SWERI’s Independent Analysis of Managed Wildfire

This map demonstrates the fireline effectiveness of the 2022 Midnight Fire. The coral color is the 2022 Midnight Fire perimeter;brown is the 2019 Francisquito managed fire perimeter; and red is the 2018 Alamosa prescribed fire perimeter. The analysis shows that when the Midnight Fire ran into the previous burn areas, they contributed to a high degree of suppression effectiveness.

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A helpful TSW reader has sent me more information that addresses some of the questions we’ve raised directly, rather than floundering around, as I have been doing.  So a big shout-out to SWERI for this paper ! As a person who supports MF, is a big pre-planning and POD fan,  (gasp for me) even supports putting fire stuff in forest plans (making forest plans more useful) and agrees with the approach in this paper, but also wants to help all of us understand each other better, I made a few comments as if I were an MF skeptic living in a potentially-impacted community.

Analysis of managed wildfires demonstrates that destructive outcomes are rare. The 2021 Tamarack Fire in California was a lightning-caused fire for which the initial decision was not to engage directly due to firefighter safety concerns, not as a managed wildfire, and which resulted in structure loss and prompted scrutiny of management responses to natural ignitions. Recent research demonstrates that from 2009 to 2020, there were 32 fires with characteristics like the Tamarack Fire, of which only 6 were managed wildfires. Most structure losses from wildfire are due to human ignitions on private lands that spread into adjacent areas under extreme weather conditions. Managed wildfires that result in negative outcomes are rare, yet fire managers are incentivized to suppress natural ignitions to minimize short-term risk rather than use them under favorable conditions to maximize long-term risk reduction.

So this paper says that fire managers are not sufficiently incentivized to do MF.  Other folks have told me the same thing. At the same time, some people are worried that the FS is over-incentivized to do it based on  fuel reduction targets. I suppose both can be true in different places at different times? How can we (or can we) reconcile these two observations or points of view?

Current policy, the 2009 Guidance for Implementation of Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, is effective and allows for using managed wildfire when an existing, approved land, resource, or fire management plan is in place,

I’d like more details on what any plans should contain.. any old forest plan might not do it.  This paper, of course, is not the place to go into details.  Perhaps that is to be found somewhere else? I’d go so far as to say “put the fire part of plans in an easily accessible place on the Forest website.” Perhaps forest plans nowadays do have their material sorted by topic (say fire or grazing) as well as by plan component (desired conditions, standards, etc.)?

but myriad factors can frustrate its use. 1) There is inconsistent terminology and multiple terms for “managed wildfire.” The approach can entail engaging fire at locations deemed safer and more effective for suppression or engaging fire to achieve natural resource or risk management objectives after analyzing risk to firefighters and local landscape values. Inconsistent terminology creates confusion when current policy (i.e.,2009 Guidance) allows for all fires to be managed for different objectives and strategies depending on the context. 2) Operational concerns also pose challenges. Fire managers may worry there are insufficient resources,

This seems like a legitimate concern to me, especially projecting into unknown future time periods with unknown numbers of starts elsewhere.

leadership backing, and political or public support for implementing managed wildfire. 3) Risk aversion and uncertainty, when combined with a high degree of autonomy in local decision making and the perception that managed wildfire is risky, have resulted in hesitance to use managed wildfire approaches despite current policy.
In many cases, managed wildfire is a lower risk option when considering its potential to reduce future fire risk,

I think this could be one of the understanding gaps, how different folks talk about risk. It seems to me (and to the federal budget) that there are other options to reduce future fire risk, aka prescribed fire and/or mechanical treatment plus prescribed fire. At least everyone has been doing these projects assiduously saying they reduce wildfire risk.  But maybe there won’t be funding. We also don’t know if some equally or better conditions for MF will occur next year, or some other year, before the future WF risk.  And of course in the wrong conditions a WF could be worse.  Predicting the future is tough for anyone, even with super-sophisticated models.

but when faced with a risky decision, decision-makers often take the risk-averse option of fully suppressing a fire. Rather than sharing risk across boundaries, fire managers who do opt to take a managed wildfire approach are often left carrying the burden of potential bad outcomes, which are uncommon.

Hmm. Some would say people who lose their homes and businesses or get killed or injured and, say FEMA (aka taxpayers) are “left carrying the burden.”

Managed wildfire often comes down to the willingness of individuals to take on the risk because the 2009 Guidance has not been codified into law. 4) Building public and political understanding of, and support for, managed wildfire strategies, especially in the pre-season before a fire starts, can facilitate its use. 5) Existing performance metrics and financial structures may also disincentivize using managed wildfire, and regional and local planning may be outdated or not explicitly demarcate alternative fire management strategies for different land or resource objectives, which can lead to additional confusion in implementing policy on the ground.

