Fire Program Analysis

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• Fire Program Analysis
• and
• Fire Ecology Assessment Tools
• Providing Decision Support
• for Fire and Land Management

Tim Sexton, Fire Ecologist Ed Delaney, Data
Manager
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Preparedness area of fire management composed
of personnel and equipment trained and
available for fire suppression local, regional
and national level. Resources consist of
engines dozers handcrews,
lookouts helicopters, airtankers management
personnel.
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• Early 20th century USFS used cost plus loss
  formula.
• 1970s USFS NFMAS
• (National Fire Management Analysis System)
• BLM and BIA have adopted NFMAS

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• NFMAS
• most cost efficient level (MEL) for fire
  management staffing
• likelihood of fires (based upon historical
  records
• current system analyzes preparedness efficiency
  by single agency units (National Forest or BLM
  Field Unit)
• then aggregates upward (within the agency) to the
  regional and then national level.
• partners and cooperators often not considered in
  the analysis, despite high utilization of other
  agencies in actual suppression actions.

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• NPS and USFW
• developed alternate system
• did not rely on commodity values for evaluating
  economic efficiency
• utilized constraints rather than economic
  efficiency

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• Monitoring
• All federal agencies required to monitor the
  effects of their actions
• NPS is the only agency that has developed and
  funded a system to quantitatively monitor the
  effects of fire management activities

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• 1970s and 1980s
• Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon
• pioneered monitoring and analysis of the effects
  of prescribed fire
• In 1992, the Western region of NPS published FMH
  (Fire Monitoring Handbook)
• This handbook and the accompanying software
  (database and analysis) served NPS and many units
  of other agencies for ten years

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• FMH protocols and associated software
• All NPS regions monitoring follows FMH
• 1992 handbook recently updated
• more flexibility
• address needs of new monitoring programs
• software developed, and managed in-house by
  an NPS employee
• Limitations in software
• (i.e., incompatibility with COTS and DOS-based
• led to the user requests for a system overhaul

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• Other Federal Agencies
• Rely on qualitative monitoring to meet federal
  monitoring requirements.
• Results litigation, adaptive management needs,
  disagreement on potential effects of treatments
  and non-treatments
• Need to utilize quantitative monitoring in all
  agencies.
• Many individual units in other agencies have been
  using FMH to monitor fire effects

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• Multi-agency fire management economic analysis
  systems
• NPS fire effects monitoring systems
• currently undergoing major overhauls
• The Fire Management Analysis systems are being
  revised by an interagency group under the acronym
  FPA (for Fire Program Analysis).
• Two systems NFMAS and FIREPRO
• being consolidated
• single system for all federal wildland fire
  agencies
• Fire effects monitoring system is being revised
  by the National Park Service under the acronym
  FEAT (Fire Effects Analysis Tools).

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• System Features of FPA (Fire Program Analysis)
• Considers preparedness needs of all agencies
  within a geographic area
• Utilizes economic analyses that
• go beyond market value of natural resources

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• System Features of FEAT
• (Fire Effects
  Analysis Tools)
• Spatial analysis capability to evaluate
• landscape-scale effects
• condition classes
• departure from desired condition
• Capability of short term analysis of effects
  where adaptive management timeframes require
  information within one to two years

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September 1986
September 1983
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Pre-Thin
Post-Thin
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• FEAT is to be a comprehensive tool to
• acquire and disseminate fire-related scientific
  knowledge
• Facilitate the coordination between wildland
  fire and other RM programs.

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Business Process Flow
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External Information Flows
Internal Info Flows
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External Information Flows
External Info Flows
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• Why is this important to IM?
• Ability to interact with and potentially
  satisfy IM program needs
• fire effects monitoring crews may collect needed
  information
• store it in readily accessible database
• local, regional (eco-regional), national
  databases
• Up-to-date program structure for compatibility
  with NPS standard databases and analysis tools.

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• System Interactions/Importance
• FEAT and FPA
• Two interrelated systems address National Fire
  Plan needs for
• assessing fire hazard
• desired conditions
• treatment effectiveness
• cost effective fire management staffing and
  funding levels

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• System Development Plans/Timelines
• FPA
• Sept 2001-National Fire Plan coordinators seek
  recommendations for common wildland fire program
  analysis system
• Interagency team working led by Jim Hubbard
  completed report on November 30, 2001

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• System Development Plans/Timelines
• FEAT
• Prototype by Early Fall 2002
• Regional rollouts Feb to May 2003
• Phase 3 (final additionsnice-to-have features),
  October 2003

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• Two-program overhauls will significantly improve
  the ability of fire management to respond to user
  needs (including IM) by
• Increased accessibility to information
• Landscape scale assessments
• Increased ability to assess land condition and
  treatment effects across agency boundaries
• Increased ability to evaluate multiple program
  effectiveness (preparedness, fuel treatment,
  ecosystem rehabilitation and restoration, etc.)

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