Staff Participate in Conference

The WFM RD&A Staff participated in the Association of Fire Ecology and the International Association of Wildland Fires Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political and Ecological Effects conference, May 19-23^rd 2014, in Missoula Montana.  Staff gave oral and poster presentations, organized and moderated special sessions, hosted workshops, and staffed the WFM RD&A booth.  Here are the details: 

• Lisa Elenz and Marlena Hovorka- presented on Integrating Fuel Treatments  in Land Management Planning and Wildfire Incident ResponseErin Noonan-Wright and Dan Mindar- hosted a workshop on Advanced Fire Behavior Analysis, Through Lessons Learned
• Erin Noonan-Wright- cohosted a workshop on Defining Fuel Treatments Success: Workflows, Metrics, and Evaluation
• Tami Parkinson- organized and moderated a special session on The Evolution of Fire Behavior Analysis and Management of Large, Long duration Incidents as Experienced on the Mustang Complex
• Ben Butler- gave an oral and poster presentation on An investigation of LandScan Suitability for Strategic Decision Making in the Wildland Fire Decision Support System
• Tim Sexton- presented on the Evolution of Decision Making
• Mitch Burgard- presented on the Strategic Operational Planner (SOPL)
• Morgan Pence and Kim Ernstrom- organized and moderated a special session on Wildfire Risk Assessment and Decision Support
• Lisa Elenz- presented on Strategic Decision Making for Wildfires using a Risk Management Process
• Erin Noonan-Wright and Tonja Opperman- presented on Applying the Wildland Fire Decision Support System to Support Risk-Informed Wildland Fire Decision Making: the Gold Plan Fire, Bitteroot National Forest, Montana
• Sam Amato- gave a poster presentation on Fire Perimeter Delineation and Reconstruction from Geo Referenced Photographs Using Google Earth Pro

www.largefireconference.org

Overview of 2013 Southwestern Fire Season Publication

The Southwest Fire Science Consortium and Northern Arizona University, Ecological Restoration Institute collaborated on the writing of this overview. Below is an excerpt from the article's introduction.
Read the full publication at: http://www.forestguild.org/publications/research/2014/2013_SW_Fire_Summary.pdf

"Each year numerous fires burn through the Southwest, and even for fire managers and researchers it can be difficult
to keep the details of each fire straight. The public hears a great deal about fires as they burn, but rarely do they see follow up information on burn severity or comparisons between fires. This report is an attempt to fill the need for
a concise, timely publication that summarizes the season’s fire details in the Southwest. The goal of this overview is
to provide a single source for information on the 2013 fire season for quick reference and to move the conversation beyond the simplistic “acres burned.” More specifically, this report describes the vegetation impacted by each fire and the degree to which fires affect resources including soils, vegetation and structures."

Recent Praise for Spatial Fire Planning Process in WFDSS

The Spatial Fire Planning Process that was recently added to WFDSS has expanded the functionality of the application and given the users greater flexibility to represent the intricacies of their Fire/Land/Resource Management Plans. The WFM RD&A recently received the following feedback praising the new feature and we thought we'd share it here...

"In my opinion the move to the Spatial Fire Planning module of WFDSS was a much better way to display and implement the forest plan direction vs. using FMUs. Classifying LRMP Management Area objectives as strategic objectives and Management Prescription Category guidelines and standards as management requirements was a relatively simple exercise.  Perhaps the more significant benefit of converting to spatial fire planning is that policies have changed substantially in the last few years both nationally and locally. Stand-alone policies specific to retardant avoidance, sage grouse, aquatic invasives,  mitigating impacts to T&E species, and others have or will become major constraints relevant to most fires. In my opinion that has uncovered a deficiency in the FMU concept in that common ground for the LRMP objectives, guidelines, and standards sometimes doesn’t align with the areas covered by other policies. Essentially, the lumping and splitting process done to consolidate the appropriate forest plan guidance into an FMU doesn’t work on retardant avoidance areas or sage grouse priority habitat. The advantage of Spatial Fire Planning is that you can include everything, and efficiently filter through what is relevant once a planning area for incident is defined."

Fore more information about the Spatial Fire Planning Process check out the WFDSS Spatial Fire Planning Guide.

Data Sharing Leads to Powerful Tools for Fighting Fire

The WFM RD&A focuses on providing information that improves decision-making on fires.  Few things are as powerful as the combination of information on where a fire is likely to go (fire behavior modeling) and what things that the fire is likely to impact (values at risk).  The WFM RD&A gathers information on values at risk from a variety of sources. Among the most important are local government datasets depicting building locations, which are often built from addressing and tax parcel, or "cadastral", data.  Recently, Emergency  Management magazine published an article about the cadastral data partnership in which the WFM RD&A is engaged. This partnership engages federal partners from within the wildland fire research and operations communities, non-fire federal agencies with aligned goals, and state and local government entities to build datasets that improve decision-making and contribute to public and firefighter safety.  The article was authored by WFM RD&A employees Andrew Bailey, Data Manager, and Benjamin Butler, GIS Specialist.

