Climate, vegetation, fire and humans are dynamically coupled. Changes in one affect the others in multiple ways (Fig. 1) (Ryan, 1991; Millar et al., 2007; Bonan, 2008; Moritz et al., 2012). Although there are regional exceptions, in most of the world humans are the dominant source of ignitions and increasingly so. Humans directly impact climate, vegetation, and fire through land-use changes including intentional ignition of fires.In addition to land-use changes, natural fires, principally from lightning, unintentional human ignitions, fire suppression and vegetation succession also alter land cover. All land cover changes affect the climate system by altering water and energy budgets and atmospheric fluxes. In addition fires directly affect the climate system through production of a variety of greenhouse gas emissions. Future fire potential and the risk of loss of natural resources and socio-economic values vary with changes in land cover and building of human infrastructure within the wildland environment(Calkin et al., 2010). Climate-driven vegetation stress and unfavorable fire weather increases fire potential and fire-induced losses.

 

Mega-fires cross political boundaries affecting multiple jurisdictions requiring coordinated intra- and inter-governmental responses. Globally, governments are mobilizing to deal with the increasing wildfire threat. The United States government, in response to the mega-fire problem, has implemented a series of laws and policies which spurred development of decision support tools that standardize wildland fire risk analysis to improve the safety and effectiveness of all fire management activities. These efforts are bannered under the name ‘‘Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.’’  One of the basic premises of the Cohesive Strategy is that restoring resilient landscapes will ultimately result in reduced personal injury, property and resource damage, and suppression costs. To that end, one major component of the ‘‘Strategy’’ has been to develop the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Project (LANDFIRE).

 

LANDFIRE allows any geographical information system (GIS) user to download up to 24 data layers describing fuels, vegetation, and terrain critical for predicting fire behavior and effects. This paper describes the U.S. fire situation that led to development of LANDFIRE, the various LANDFIRE applications in use today, and the future of LANDFIRE in an effort to continue reducing costs and losses from wildland fires.

 

Ryan, K.C. and T.S. Opperman. 2013 (in press). LANDFIRE – A national vegetation/fuels data base for use in fuels treatment, restoration, and suppression planning. Online at Forest Ecology and Management. (2013)