I don’t think MF is a big thing in my county planning (partly forested, partly FS). Maybe what they meant is that all communities have not decided MF is a good idea, and hence it isn’t in plans?

There are several facilitating factors that lead to decisions to use managed wildfire. 1) Discussions of fire management options in the pre-season (e.g., creating Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) of the most effective containment opportunities and pairing those with quantitative wildfire risk assessments) can help identify and document strategic response zones where managed wildfire may prove beneficial under the right conditions. 2) The characteristics of individuals, incident management teams, or organizations with experience using risk-informed decision support systems (DSSs) and the characteristics of the DSSs themselves can facilitate decision making to allow for managed wildfire use. 3) Many other facilitators such as existing collaborative relationships, personal ethic to use managed wildfire, favorable conditions, reduced exposure, minimal values at risk, agency support, cost savings, and many others also encourage use of this approach.

I would use “support” and not “ethic.” Yes I can be pedantic, without being an actual pedant.
“ethic- a set of moral principles, especially ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct.”

Recommendations

Consistent terminology that better aligns with the existing 2009 Guidance should be identified, and the 2009 Guidance should be fully used. The 2009 Guidance already provides the appropriate sophistication and flexibility to respond to unplanned ignitions, both human and natural, but is not fully realized due to the barriers previously described. Once common language that adequately incorporates managed wildfire into the broader context of all wildfire management has been identified and vetted, the National Wildland Fire Coordinating Group Incident Status Summary database (ICS 209) categories for documenting and tracking wildfire should be reviewed and potentially updated to reflect this terminology. New terminology will allow for more realistic tracking, communication, and articulation of incident decision-making that highlights that wildfire response is a combination of strategy actions.

Duh. I still like FWB, for fire with benefits…

Framing should emphasize that all fires are addressed with a risk-informed, strategic approach. Expanding managed wildfire use has long-term health, safety, and risk reduction benefits. More awareness, socialization, outreach on the benefits, and communication of the complexities of fire decision making are necessary to facilitate the use of managed wildfire. Indigenous perspectives and cultural burning must be part of the conversation. Learning from success stories is invaluable for demonstrating the potential of managed wildfire to reduce future fire risk. Training programs must adapt to accommodate more nuanced framing and communication of approaches.

Leadership must share risk with fire managers and provide support, resources, and incentives for using managed wildfire. Fire managers need commitment and support to use managed wildfire from all levels of leadership and the necessary resources and incentives. Risk sharing and co-managing risk at all levels will help reduce risk aversion for individual fire managers who bear the greatest costs for the few bad outcomes. Leadership should acknowledge the reality of risk reduction, not elimination, in fire response. Leadership direction to use DSSs at all levels is also critical, otherwise using these tools often comes down to an individual’s willingness, rather than as a standard procedure.

Again, I think using “risk sharing” this way is confusing to me. Co-managing with whom exactly?- it sounds mostly internal.

The use of risk-informed, science-based DSSs before and during incidents is critical to increasing the use of managed wildfire, and these DSSs should be better integrated into land, resource, and fire management plans to fully realize the 2009 Guidance. More agile and risk-informed DSSs that deploy resources during windows of opportunity, prioritize resources in areas that have the highest probability of success, are identified through spatial pre-season fire planning, and are incorporated into land, resource, and fire management plans are critical to success. PODs are a collaborative, strategic spatial fire planning framework and DSS that pair local knowledge and expertise with advanced spatial analytics to pre-identify areas on the landscape where there is a high likelihood of containing a fire (e.g., roads, rivers, ridges). The collaborative development of PODs in the pre-season with diverse partners and across jurisdictions11 can inform fuel treatments to improve POD boundaries using strategic fuel breaks and/or as anchors for prescribed fire implementation.12 During fires, it is important to use pre-identified information and strategic approaches to prioritize resources in areas that are most likely to support safe and effective response. Using pre-identified control features that have been vetted by fire management professionals and partners can hasten situational awareness, conserve scarce resources, reduce future fire risk of high-severity wildfire, and incentivize line officers and incoming Incident Management Teams to consider indirect, “big box” strategies (i.e., managed wildfire) when it is safe and effective. Utilizing the Risk Management Assistance (RMA) Dashboard and engaging in the Incident Strategic Alignment Process (ISAP) will facilitate risk-informed decisions and the development of a spatial and temporal strategy using the best available science throughout an

Point being, I agree with all the ideas in here and still have a few questions about the way the info is conveyed.