Read it at http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Data-Sharing-Tools-Fighting-Fire.html

Final WFM RD&A Mentee for the 2013 Fire Season

Mark Pater, Fire Ecologist, with the BLM in Gila Arizona, worked with the RDA from Aug. 26^th- Sept. 7^th as our final 2 week mentee for fire season 2013.  Mark is a Geospatial Analyst (GSAN) and Strategic Operational Planner (SOPL).  He provided Short Term and Near Term Fire Behavior analysis and FSPro analysis to 3 fires; Little Elk and Coxey in the Eastern Great Basin and Knife Lake in the Eastern Geographic  Area.  Mark also provided us with a thorough review of some of our internal products and the Rocky Mountain Center website.  He also helped us prepare for a new release of WFDSS by testing the new functionality in the training environment prior to release on the production site.  Mark was very helpful, enthusiastic, and great to work with.  He is an excellent supporter and proponent of WFDSS.  We look forward to working with Mark again in the future.

Mentee Dana Cohen Worked at Decision Support Center

Dana Cohen, smiling after a hard day's work at the DSC

Dana Cohen, Fire Management Specialist at the National Key Deer Refuge in Florida, worked with the RD&A as a mentee from August 12-27th.  She is a GSAN and LTAN(t).  Dana was able to work with us in person by helping staff a Decision Support Center (DSC) that was established in Boise, Idaho.  The DSC supported the Multi-Agency Coordination (MAC) group working in support of the numerous fires in the Eastern Great Basin.  Along with other staff members, Dana  provided analysis support to individual fires and provided Values Inventory reports and other spatial analysis to the MAC group.  The center supported numerous fires in the two-week time period.  It was a pleasure having Dana work with the Decision Support group in Boise.  She was motivated, helpful, and displayed initiative. Thanks, Dana!

Jon Rieck Works with the RD&A as a Mentee

Jon Rieck, away from his laptop.

WFM RD&A Mentee Program

Jon Rieck, a scientist with the RMRS Missoula Forestry Sciences Lab, worked with the Wildland Fire Management RD&A for a 2 week mentee assignment July 29^th- August 10^th.  Jon is a qualified GSAN, BHAV, and FEMO.  He supported one incident over several days in the Northwest Geographic area while working for the RD&A (the Green Ridge fire on the Deschutes National Forest).  He provided FSPro and Near Term Behavior analysis, of which both were utilized in the incident's published decision content.  Jon reviewed the Rocky Mountain Center website and suggested changes to improve the site.  He also worked on a project that compared potential future weather forecasts with current forecasts for fire behavior modeling in the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS).  We appreciate Jon's interest, enthusiasm, and willingness to dive deep into an important project for which very little research or validation has been conducted thus far.  Thank you, Jo--we look forward to working with you in the future.

Positive Feedback for Spatial Fire Management Plans in WFDSS

To WFM RD&A-- I like it...very nice way to spatially articulate a Forest Plan. Because we had the time we drew a big enough Planning areas so we could TEST our stuff. We didn't go into MAPs but from what was coming up in Strategic Objectives and Management requirements, it looked good. No need to grab the Forest Plan and go surfing anymore whistling "now what does the forest plan say again???"

It is all right there at your finger tips.  And feedback from the Line Officer was positive as well. In short, I like it.   

Feedback from Mike Goicoechea, Forest Fire Management Officer on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana (R1)

WFM RD&A Welcomes detailer Trevor Miller

Trevor Miller, a fuels technician on the Deschutes National Forest, has joined the Wildland Fire Management RD&A for a 5-week virtual detail.  He started August 5^th and will continue through September 7^th.  Trevor previously worked with the RD&A as a mentee in 2011 and is now a qualified Long Term Analyst (LTAN).  As a detailer, he will function as a member of the RD&A staff, completing the detail virtually from his home duty station in Sisters, OR and traveling to support fires as needed.  He will assist the RD&A by providing decision and fire behavior support to incidents during a busy part of fire season in the west.  Trevor will also work on current on-going projects with RD&A staff.  Welcome Trevor!

RD&A uses Detailers to Accomplish Fuels Work

Annie Benoit

Two long duration detailers have been brought on board to assist the Wildland Fire Management RD&A with fuels related work.  Annie Benoit, a Fuels Technician on the Idaho City Ranger District, Boise National Forest has been working for the RD&A since January 2013.  As a Fuels Technician she writes and reviews burn plans, identifies and implements fuels treatments, and manages GIS and monitoring databases. Annie functions as an ICT4 and RXB2 on forest, as well as a SITL (t) on a Great Basin type II team. She also supports the Great Basin Training Unit teaching several classes each year. While working for the RD&A, Annie assists Kim Ernstrom with Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) and Landfire related projects, including consolidating and re-working the helpdesk database. She is also testing and reviewing beta versions of online training materials, developing training modules to be included in S-390/Rx-341, and researching and summarizing various planning efforts. Annie's detail will continue through September.

Liz Struhar

Liz Struhar, Fire Planning Specialist for the National Park Service Southeast Region, began her detail with the RD&A July 1st. As a planning specialist she supports parks with Fire Management Plan revisions, contracts, Wilderness Minimum Requirements Analyses and Environmental Compliance needs. She also works with budget allocation models and provides some wildfire decision support assistance to parks.  Liz will work for the RD&A through August.  She will be working virtually out of Atlanta for the majority of her detail, but worked from our offices in Boise for two weeks in July. Liz will be working on the WFM RD&A Fuels Resource Portal (a website) and the Fuels Treatment Effectiveness project.