Risk Management Assistance

The growing complexity and duration of wildland fires continues to challenge the capability and expertise of U.S. Forest Service agency administrators, fire managers and the wildfire response system as a whole. As wildfires become more complex and the risk to firefighters, the public, communities and resources increase, there is a demand for additional strategic decision support for administrators and managers engaged in the management of these events. In December 2016, a working group from the Forest Service developed a process to enhance the strategic evaluation process using analytics to expand the decision space for wildfire response; specifically focusing on minimizing firefighter exposure, protecting highly valued resources and assets, and achieving incident and land and resource management objectives. This effort is now interagency and closely linked to the cohesive strategy utilizing the best available science for safe and effective wildfire response.

Risk Management Assistance (RMA) is designed to assist agency administrators/line officers and incident commanders by providing access to experienced line officers, personnel skilled in risk management, fire operations, and enhanced fire analytics to improve fire management responses through a risk informed process. RMA products and personnel strengthen the ability to examine alternative strategies that better consider the exposure tradeoffs, assess risk to highly valued resources and assets, and seek opportunities for realizing the beneficial effects of fire. The intent is to apply existing and emerging decision support tools coupled with risk management expertise to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of wildfire response.