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The project brings together scientists from the USGS with experts from across the Department of the Interior, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Office of Wildfire, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to improve how the Department defines the risks that wildfires pose to the lands and waters it manages and how it measures the investments the Department makes to reduce those risks. Through a collaborative approach, the Department will examine various aspects of wildfire and post-fire risk that have not been addressed.
“Climate change, drought and the spread of invasive species are causing rapid changes in ecosystems that must be accounted for in wildfire models to ensure our mitigation and response measures are effective,” he said. Jeff Rupert, director of the Interior Department’s Office of Wildfire. “As outlined in last year’s report to Congress by the Commission on Wildfire Mitigation and Management, we must do more to bring together fragmented research efforts and data-driven decision making. This project is an example of how the Department of the Interior is implementing those recommendations.”
The scientific project will be carried out through four missions:
- Synthesize and translate wildfire science to support National Environmental Policy Act implementation.
- Develop a Home Office risk assessment and mapping framework suitable for application at multiple scales across bureaus and agencies.
- Advance the National Treatment Effectiveness Evaluation Strategy to better understand fire risk and new technology tools.
- Post-fire mapping and monitoring.
“Everyone has a different concept of fire risk, and everyone has a different value placed on the impacts of wildfire,” Paul Steblein, Wildfire Science Coordinator, U.S. Geological SurveyHe pointed out the disparity in fire damage between the remote west and the more densely populated east.
“As researchers plan their work, they are focusing on studying direct and indirect impacts and benefits in fire risk models that outline impacts on people and community infrastructure recovery,” said Steblain. “These scientific findings will enable land managers to prepare for both long-term and short-term ecological changes to plant communities, wildlife habitats and watersheds.”
“Fire changes the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the landscape and the soils, which in turn leads to changes in water flow and water quality, and how we recover other valuable resources,” said Steblain. “When we factor these factors into our models, we provide mitigation and restoration options for land managers in these environments even before fire occurs.”
Climate change is also a factor that will necessitate updating the models. Extreme droughts and rainfall are changing the landscape and changing how scientists think about wildfires.
“Invasive plant species, insects and disease outbreaks that are adapted to fire are further complicating the situation and creating more unknown conditions for the future,” Steblain said. “What we’re really doing when we update the data is understanding how to increase the resilience of the land, and we’re better able to predict the impacts of changing weather patterns.”
Steblain said this scientific project is no small undertaking, so collaboration among Interior Department components will be critical to its success as regional maps are improved.
“Throughout this project we will be heavily dependent on our partner institutions so that we can figure out what data exists and how to improve our decision making. We have to take their knowledge and codify it into tools that everyone can use,” he said.
“Ultimately, the goal of this effort is not to eliminate wildfires, but to control the right types of wildfires,” Steblain said.
According to fire scientists, fire acts as a driver of ecosystems, cycling nutrients and improving habitat for many species, such as ponderosa pine, which rely on the heat of fire to open their cones and release their seeds.
Planned wildfires are an important practice of Indigenous cultures, which have long used fire to restore landscapes across the continent. However, more than a century of wildfire suppression has left regions with an excess of “fuel,” exacerbating the behavior and impacts of fire.
“Once we evaluate and improve our models, we will be able to better utilize prescribed fire, control invasive weeds and utilize other treatments to reduce the destructive effects of fire, which will benefit all of us,” Steblain said.
USGS officials expect the project to be implemented over the next few years. The final product will include a publicly available, interactive web-based viewer, datasets and a story map.
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