Topic: Risk Assessment and Analysis

We present a method and case study to predict and map the likelihood of wildfires spreading to the urban interface through statistical analysis of past fire patterns using 15 000 lines from 677 fires with known ignition points and date and random potential end points on the urban interface of…

Research across a variety of risk domains finds that the risk perceptions of professionals and the public differ. Such risk perception gaps occur if professionals and the public understand individual risk factors differently or if they aggregate risk factors into overall risk differently. The…

Reference ecological conditions offer important context for land managers as they assess the condition of their landscapes and provide benchmarks for desired future conditions. State-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) are commonly used to estimate reference conditions that can be used to…

Research across a variety of risk domains finds that the risk perceptions of professionals and the public differ. Such risk perception gaps occur if professionals and the public understand individual risk factors differently or if they aggregate risk factors into overall risk differently. The…

Social interactions are widely recognized as a potential influence on risk-related behaviors. We present a mediation model in which social interactions (classified as formal/informal and generic/fire-specific) are associated with beliefs about wildfire risk and mitigation options, which in turn…

As carbon modeling tools become more comprehensive, spatialdata are needed to improve quantitative maps of carbon emissions from fire.The Wildland Fire Emissions Information System (WFEIS) provides mappedestimates of carbon emissions from historical forest fires in the United Statesthrough a web…

The impacts of escalating wildfire in many regions — the lives and homes lost, the expense of suppression and the damage to ecosystem services — necessitate a more sustainable coexistence with wildfire. Climate change and continued development on fire-prone landscapes will only compound current…

Recentfire seasons in the western United States are some of the most damaging andcostly on record. Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface on the ColoradoFront Range, resulting in thousands of homes burned and civilian fatalities,although devastating, are not without historical reference.…

Current practices for measuring high heat flux in scenarios such as wildland forest fires use expensive, thermopile-based sensors, coupled with mathematical models based on a semi-infinite-length scale. Although these sensors are acceptable for experimental testing in laboratories, high error…

Evaluating the influence of observed daily weather on observed fire-related effects (e.g. smoke production, carbon emissions and burn severity) often involves knowing exactly what day any given area has burned. As such, several studies have used fire progression maps – in which the perimeter of…