Improving Decision Making During Wildland Fire Events

Wildland fires continue to be a threat to persons and their property in many parts of the world, particularly in areas characterized as having Mediterranean climates, semi-arid climates, or boreal forests. Throughout the United States the policy on fires has been to extinguish all fires as soon as possible, especially those that are anthropogenically caused and/or threaten people and property. This has led to an accumulation of fuels in wildland areas and the alteration of natural fire regimes. The entities responsible for minimizing the impacts of these events are emergency management organizations (EMOs). In order to efficiently and effectively complete their responsibilities, all EMOs employ a variety of information processing technologies, including among others spatial decision support systems or geographic information systems, during the preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation phases of emergency management. However, EMOs continue to be plagued by issues that influence the effectiveness of their response during a fire event. This research explored the informational needs, data availability, communication flows, and decision making workflows informing fire decision support within current EMOs in order to develop tools that can improve decision making during a wildland fire event. By utilizing a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, this research identified one of the most prevalent needs among EMO personnel, the need to know what impacts a firebreak has upon an active fire front, explored the relationship between firebreaks and wildland fire behavior, and developed and statistically validated a firebreak probability tool that has been integrated as a part of a wildland fire behavior program. The results demonstrate that by taking into account the needs and limitations of decision makers during an event, valuable information can be obtained that in turn can be used to inform the creation of improved spatial decision support systems used to assist decision makers manage wildland fire events.

Wildland fires continue to be a threat to persons and their property in many parts of the world, particularly in areas characterized as having Mediterranean climates, semi-arid climates, or boreal forests. Throughout the United States the policy on fires has been to extinguish all fires as soon as possible, especially those that are anthropogenically caused and/or threaten people and property. This has led to an accumulation of fuels in wildland areas and the alteration of natural fire regimes. The entities responsible for minimizing the impacts of these events are emergency management organizations (EMOs). In order to efficiently and effectively complete their responsibilities, all EMOs employ a variety of information processing technologies, including among others spatial decision support systems or geographic information systems, during the preparation, response, recovery, and mitigation phases of emergency management. However, EMOs continue to be plagued by issues that influence the effectiveness of their response during a fire event. This research explored the informational needs, data availability, communication flows, and decision making workflows informing fire decision support within current EMOs in order to develop tools that can improve decision making during a wildland fire event. By utilizing a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, this research identified one of the most prevalent needs among EMO personnel, the need to know what impacts a firebreak has upon an active fire front, explored the relationship between firebreaks and wildland fire behavior, and developed and statistically validated a firebreak probability tool that has been integrated as a part of a wildland fire behavior program. The results demonstrate that by taking into account the needs and limitations of decision makers during an event, valuable information can be obtained that in turn can be used to inform the creation of improved spatial decision support systems used to assist decision makers manage wildland fire events.

The emergence of large fires of long duration (also known as siege fires) with their inherently high costs has raised numerous questions about the opportunities for cost containment. Cost reviews from the 2003 fire season have revealed how additional knowledge created through research can lead to better management and lower costs of fire incidents.

The wildland fire community has spent the past decade trying to understand and account for the role of human factors in wildland fire organizations. Social research that is relevant to managing fire organizations can be found in disciplines such as social psychology, management, and communication. However, such research has been published primarily for scientific and business audiences, and much of the fire community has not been exposed to it. Here, we have compiled and organized knowledge from a variety of social science disciplines so that it can be used to improve organizational practices related to firefighter and public safety, to assess the effectiveness of safety campaigns, and to improve firefighter safety trainings. This annotated reading list summarizes approximately 270 books, articles, and online resources that address scientific and management concepts helpful for understanding the human side of fire management. The first section, Human Factors and Firefighting, introduces readers to key workshops and writings that led to the recognition that human factors are prime ingredients of firefighter safety. The second section, Foundations for Understanding Organizations, consists of social science research that provides a foundation for understanding organizational dynamics. This section includes readings on decision making and sensemaking, organizational culture, identification and identity, leadership and change, organizational learning, and teams and crews. The third section, Understanding Organizations in High Risk Contexts, explores organizations that deal regularly with risk, uncertainty and crisis. This section includes readings on risk and uncertainty, high reliability organizing, and crisis communication. The publication concludes with Internet resources available for those interested in the management of fire organizations.

