How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Volumn 111, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 746-751

  Calkin, David E ^a   Cohen, Jack D ^b   Finney, Mark A ^b   Thompson, Matthew P ^a  

^a USDA Forest Service Forestry Science Lab   (United States)

^b ROCKY MOUNTAIN RESEARCH STATION   (United States)

Author keywords

Fuel treatment; Home ignition zone; Risk assessment

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; DISASTER; ECOSYSTEM; FATALITY; FIRE; HOME; PRIORITY JOURNAL; RISK MANAGEMENT; RISK REDUCTION; UNITED STATES; URBAN AREA;

FUEL TREATMENT; HOME IGNITION ZONE; RISK ASSESSMENT;

CITIES; COLORADO; DISASTER PLANNING; FIRES; MODELS, THEORETICAL; RISK MANAGEMENT; WILDERNESS;

EID: 84892611367     PISSN: 00278424     EISSN: 10916490     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1315088111     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Williams J (2013) Exploring the onset of high-impact mega-fires through a forest land management prism. For Ecol Manage 294:4-10.
2. Mills E (2005) Insurance in a climate of change. Science 309(5737):1040-1044.
3. O?Neill SJ, Handmer J (2012) Responding to bushfire risk: The need for transformative adaptation. Environ Res Lett 7(1):014018.
4. Haldane M (2013) Insurers, government grapple with costs of growth in wildlandurban interface. Insurance Journal. Available at www.insurancejournal. com/news/national/2013/08/15/301833.htm. Accessed November 13, 2013.
5. Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association (2012). Cost of wildfire. Available at www.rmiia.org/Catastrophes-and-Statistics/Wildfire.asp. Accessed July 1, 2013.
6. Thompson MP, Scott J, Helmbrecht D, Calkin DE (2013) Integrated wildfire risk assessment: Framework development and application on the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Montana, USA. Integr Environ Assess Manag 9(2):329-342.
7. Scott JH, Thompson MP, Calkin DE (2013) A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-315 (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
8. Arno SF, Allison-Bunnell S (2002) Flames in Our Forest: Disaster or Renewal? (Island Press, Washington, DC).
9. Marlon JR, et al. (2012) Long-term perspective on wildfires in the western USA. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109(9):E535-E543.
10. Stewart OC (2002) Forgotten Fires: Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness (Univ Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK).
11. Agee J (1998) The landscape ecology of western forest fire regimes. Northwest Sci 72:24-34.
12. Morgan P, Hardy CC, Swetnam TW, Rollins MG, Long DG (2001) Mapping fire regimes across time and space: Understanding coarse and fine-scale fire patterns. Int J Wildland Fire 10(3-4):329-342.
13. Noss RF, Franklin JF, Baker WL, Schoennagel T, Moyle PB (2006) Managing fire-prone forests in the western United States. Front Ecol Environ 4(9):481-487.
14. Leenhouts B (1998) Assessment of biomass burning in the conterminous United States. Conserv Biol 2(1):1-24.
15. Hessburg P, Agee J, Franklin J (2005) Dry forests and wildland fires of the inland Northwest USA: Contrasting the landscape ecology of the pre-settlement and modern eras. Forest Ecol Manage 211(1-2):117-139.
16. Miller J, Safford H, Crimmins M, Thode A (2009) Quantitative evidence for increasing forest fire severity in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascade Mountains, California and Nevada, USA. Ecosystems 12(1):16-32.
17. Swetnam TW, Betancourt JL (1990) Fire-Southern Oscillation relations in the Southwestern United States. Science 249(4972):1017-1020.
18. Stephens SL, Ruth LW (2005) Federal forest-fire policy in the United States. Ecol Appl 15(2):532-542.
19. Arno SF, Brown JK (1991) Overcoming the paradox in managing wildland fire. Western Wildlands (Montana Forest and Conservation Experiment Station, Missoula, MT), pp 40-46.
20. Cohen J (2010) The wildland-urban interface fire problem. Fremontia 38(2-3):16-22.
21. Menakis JP, Cohen J, Bradshaw L (2003) Mapping wildland fire risk to flammable structures for the conterminous United States. Proceedings of Fire Conference 2000: The First National Congress on Fire Ecology, Prevention, and Management (Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL), Miscellaneous Publication No. 13, pp 41-49.
22. Cohen JD (2000) Preventing disaster, home ignitability in the wildland-urban interface. J Forestry 98(3):15-21.
23. Finney M, Cohen J (2003) Expectation and evaluation of fuel management objectives in Fire, fuel treatments, and ecological restoration. USDA Forest Service Proceedings, RMRS-P 29 (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO), pp 353-366.
