management components. We're evaluating the progress made on the next generation of land management plans.

We had a significant paradigm shift; it is no longer important to achieve tenure and promotion. We understand that fire plays a fundamental land-management role. We realize that we must target our research to the larger issue and ask, "Does this work influence the way we manage our public lands?"

Additional future vision:

• Teams are working on objectives that are monitored and evaluated by a wide range of disciplines.
• Events are not crisis driven nor are disciplines isolated.
• Fire impacts on watershed and vegetation are considered when making fire management decisions.
• Monitoring air quality.
• Accomplishing basic and applied research.
• Greater firefighter safety because of increased knowledge and technology.
• Complex models are running on laptop computers.
• Strong technology transfer program.
• Land-management plans connect monitoring, research, and management objectives with strategies and activities.
• Land management is ecosystem based.
• National policy guides efforts but allows local decisions.
• Public support for land management policy, specifically fire.
• Integrated atmospheric fire model is used onsite to forecast fire behavior.
• Work is accomplished in multidisciplinary teams.

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Mixed Group #4
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My name is Sue and I'm the legal representative for Group #4, which has been doing subversive research for the past 15 years. They launched a satellite to eliminate all unwanted fires. In 1998, they found a whippersnapper who said the use of fire for rehabilitation was minimized. The fire research community is completely disbanded. Just kidding!

Our future vision of an ideal organization is one that:

• uses an adaptive system that includes managers and researchers symbiotically;
• is based on fluid teams that identify, sort, and prioritize problems; and
• has institutionalized the concept of integrative thought (beginning in university curriculums).

Additional future vision:

• Fire manager's role is to light fires, aided by realtime tools.
• Risk takers are rewarded.
• Honest, safe interaction. People meet in cyberspace and face-to-face.

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Mixed Group #5
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The setting: A group of people are sitting at a bar at the Intergalactic Inn . . .

Bartender: In 1997, there were many major barriers. We didn't know how to project a common future and couldn't agree on what indicators to use. There was a lack of appreciation for science in the decision-making process. Incentives for monitoring, funding, and staffing were inadequate to support research and development. So, what are the issues today?

Group: Well, we are developing a statement of our vision for 2020 -- 10 years from now. We decided where we want our terrestrial, aquatic, economic, and social systems to go, but to accomplish our desires, we had to sufficiently understand the systems. We designed a monitoring and feedback system to track variables and indicators, which was agreed to by all.

We now have a coordinated, balanced intergalactic approach. We discovered forest ecosystems on Titan and are conducting fire and emissions tests on them there. We can now easily transfer money between agencies, and agency managers conduct in -- house monitoring, outside of research.

Additional future vision:

• Clear perception of reality and understanding of how to think productively.
• Highly effective knowledge transfer from research to field users and managers at all levels.
• Neutralization of past conditioning; more creativity.
• Institutionalized ways, techniques, and procedures to establish common ground.

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Mixed Group #6
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The setting: A television reporter proceeds with the news broadcast . . .

Today's headlines:

• El Nino forecasts were successful.
• 990,000 acres in the Southwest treated for fuel hazard.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for a special National Weather Service report. There will be an acceptable, prescribed burning window two weeks from today. Combined burns by federal and state agencies will produce smoke that will affect local areas for up to four hours per day.

(Viewer changes channel.)

Tonight we're talking about the history of fire science and Colin Hardy's role in creating an intergalactic consortium that:

• reduced the average response time of research from 3 years to 9 months with no quality reduction when addressing management questions;
• taught researchers to operate on parallel tracks providing unpublished answers versus productivity as peer review; and
• established an Internet site where users can visit and research any local area of interest.

Colin established Society's Use of Information as Developed by the University Community. A wealth of knowledge is continuously mined by researchers and collected in this knowledge pool. The public and decision makers may dip into this pool and use information. The information is not controlled by any government.

Additional future vision:

• Basic and applied science are equally valued in all communities.
• Improved climate and weather forecast capability, with a better ability to integrate information.
• Weather forecasts are linked to satellite technology using a toolbox of models.

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Mixed Group #7
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The setting: A gentleman sits at a table holding a sheaf of papers. He speaks . . .

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, this is Tom Brokaw. The President will present the State of the Environment Address. Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

She speaks: Good afternoon, its wonderful to be here again after so many years. As I close my second term, I want to reflect on a major Presidential accomplishment. My first initiative, back in 2003, was creation of the Department of Natural Resources, which merged the Department of Interior and the USDA Forest Service. This Department is under the leadership of our Secretary of Natural Resources. Under her fine leadership, we have reached a broad public consensus on management of natural resources and have created a broad public trust. Additionally, we developed a new integrated research management division responsible for natural resource management research in the United States and international issues such as global climate change.

We doubled the Natural Resources budget. This larger budget allowed us to:

• maintain a strong, basic federal research program;
• develop an extensive network of long-term ecological research; and
• initiate a large, competitive grant program for rapid response to changing needs.

We are in a new era of collaboratively setting research priorities among states, the federal government, and non-government organizations.

I am here at Yellowstone Natural Resource Area, the site of the 1988 fires, to tell you that fire is a key component in managing natural resources.

Additional future vision

• Balanced approach to public, state, and private research needs on all wildlands, with a commitment for basic and applied research.
• Comprehensive definition of missions and goals with broad input.
• Balance between basic and applied research.
• U.S. is an international leader in fire research and management.
• Solid support for maintaining long-term research demonstrations representative of all regional ecosystems on a landscape and watershed scale.
• Applying results of fire and fuel research started in the 1990s.
• Full collaboration and cooperation among scientists, disciplines, and agencies.
• Research programs are fully integrated and interdisciplinary (including social sciences).
• Department of Natural Resources is committed to long-term university activities and involvement of scientists.
• Universities are committed to holistically teaching basic natural resource management to majors and non-majors.

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Mixed Group #8
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The setting: A group of people are at a meeting. The chairperson speaks . . .

Welcome to the 5th annual meeting of the National Fire Research Council. We are meeting to consider competitive grant proposals.

Speaker: This proposal is on behalf of the Boise Team, a consortium of various agencies and researchers, which will develop proactive measures to protect the city from flood and fire. This team wants to develop knowledge about fire, water, and geomorphological processes and to involve the community in taking responsibility for managing its vegetation.

Question: How does that fit into the national goals that we've set as research priorities?

Group chair: Let's review those priorities.

Nationally, fire research supports forest, rangeland, and aquatic ecosystems. Annual goals drive this support. Priorities are developed collaboratively with stakeholders. Fire research is proactive and responsive to issues.

Group chair: The Research, Development and Application Program has been modified to:

• implement specific integrated multi-agency objectives that are responsive to national goals within specified time frames;
• be jointly funded from research design through applied technology implementation; and
• make a difference.

Additional future vision:

• Fire research is an integral part of national policy and program goals for natural resource management.
• Bringing the best of science to decisions that are applied on the ground is valued.
• Fire research program attracts the best scientists by its clear focus, a renowned program, and support for innovative solutions.

"The time is right for things to come together."
--Susan Conrad

Title: RMRS-P-1: Wildland Fire Research - Future Search Conference Notes: IV. Future Scenario
Electronic Publish Date: December 16, 1998
Expires: Indefinite
Last Update: August 19, 2008

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