21st century planning techniques for creating fire-resilient forests in the American west

Novel approaches to framing wildfire protection (e.g., potential operational delineations, or PODs) and advancements in modeling tools have been critical to improving our understanding of fire and its potential impacts. The successful use of those tools requires data that are accurate at fine resolution, spatially explicit, and current. However, such data often do not exist or are extremely time intensive and costly to develop. Moreover, much of the information generated from various existing fire models can be difficult to translate to other metrics related to managing natural resources. In large part, these two limitations – fine-resolution, accurate data and the ability to translate information across fields – significantly reduce wildfire suppression efficiencies and our ability to effectively protect against the impact of wildfire.

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