Assessing the effect of a fuel break network to reduce burnt area and wildfire risk transmission

Wildfires pose complex challenges to policymakers and fire agencies. Fuel break networks and area-wide fuel treatments are risk-management options to reduce losses from large fires. Two fuel management scenarios covering 3% of the fire-prone Algarve region of Portugal and differing in the intensity of treatment in 120-m wide fuel breaks were examined and compared with the no-treatment option. We used the minimum travel time algorithm to simulate the growth of 150 000 fires under the weather conditions historically associated with large fires. Fuel break passive effects on burn probability, area burned, fire size distribution and fire transmission among 20 municipalities were analysed. Treatments decreased large-fire incidence and reduced overall burnt area up to 17% and burn probability between 4% and 31%, depending on fire size class and treatment option. Risk transmission among municipalities varied with community. Although fire distribution shifted and large events were less frequent, mean treatment leverage was very low (1 : 26), revealing a very high cost–benefit ratio and the need for engaging forest owners to act in complementary area-wide fuel treatments. The study assessed the effectiveness of a mitigating solution in a complex socioecological system, contributing to a better-informed wildland fire risk governance process among stakeholders.

[1]  Martin E. Alexander,et al.  Fire, climate change, carbon and fuel management in the Canadian boreal forest , 2001 .

[2]  F. Moreira,et al.  Modeling and mapping wildfire ignition risk in Portugal , 2009 .

[3]  M. Finney.  Design of Regular Landscape Fuel Treatment Patterns for Modifying Fire Growth and Behavior , 2001, Forest Science.

[4]  Miguel G. Cruz,et al.  Assessing crown fire potential in coniferous forests of western North America: a critique of current approaches and recent simulation studies. , 2010 .

[5]  M. Finney.  An Overview of FlamMap Fire Modeling Capabilities , 2006 .

[6]  Alexandra D. Syphard,et al.  Comparing the role of fuel breaks across southern California national forests , 2011 .

[7]  Matthias M. Boer,et al.  Long-term impacts of prescribed burning on regional extent and incidence of wildfires : evidence from 50 years of active fire management in SW Australian forests , 2009 .

[8]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  A Method for Ensemble Wildland Fire Simulation , 2011 .

[9]  Carl N. Skinner,et al.  Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments , 2005 .

[10]  Cody R. Evers,et al.  Assessing the impacts of federal forest planning on wildfire risk mitigation in the Pacific Northwest, USA , 2016 .

[11]  S. Charnley,et al.  Risk and Cooperation: Managing Hazardous Fuel in Mixed Ownership Landscapes , 2012, Environmental Management.

[12]  M. Finney,et al.  Modeling wildfire risk to northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) habitat in Central Oregon, USA , 2007 .

[13]  Alan A. Ager,et al.  Assessing exposure of human and ecological values to wildfire in Sardinia, Italy , 2013 .

[14]  K. F. Turkman,et al.  Calibration of the Fire Weather Index over Mediterranean Europe based on fire activity retrieved from MSG satellite imagery , 2014 .

[15]  Maureen C. Kennedy,et al.  Fuel treatment effects on tree mortality following wildfire in dry mixed conifer forests, Washington State, USA , 2012 .

[16]  Mark A. Finney,et al.  The challenge of quantitative risk analysis for wildland fire , 2005 .

[17]  Alan A. Ager,et al.  A review of recent advances in risk analysis for wildfire management , 2013 .

[18]  Hong S. He,et al.  Comparing fuel reduction treatments for reducing wildfire size and intensity in a boreal forest landscape of northeastern China. , 2013, The Science of the total environment.

[19]  M. Soliño,et al.  Social preferences for fuel break management programs in Spain: a choice modelling application to prevention of forest fires , 2014 .

[20]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  Simulation of long-term landscape-level fuel treatment effects on large wildfires , 2006 .

[21]  Matthew P. Thompson,et al.  Wildfire Risk Transmission in the Colorado Front Range, USA , 2015, Risk analysis : an official publication of the Society for Risk Analysis.

[22]  Nicole M. Vaillant,et al.  A comparison of landscape fuel treatment strategies to mitigate wildland fire risk in the urban interface and preserve old forest structure , 2010 .

[23]  Teresa J. Calado,et al.  Atmospheric conditions associated with extreme fire activity in the Western Mediterranean region. , 2015, The Science of the total environment.

[24]  José G. Borges,et al.  Cohesive fire management within an uncertain environment: A review of risk handling and decision support systems , 2015 .

[25]  Michael C. Wimberly,et al.  Estimation of wildfire size and risk changes due to fuels treatments , 2012 .

[26]  P. Fernandes.  Combining forest structure data and fuel modelling to classify fire hazard in Portugal , 2009, Annals of Forest Science.

