Wildfire and the threat it poses to society represents an example of the complex, dynamic relationship between social and ecological systems. Increasingly, wildfire adaptation is posited as a pathway to shift the approach to fire from a suppression paradigm that seeks to control fire to a paradigm that focuses on “living with” and “adapting to” wildfire. In this study, we seek insights into wha...

In this paper, we investigate homeowner preferences and willingness to pay for wildfire protection programs using a choice experiment with three attributes: risk, loss and cost. Preference heterogeneity among survey respondents was examined using three econometric models and risk preferences were evaluated by comparing willingness to pay for wildfire protection programs against expected monetar...

The number of smoking-caused wildfires has been falling nationwide. In national forests in 2011, smokingcaused wildfires represented only 10% of their 1980 level. No other cause of wildfire has experienced this level of decline. For 12 states, we evaluate the rate of smoking-caused wildfires and find it is a function of weather, other ignitions, the number of adult smokers, the presence of impr...

Wildfires have significant impact on both ecosystems and human society. To effectively manage wildfires, simulation models are used to study and predict wildfire spread. The accuracy of wildfire spread simulations depends on many factors, including GIS data, fuel data, weather data, and high-fidelity wildfire behavior models. Unfortunately, due to the dynamic and complex nature of wildfire, it ...

Wildland fire management is subject to manifold sources of uncertainty. Beyond the unpredictability of wildfire behavior, uncertainty stems from inaccurate/missing data, limited resource value measures to guide prioritization across fires and resources at risk, and an incomplete scientific understanding of ecological response to fire, of fire behavior response to treatments, and of spatiotempor...

2006 FOREWORD Discussions of nonnative plant species and wildfire present excellent opportunities to integrate knowledge from different disciplines, but they also present significant challenges. As both wild-fire and nonnative plant species elicit emotionally charged reactions, researchers are challenged to provide quantitative information to replace current opinions and dogma based on emotion ...

Since the early 1900s, the federal land management agencies—the Forest Service in particular—have focused their wildfire management efforts on suppression. A century of wildfire suppression policy has created a buildup of natural fuels in the Nation’s forests that contribute to larger, more damaging fires today. This, coupled with the rapid development of the Wildland-Urban Interface, makes tod...

Wildfire spread model output is used to make important and oftentimes expensive decisions. This thesis presents “VFire Virtual Fire in Realistic Environment” an application and more importantly a framework for visualizing wildfire simulations in immersive environments. VFire will allow its users to visualize wildfires from perspectives and positions, which are normally too dangerous. Recent dev...

This research focuses on the use of Esri’s ArcFuels and Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory’s FlamMap to produce a wildfire exposure analysis on structures affected by the Charlotte Fire. Exposure analysis involves producing both conditional flame length and burn probability, which are combined to determine a structure’s wildfire risk. The individual datasets within the model were tested for accu...

1 Wildland-urban interface (WUI) homeowners who do not mitigate the wildfire risk on 2 their properties impose a negative externality on society. To reduce the social costs of wildfire 3 and incentivize homeowners to take action, cost sharing programs seek to reduce the barriers that 4 impede wildfire risk mitigation. Using survey data from a WUI community in western Colorado 5 and a two-stage ...