Saving the Forest by Reducing Fire Severity: Selective Fuels Treatment Location and Scheduling

Richard L. Church (), Matthew R. Niblett (), Jesse O’Hanley (), Richard Middleton () and Klaus Barber ()
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Richard L. Church: University of California
Matthew R. Niblett: University of California
Jesse O’Hanley: Kent University
Richard Middleton: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Klaus Barber: US Forest Service Region 5

Chapter 7 in Applications of Location Analysis, 2015, pp 173-190 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Wildfire is a natural process which can lead to a variety of conditions in a forested landscape, some quite destructive. Whatever the cause of a fire, no one questions that destructive fires often occur during certain weather events where litter (woody debris from trees) and ladder fuels are abundant. The US Forest Service has implemented a program to reduce litter and ladder fuels along with thinning of stands in order to mitigate the extent and severity of fires, especially in areas surrounding critical habitat. Fuels reduction/treatment plans are expensive and therefore must be planned over a period of years, often two decades or more. This chapter presents an application of a location-scheduling model which has been developed for the US Forest Service to determine when and where fuels treatments are to be implemented. The model itself is an integer linear programming problem, which has been embedded in a decision support system called iFASST. This modeling system is quite flexible, and because of its flexibility has now been used in many of the National Forests in California.

Keywords: location-scheduling optimization; fire modeling; fuels treatment; forest management; decision support systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-20282-2_7

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