Wildfires represent a growing threat to environments, to people, communities, and to societies worldwide, particularly in the United States, Southern Europe, and Australia. Recognition of this growing risk has highlighted a need to develop people's capacity to adapt to annually occurring events that could increase in frequency and severity over the coming years and decades. The goal of ensuring sustained levels of protective measures in communities susceptible to wildfire hazard consequences has proved to be elusive. This book examines why this is so and identifies ways in which sustained levels of preparedness can be facilitated. Major topics include: wildfire preparedness and resiliency in community contexts; socially disastrous landscape fires in southeastern Australia; landscape typology of residential wildfire risk; proactive human response to wildfires outbreak; forest fires in wildland-urban interface, wildfire risk management; “stay or go” policy in the line of fire; social dimensions of forest fire; the influence of community diversity; evaluating a community engagement initiative; response to fire threats; social media and resiliency; and building on lessons learned. Additional information includes the landscape fires in southeastern Australia, wildfire risk management in Portugal; fire preparedness in Greece, Cyprus, and the Pine Barrens in the northeastern United States. The findings of research programs being conducted in the United States, Australia, Europe, India and South America are presented. The book includes case studies on the analysis and proposed actions of the wildland-urban interface being faced by Central Chile and South America. This book will provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the wildfire preparedness research and its application to the development of risk communications and public education programs.

We report the results of a questionnaire and workshop that sought to gain a better and deeper understanding of the contemporary information needs of wildland fire and fuels managers. Results from the questionnaire indicated that the decision to suppress a wildland fire was most often influenced by factors related to safety and that the decision to allow a fire to burn was influenced by a variety of factors that varied according to land management objectives. We also found that managers anticipated an increase in the use of wildland fire, but that these increases will be moderate due to a variety of constraints that will continue to limit the use of wildland fire. From the workshop, we learned that managers will need to become increasingly strategic with their fire and fuels management planning, and that the information used to support tactical fire operations may prove to be insufficient. Furthermore, the managers participating in the workshop indicated the functional linkage between land management and fire management planning is lacking. We suggest that effective fire management planning requires information on the benefits and risks to a wide variety of values at landscape scales, integration with land management objectives, and a long-term perspective.

The continuing encroachment of human settlements into fire-prone areas and extreme fire seasons in recent years make it urgent that we better understand both the physical and human dimensions of managing the risk from wildfire. Wildfire Risk follows from our awareness that increasing public knowledge about wildfire hazard does not necessarily lead to appropriate risk reduction behavior. Drawing heavily upon health and risk communication, and risk modeling, the authors advance our understanding of how individuals and communities respond to wildfire hazard. They present results of original research on the social, economic, and psychological factors in responses to risk, discuss how outreach and education can influence behavior, and consider differences among ethnic/racial groups and between genders with regard to values, views, and attitudes about wildfire risk. They explore the role of public participation in risk assessment and mitigation, as well as in planning for evacuation and recovery after fire. Wildfire Risk concludes with a dedicated section on risk-modeling, with perspectives from decision sciences, geography, operations research, psychology, experimental economics, and other social sciences.

The purpose of this present study was to identify the perceptions, thoughts, and experiences of skilled and knowledgeable Fire Chiefs regarding 1) learning job-related decision making skills, 2) improving decision making practices, and 3) determining risk factors that influence decision making. The objective of collecting and analyzing this data was to gain insight into the association, if one existed, between fire service decision making processes, firefighting risk factors, and firefighter injuries and deaths. The findings did indicate an association between decision making, risk factors, and potential injuries and deaths. One of the most often mentioned and important findings of the present study, stated by participants, was that information needs to be gathered and risks need to be evaluated in order to make sound decisions und increase the safety of firefighters to minimize the chance of harm. The following 16 major themes were also identified 1) Training is a basic element of learning, 2) Information is needed lo increase knowledge and skills, 3) Learning takes place through experience, 4) Time is a key factor in decision processes, 5) Learning is enhanced through the Executive Fire Officer (EFO) program, 6) Formal education contributes to improved learning, 7) Experienced people offer learning through mentoring, 8) Networking provides a means to tap the knowledge of others, 9) Training provides readiness for actual situations, 10) Experience is essential for making decisions, 11) Communication improves task accomplishment, 12) Simulations provide preparation for real events, 13) Information is necessary to make sound decisions, 14) Prior success of methods increases acceptance, 15) The evaluation of risks is critically important, and 16) Information must be gathered to weigh risks.