Characterising ignition precursors associated with high levels of deployment of wildland fire personnel

Alison C. Cullen; Brian R. Goldgeier; Erin Belval; John T. Abatzoglou

doi:10.1071/WF23182

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Next Contents Vol 33(8)

Characterising ignition precursors associated with high levels of deployment of wildland fire personnel

Alison C. Cullen ^A ^* , Brian R. Goldgeier ^A ^B , Erin Belval ^C and John T. Abatzoglou ^D

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-3055, USA.

^B WA Department of Ecology, Lacey, WA 98503, USA.

^C USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO 80526, USA.

^D School of Engineering, University of California Merced, Merced, CA 95343, USA.

^* Correspondence to: alison@uw.edu

International Journal of Wildland Fire 33, WF23182 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF23182

Submitted: 14 November 2023 Accepted: 5 July 2024 Published: 29 July 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

As fire seasons in the Western US intensify and lengthen, fire managers have been grappling with increases in simultaneous, significant incidents that compete for response resources and strain capacity of the current system.

Aims

To address this challenge, we explore a key research question: what precursors are associated with ignitions that evolve into incidents requiring high levels of response personnel?

Methods

We develop statistical models linking human, fire weather and fuels related factors with cumulative and peak personnel deployed.

Key results

Our analysis generates statistically significant models for personnel deployment based on precursors observable at the time and place of ignition.

Conclusions

We find that significant precursors for fire suppression resource deployment are location, fire weather, canopy cover, Wildland–Urban Interface category, and history of past fire. These results align partially with, but are distinct from, results of earlier research modelling expenditures related to suppression which include precursors such as total burned area which become observable only after an incident.

Implications

Understanding factors associated with both the natural system and the human system of decision-making that accompany high deployment fires supports holistic risk management given increasing simultaneity of ignitions and competition for resources for both fuel treatment and wildfire response.

Keywords: Firefighters, Linear regression, Simultaneous wildfire, Suppression personnel competition, Wildfire management, Wildfire response personnel deployment, Wildfire suppression resource.

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