Decision Making for Wildland Fire Incidents
“Decision making for wildfires: A guide for applying a risk management process at the incident level" has been published as a General Technical Report (GTR) by the Rocky Mountain Research Station and is available in Adobe PDF format only, from tree search or here.
Incident Objectives Project
Examination of wildland fire incident decisions revealed that most incident objectives are written general enough that they could apply to any fire in the country. This makes them of little use to incident management teams in developing strategies and tactics to achieve an agency administrator's intent for managing a specific fire and for agency administrators seeking to clarify the objectives they want accomplished.
A systematic evaluation of wildfire incident decisions was undertaken during the 2014 fire season, to better understand the situation and recommend solutions. Findings from this work are summarized in the following briefing paper.
Creating Incident Specific Objectives in WFDSS This document outlines some best practices for creating incident specific objectives (February 2019)
USDA FS Briefing Paper 2015 Findings - WFDSS Decision review of Incident Objectives and Incident Requirements (Updated April 8, 2016)
Incident Objectives & Incident Requirements Presentation (.pptx) - PowerPoint presentation summarizing findings from 2014 and 2015 Incident Objectives and Incident Requirements review. (Updated April 8, 2016)
USDA FS Briefing Paper - Wildland Fire Decision Making Incident Objectives & Incident Requirements (Updated July 01, 2015)
White Paper - Improving WFDSS Incident Objectives & Incident Requirements and Relaying Leader's Intent (Updated July 01, 2015)
Risk Assessment
A video series called, “Strategic-Level Risk Assessment for Fire Behavior Specialists” is available on the WFDSS YouTube Channel. There are seven videos that explain the role of the FBAN and LTAN in providing and communicating products to inform the risk decision. Topics include the Relative Risk Assessment, an Extended Risk Assessment, effects analysis, and the risk conclusion. A supplement is available HERE to use in combination with the videos or as a stand-alone guide.
You can access the Risk Assessment video series playlist from the WFDSS YouTube Channel.
Benefits Analysis Framework
One process that may be helpful in describing how fire threatens values at risk is described in the video below. The process combines the effect of fire type (surface fire, crown fire) on each resource of concern, the potential for that fire type to occur, the probability that fire will reach the value, and Management Action Points to prompt action when needed to protect the value. This process has not been widely used, but is available to be tested. We welcome your feedback and ideas about ways to improve this process. Contact Tonja Opperman.
Example Susceptibility Severity Spreadsheet
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