Texas Fire Effects Software Model

Description:

Determining wildfire risk and possible impacts to values and assets is key information required for fire mitigation and prevention planning. DTS has been working with the Texas Forest Service to develop an advanced Fire Effects and Wildfire Risk model to provide planners the analysis tools and information necessary to support fire protection planning activities at the state and local scale.

In 2010, the Texas Forest Service embarked on an update to their statewide wildfire protection plan. This included conducting an update to the wildfire risk assessment based on more up-to-date and accurate fire occurrence, vegetation, surface fuels, and canopy data. Using the results of these efforts, DTS has collaborated with TFS staff and leading wildfire experts to design, develop and implement an advanced Fire Effects model and software application.

The Texas Fire Effects application is based on recent achievements in wildfire research that applies the use of response functions to calculate measures of net value change for values and assets. Calculating risk at a given location requires spatially defined estimates of the likelihood and intensity of fire, integrated with specific resource value information. This interaction is quantified through the use of response functions that estimate expected benefits and losses to values and/assets at the specified fire intensities.

A key element of the model is the use of more accurate population data to better delineate Where People Live in the wildland. By integrating this data with spatially explicit fire behavior data, and applying GIS neighborhood modeling techniques, locations of those areas most susceptible to wildfire can be identified. By applying similar techniques to other values and assets, composite measures of values-at-risk, suppression difficulty and wildfire risk can be calculated.

The Fire Effects model is being used to generate detailed information for integration into the Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal (TxWRAP) web application. Using TxWRAP, planners can easily generate detailed risk summary reports that include values-at-risk information to support collaboration with local counties and fire departments for CWPP and mitigation project development. Deployment strategies for the Fire Effects model include both ArcGIS desktop and ArcGIS Server web based applications.

For more information about the project please contact David Buckley.