Keyword: suppression

Potential COVID-19 outbreak in fire camp: Modeling scenarios and interventions

The global COVID-19 pandemic will pose unique challenges to the management of wildland fire in 2020. Fire camps may provide an ideal setting for the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. However, intervention strategies can help minimize disease spread and reduce the risk to the firefighting community. We developed a COVID-19 epidemic model to highlight the risks posed by the disease during wildland fire incidents.

Assessment and response to bark beetle outbreaks in the Rocky Mountain area

Bark beetles act as "agents of change" within the conifer forests of the Rocky Mountain area. They play a critical role in the development, senescence, and rebirth of Western forests. Bark beetle-caused tree mortality can be extensive, covering thousands of acres.

Break-even point: Suppression-cost analyses in Montana weigh resource values as determined by tax records and available GIS data

Over the past decade, an increase in larger wildland fires has converged with rapid growth in the wildland-urban interface. Suppression resources, including firefighters, equipment and money, are pressed to their limits. Attacking every fire with equal priority is not an-option, as some play an essential role in keeping forests healthy.

Strategic application of wildland fire suppression in the southwestern United States

Much of the western United States is experiencing longer fire seasons with an increased frequency of high-severity fires and fire risk. Fire managers in the southwestern United States have increased efforts to reduce fire risk by managing more fires to meet resource objectives (e.g. thin forests, reduce hazardous fuel loads, and restore the landscape).

Rethinking the wildland fire management system

In the western United States and elsewhere, the need to change society’s relationship with wildfire is well-recognized. Suppressing fewer fires in fire-prone systems is promoted to escape existing feedback loops that lead to ever worsening conditions and increasing risks to responders and communities.

Pathology of wildfire risk: A characterization of social and ecological dimensions

Despite dramatic increases in suppression spending, the risk of life and property loss associated with wildfire has continued to rise in recent decades. Economic losses from wildfires have doubled in the United States and suppression expenses have tripled between 2002 and 2012 compared to the decade prior. Loss of property to wildfire has outpaced efforts to reduce wildfire risk through thinning and prescribed burning.

Fire in Ghana's dry forest: Causes, frequency, effects and management interventions

This paper describes the number of fires, area burned, causes and seasonality of fires over a ten year period from 2002-2012 and investigates different fire management strategies and their effectiveness in the Afram headwaters forest reserve in Ghana. Data were collected from interviews of stakeholders in two communities adjacent to the reserve, and from 2002-2012 fire reports of the Ghana National Fire Service and Forest Service Division.

Designing seasonal initial attack resource deployment and dispatch rules using a two-stage stochastic programming procedure

Initial attack dispatch rules can help shorten fire suppression response times by providing easy-to-follow recommendations based on fire weather, discovery time, location, and other factors that may influence fire behavior and the appropriate response.