Since the 1940s, the United States Forest Service’s (USFS) national fire suppression efforts have been bolstered by a public-facing ad campaign led by the Ad Council, most notably through the iconic rise of Smokey Bear.
Wildland fire incident commanders make wildfire response decisions within an increasingly complex socio-environmental context. Threats to human safety and property, along with public pressures and agency cultures, often lead commanders to emphasize full suppression.
Federal agencies responsible for wildland fire management face increasing needs for personnel as fire seasons lengthen and fire size continues to grow, yet federal agencies have struggled to
Wildfires can be devastating for social and ecological systems, but the recovery period after wildfire presents opportunities to reduce future risk through adaptation.
Achieving sustainable coexistence with wildfires in the Anthropocene requires skilful integrated fire observations, fire behaviour predictions, forecasts of fire risk, and projections of change to fire climates.
Over the past four decades, annual area burned has increased significantly in California and across the western USA. This trend reflects a confluence of intersecting factors that affect wildfire regimes. It is correlated with increasing temperatures and atmospheric vapour pressure deficit.
Background: United States federal wildland fire policy requires the use of formal decision support systems (DSS) for fire incidents that last for an extended time. However, the ways that wildfire managers use DSSs in decisions regarding fire management remain understudied, including how users engage with or utilise them to make strategic decisions.
Background Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at landscape scales is a key research and management need given the inability to treat all areas at risk from wildfire. We synthesized information from case studies that documented the influence of fuel treatments on wildfire events.
Costs of fighting wildfires have increased substantially over the past several decades. Yet surprisingly little is known about the effectiveness of wildfire suppression or how wildfire incident managers prioritize resources threatened within a wildfire incident.