Abstract
Wildfire is a natural process which can lead to a variety of conditions in a forested landscape, some quite destructive. Whatever the cause of a fire, no one questions that destructive fires often occur during certain weather events where litter (woody debris from trees) and ladder fuels are abundant. The US Forest Service has implemented a program to reduce litter and ladder fuels along with thinning of stands in order to mitigate the extent and severity of fires, especially in areas surrounding critical habitat. Fuels reduction/treatment plans are expensive and therefore must be planned over a period of years, often two decades or more. This chapter presents an application of a location-scheduling model which has been developed for the US Forest Service to determine when and where fuels treatments are to be implemented. The model itself is an integer linear programming problem, which has been embedded in a decision support system called iFASST. This modeling system is quite flexible, and because of its flexibility has now been used in many of the National Forests in California.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Andrews PL, Bevins CD, Robert C (2003) BehavePlus fire modeling system, version 2.0: Users Guide. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden
Bahro B, Barber KH, Sherlock JW, Yasuda DA (2007) Stewardship and fireshed assessment: a process for designing a landscape fuel treatment strategy. USDA Forest Service Gen Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-2003, 41–54, Vallejo, CA, USA
Blackwell J (2004) Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment–Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. Record of Decision, Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, US Government
Camm JD, Chorman TE, Dill FA, Sweeney DJ, Wegryn GW (1997) Blending OR/MS, judgment, and GIS: restructuring P & G’s supply chain. Interfaces 27(1):128–142
Church RL, Murray AT, Weintraub A (1998) Locational issues in forest management. Locat Sci 6:137–153
Collins BM, Stephens SL, Moghaddas JJ, Battles J (2010) Challenges and approaches in planning fuel treatments across fire-excluded forested landscapes. J For 108(1):24–31
Feo T, Resende MGC (1995) Greedy randomized adaptive search procedures. Glob Optim 6:109–133
Finney MA (2001) Design of regular landscape fuel treatment patterns for modifying fire growth and behavior. For Sci 47(2): 219–228
Finney MA (2004) FARSITE: fire area simulator—model development and evaluation. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden
Finney MA (2006) An overview of FlamMap Fire modeling capabilities (in Fuels Management-How to Measure Success: Conference Proceedings), USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-41; Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 213–220
Geoffrion AM, Powers RF (1980) Facility location analysis is just the beginning (if you do it right). Interfaces 10(2): 22–30
Glover F, Laguna M, Martà R (2000) Fundamentals of scatter search and path relinking. Control Cybern 29(3):653–684
Gruell GE (2001) Fire in Sierra Nevada forests: a photographic interpretation of ecological change since 1849. Mountain Press, Missoula, MT
Kent B, Bare BB, Field RC, Bradley GA (1991) Natural resource land management planning using large-scale linear programs: the USDA Forest Service experience with FORPLAN. Oper Res 39(1):13–27
Miller JD, Safford HD, Crimmins M, Thode AE (2009) Quantitative evidence for increasing forest fire severity in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascade Mountains, California and Nevada, USA. Ecosystems 12(1):16–32
Niblett MR, O’Hanley JR, Church RL (2014) Scheduling fuels reduction projects using spatial optimization. Unpublished manuscript
North M, Innes J, Zald H (2007) Comparison of thinning and prescribed fire restoration treatments to Sierran mixed-conifer historic conditions. Can J For Res 37(2):331–342
Powell, Bradley E. (2001). Sierra Nevada Forest Plan Amendment Environmental Impact Statement. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture. US Government.
Resende MGC, Ribeiro CC (2005) GRASP with path-relinking: recent advances and applications. In: Ibaraki T, Nonobe K, Yagiura M (eds) Metaheuristics: progress as real problem solvers, vol. 32. Springer, Boston, pp 29–63
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the research funding of the US Forest Service which supported the development of the FIRS model and the iFASST/mFASST program. We also would like to acknowledge the help and assistance from Tanya Kohler and other staff members at the Region 5 headquarters of the US Forest Service.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Church, R., Niblett, M., O’Hanley, J., Middleton, R., Barber, K. (2015). Saving the Forest by Reducing Fire Severity: Selective Fuels Treatment Location and Scheduling. In: Eiselt, H., Marianov, V. (eds) Applications of Location Analysis. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 232. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20282-2_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20282-2_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20281-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20282-2
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsBusiness and Management (R0)