Allocating fuel breaks to optimally protect structures in the wildland–urban interface

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avi Bar Massada ◽  
Volker C. Radeloff ◽  
Susan I. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Approach ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fuel Treatments ◽  
Treatment Area ◽  
Housing Density ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Total Treatment ◽  
A Minor

Wildland fire is a major concern in the wildland–urban interface (WUI), where human structures intermingle with wildland vegetation. Reducing wildfire risk in the WUI is more complicated than in wildland areas, owing to interactions between spatial patterns of housing and wildland fuels. Fuel treatments are commonly applied in wildlands surrounding WUI communities. Protecting the immediate surroundings of structures and building with fire-resistant materials might be more effective, but limited resources and uncooperative homeowners often make these impractical. Our question was how to allocate fuel treatments in the WUI under these constraints. We developed an approach to allocate fuel breaks around individual or groups of structures to minimise total treatment area. Treatment units were ranked according to their housing density and fire risk. We tested this method in a Wisconsin landscape containing 3768 structures, and found that our treatment approach required considerably less area than alternatives (588 v. 1050 ha required to protect every structure independently). Our method may serve as a baseline for planning fuel treatments in WUI areas where it is impractical to protect every single house, or when fire-proofing is unfeasible. This approach is especially suitable in regions where spotting is a minor cause of home ignitions.

scholarly journals Managing the Wildland–Urban Interface in the Northeast: Perceptions of Fire Risk and Hazard Reduction Strategies

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Blanchard ◽  
Robert L. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Hazard ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Pine Barrens ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Hazard Reduction ◽  
Mechanical Removal ◽  
Reduction Strategies ◽  
Wildland Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Hazard Reduction

Abstract Much of the recent work in reducing wildland fire danger has occurred in the western and southeastern United States. However, high-risk areas do exist at the wildland–urban interface areas in the Northeast and very little work has been done to understand the fire management issues in this region. Therefore, this study used a survey of residents and landowners within the Plymouth Pine Barrens of southeastern Massachusetts to assess community members' perceptions of wildland fire risk and hazard reduction strategies. The research results indicate that residents have a low perception of wildland fire risk but support the use of fire hazard reduction strategies, including prescribed fire, mechanical removal of trees and brush, and construction of firebreaks. Previous experience with wildland fire was a major factor influencing respondents' perception of fire risk. Furthermore, participants' knowledge about specific fuel treatments positively influenced their support for those treatments. Overall, respondents believe that actions should be taken to reduce fire hazard within the study area and would like to be involved in the development of fire hazard reduction plans.

scholarly journals Estimation of wildfire size and risk changes due to fuels treatments

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 357 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Cochrane ◽  
C. J. Moran ◽  
M. C. Wimberly ◽  
A. D. Baer ◽  
M. A. Finney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Severity ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Fire Spread ◽  
Prescribed Fires ◽  
Fuel Treatments ◽  
Human Land Use ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Management Policies ◽  
Fuels Treatments

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.

The wildland - urban interface fire problem - current approaches and research needs

2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 238 ◽  
Author(s):  
William E. Mell ◽  
Samuel L. Manzello ◽  
Alexander Maranghides ◽  
David Butry ◽  
Ronald G. Rehm
Keyword(s):  
Wildland Fire ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Field Measurements ◽  
The United States ◽  
Test Methods ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Fuel Treatment ◽  
Treatment Techniques ◽  
Exposure Conditions

Wildfires that spread into wildland–urban interface (WUI) communities present significant challenges on several fronts. In the United States, the WUI accounts for a significant portion of wildland fire suppression and wildland fuel treatment costs. Methods to reduce structure losses are focussed on fuel treatments in either wildland fuels or residential fuels. There is a need for a well-characterised, systematic testing of these approaches across a range of community and structure types and fire conditions. Laboratory experiments, field measurements and fire behaviour models can be used to better determine the exposure conditions faced by communities and structures. The outcome of such an effort would be proven fuel treatment techniques for wildland and residential fuels, risk assessment strategies, economic cost analysis models, and test methods with representative exposure conditions for fire-resistant building designs and materials.

Interpreting federal policy at the local level: the wildland - urban interface concept in wildfire protection planning in the eastern United States

2009 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie A. Grayzeck-Souter ◽  
Kristen C. Nelson ◽  
Rachel F. Brummel ◽  
Pamela Jakes ◽  
Daniel R. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Public Land ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Local Response ◽  
Wildland Urban Interface ◽  
Fuels Reduction ◽  
Eastern Usa ◽  
Healthy Forests Restoration Act

In 2003, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) called for USA communities at risk of wildfire to develop Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) requiring local, state and federal actors to work together to address hazardous fuels reduction and mitigation efforts. CWPPs can provide the opportunity for local government to influence actions on adjacent public land, by establishing local boundaries of the wildland–urban interface (WUI), the area where urban lands meet or intermix with wildlands. The present paper explores local response to the HFRA and CWPPs in the eastern USA, specifically if and how communities are using the policy incentive to identify the WUI. We conducted document reviews of eastern CWPPs, as well as qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with participants in four case studies. We found tremendous variation in local response to HFRA, with plans completed at multiple scales and using different planning templates. The WUI policy incentive was not used in all CWPPs, suggesting that the incentive is not as useful in the eastern USA, where public land is less dominant and the perceived fire risk is lower than in the West. Even so, many communities in the East completed CWPPs to improve their wildfire preparedness.

An optimization model for locating fuel treatments across a landscape to reduce expected fire losses

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 868-877 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Wei ◽  
Douglas Rideout ◽  
Andy Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Information ◽  
Solution Process ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Mixed Integer ◽  
Fire Intensity ◽  
Fuel Treatments ◽  
Fuel Treatment ◽  
Mip Model ◽  
Fire Ignition

Locating fuel treatments with scarce resources is an important consideration in landscape-level fuel management. This paper developed a mixed integer programming (MIP) model for allocating fuel treatments across a landscape based on spatial information for fire ignition risk, conditional probabilities of fire spread between raster cells, fire intensity levels, and values at risk. The fire ignition risk in each raster cell is defined as the probability of fire burning a cell because of the ignition within that cell. The conditional probability that fire would spread between adjacent cells A and B is defined as the probability of a fire spreading into cell B after burning in cell A. This model locates fuel treatments by using a fire risk distribution map calculated through fire simulation models. Fire risk is assumed to accumulate across a landscape following major wind directions and the MIP model locates fuel treatments to efficiently break this pattern of fire risk accumulation. Fuel treatment resources are scarce and such scarcity is introduced through a budget constraint. A test case is designed based on a portion of the landscape (15 552 ha) within the Southern Sierra fire planning unit to demonstrate the data requirements, solution process, and model results. Fuel treatment schedules, based upon single and dual wind directions, are compared.

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