Fire Research
Public
interest in fire research has increased in recent years as severe
wildfires have driven the desire for a long-term strategy
to restore fire-prone ecosystems. Society’s concerns about
safety in the wildland-urban interface, air quality, the role of
fire in ecosystems, and maintaining the stability of those ecosystems
in a time of rapid global change drive fire research at the Pacific
Northwest Research Station. Those concerns have been elevated by
Congress through legislation over the past decade, and
Congress
holds research accountable for producing tools that are
useful and inform management decisions for our Nation’s
wildlands.
Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory
To highlight the rapidly increasing importance of fire research,
the Pacific Northwest Research Station designated the Pacific
Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory in Seattle, Washington, in
2003. This step recognized 30 continuous years of groundbreaking
work by researchers in Seattle in understanding
fire behavior and effects. The lab is evolving into a central location
for core fire research, bringing together a variety of Forest Service
scientists around the Pacific Northwest and Alaska to work on universal
scientific questions of global significance. Close collaboration
with prestigious scientific and academic institutions assures that
world-class research is conducted by scientists at the lab.
Context of This Briefing
The 2001 National Fire Plan legislation and funding responded
to the rapidly growing concern about wildfires across the Nation.
Some funding from that plan has gone to support additional fire
research. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 increased
this focus and immediacy of research on fire issues to prevent
catastrophic wildfires and save lives and property.
Our scientists work to improve the ability to predict fire
behavior and effects, and improve effectiveness and efficiency
of hazardous
fuel treatments
across the landscape.
Decision Support Tools
Many tools help
evaluate the potential for various types of fire behavior and
the effect of different kinds of hazardous
fuel treatments.
These tools are known as “decision-support tools.” They
can be used by managers and others to provide a set of plausible
scenarios, or outcomes, based on a
specific situation or multiple options. It remains up to the decisionmakers,
on the ground or at regional and national planning levels, to use
the tools and analyze their outputs based on their professional
knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of each tool.
In a quest to balance accuracy and efficiency, a number of tools
are available to provide information across the landscape.
Development of each tool brought together scientists, computer
programmers, technicians, field crews, cooperating agencies, educational
institutions, and those who control funding sources to ensure
a successful product delivered
in a timely fashion.
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