Deciding What Areas to Treat

Using remote sensing images and ground verification, the BAER team produces a burn severity map for the burned area.  Resources that are at risk from increased runoff, erosion, sedimentation, debris flows, and flooding that are within the fire perimeter as well as downstream from the burned area are also mapped.  Using modeling tools, the burn severity map, and expert knowledge, the BAER team predicts which areas are at greatest risk for potential increases in runoff and erosion.  Where resources at risk for damage are worth more than the cost of protection, treatment plans are often implemented.

Predicting postfire runoff and erosion potential

Burn severity maps

Areas of high and moderate burn severity are at higher risk for increased runoff and erosion than areas of low severity.  Consequently, one of the first tasks the BAER team does is to create a burn severity map from remote sensing satellite images and correct it with aerial and ground inspection.  The BAER team usually concentrates its emergency protection and rehabilitation efforts in areas of high and moderate burn severity.

RUSLE

For nearly five decades, erosion predictions have been based on the empirically-based Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE).  By incorporating new research findings and improved computer capabilities, the formula has been consistently improved.  The current versions, which include the Revised USLE (RUSLE) and the Modified USLE (MUSLE), are incorporated into a wide range of models.  The USDA Agricultural Research Service recommends the use the RUSLE for erosion predictions on cropland, disturbed forest land, rangeland, construction sites, mined land, reclaimed land, military training grounds, landfills, waste disposal sites, and other lands where rainfall and its associated overland flow cause soil erosion.

WEPP-based models

The Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) soil erosion model developed by an interagency team of scientists (USDA Agricultural Research Service, Forest Service, and Natural Resources Conservation Service; DOI Bureau of Land Management and Geological Survey) to replace the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) models with a physically-based erosion model.  FS WEPP is a set of web-based interfaces that allow users to quickly evaluate erosion and sediment delivery potential from forest roads and after forest disturbances, including prescribed burns and wildland fire, using the basic WEPP model with customized climate, topography and soil inputs.

The Disturbed WEPP allows users to easily model numerous disturbed forest and rangeland conditions.  The interface presents the probability of a given amount of erosion occurring the year following a disturbance.

The Erosion Risk Management Tool (ERMiT) allows users to predict erosion following variable burns on forest, rangeland, and chaparral.  ERMiT predicts the probability associated with a given amount of storm-generated soil erosion in each of 5 years following wildfire.  In addition, ERMiT predicts the potential erosion reduction that can be realized with the application of mulch, erosion barriers (contour-felled logs or straw wattles), and seeding.