January 2007

The Wildland Fire Leadership Council Directs Future FPA development.
On December 18th the Wildland Fire Leadership Coucil approved the Fire Program Analysis (FPA) project to proceed with prototyping of the decision support tools for fire planning and budgeting. A formal joint announcement will be issued soon.

A successful prototype, to be completed by June 30, 2007, will:

  1. Demonstrate the capability to calculate the modeled performance measures based on input information available from data and models.
  2. Demonstrate that individual modules are consistent internally and compatible with other modules.
  3. Meet subject matter expert's expectations in terms of model results.
  4. Assess the workload demands on the field and that the computational needs are reasonable.
  5. Accurately assess the expected cost and schedule for implementing the scope of FPA as recommended by the Interagency Science Team.

For more information visit http://fpa.nifc.gov or call Venetia Gempler 208-947-3786

Current Topics:

IST Synopsis
Prototyping the System
 Model Progression
What's Next

The Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) is a cooperative interagency organization dedicated to achieving consistent implementation of the goals, actions, and policies in the National Fire Plan and the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy. The Council provides leadership and oversight to ensure policy coordination, accountability, and effective implementation of the National Fire Plan and the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy.

 

Fire Program Analysis (FPA)

 Fire Program Analysis (FPA) system is a common interagency decision support tool for wildland fire planning and budgeting. This tool will enable wildland fire managers in the five federal land management agencies to plan jointly.


The FPA System:

- will be designed to encourage state, local, and tribal agency participation.

- incorporates geospatial data which provide the means to map levels of wildland fire risk on lands across the country.

- generates outcomes from the fire planning unit that inform the national budget planning process.

- will provide a way for land managers to compare trade-offs between wildland fire program components.

- is a tool to ensure wildland fire management actions help meet performance measures outlined in the 10-Year Comprehensive Strategy.

The Interagency Science Team's (IST) Synopsis of Science Recommendations for FPA is available. The report describes the philosophy behind the foundation for FPA's broadscale conceptual architecture. The full report is scheduled for release early in 2007.

Members of the Interagency Science Team are expected to provide more hands on development and consultation expertise throughout the prototyping efforts.

Prototyping the FPA System -Seven Fire Planning Units (FPU) have been invited to participate in the prototyping phase of the project - Southern Sierra, Central Oregon, Color Country in Utah, Alaska, Central Florida, New Jersey and Northwest Montana.

  • These FPUs represent a mix of different unit complexities such as, multiple federal and non federal partners, geographic areas, and diverse fire regimes. Their feedback, suggestions, and prototyping efforts are critical to the evolutionary development of the FPA system.
  • Individual FPU's participating in the prototype phase will be testing one or more fire simulation models, data input processes, or user interface features to determine the most useful and efficient, tools to meet budget planning needs.

 

The goal of the FPA prototype phase is to solidify system requirements and to evaluate all the component parts of the model that represent risk. This enables the project to more accurately assess the expected cost and schedule for implementing the scope of FPA as recommended by the Interagency Science Team and approved by WFLC.

Key module progression within the FPA system includes an initial response simulator, large fire module and a decision support tool. Combined, they form the base of the FPA system that will streamline the existing wildland fire planning and budget process. This common system will be used by five federal bureaus and will be designed to encourage nonfederal participation.

  • An Initial Response Simulator (IRS) provides the ability to analyze different wildland fire initial response organizations and their associated impacts to the entire fire management program. Results of the IRS can be used as inputs into additional models to test effects on the entire fire management program.
  • The Large Fire Module uses a geospatial source to help determine the likelihood of an acre burning. It uses information on fuels, topography, weather and other factors.
  • A decision support system (Bayesian Decision Networks) provides the "glue" for the FPA system. Bayesian Decision Networks (BDNs) are very effective for modeling situations where some information is already known and incoming data are uncertain or partially unavailable. Cause and effect relationships are displayed in a graphical network that links decisions, intermediate actions to modeled performance measures.

What's Next?

  • Official WFLC decision notification
  • FPA team members assigned to system component development
  • Interagency Science Team members assigned for further development and consultation expertise
  • FPU data needs identified
  • FPU prototype workshop
  • System prototype efforts identified