24. Graham R, McCaffrey S, Jain T (2004) Science Basis for Changing Forest Structure to Modify Wildfire Behavior and Severity. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-120 (US Forest Service, Fort Collins, CO).
25. Gude PH, Jones K, Rasker R, Greenwood MC (2013) Evidence for the effect of homes on wildfire suppression costs. Int J Wildland Fire 22(4):537-548.
26. Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, 68 Federal Register 107 (2003).
27. Cohen J, Stratton RD (2003) Home destruction within the Hayman fire perimeter. Hayman Fire Case Study. Gen. Tech. Rep. MRS-GTR-114, ed Graham RT (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
28. Cohen JD (1995) Structure Ignition Assessment Model (SIAM). The Biswell Symposium: Fire Issues and Solutions in Urban Interface and Wildland Ecosystems, (Walnut Creek, CA), eds Weise DR, Martin RE (US Forest Service, Albany, CA), pp 85-92.
29. Cohen JD (2004) Relating flame radiation to home ignition using modeling and experimental crown fires. Can J Res 34(8):1616-1626.
30. Cohen JD, Stratton RD (2008) Home Destruction Examination: Grass Valley Fire, Lake Arrowhead, CA. R5-TP-026b (US Forest Service, Portland, OR).
31. Ager AA, Vaillant NM, Finney MA (2010) A comparison of landscape fuel treatment strategies to mitigate wildland fire risk in the urban interface and preserve old forest structure. Forest Ecol Manage 259(8):1556-1570.
32. Calkin DE, et al. (2011) A Comparative Risk Assessment Framework for Wildland Fire Management: The 2010 Cohesive Strategy Science Report. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR- 262 (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
33. Marcot BG, et al. (2012) Recent advances in applying decision science to managing national forests. Forest Ecol Manage 285:123-132.
34. Thompson MP, Calkin DE (2011) Uncertainty and risk in wildland fire management: A review. J Environ Manage 92(8):1895-1909.
35. Short KC (2013) Spatial Wildfire Occurrence Data for the United States, 1992-2011 [FPA-FOD-20130422] (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
36. Martinson EJ, Omi PN (2013) Fuel Treatments and Fire Severity: A Meta-Analysis. Research Paper RMRS-RP-103WWW (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
37. Ryan KC, Knapp EE, Varner JM (2013) Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: History, current practice, and challenges. Front Ecol Environ 11(s1): e15-e24.
38. Graham RT, ed. (2003) Hayman Fire Case Study: Summary. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR- 115 (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden, UT).
39. Collins BM, et al. (2009) Interactions among wildland fires in a long-established Sierra Nevada natural fire area. Ecosystems 12(1):114-128.
40. Teske C, Seielstad C, Queen L (2012) Characterizing fire-on-fire interactions in three large wilderness areas. Fire Ecol 8(2):82-106.
41. van Wagtendonk J, van Wagtendonk K, Thode A (2012) Factors associated with the severity of intersecting fires in Yosemite National Park, California, USA. Fire Ecol 8(1): 11-31.
42. Finney MA (2007) A computational method for optimizing fuel treatment locations. Int J Wildland Fire 16(6):702-711.
43. Safford H, Schmidt D, Carlson C (2009) Effects of fuel treatments on fire severity in an area of wildland-urban interface, Angora Fire, Lake Tahoe Basin, California. For Ecol Manage 258(5):773-787.
44. Graham R, et al. (2012) Fourmile Canyon Fire Findings. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-289 (US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO).
45. National Fire Protection Association (1989) Black Tiger Fire Case Study (National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, MA).
46. Brenkert-Smith H, Champ PA (2011) Fourmile Canyon: Living with wildfire. Fire Management Today 71(2):33.
47. Government Accountability Office (2009) Federal Agencies Have Taken Important Steps Forward, but Additional, Strategic Action is Needed to Capitalize on Those Steps. GAO-09-877 (Government Accountability Office, Washington, DC).
48. Office of the Inspector General, US Department of Agriculture (2006) Audit Report: Forest Service Large Fire Suppression Costs. 08601-44-SF (US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC).
49. Forests and Rangelands (2013). National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy. Available at www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy. Accessed July 12, 2013.