[27]  P. Fernandes.  Fire-smart management of forest landscapes in the Mediterranean basin under global change , 2013 .

[28]  Donatella Spano,et al.  Analyzing spatiotemporal changes in wildfire regime and exposure across a Mediterranean fire-prone area , 2014, Natural Hazards.

[29]  Nicole M. Vaillant,et al.  Analyzing the transmission of wildfire exposure on a fire-prone landscape in Oregon, USA , 2014 .

[30]  Carol Miller,et al.  Contributions of Ignitions, Fuels, and Weather to the Spatial Patterns of Burn Probability of a Boreal Landscape , 2011, Ecosystems.

[31]  José M. C. Pereira,et al.  Synoptic patterns associated with large summer forest fires in Portugal , 2005 .

[32]  Peter Nijkamp,et al.  A Multi-Scenario Forecast of Urban Change: A Study on Urban Growth in the Algarve , 2011 .

[33]  Scott L. Stephens,et al.  Fuel treatment effects on modeled landscape- level fire behavior in the northern Sierra Nevada , 2010 .

[34]  Alan A. Ager,et al.  Measuring the effect of fuel treatments on forest carbon using landscape risk analysis , 2010 .

[35]  Paulo Mateus,et al.  A simulation-based test of a landscape fuel management project in the Marão range of northern Portugal , 2006 .

[36]  Achim Röder,et al.  Modelling the effects of landscape fuel treatments on fire growth and behaviour in a Mediterranean landscape (eastern Spain) , 2007 .

[37]  Philip N. Omi,et al.  The use of shaded fuelbreaks in landscape fire management. , 2000 .

[38]  M. Parisien,et al.  Multi-scale evaluation of the environmental controls on burn probability in a southern Sierra Nevada landscape , 2011 .

[39]  J. Keeley,et al.  Fire Management of California Shrubland Landscapes , 2002, Environmental management.

[40]  Paulo M. Fernandes,et al.  Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment , 2015, Current Forestry Reports.

[41]  R. Bradstock,et al.  Wildfires, fuel treatment and risk mitigation in Australian eucalypt forests: insights from landscape-scale simulation. , 2012, Journal of environmental management.

[42]  J. R. Molina,et al.  Economic vulnerability of timber resources to forest fires. , 2012, Journal of environmental management.

[43]  Isabel M. D. Rosa,et al.  Atmospheric emissions from vegetation fires in Portugal (1990–2008): estimates, uncertainty analysis, and sensitivity analysis , 2010 .

[44]  M. Finney.  FARSITE : Fire Area Simulator : model development and evaluation , 1998 .

[45]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  Fire behavior, fuel treatments, and fire suppression on the Hayman Fire - Part 5: Fire suppression activities , 2003 .

[46]  Richard D. Stratton,et al.  Assessing the Effectiveness of Landscape Fuel Treatments on Fire Growth and Behavior , 2004, Journal of Forestry.

[47]  Paulo M. Fernandes,et al.  Fuel age, weather and burn probability in Portugal , 2012 .

[48]  O. Price.  The drivers of effectiveness of prescribed fire treatment , 2012 .

[49]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  A simulation study of thinning and fuel treatments on a wildland–urban interface in eastern Oregon, USA , 2007 .

[50]  Miguel G. Cruz,et al.  Fuels and fire hazard in blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus) stands in Portugal , 2011 .

[51]  Yu Wei,et al.  An optimization model for locating fuel treatments across a landscape to reduce expected fire losses , 2008 .

[52]  Miguel G. Cruz,et al.  Are the applications of wildland fire behaviour models getting ahead of their evaluation again? , 2013, Environ. Model. Softw..

[53]  J. Pereira,et al.  Modeling spatial patterns of fire occurrence in Mediterranean Europe using Multiple Regression and Random Forest , 2012 .

[54]  Craig Loehle,et al.  Applying landscape principles to fire hazard reduction , 2004 .

[55]  Andrew J. Bannister,et al.  Anatomy of a catastrophic wildfire: The Black Saturday Kilmore East fire in Victoria, Australia , 2012 .

[56]  M. Finney.  Fire growth using minimum travel time methods , 2002 .

[57]  Ulric J. Lund,et al.  Identifying geographical patterns of wildfire orientation: A watershed-based analysis , 2012 .

[58]  Dorothea Wagner,et al.  Analysis and Visualization of Social Networks , 2003, Graph Drawing Software.

[59]  Charles W. McHugh,et al.  Wildfire exposure and fuel management on western US national forests. , 2014, Journal of environmental management.

[60]  Paulo M. Fernandes,et al.  Development of fuel models for fire behaviour prediction in maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Ait.) stands , 2008 .