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Large-scale, high-severity wildfires are a major challenge to the future social-ecological sustainability of fire-adapted forest ecosystems in the American West. Managing forests to mitigate this risk is a collective action problem requiring…
Author(s): Susan Charnley, Erin C. Kelly, A. Paige Fischer
Year Published:

In this report we provide a framework for assessing cross-boundary wildfire exposure and a case study application in the western U.S. The case study provides detailed mapping and tabular decision support materials for prioritizing fuel management…
Author(s): Alan A. Ager, Michelle A. Day, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Rachel M. Houtman, Chris Ringo, Cody Evers
Year Published:

The 28,000-acre Rattlesnake National Recreation Area (RNRA) lies immediately northwest of Missoula, Montana, and is a highly popular recreation destination with an estimated 60,000 annual visitors. The immediate area also contains thousands of…
Author(s): Megan P. Keville
Year Published:

The impacts of wildfires have increased in recent decades because of historical forest and fire management, a rapidly changing climate, and an increasingly populated wildland urban interface. This increasingly complex fire environment highlights the…
Author(s): Christopher J. Dunn, Matthew P. Thompson, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

During active fire incidents, decisions regarding where and how to safely and effectively deploy resources to meet management objectives are often made under rapidly evolving conditions, with limited time to assess management strategies or for…
Author(s): Christopher D. O'Connor, David E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

This paper is the preface to a special issue focused on US wildfire response. The nine papers included build from a 2016 conference special session on monitoring, modelling and accountability of fire management policies and practices. Here we…
Author(s): Christopher J. Dunn, David E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Wildfire risk assessment is increasingly being adopted to support federal wildfire management decisions in the United States. Existing decision support systems, specifically the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS), provide a rich set of…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, David E. Calkin, Joe H. Scott, Michael S. Hand
Year Published:

Characterizing the impacts of wildland fire and fire suppression is critical information for fire management decision-making. Here, we focus on decisions related to the rare larger and longer-duration fire events, where the scope and scale of…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Francisco Rodriguez y Silva, David E. Calkin, Michael S. Hand
Year Published:

Wildfire risk in temperate forests has become a nearly intractable problem that can be characterized as a socioecological 'pathology': that is, a set of complex and problematic interactions among social and ecological systems across multiple spatial…
Author(s): A. Paige Fischer, Thomas A. Spies, Toddi A. Steelman, Cassandra Moseley, Bart R. Johnson, John D. Bailey, Alan A. Ager, Patrick S. Bourgeron, Susan Charnley, Brandon M. Collins, Jeffrey D. Kline, Jessica E. Leahy, Jeremy S. Littell, James D.A. Millington, Max W. Nielsen-Pincus, Christine Olsen, Travis B. Paveglio, Christopher I. Roos, David M. J. S. Bowman
Year Published:

Management strategies to reduce the risks to human life and property from wildfire commonly involve burning native vegetation. However, planned burning can conflict with other societal objectives such as human health and biodiversity conservation.…
Author(s): Don A. Driscoll, Michael Bode, Ross A. Bradstock, David A. Keith, Trent D. Penman, Owen F. Price
Year Published:

The Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture faces a future of increasing complexity and risk, pressing financial issues, and the inescapable possibility of loss of human life. These issues are perhaps most acute for wildland fire management,…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Donald G. MacGregor, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

Determining the degree of risk that wildfires pose to homes, where across the landscape the risk originates, and who can best mitigate risk are integral elements of effective co-management of wildfire risk. Developing assessments and tools to help…
Author(s): Joe H. Scott, Matthew P. Thompson, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day
Year Published:

We performed our work for this report under the authority of the Comptroller General to conduct evaluations to assist Congress with its oversight responsibilities. Our objectives were to (1) update our risk management framework to more fully include…
Year Published:

How wildfires are managed is a key determinant of long-term socioecological resiliency and the ability to live with fire. Safe and effective response to fire requires effective pre-fire planning, which is the main focus of this paper. We review…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Phil Bowden, April Brough, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Alan H. Taylor, Jessica R. Haas
Year Published:

Wildfire is a global phenomenon that plays a vital role in regulating and maintaining many natural and human-influenced ecosystems but that also poses considerable risks to human populations and infrastructure. Fire managers are charged with…
Author(s): Christopher D. O'Connor, Matthew P. Thompson, Francisco Rodriguez y Silva
Year Published:

Wildfire suppression combines multiple objectives and dynamic fire behavior to form a complex problem for decision makers. This paper presents a mixed integer program designed to explore integrating spatial fire behavior and suppression placement…
Author(s): Erin J. Belval, Yu Wei, Michael Bevers
Year Published:

A quantitative measure of wildfire risk across a landscape-expected net change in value of resources and assets exposed to wildfire-was established nearly a decade ago. Assessments made using that measure have been completed at spatial extents…
Author(s): Joe H. Scott, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Applying wildfire risk assessment models can inform investments in loss mitigation and landscape restoration, and can be used to monitor spatiotemporal trends in risk. Assessing wildfire risk entails the integration of fire modeling outputs, maps of…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson, Jessica R. Haas, Julie W. Gilbertson-Day, Joe H. Scott, Paul G. Langowski, Elise M. Bowne, David E. Calkin
Year Published:

The management of wildfire is a dynamic, complex, and fundamentally uncertain enterprise. Fire managers face uncertainties regarding fire weather and subsequent influence on fire behavior, the effects of fire on socioeconomic and ecological…
Author(s): Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published:

Characterizing wildfire risk to a fire-adapted ecosystem presents particular challenges due to its broad spatial extent, inherent complexity, and the difficulty in defining wildfire-induced losses and benefits. Our approach couples stochastic…
Author(s): Joe H. Scott, Don Helmbrecht, Matthew P. Thompson
Year Published: