The influence of incident management teams on the deployment of wildfire suppression resources
Michael Hand A C , Hari Katuwal B , David E. Calkin A and Matthew P. Thompson A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A US Department of Agriculture Forest Service,Rocky Mountain Research Station, 800 East Beckwith Avenue, Missoula, MT 59801, USA.
B University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT 59812, USA.
C Corresponding author. Email: mshand@fs.fed.us
International Journal of Wildland Fire 26(7) 615-629 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF16126
Submitted: 14 July 2016 Accepted: 24 February 2017 Published: 26 April 2017
Abstract
Despite large commitments of personnel and equipment to wildfire suppression, relatively little is known about the factors that affect how many resources are ordered and assigned to wildfire incidents and the variation in resources across incident management teams (IMTs). Using detailed data on suppression resource assignments for IMTs managing the highest complexity wildfire incidents (Type 1 and Type 2), this paper examines daily suppression resource use and estimates the variation in resource use between IMTs. Results suggest that after controlling for fire and landscape characteristics, and for higher average resource use on fires in California, differences between IMTs account for ~14% of variation in resource use. Of the 89 IMTs that managed fires from 2007 to 2011, 17 teams exhibited daily resource capacity that was significantly higher than resource use for the median team.
Additional keywords: fixed effects, resource demand, suppression effort.
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