Quantifying the Impact of the Prescribed Burning on Mitigating Wildland Fire Risk

野火已成为许多社区的共同威胁，造成大量人员伤亡，并造成与财产损失和镇压有关的巨大经济成本。气候变化进一步加剧了这种风险。近年来，在减少火灾频率和强度的方法和努力中，规定燃烧得到了更广泛的应用。然而，由于缺乏资金、准备和技术指导，规定的焚烧可能会受到阻碍。此外，规定焚烧作业的管理涉及相互依存的决策者和利益攸关方（例如，政府、消防部门、环境机构、保险公司和私人土地/财产所有者），往往具有相互冲突的价值观和目标。由于这一领域现有知识的差距，以及对可以改善和支持实地行动的见解的需求，该项目将量化规定的燃烧用途在减轻荒地火灾方面的影响。它旨在生成新的数据集和模型，以更好地规划规定的烧伤，从而挽救生命并减少灾害易发地区的经济损失。该项目的目标是创建新的分析模型，以量化规定的燃烧计划对减轻野火造成的损失和损害的影响。（a）收集、处理和分析关于荒地火灾发生率和费用、规定的燃烧用途、减灾努力和费用、荒地-城市界面以及相关燃料、天气和地形特征的空间和时间数据;（B）通过考虑大事件的数量和强度的减少来表征规定的燃烧方案的影响，以及相关的环境和生物影响;以及（c）收集多个利益相关者的目标层次结构的数据并对其进行建模，包括代表其价值的属性和指标。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Wildland fires have become a common threat to many communities, resulting in a significant number of deaths and injuries, and enormous economic costs associated with property damages and suppression. The risk is further amplified by a changing climate. Among methods and efforts employed to reduce fire frequency and intensity, prescribed burning has been utilized more widely in recent years. However, prescribed burning can be impeded by a lack of funding, preparation, and technical guidance. Furthermore, management of prescribed burning operations involves interdependent decision-makers and stakeholders (e.g., governments, fire departments, environmental agencies, insurance companies, and private land/property owners) often with conflicting values and objectives. Motivated by the gaps in current knowledge in this domain, and the need for insights that can improve and support field operations, this project will quantify the impact of the prescribed burning usage in mitigating wildland fires. It aims at generating new datasets and models for better planning prescribed burns, which would in turn save lives and reduce the economic losses in hazard-prone regions. The objective of this project is to create novel analytical models to quantify the impact of prescribed burning programs for mitigating the losses and damages caused by wildland fires. To achieve it, the team will: (a) collect, process, and analyze the spatial and temporal data on wildland fire occurrences and costs, prescribed burning usages, mitigation efforts and costs, wildland-urban interface, and associated fuel, weather and topography features; (b) characterize the impact of prescribed burning programs by considering the reduction of the number and intensity of large events, and the associated environmental and biological implications; and (c) collect data on and model the multiple stakeholders’ objective hierarchies, including attributes and metrics to represent their values.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.