Synthesis / Tech Report

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Fire ember production from wildland and structural fuels

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Spot fires caused by wind-blown burning embers are a significant mechanism of fire spread in the wildland and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI). Fire spread and structure ignition by embers can be characterized by three major processes or mechanisms: ember production, ember transport, and ember ignition of fuel. This study investigates ember production from selected wildland and structural  fuels under a range of environmental conditions through full-scale, intermediate-scale, and small-scale laboratory experiments.

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Targeted livestock grazing to strategically reduce fine fuels: Progress Report May 2019

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In 2015, the Bureau of Land Management implemented a call to action with the release of the Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy (IRFMS) to improve the efficiency and efficacy of actions to address rangeland fire, to better prevent and suppress rangeland fires, and improve efforts to restore fire-impacted landscapes.  The IRFMS specifically addresses the need to explore targeted livestock grazing as a strategic fine fuels reduction option.  This report describes the progress made on these actions to date.

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WUI fire: Analysis of gaps in operations and capabilities

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In December of 2017, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator requested the Department of Homeland Security DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) research new and emerging technology that could be applied to wildland fire incident response, given the loss of life that occurred in California during the fall of 2017 in Santa Rosa and Ventura.

In response to the request, DHS S&T—in collaboration with FEMA, the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), and other key stakeholder experts—determined wildland urban interface (WUI) incidents and life-saving functions as the optimal areas for DHS S&T to explore technology innovation. As a result, S&T formed an Integrated Project Team (IPT) and initiated the WUI Fire Operational Requirements and Technology Capability Analysis Project. Over the course of the project, the IPT identified areas of innovation in wildland fire incident relating to wildland fire preparedness and mitigation and enhanced wildland fire suppression practices, including resistant infrastructure planning, building materials, and building codes. To meet the Administrator’s request, however, the IPT focused its efforts on requirements for improving operational capabilities and incident response to save lives in WUI fires.

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Fire behavior and smoke modelling: Needs for next-generation forecasting

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This review paper presents simulations and experiments of hypothetical prescribed burns with a suite of selected fire behavior and smoke models and identifies major issues for model improvement and the most critical observational needs. The results are used to understand the new and improved capability required for the next-generation SRF systems and to support the design of the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE) and other field campaigns. The next-generation SRF systems should have more coupling of fire, smoke and atmospheric processes. The development of the coupling capability requires comprehensive and spatially and temporally integrated measurements across the various disciplines to characterize flame and energy structure (e.g. individual cells, vertical heat profile and the height of well-mixing flaming gases), smoke structure (vertical distributions and multiple subplumes), ambient air processes (smoke eddy, entrainment and radiative effects of smoke aerosols) and fire emissions (for different fuel types and combustion conditions from flaming to residual smouldering), as well as night-time processes (smoke drainage and super-fog formation).

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Oil and gas development on federal lands and sage-grouse habitats

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The purpose of this analysis was to evaluate the number of federal oil and gas leases issued and number of APD issued between 2015 and 2019 that occurred within BLM-designated sage-grouse habitat (General and Priority Habitats). More specifically, our objective was to evaluate the differences in the number and acreage of federal oil and gas leases and number of APDs assigned inside and outside of BLM-designated sage-grouse habitat from October 1, 2015 to March 15, 2019.

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Estimating fire smoke related health burden and novel tools to manage impacts on urban populations

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This study comprehensively assessed the health risks posed by smoke exposure, and constructed new tools to estimate and forecast smoke concentration levels and associated health effects. We accomplished these goals with four specific aims. In Aim 1, we compared the chemical composition of fine PM emanating from fire smoke with typical urban PM in the US. In Aim 2, we conducted a systematic review and meta analysis of the risk estimates to evaluate the risks of smoke exposure for all relevant health outcomes. In Aim 4 we combined model-based predicted smoke exposure with health and economic assessment tools to provide real-time forecasts of health risk over space and time. In this report, we describe the results of this work and their impact on the field.

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Cross-boundary wildfire and community exposure: A framework and application in the western US

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This report provides a framework for assessing cross-boundary wildfire exposure and a case study application in the western US. The case study provides detailed mapping and tabular decision support materials for prioritizing fuel management investments aimed at reducing wildfire exposure to communities located proximal to national forests. We used national FSim simulation outputs to (1) estimate cross-boundary wildfire among major land types (Federal, State, private); (2) quantify structure exposure to all western communities; (3) map sources of community wildfire exposure (firesheds); (4) characterize firesheds in terms of management opportunity and fuels; and (5) prioritize communities based on integration of exposure and fireshed characteristics.

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Research needs related to wildland firefighter safety

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Wildland firefighters in the United States  are exposed to a variety of hazards while performing their jobs in America’s wildlands. Although the threats posed by vehicle accidents, aircraft mishaps, and heart attacks claim the most lives, situations where firefighters are caught in a life-threatening, fire behavior-related event (i.e. an entrapment) constitute a considerable danger because each instance can affect many individuals. In an attempt to identify the scope of understanding of the causes of firefighter entrapments a review of the pertinent literature and a compilation and synthesis of existing data were undertaken.

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Effects of wildfires and fuel treatments on watershed water quantity across the US

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Scientists at the Southern Research Stations of the US Forest Service combined the hydrometeorological and fire data for 168 fire-affected areas in the contiguous United States collected between 1984 and 2013. This enabled them to determine when wildland fires can affect the annual amount of flow in rivers, and to create a suite of climate and wildland fire impact models adapted to local conditions.

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Science framework for conservation and restoration of the sagebrush biome

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View the Forest Service Bulletin summary.
View a list of information and tools for applying these concepts.
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The Science Framework for Conservation and Restoration of the Sagebrush Biome is a two-part guide to managing sagebrush ecosystems in the West and was developed by an extensive interagency team of scientists and managers.  It uses the concepts of resilience to disturbance (ability to recover) and resistance to invasive annual grasses across three geographic scales (sagebrush biome, ecoregions, and local sites) to prioritize conservation and restoration actions in areas where they are likely to have the greatest benefits.

Part 1 provides the science basis and decision-support tools for prioritizing areas and strategies for management.

Part 2 focuses on management considerations and tradeoffs for applying the information in Part 1, including monitoring and adaptive management, climate adaptation, wildfire and vegetation management, nonnative invasive plant management, application of National Seed Strategy concepts, livestock grazing management, and wild horse and burro considerations.

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