1. Forest fuels evaluation and fuel treatment planning for DOI bureaus in 2008
Keith Reynolds, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station Jim Menakis, USDA Forest Service, Missoula Fire Sciences Lab
Erik Christiansen, US Fish & Wildlife Service, Fire Mgmt Branch Paul Hessburg, USDA Forest Service, PNW Research Station

2. The context
Dissatisfaction (both internally and externally) with process used by federal resource agencies for allocating budgets for hazardous fuels reduction.
Common perception that the agency does not prioritize and allocate funding according to the most critical needs.
OIG Draft Report - Healthy Forests Initiative Audit No At. Key criticisms include:
Lack of a transparent and repeatable process for budget allocation.
Lack of a standardized system for characterizing fire danger and socio-economic values at risk.

3. Basic needs of DOI fuels managers
Evaluation within scale
Concurrent evaluation of states and processes within a single analysis
Across scale
Explicit linkage of evaluations across spatial scales
Comparing evaluations over time (performance)
Across phases of adaptive management
Going from landscape evaluation to planning
Satisfy basic requirements from GAO

4. Logic models A form of meta database
A formal logical representation of how to evaluate information
Networks of interrelated topics
Mental map

5. Forms of uncertainty Probabilistic uncertainty Linguistic uncertainty
Uncertainty of events
Linguistic uncertainty
Uncertainty about the definition of events
Vagueness or imprecision
A proposition is the smallest unit of thought to which one can assign a measure of truth (strength of evidence)
SE: a measure that quantifies the degree of support for a proposition provided by its premises

6. Logic models: strength of evidence
An example: strength of evidence for suitable slope for
tractor logging.
Degrees of support
Yes No
Partial
Bivalent reasoning
Yes No

7. Decision models
Summary of logic-based evaluation of wildfire potential is carried into decision model
This model considers additional factors
Logistical, economic, consequences, opportunities, etc.
We use
the analytic hierarchy process to help users structure the problem and develop weights for decision criteria
the simple multi-attribute rating technique to interpret attributes of alternatives (e.g., regions or bureaus)

8. Fuels evaluation and budget priorities for DOI regions and bureaus
Data for evaluating wildfire potential is summarized to each region of each bureau
A bureau-level decision model prioritizes regions for budget allocation
Regional data are summarized up to bureaus
A national level decision model prioritizes bureaus for budget allocation

9. Data to evaluate wildfire potential
Topic
Datum
Source
Fire behavior
Crown fire potential
Missoula FSL
Surface fire intensity
Probability
Length of fire season
Number of large fires
BLM, Boise
Problem fire days
Total fire starts
All data obtained as, or converted to, 1-km grids.

10. Basic logic for wildfire potential

11. Data sources for decision model
Datum
Source
Biomass opportunity
NFPORS
Ecosystem health
Missoula
Emissions
CWPP
NFP authority
Datum
Source
Vegetation maintenance
Missoula
Vegetation restoration
Wildfire potential
EMDS
WUI UW

12. DOI decision model

18. National priorities Top ranked Most sensitive weight
Sensitivities
Top ranked
Most sensitive weight
Absol. change required (%)
Replaced by
BLM
emissions
72.1
NPS
opportunities
4.9
BIA
consequences
41.3
FWS

19. Comments on the 2007 experience
A few bumps and warts
Logic had to be highly simplified for existing data
Some less than optimal data layers
But the FY07 analyses met a basic need
Rational and transparent models
Positive review from GAO, Congressional staff, and agency fuels manager at various levels
Common system between USDA and DOI

20. The future …
More comprehensive evaluation of wildfire potential based on LANDFIRE data
Ramping up to the continental US
Logistics are a major issue
Better integration across all natural resource agencies

21. A more advanced logic
This diagram shows how the fire danger topic is organized and evaluated. The complete fire danger evaluation is made up of three parts—evaluation of fire vulnerability, fire severity, and ignition risk topics. Under each of these 3 topics are additional subtopics. Under vulnerability are the topics surface fuels, crown fuels, and fire regime. Under severity are the attributes spread rate, flame length, fire line intensity, and crown fire potential. Under ignition risk are the topics fire weather and ignition potential.

22. A single unified model for planning
Assess current condition
Context for planning (where are we starting from?)
Evaluate alternative strategies
A framework for synthesizing results of projections
Harvest scheduling, vegetation modeling, etc.
Priority analysis for more tactical decisions
Which activities to do where?
Evaluate plan implementation
How well is the plan working?

23. Outputs versus outcomes
Change in performance standards of federal agencies
Old (outputs): acres treated per year
New (outcomes): acres of reduced fire danger per year
New planning rule and EMS
Adaptive management (ISO 14001)
Hypothesis testing
Shift in distribution of outcomes?

24. Contact information
Phone:
Website: