U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Wildland Fire Managers Mathew Smith, Carl Schmidt, Greg Titus, and Nathan Herron (left to right), work through BurnPro3D model runs for potential prescribed burns on USFWS refuge lands and provide feedback on the user-interface.
Rapid urbanization, the spread of invasive species, and climate change have resulted in novel modern landscapes. Further, land managers are challenged to anticipate and adapt management strategies to these changing conditions with outdated tools. Updated and enhanced fire behavior models are needed to help managers anticipate potential fire control issues and maximize beneficial fire effects from prescribed fire (the planned application of fire to vegetation to meet management objectives.) For instance, although prescribed fire is a cost-effective tool for managing fire-dependent ecosystems and reducing wildfire risk, the fire behavior and smoke models currently used to plan prescribed fire do not account for fire/atmosphere interactions or complex ignition patterns, crucial dynamics to consider for effective prescribed fire management. The new models curated and refined through EILN will provide these integral (and missing) pieces required to safely and effectively sustain and increase prescribed fire application on DoD and federal lands.
Developing Advanced Wildland Fire Management Tools
Fire-related threats and inadequate modeling techniques impact DoD mission readiness. Updated and enhanced fire behavior models are needed to help prevent prescribed fires from escaping control measures.
EILN is one of several regional landscapes focused on addressing these management needs, as part of ILN. EILN implements and evaluates tools created through the Department of Defense (DoD)’s Wildland Fire Science Initiative (WFSI). The DoD WFSI is a working collaborative that connects DoD wildland fire managers with researchers at DoD installations and federally owned lands. EILN’s current efforts help managers better understand changes in wildland fire fuels (live and dead vegetation) and fire behavior under current and future conditions. Building on the WFSI partnerships, EILN equips land managers with next generation tools that can adapt and account for ecosystem changes, vegetation structure, and fire-atmosphere interactions. Next generation tools show promise for improving burn safety and advancing land management objectives.
The following fuels characterization tools and advanced fire behavior models are currently being co-developed with managers through EILN. Videos on these tools are available below or through the Southern Fire Exchange’s Next Generation Wildland Fire Planning Tools Workshop YouTube playlist .
Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) QUIC-Fire Developer, David Robinson, guides Jacquelyn Shuman, NASA FireSense Project Scientist, through a prescribed fire virtual reality modeling experience with QUIC-Fire
- Terrestrial/Aerial Laser Scanning (TLS/ALS)
- QUIC-Fire Overview and Webinar
- BurnPro3D Overview and Demonstration
- FastFuels Overview
Our Approach
When researchers and land managers work together to develop management tools, this ensures the most pressing management challenges can be addressed with tools the managers can use effectively. This process is known as co-production. EILN prioritizes co-production by establishing communication pathways between fire managers, the research community, and decision-makers. This interdisciplinary approach will ensure that next generation fuel characterization, fire behavior modeling tools, and future research efforts will seamlessly address the needs of land and fire managers and be implemented efficiently. EILN operates through ‘innovation nodes,’ or local landscapes within the larger regional network that serve as focal points for co-production. In its maturity, this effort will scale application across the larger fire management community, including state, tribal, and NGO fire management agencies and organizations.
Partners
QUIC-Fire developer David Robinson from LANL (left) demos the virtual reality potential of QUIC-Fire with Ft. Stewart Forest technician Curtis Bryant (right).
Contact
For more information on EILN, please contact:
Brett Williams, USFS Region 8 FAM Fire Management Specialist, brett.williams@usda.gov
James Furman, USFS Fire Management Specialist, james.h.furman@usda.gov
Or, visit the USFS EILN website.
