Application of simulation modelling for wildfire risk management Alan Ager,  USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest  Research Station Pendleton, Oregon [email protected] The 2014 Västmanland wildfire • Worst wildfire in 40 years • 15,000 hectares • One confirmed fatality • Italy and France provided firefighting aircraft .[ 9/9/2015 2 2015 wildfire season Pacific Northwest US 9/9/2015 3 “Canyon Fire”, John Day Oregon, August 15 9/9/2015 4 2015 Wildfire Season - Alaska • 2 million ha burned • 200 active incidents 9/9/2015 5 9/9/2015 6 US Wildfire trend is not good • National forests average 8,888 fire incidents/yr • Average area burned >700,000 ha (78 million ha) • Fire suppression > $2 billion/year • 40% of the Forest Service budget Policy background • 1935 “10 am” policy • 1971 – 10 acre objective More suppression Bigger fires Climate change • Moisture in the atmosphere is highly sensitive to temperature. – Need 15% increase.in precip. for every degree of warming to compensate • Temperature correlated with lightning. • Warmer temps -> longer the fire season; particularly important at high northern latitudes. Parisien, M-A., Parks, S.A., Krawchuk, M.A., Flannigan, M.D., Bowman, L.M., and Moritz, M.A. (2011). Scale-dependent controls on the area burned in the boreal forest of Canada, 1980-2005. Ecological Applications 21: 789-805. Forest Service policy response • Accelerated restoration of “fire adapted forests” • Increased emphasis on hazardous fuels reduction programs • Community wildfire protection planning • Application of risk science • Suite of decision support tools 9/9/2015 10