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Wildfire is one of the two most significant disturbance agents (the other being insects) in forest ecosystems of the Western United States, and in a warmer climate, will drive changes in forest composition, structure, and function (Dale et al. 2001…
Author(s): David L. Peterson, Jeremy S. Littell
Year Published:

Land management agencies face uncertain tradeoffs regarding investments in preparedness and fuels management versus future suppression costs and impacts to valued resources and assets. Prospective evaluation of fuel treatments allows for comparison…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Michael S. Hand, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Nicole M. Vaillant, Derek J. Nalle
Year Published:

Ongoing human development into fire-prone areas contributes to increasing wildfire risk to human life. It is critically important, therefore, to have the ability to characterize wildfire risk to populated places, and to identify geographic areas…
Author(s): Jessica R. Haas, David E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Federal policy has embraced risk management as an appropriate paradigm for wildfire management. Economic theory suggests that over repeated wildfire events, potential economic costs and risks of ecological damage are optimally balanced when…
Author(s): Matthew J. Wibbenmeyer, Michael S. Hand, David E. Calkin, Tyron J. Venn, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Wildfire management in the United States and elsewhere is challenged by substantial uncertainty regarding the location and timing of fire events, the socioeconomic and ecological consequences of these events, and the costs of suppression. Escalating…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Wildfires can result in significant, long-lasting impacts to ecological, social, and economic systems. It is necessary, therefore, to identify and understand the risks posed by wildland fire, and to develop cost-effective mitigation strategies…
Author(s): Joe H. Scott, Matthew P. Thompson, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

The financial, socioeconomic, and ecological impacts of wildfire continue to challenge federal land management agencies in the United States. In recent years, policymakers and managers have increasingly turned to the field of risk analysis to better…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Joe H. Scott, Don Helmbrecht, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

A goal of fire management in wilderness is to allow fire to play its natural ecological role without intervention. Unfortunately, most unplanned ignitions in wilderness are suppressed, in part because of the risk they might pose to values outside of…
Author(s): Kevin M. Barnett
Year Published:

Spatially explicit burn probability modeling is increasingly applied to assess wildfire risk and inform mitigation strategy development. Burn probabilities are typically expressed on a per-pixel basis, calculated as the number of times a pixel burns…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Joe H. Scott, Jeffrey D. Kaiden, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day
Year Published:

Over a century of fire suppression activities have altered the structure and composition of mixed conifer forests throughout the western United States. In the absence of fire, fuels have accumulated in these forests causing concerns over the…
Author(s): Angela M. White, Elise F. Zipkin, Patricia N. Manley, Matthew D. Schlesinger
Year Published:

Wildfires can cause significant negative impacts to water quality with resultant consequences for the environment and human health and safety, as well as incurring substantial rehabilitation and water treatment costs. In this paper we will…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Joe H. Scott, Paul G. Langowski, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Jessica R. Haas, Elise M. Bowne
Year Published:

Recent fire seasons in the western United States are some of the most damaging and costly on record. Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface on the Colorado Front Range, resulting in thousands of homes burned and civilian fatalities, although…
Author(s): David E. Calkin, Jack D. Cohen, Mark A. Finney, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

This study used a wildfire loss simulation model to evaluate how different land use policies are likely to influence wildfire risk in the wildland urban interface (WUI) for Flathead County, Montana. The model accounts for the complex socio-…
Author(s): Travis B. Paveglio, Tony Prato, Michael Hardy
Year Published:

The term “community” has a long and contested lineage in social analysis and debate. This lineage, however, is not generally recognized in policy and public debates on community and bushfire in Australia. “Community” is thought to be central to…
Author(s): Peter Fairbrother, Meagan Tyler, Alison Hart, Bernard Mees, Richard Phillips, Julie Stratford, Keith Toh
Year Published:

This publication focuses on the thought processes and considerations surrounding a risk management process for decision making on wildfires. The publication introduces a six element risk management cycle designed to encourage sound risk-informed…
Author(s): Mary A. Taber, Lisa M. Elenz, Paul G. Langowski
Year Published:

Substantial investments in fuel management activities on national forests in the western US are part of a national strategy to reduce human and ecological losses from catastrophic wildfire and create fire resilient landscapes. Prioritizing these…
Author(s): Alan A. Ager, Michelle A. Day, Charles W. McHugh, Karen C. Short, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Mark A. Finney, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

The transformation of fuels resulting from the mountain pine beetle epidemic is unprecedented in its large geographic extent and the rapid pace of the transformation. This paper describes a proposed fire risk and hazard characterization system, as…
Author(s): Robert W. Gray
Year Published:

Following what was then one of the most destructive fire years on record, President Bush signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003. The law requires no less than fifty percent of all funds allocated for hazardous fuels reductions…
Author(s): Travis Warziniack, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Wildland fire management has moved beyond a singular focus on suppression, calling for wildfire management for ecological benefit where no critical human assets are at risk. Processes causing direct effects and indirect, long-term ecosystem changes…
Author(s): Kevin D. Hyde, Matthew B. Dickinson, Gil Bohrer, David E. Calkin, Louisa Evers, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Tessa Nicolet, Kevin C. Ryan, Christina Tague
Year Published:

We develop the idea of risk transmission from large wildfires and apply network analyses to understand its importance on a 0.75 million ha US national forest. Wildfires in the western US frequently burn over long distances (e.g., 20-50 km) through…
Author(s): Alan A. Ager, Michelle A. Day, Mark A. Finney, Ken W. Vance-Borland, Nicole M. Vaillant
Year Published: